Book of a Thousand Days

Mama used to say, you have to know someone a thousand days before you can glimpse her soul.

You're better than seven years of food. You're better than windows. You're even better than the sky.

I do like the world quite a lot.

I let my head fall back, and I gazed into the Eternal Blue Sky. It was morning. Some of the sky was yellow, some the softest blue. One small cloud scuttled along. Strange how everything below can be such death and chaos and pain while above the sky is peace, sweet blue gentleness. I heard a shaman say once, the Ancestors want our souls to be like the blue sky.

My mama used to say, 'Are you sad? Then just wait a minute.

Sometimes my fancy gets to floating inside me, threatening to carry me away like a leaf on a wind. Better to be a stone.

But the hoping, that's what really hurts.

Careful with the accusations of insanity, oh my lady whose home is a tower with windows of brick, all for the sake of some skinny-ankled, laugh-prone boy of a khan.

This morning, Tegus welcomed me again with an arm clasp and cheek touch. I wasn't startled this time, and I breathed in at his neck. How can I describe the scent of his skin? He smells something like cinnamon-- brown and dry and sweet and warm. Ancestors, is it wrong for me to imagine laying my head on his chest and closing my eyes and breathing in his smell?

... and with my last thought I felt some real sympathy for those poor chickens.

They weren't nice words he said. He could've lived a good life and died never having made a person feel rubbed down to bones and too sad to hold together.

There's nothing more aggravating in the world than the midnight sniffling of the person you've decided to hate.

Smell is the voice of the soul...

Time is a wind that keeps blowing in my face and mumbling words that don't make sense.

I was thinking how you can't tell if a person's beautiful or not by her shadow...

I always knew it was ill-fated, but he truly believed I would be his bride. I guess I'd never realized that before. He had taken my mucker hand and looked at my mottled face and believed we would wed. And he hadn't seemed sorry. In fact, he'd swooped me up in a corridor and kissed me. That set me to crying.

Tegus, I'm leaving this book behind for you, so you will know the why of it all, and maybe you'll forgive me, or maybe you'll think me false and reprehensible. You'd be justified. I couldn't stand the thought of your reading all my words unless I knew for certain that I'd never have to face you again, so please don't look for me. If you read the book in its entirety, you'll know for truth who is Lady Saren. And I guess you'll also know that I'm a silly girl who writes down every word you said to me.

Khan Tegas never looked at me. I'm a mucker maid. I guess I needed to be reminded of that. So, good. Fine. Sometimes my fancy gets to floating inside me, threatening to carry me away like a leaf on a wind. Better to be a stone.

I think sometimes just being silent and watching can change a person.

A cat can make you feel well rested when you're tired or turn a rage into a calm just by sitting on your lap. His very nearness is a healing song.

I held her head to my shoulder, rocking her, rubbing her back. Poor thing, I don't think she know where to put the whole world.

Sometimes I think they're all ridiculous. There I was, a sensible person with thoughts in my head, offering a solution. And they wouldn't listen. What aggravation, to believe I can help and yet not be allowed. -Dashti

I think sometimes, being silent and watching, can change a person.

Maybe I got a few words wrong, but that's so near how the conversation went, I'm going to call it truth.

Today I keep thinking of all the people who have left and never returned — my brothers, Khan Tegus, our guards, this entire city. What a strange, dark world that swallows people whole.

Who am I to tell a man to live? Who am I to claim the powers of the Ancestors? I moved aside so the shawman could have more room to do his holy work. He's climbed the Scared Mountain and seen the face of the Ancestors. I have no place beside him. -Dashti

You slew Khasar, you healed me, and you have perfect ankles. I really don't think this is a question we need to debate. -Khan Tegus

I think it's lovely. I mean..." I returned my gaze to the fire, because it was easier to talk to him that way. "What I mean to say is, it's lovely to think of your mother holding her first baby, and looking at your fingers and toes, your eyes, your lips, and saying, 'Perfect. He's perfect. My Tegus.' -Dashti