To Touch the Darkness

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray ’s
In deepest consequence.
Macbeth. ACT I Scene 3.


I have touched the face of darkness, or more so, it has touched me. Days of contemplation and reflection have brought me to this knowledge, and it weighs heavy on me. I find myself asking.....Why? Why me? Then I have to stop and think......Why not you?


What makes me immune to all of those things I found in that place? Hate, grief, sorrow, pain, desolation, decay, the stench of true, unadulterated enmity, a seething core of all of the things that were the worst side of humanity. There was not a single redeeming factor, or hort of love, compassion, good, simplicity or kindness. It was a tangle of greed, unabated lust, seething evil. And it was all spun together by anger. And it was the anger that hit me with a force that took my breath away.


I have come to realize, that out of all the things that were in that place, of all the things that made it what it was, that it was the anger that fueled it, that made it literally a living entity on its' own, and that did not even take into consideration the thing that lived there.


I think it actually took me several days of intense searching within myself, before I was able to admit, that the anger maybe stemmed from me. That I was the one that brought the fuel to that particular fire, that I was the one that fed it, nurtured it and allowed it to take on a life of its' own. Me.


I have been slipping out at night, when Rook sleeps to walk in the darkness, suddenly feeling more comfortable in it. Slowly I have began to dissect this anger, to try an understand where it comes from. At first, I tried to work my way through it calmly, with reason and logical thought. Then I realized, there is nothing logical about the anger.


Anger is anger. A hot, burning emotion with no bounds of reason, that seethes and undulates like a pit of osts struggling to be set free. Why am I angry? Abandoned. It that a good place to start?


Those sweet words he spoke to me about loving me, and that he would always take care of me, and he would always be there for me, were lies. In my mind, I will no longer hedge the truth of what it was. It was lies. He was never there for me. I never expected him to be at my beck and call, that is not how men are. They have their duties, and we have ours. But, there was no equality in our relationship. I was expected to be there for him, to stand beside him, to wait on him hand and foot, to smile, to agree, to be strong, to be quiet. . And what did he give me? Now that I think on it, not a whole lot.


Did he show me tenderness? Yes, when he wanted my body in his furs. Did he listen to my thoughts on things, yes, so that he could tell me that I was wrong and irrational. And he especially liked pointing out the error of my ways before others. Did he respect me as his mate, the mother of his children? No. I was a vessel to carry his children, and not much more.


When I was carrying our first child, was he there for me. No. He rides off on this quest with his brothers, didn't even look back, to think that he was leaving a pregnant mate behind. His own desires and needs far outweighed mine. I spent the bulk of that pregnancy alone, frightened and plagued with the knowledge that he might now come back. And when he did come back, was it a joyous reunion? Not really. After all of those moons away, the first thing he asked was for his dinner, then he wanted to know who that child was I had on my hip? Well Skies Ba'atar, just how short is your memory? Now once it dawned on him, that this was his First Son, it was different.


Yes, it was different right up until the time he realized that Also was not exactly what HE thought his First Son should be. No, Also is not outgoing, he is more introverted. But of course that is my fault, don't you see. I baby him, I do not let him be a man. Skies, he was a year old!


Abandoned. That is how I felt, when I came so close to losing Two when I was carrying him. I was so stressed at the time, and began to have early pains, did he come to see me? Did he come to hold my hand and offer me reassurances that he loved me, and that it was going to be fine. No, he didn't. Now, he did make sure that I could hear him outside the wagon that I was confined to, spending time with out other children. But not once, did he even stick his head in to see if I was even still alive. He said the healers told him to stay away. Bosk shit. Any man that loves his woman, and knows that she is near to losing his child, would not allow healers to stand in his way. It was simply easier for him, and a way of punishing me for getting what he called again........irrational. If I didn't agree with everything he said, then I was irrational.


I think it was this emotional abandonment came early on, but I was either blind to it, or in that way I had, of trying to please everyone, and of putting up a front of nothing being wrong, I allowed it.


For as long as I can remember, the ringing of a young woman that has come of age, has always been the business of the elder women of the fires. Not so with Ba'atar. He had this almost obsessive need to control everyone and everything. Flexing his......Ubar muscles.


We gathered to ring Aponi, and he stopped us, and in a very big way. The other women went on with their lives, their mates thinking nothing of it, but not me. I was restricted to my wagon, like an errant child. Not allowed to sit at the fires, not allowed to talk to anyone. Control. And I allowed it.


It comes to light, that he has spent time in a young, unmated prospects wagon at night, it is not his fault. She falls naked into his lap? Not his fault. I actually think he considered it his right as a man and Ubar. I could not make him see that no mated man with any kind of honor would allow himself to be caught in that situation. Did he take responsibility? No. Ba'atar take responsibility for his actions? I almost laugh at that.


It was me. I took the brunt of that situation. If I was going to think and talk like a back wagons wench, by questioning what he did, then I could return to the back wagons. Yes, my mate, the Ubar of the Tuchuk, the one that was supposed to love me above all others, banished me from the first fires. He separated me from my sons and sent me away.


And I allowed it. Or at least, for a time I did. Damnit! I had earned my place at those fires long before he did. I had worked hard to prove myself, long before he did. I think he was glad to see me back, but for no other reason than he needed someone to take care of him and his sons. And to prove that he had forgiven me, he fucked me. Did I ask him to? No, it is his right as a man. It was his possessiveness. He did it to prove to me that I was his, and that I had no wants or needs beyond what he allowed me to have.


I finally reached a point, that when he tried to humiliate me before others at the fires, I simply stood, gave my be wells to everyone and walked away. I actually think he liked that.


As I walk at night, and think back on all of these things and I realize, this is how he kept his control. His control came from the humiliation, the mortification, the bullying and the intimidation of others, in the guise of his being Ubar. And me especially. His ego was so large, that he thought it was his right to treat me as he did, as a way to show the tribe, how a mate should be, and how one that displeased you should be dealt with. I was his example, and by the Skies, he used me well.


I was nothing more than a vessel to carry his children, and an instrument for him to stroke his ego on. Each one of those cutting words of his, or deeds that he thought were his right to inflict upon me, were as sharp as any lash, only these were not to my flesh, but to my soul.


The thing is, the welts and wounds from a physical lash will heal. The wounds that I have taken to my heart and soul have not. They have been left unattended to fester, the poison sinking do deeply inside that it became a pustule of anger that I tended and nurtured like I do everything else, and kept hidden, because that is what you do Cana. Anything that breaks that facade that you present of happiness, serenity and love, has to remain hidden.


But just like any pustule, or any pocket of poison in our body, mine eventually had to either be lanced, or burst on its' own. I will need to speak to Fonce on this, but I don't think my repressed anger led me to that place. I think I was drawn there by something else, and once there I created the landscape from my own pain and anger.


The question now is, what do I do? I do nothing. I allow his memory to be untainted. What he was to his people, the hero he was, the sacrifice of himself for them, it has nothing to do with me. His sons and daughters will grow up listening to the songs of his honor and bravery, and will know no difference. He will remain the Favored Son of the Sky. Only I will know different.


In retrospect, I have touched the darkness. In fact, I have carried it around inside me, nurtured it, incubated it just as I did with my precious children. And I gave birth to it in that place, and now I have to learn how live side by side with it, where to put it so that I do not become consumed by it. I now understand those small glimpses of it that I have seen in another. Perhaps, in time, he can help me to tame this thing that I feel simmering just under the surface, longing to erupt. For now, I will just listen to the rumble of it. I almost get a certain comfort from it.