Can you tell me about ...

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices, but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thought in clear form. Albert Einstein

Over the years I had grown used to flitting my way to find Fonce and being able to pick up a conversation with him, my way. I could tell him something casually on my way to where ever it was I was going and he would smirk, snort, laugh, nod or by some way or another make small acknowledgement that I had been there and had been noted. I was content with that in my tarsk tailed girlish crush I had on him. I reveled in the fact that we had these entire conversations and wondrous meetings of the mind, heart and soul in those short moments and I could skip my merry way on to face the rest of the world.

I was fully loaded with so much that was on my mind of late, being prospect to the first fires, protege to the arts of the old ways, but more precisely the first stirrings in a pristine heart that was achingly curious to know what was so amazing and impressive about love itself. With that frame of mind I set out to find the one man that had stepped into the boots left empty by my Father. He was talking with Seveya at the stream.

The present can be so naively unaware of how slippery a slope can be and hindsight has perfect depth perception. I had a feeling I was interrupting something and was more than prepared to do a U - turn there then be right on my way to where ever it was I was going in the first place. I wish I had. The beckon to come closer and the explanation felt so genuinely warm and welcoming I stepped right out onto the web like a fly. They had been talking about a paint brush he had found and thought sure it was the artist's. I would have too, come to think of it. The conversation was brief before Seveya bid her farewells and headed off. I was disappointed to see her go, trying to find quickly if she might have time to talk later.

One would have thought it opened an perfect chance to talk with the man of all the things that I had questions about. I'd only wanted to ask one question but everything slid all out of kilter and I ended up simply trying to untangle myself from the sticky parts of the web. We had been speaking previously of several things, part of it was of things I was learning and a bit about Ayguili's wish to get to know me better. The more personal topics wasn't a comfortable fit bringing them up though by now I wished I'd chosen my timing better and sought a different place. A different moment. Which ones did I wish to speak of now ... specifically? There was just that precise ehn that I looked at him and tasted the feel of this all business persona he portrayed. Specifically, I chose to ask if he could help me understand the relationships between elements and people. The rest I had just wanted to talk to a friend of things I was not all familiar and ... knowledgeable about. The rest all came down to one simple question I never got around to asking

... Can you teach me about love?

It all went wrong ... just unbelievably ... wrong. I tried extricating myself from the conversation in half dozen ways and plundering my way through like I was caught by invisible threads when he persisted. He even cajoled me that if I was giving up ... fine .. do so. It would leave me standing there watching him walk away, frustrated, upset and the feel was of an anger I could not understand at all.

In the back of my mind under all the layers of confusion, I remembered something Ayguili had told me when we first began to get to know each other. He had said that when he was upset to let him walk away to sort things through. Suddenly, I wasn't seeing Fonce walk away any more but one that I had begun to form a closer link with and this hollow emptiness spiked through my chest and speared my heart. I had only wanted "specifically" to ask Fonce one question at the beginning of all this but now I realized there was another already showing me the answers.