Lost!

I slept that first night beneath the wagon of the Artisan. Master had made it clear it was the choice of the Mistress if I was to sleep anywhere else, and I was too excited to think of other options. As soon as I found a suitable spot, it all hit me. There was no small cooking fire nearby to cozy up to like at Master's wagons. There was no half asleep sleen keeping watch over us. The heat of the day had acquiesced into a sweet cool breeze, but it was chilly in the dark and hidden beneath an unfamiliar place. And I missed Him. I wanted to be heating up His furs, and I wished I had let Him know that I would be tormented thinking about it all night.

Still, I was on an mission I felt very special about - one of serving someone so precious to the Man of my heart. I didn't want to disappoint Him with this. He does not seek me, nor ask much of me. I wanted Him to think of me as more than a filled dung sack, and a belled ...someone.

I saw Mistress Seveya very little, and my Master even less, and while I felt pretty good about leaving the Mistress to fetch water or gather dung, I still wanted to be available should she need me. When I returned that afternoon to the disheveled ribbons and sagging askew tunic flapping in the breeze, icy cold fear gripped my heart. I searched every hort of space in and outside of the wagon, even being silly enough to look in a trunk....like she might be stuffed in there somehow. As I finished the scouring of the area, I started to think perhaps Master came to get her, but no sooner had my shoulders relaxed from the tension tight uplift, than a slave wandered by and told me a little story.

Icy cold fear was still present, though it took on added dimensions. I was concerned the Mistress could be hurt, maybe enough to cause permanent damage. I was...admittedly..afraid that my Master would think I had failed her...and Him, and lost this wonderful person on top of it all. Along with fear, often comes anger, and this time was no different. Blistering hot in intensity, my fists clenched at my sides as I stomped off in search of the stupidest slave alive (not including myself). Her name had been mentioned... and I marched with increasing fury, spitting her name out to the wind. I snatched up branch from a tumble of brush on my way, intending to use the switch with intensity. And when I found her I started right in. My arm raised with the weapon held in a white knuckle grip. Her eyes widened in golden fear as I started my tirade about what sense it took to keep a free woman safe and healing. But as I started, as that switch caught in the air poised to rip into the tender flesh of the frightened woman...I realized.

She was simply being obedient. An obedient slave, caught between a rock and a hard place. Just following...directions. Her mind programmed to follow with utter simplicity...the will of the free.

My arm dropped, and so too did the switch, tangling into the blades of whispering grass. The fear was still present, and so was the anger...now a smoldering deadly red glow. My thoughts turned to the Mistress...questioning. What is it that makes people so determined to do exactly that which they are not supposed to? It is the thrill? The danger? The naughtiness? Is it ...her...knowing her own body best? Is she laughing in the face of Master's wishes? Is it an issue of control? Why wouldn't she just wait? I would have done - anything - for her.