Little Things

Red has a shiner, and it's going to be a doozy. She has a shiner, and her shift is cut and dyed and wraps around her in decadent folds. And she wears a collar. I wanted to see everything, examine it all, see it close up, hear all the stories behind everything. I had returned to the wagons and started dinner, sausages of bosk and tabuk all ground up together, spiced lightly, sealed within their own skin containers and roasted to bursting delight. I had taken off the sackcloth dress, warmed with my body heat , working it up over the expansion of ribs and stretch of my arms with a taste of what was to come. The air danced over my skin, sending radiating streams of touch to every extremity. I could taste the difference between cool air and warm. The fire, burned so hot. The ground, cool and damp, was drawn to the flames caress. I could recall in vivid detail every pattern water painted upon me, and I could feel the inspiration of want low in my belly, quivering between my thighs. It was uncanny to me how everything could be stroked to such clarity after all this time. The mere scent of Him in His main wagon brought shivers to play havoc with my steps and the dreamy quality of my happiness, fusing wants, needs and desires into one face. I didn't not sleep well that night.

The third day at Mistress Asria's wagon, I came for the laundry basket I was pretty sure waited near the opening to the wagon. I had expected soiled tunics, maybe a leather skirt or two, and little yellow and pink dresses for Lei. While those were in attendance...I certainly wasn't expected those little booties that looked like they could only fit feet of a small verr, maybe a vulo, or teeny tiny person. I of course had my ideas, gossipy kinds of ideas, and I had tried to figure out just how long I had been here with my Brave Warrior. My bracelet of counting beads, the one I used to keep track of time between my natural cycles, had gotten broken during all the frightening escape from those dreaded Paravaci, and was now useless. How long had it been?

I looked down into the blue green ripples that carried away the little bubbles of soap from my hands as I squeezed. The sky was brilliant and sharp in reflection off the stream and behind me, fresh laundry spread out to soak of the drying breath of the Central Fire. Tiny little arms stretched out beckoning from little tunics and skirts danced against the floor of grass. Life spread out before me, telling stories, in the simple task of laundry. I realized with a start that one of the small little coverings for a foot had slipped free of my fingers, taken without a care by the circling and swirling rush of water. The bootie bobbed and dunked, springing back up for a breath of visibility, then hid below the surface for a game of hide and seek. I jumped up to grab it, leaning over the edge where my fingers just touched one side before the stream laughed and took it further away. Our game continued like this, me following along on the edges, slipping in the muddy rise of bank, and the stream coaxing me with the taunt of the bootie. Closer, then sweeping it out into the deeper waters, only to bring it rocking and chuckling back toward the bank.

Panicking, afraid to lose one of the Mistress' tiny creations, to leave a matched set without a companion, and to disappoint her, to disappoint....Him...I followed that bootie, never ever letting it leave my sight. The stream sighed, growing tired of the game, and swept the prize it had won out into its center, chiding me for thinking I could best it. I stood there, on the side, lost and miserable, begging the waters to bring it back to me. We stood there...the stream and I...at an impasse. The captured prize still floating, catching the light on a turned toe, a folded hem. So I took matters into my own hands ... taking that leap..and jumping in.