All the songs unsung

No one knows what it's like to be the bad man
To be the sad man behind these eyes
No one knows what it's like
To be hated, to be fated to telling only lies
But my dreams, they aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance that's never free

The carved dagger sat in my lap for a long time while my fingers traced the images. I knew them by heart now even if I did not understand what each one meant. They were memories. Not my memories but my Father's. I'd been unable to let it go, to turn it loose. It wasn't mine to keep, it belonged to Fonce. They were his memories too. Finally I wrapped it up in a silk scarf along with a sheath I had found at the trades. I didn't barter for anything else that day, just that one item then returned to the camp violently ill for a few ahns. I was going to blame it all on a merchant with meat sticks. It would be my story and I would stick to it vehemently.

Is there a special way for a woman to send the men she loves off to face their deaths? Is there a writ list that says do this first then this but do not ... repeat do not do this or this? For the women that have their taste of seeing the ash gray radiance of her loved ones pallor, bathed his skin with oils and begun to wrap him for the blaze that will take him to the sky, is there a balm that soothes the emptiness or the hollow ache left behind of his absence? Is it any different for a daughter, or a mate or a mother? How is she supposed to look into the face of a warrior she loves knowing he risks his life and not envision what could happen?

Two men in my life would face the battlefield of the games. Two men would stand at the first of the stakes to defend the name of the Tribe in this ritual war of love. It is an honor for them both to stand against the first of one thousand lances jutted into the ground. It is an honor for the families of the warriors, the women at risk chained to them. One would be set free, one would face new life among sworn enemies. It is an honor Mezoo, remember that! Remember when it hurts just to look in their faces, make sure you smile and wish them the will of the sky and bosk luck ... knowing they may ... not ... return.

I had promised Fonce I would share good news with him so I gathered the dagger and the sheath and all my feelings of pride and happiness for the future to lay in his lap, to spread at his feet. We spoke a little about the memories Father had carved into the knife and how I longed one day to hear the song sung for him and for Trayu and the men that went with them. All of my hopes lay right there in my hands held out ... waiting to hear that it would be so, that as his best friend, Fonce would make sure that it was to be, that he would rage to the sky to know why it had not already happened. But that was not the answer he gave. "There .. are no songs of that event." On the inside I was screaming at him, demanding him to make it right, to love me enough to see to this, to love my Father enough to demand the honor he deserved. He changed the subject.

"Thank you for this, Mezoo. It is something I will treasure for all the times we shared, all the memories kept alive as it should be." What was there to say? How was I to answer his defiant silence of my Father? I simply said, I was pleased he finally had it now.

There was nothing else I could find words for, so I told him what I had come to tell him, that Ayg had mentioned a future together. I handed him that good news all wrapped up in a soft smile the way I had wrapped the dagger and handed this to him too. He didn't fill with rage and stand swearing at the sky with lance in hand that no man not even a Ubar was good enough for his little girl. He didn't vow to wipe him from the face of the plains and leave a red puddle behind when he was through with him. Fonce didn't look at me with fire in his eyes and in his heart and tell me there was no bride price ever ... ever going to be high enough for the man to pay.

He didn't say or do any of those things.

He wasn't my Father.

He just nodded and told me that he was pleased and that he had suspected as much. He knew? No, he clarified in a Fonce kind of way ... he had suspected but it was good to know. His next words had been spoken between us before in another quiet conversation. He envied that Ayg seemed to know from the very beginning what he wanted and had set his mind and his course of actions to achieve what he wanted. I suppose I can understand that point of view. It was all very thrilling and exciting and peaceful and ... unnerving all at the same time for me. All of my own unsurities were lain there for him to help me understand, to help me see. Not everyone would be pleased. There were always going to be people who attempt to find some identity in the happiness of others. I know he meant well but that did nothing to wrap around the apprehensions of all I knew I was to face. Ayguili was not simply another warrior.

Maybe I was glad when he changed the subject this time to Grandmother and Mother and his finding gifts for them. We don't often give warriors credit for the little things they do and the efforts they put into trying to find ways to make us happy. I wasn't giving him credit for his effort with my family and in the end didn't give him enough credit for trying to be there for me. It was a trade though wasn't it? I was trying in my own naive way to be there for him and it just wasn't meshing the way I had these glorious ideas that it would. None of it was.

In the midst of the small talk that meant nothing and meant everything too, I looked up.

Fonce?

Yes?

You are getting better at this father figure thing.

He couldn't take a compliment as just being something someone said nice about him. He had to know what I meant, specifically. Fonce and I and ... specifics do not mix well together. Stepping in and seeing to the things Father used to, not just the essentials but the times like these .. just talking. Sky, I was trying here ... couldn't he see that?? "Perhaps people are just getting better at recognizing those things in me though I do not think I am much like a grandfather." I didn't ask what he meant by that or where it came from, I just told him I would try harder ... on the recognizing part that is but he didn't have enough wrinkles and his hair wasn't gray and was no where near grouchy enough yet to be thought a grandfather.

I was sitting there not knowing what to say to a man that was going off to face his possible death. Making light of it was not what was needed, being serious was not what was right to do, changing subject or bull charging right into the face of it wasn't it either. If there were more that we wanted to say, needed to say, it never came. Perhaps it never would.

By the same token, I could not speak to Ayguili at all. I didn't search for him. All that he would have of me would be the memory of our last moments together ... laughing, making plans for the future and feeling loved. I was a coward and didn't want him to see that I could not bear losing him.

Late that night, I would stand with my fist raised in the air and defy the sky to take either one of them from me. I would not soon sing the songs for them and I believed with all my heart that she would hear me.