Something important to say

I say I love you, I say I need you
I try so many ways to say how my heart beats for you
I say I'm always thinking about you
There's no way I'd want to face this life without you
And even though these words comes from deep inside me
There's so much more I don't have the words to say

Steven Curtis Chapman

An ahn of sitting and talking with Tarra had done wonders for my disposition after everything that had happened at the back wagons. The peace and quiet of a walk along the stream was adding the finishing touch. There was only one thing in the world that could make everything any better and the sky smiled on me to allow it this night.

It takes the Ubar's guards to give that warrior of mine and I some privacy and they were doing a fine job of securing the area. There was a touch of my chin to my shoulder as I followed the sound of his voice. "Tal, most beautiful creature on the plains."

I flew. I flew up the banks and into his arms and let the plains dissolve around us until it felt as if t were only he and I and this moment .. together. His arms pulled me into his chest .. into him and I felt the gentle tug on my braid that lifted my face to his willingly. How warm and inviting his mouth was as it covered mine possessively. I knew he was holding back but I couldn't. I met his kiss with a fever that of how very much I missed him. Then twined in my arms to hold him tight as if he could escape any moment and let the urgency of my kiss speak all the things I could not say.. My will was disintegrating. The last bit of grasp at propriety I had lifted my head away with a ragged hiss over my teeth. Had he not been holding me I believe I would have staggered with the intensity. Just a whisper of his name.

Ayguili.

He took a step back so that I could see the seriousness of his expression as he spoke. "I have something to say. Something important to say."

My hand rose about to touch his sleeve then held in the air before it eased back to my side. It took a breath or two to try and calm but then I nodded slowly. After the past hand, I actually steeled myself, not sure if I could. Just to look at him, I could not help but smile.

He began to tell me that he had recently been counseling others on love. You want to mate this woman? Sure. Do you love her? Well, no but .. Then why mate her? The pacing started back and forth though no matter which direction he turned my focus and attention followed. He said then he was trying to explain to a woman why he wouldn't set a bride price for her and let her mate a man that could not look him in the eyes and tell him, he loved her. Then he had to explain why another couple was allowed. He said that something hit him ... that he was doing all this talking about love with the wrong people.

He told me he loved me and I felt my heart leap with joy. He said he was a man whose heart had been dead, who didn't care if he ever had another woman in his life then he met me. It felt so wonderful to hear him repeat. I love you. He wanted to spend the rest of his life loving me. He wanted to grow old loving me and he wanted there to be no doubts whatsoever in my mind that he felt this. Not to ever have a moment that I did not know how he felt about me.

I slowed his path that was beginning to rut the grass from the bank with the laying of my hands on his sleeves. I knew this. I felt it. I felt it when we were not together. I knew this when I closed my eyes at night and I still saw his face and I hear his voice as I fall asleep. He surpassed my waking moments to invade my dreams. He was there and all that he felt right along with him before I even opened my eyes in the mornings. I knew he loved me. There was more I wanted him to hear as well, that I loved him in return. More than words. I promised to stand beside him no matter what came to us.There had been so much emotion behind my words that tears found their way down my cheeks. His arms secured the circle around me, to hold me not in the passionate embrace of before but in one where it seemed I fit perfectly against his chest. His head cradled against mine so that his whisper found the rim of my ear and made his breath thunder just the way my heart seemed to be.

"Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat, from fear of losing you. You are such an important part of me, of who I am anymore. You have made me want to be a better man, not just for you but for our people. I know I can stand firm on anything, knowing you are there at my side. Remember that .. you will always be by my side. You will never stand behind me in my shadow but at my side."

It was like parts of a whole complete, an energy that flowed through and around us. I could feel him draw from me and at the same time fill me as if it were a living creature surrounding us. He filled the air with the rugged sound of his voice letting it carry on the breeze. "There is part of me that wants to say .. I am Ubar! I will take this woman as mine. But then there is this part of me that knows I will have to live with your family someday when I am not Ubar. We have to do this right, for us, for them and all of those around us. I hate this but our lives and how we handle things will always be held up and examined as long as I sit on those gray furs. He repeated what he had over half an envar before, He would speak to Pei then to Grandmother and Mother. Then he would speak to Fonce. There was a promise that once we had approval of my family and Fonce had the bride price in hand, the camp would have to hold its own for a few days .. because "We" would be hard to find.

I understood all that he said, more than he knew. I wanted nothing to darken our happiness together. No doubts, no controversies. My family already accepted him with open hearts and had been waiting for him to come speak to them. There was no whisper to my voice when I told him where ever he went .. there I would be, if not in person then in spirit. I touched his chest to mark the place he could find me. Then .. then we would be together in all ways.

He took my hands in his and kissed each while he asked if I were sure that being Ubara was what I wanted. I had a taste of what it was going to be like and was I sure this was the life I wanted? No. I wasn't .. not that part anyway. It was part of loving him and being there at his side. Sometimes I stand with my fist in the air in fury at how people behave and sometimes I wished a few of them were not Tuchuk so that our laws did not apply because they do not act like Tuchuk, they do not behave like Tuchuk. I wasn't afraid to speak my mind and I stood strong in the things I believe in and all of that is no different than what he believed .. and on the very end of that whole spiel I whispered to him that every ehn was worth being there with him.

He laughed and told me that was what he needed .. a strong woman at his side.
We settled in on the bank ... beneath the light of the moons and began to talk.