By Fire

True strength comes in learning just what properties to combine together to make something stronger.

Kissing ... with a heavy emphasis on "the very first kiss", had become the tidbit the women bounced around. Could they not find something a little less personal to talk about? I hung back rather than join in. When I did, it was only marginally here and there not revealing any of my own experience or inexperience. The most I added was that a woman's toes can curl even if he is not "the" one. They were talking about emotions and I was talking about skills. Boy gotta have some skills, you know, but cut a girl some slack here ladies ... the Warrior was standing right there for sky sake. I didn't want to talk about what may or may not have happened with another warrior in front of a warrior that although it hadn't happened yet ... it may or may not happen ... with! He turned out to be my hero when it dawned on him how uncomfortable I was with the conversation and he swooped in on his bright shining kaiila to sweep me away. No, not really, he just said, "Come on Mezoo, We'll go see if the brands have been tended to."

It was easy to fall in stride next to him just maybe not in sync yet. He adjusted his pace to accommodate mine and I tried to hurry mine to keep up with his. It eventually blended as we began talking. The man had been up early to see to many of the bosk personally, hadn't he? His answer wasn't the typical male response one would expect but it was him to a lance point. He got up early so he could put his finger on the pulse of the camp. He walks around, has his blackwine at the different fires and tries to see what people have on their minds. I told him there must be much on everyone's minds. I wasn't trying to be vague there but actually very specific. It was good that he listened and took their words to heart and I felt he needed to hear someone say it. There went a typical Tuchuk male reply again. He felt it was his duty then asked what it was I had on my mind. If I had thought about it, this was the first time that what he spoke was not the same as what I heard on the inside. Now here is where female Tuchuk is not so typical or at least this particular female. I thought it was more than just duty, it was part of who he was. It was the first time I reached out and my fingers touched his arm briefly then let them fall away.

"Metal"

What??? ... he asked so I told him. Metal. It was what was on my mind.

"Metal?"

His wisdoms on many subjects had begun to intrigue me. They have from the very start to be honest. I listened closely as he began telling me about some of the properties of the element. Metal for us, is almost as precious as wood. Some metals are stronger than others are, some get their strength from how long they are left in the fire then they are strengthened more by the cooling in the water or the air. Oh now he had just mentioned more than one of the elements I was studying, in fact all of them. I was all ears. I confessed that it was where they fit together that I hadn't grasped yet, where one depended on another. He said we all wonder such things. That made me smile to think there was another person that searched for answers of how the world around us shapes itself. He said too that it sometimes takes more than one thing to make something stronger.

I hadn't realized his hand had found a home at the small of my back until there was that one moment where I needed to stir away from it. The reluctance to break the connection stirred over my skin leaving me feeling cool even though I was standing right next to a fire. It gave me goose bumps. But back to the subject, I knew that combinations of metals can be for both tensile strength and to soften them too, to make it more pliable sometimes. I bent closer to watch a rasp file along the edge of the brand and how it created the detailed line then studied how the sizzle of the metal filled the air when it was placed back in the flames. Combinations are good, he told me, but what he said next made me look up. It was more than the distance from the fire to his face, it was a defining moment where I truly looked up to him as a leader of men. He said true strength comes in learning just what properties to combine together to make something stronger. It takes both."

I was finding more and more interesting as I listened to the warrior as well as the metalworkers offer pride of their work and bits of learning that would help me understand. I was listening to what they were saying and how they were saying it all as well. The men had a growing respect for this warrior. He was hands on, ears tuned, mind open and he didn't even realize that everyone around him was like me ... riveted, still and holding to every word he said. He was listening to them and he heard them, and all the important things that they had to say and they were pouring it all out and at the same time soaking it all up.

"And once you get the right mix of pliable and strength, then you file away the rough edges to make it where it leaves the cleanest mark."

Yes, I begin to see. Like flashes of energy the whole thought process of what I was learning and how it all correlated together played on my face and I realized he was standing there watching it all with an insatiable curiosity. We were wading into deeper waters, treading new grounds and venturing to take risks in the exploration. He thought for a moment and added tentatively.. "It is no different than people."

THERE ... there was the hinge, the connector as solid as if it were formed of the elements we had been talking about ... the answer to an exam test, the anchor the universe is written on. I laid the branding iron I was holding back into the fire, stood up and glanced back to where the others were gathering franticly. I touched his arm to motion. Was it my answer to his statement ... the connection of element and people?

He excused himself saying it looked as if someone had been injured and he hurried back the way we came. There in that one moment he was unguarded, unshielded, exposed ... he felt a responsibility for all of his people and having one hurt did not sit well.

I was right behind him.