Chapter 1: Our Hero confesses all and makes a woman faint.

I had just finished washing the dirt of the day off at the stream, and was struggling into a tunic, when I looked up to see a familiar figure riding down the stream, water being thrown up from the claws of the kaiila. I had raised my hand and called to her, then noticed that she spurred the beast faster, riding right down on me. Just before she got to me she had leaned forward and extended her arm. Grasping it, the momentum of the kaiila helped me to swing up into the saddle behind her. I said the first thing that came into my head. "Is this anyway to treat your Ubar?"


The laugh that came from her instantly lifted the stress of the day from my shoulders and put me into an infinitely better frame of mind. Reaching around her, I grasped the reins in my hand and took control of the beast, and maybe just a little more control of the ride. It has been a long time since I have even wrapped my arms around a woman like this. Sure, there are slaves to sate needs, but this was something more. She was warm and soft in all the right places, and if I slid a little bit more to the front of the saddle, to capture that body closer, then sue me. Everything about her assaulted my senses. The smell of her hair, the sound of her laugh, the way her body felt against my chest, and the look of her. The only thing I did not do was taste her. I was oh so close when I bent my head to speak into her ear. How easy it would have been to run my tongue around the shell of that ear, then down the slim column of her neck, but I refrained. Not yet, not just yet.


I am a warrior, not a poet, and the words to describe how beautiful she was simply fail me. And it is more than the beauty of her face that I talk about, it extends to the beauty of her spirit, her heart. Since I was holding the reins, she stretched her arms out and leaned her head back to feel the rush of the night air on her skin. At that moment, I felt my heart miss a beat or two because she was magnificent. In that moment, I finally found something that rivaled the beauty of the night sky, that put the moons and stars in perspective. In that moment, I felt an almost overwhelming need to know her better, to know everything about her.


And in that moment, I knew that before I even began to know more about her, I needed for her to know about me. I will not hide anything from her, or shadow it with words to make it prettier than what it was. She will get the truth, in all of it's ugliness, and if she can digest that, get her head around it, and still wants to spend time with me, then we can move on.


As I guided the kaiila out of the water, I knew that I needed to place a little distance between myself and her body that was so warm, alluring, and damn it, down right sensual. On the bank, I dropped from the saddle and helped her down, told her that we would walk. In an earlier conversation that we had, I had told her that there may come a time when I would tell her things that might change the way she saw me. Some men would have kept the secret buried, if they had been able, but I had told myself at one time, that if I ever found a woman that I seriously wanted to know, she would know the truth before things progressed too far. I felt it was only fair to Mezoo, to know this truth.


As we walked, I held that delicate hand in mine. It is odd, in a way, that it is so small, so seemingly fragile, but there is strength in it, just like I think there is strength in the woman. I did not try to pretty it up, or to make it less than what it had been. I did not hedge words, I simply told her a story of love, betrayal, jealousy, death and me. There was no other way to tell it, for me, but in simple, blunt terms.

Did she tell me that it was okay, that she understood, that she would help me get over it, that it didn't matter. No, that is probably what most women might have done, or rather the ones that had not ran from me as fast as their feet would have carried them.



No, she stopped us, and looked up with me with those unfathomable eyes, still holding my hand, still connected. It was she, that stepped closer, placing her hand on my chest and whispered, that the pain and guilt was not mine to carry, that it belonged to another in another place. Easy words to say, but not something that is easy to do when you have carried those things with you for ten year.


What happened that night by the stream, I will never understand. Just that simple gesture of touching me, and telling me that I no longer had to carry the burden, had a way of not only connecting the two of us, but gave me the courage to let it go. Leaning my head back, I looked at the stars, and I can say now, that I felt it leave me. For so long, I have lived with it like some sort of parasite that fed on my heart and soul, and had robbed me of what most would consider a normal life.


Did she take it from me upon herself, or did she take it only to release it into the Sky. I still do not know, and someday I will ask. All I know is that I felt freer than I have felt in many years.


Right up until the point she grew pale and fainted.