Puzzle

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
J.R.R. Tolkien

The puzzle had me so distracted trying to find its answer that I nearly stumbled over the fires when I arrived. I felt a hand steady me and simply sat down right there where it guided. It took a half ehn to realize who had been my savior.

Seveya was curious about the set of circles and after I handed it off to her, she worked feverishly to unlink them. The discussions around the flames was light humored and easy to be part of. When she gave them back I tried my hand again with only some portion of luck. Tarra offered that sometimes you can do more when you do not try to think. That surged a whole new set of ideas to be tossed about. Ayguili said there was nothing wrong with having a firm plan in mind, that it gives direction and purpose. Seveya felt that thinking sometimes muddle up the conversation between creativity and your hands. I wanted to know if there was a medium somewhere in the middle where things are not all by chance or happenstance but not rigid and staid. The Haruspex said there was and Sev said she called that place sleep. I got tickled hearing Ayg add his wisdom that he liked knowing where he was stepping. It kept him out of dung piles.
I was quite interested in hearing the answer to the artisans question does his dreams come to him all planned out?

What he told her shocked us all. He did not dream. Tarra said yes he did. I grinned at the other witch. We could have wagered on that one. Cana pffted at the very thought that people do not dream and that sound alone turned the topic to how people communicate when they want to convey a thought but do not use words. I practiced it enough to make me arch my brow at myself.

tsk
cluck
pfft
grunt

Communication.

Women couldn’t grunt in the sturdy … hmm manly way men do. Ayguili gave us sage advice that we shouldn’t if we couldn’t but there are times that we do. That was a completely different scenario, one that I was not prepared to discuss even when he offered to explain. What would I know that I could add to that subject? Instead, I watched the stone I’d given the warrior weave through his fingers, worrying it without even thinking. It made me feel good that he had kept it and more that he kept it with him.

Someone asked if his mother was a Haruspex and he said no but his great great grandmother Ybet, mate of Aaram was. Now he had my undivided attention. I wanted to know if Aaram had been the warrior of legend that challenged the sky to a duel for love. I found myself wishing I could sit and just talk to the man when the question was lost somewhere in the midst of other topics that spurred here and there. One in particular that Cana brought up about honey supposed to be good for the skin made me decide to step away from the fires for a while. I stood and walked over to hand the puzzle to Cana but as I tried to put it in her palm the pieces fell away individually.

I felt as if I were watching them from a distance. The pieces and everyone gathered there like looking through a glass that I couldn’t reach beyond.

I tried to call out.
I tried
And I tried
but there were just flashes of white and silver.

Later rumors would speak of the night of strangers, men coming across the plains and a larl’s attack on the Ubar and his men.

I wish I could have been there, some way ... some how.

I wish too that I had not lost the puzzle of rings that night.