Attached

I've been delaying this entry. It's the sort of writing I worry about, because I've learned that things can change so quickly, and without warning. Or perhaps not without warning, but without my willingness to see. After Julian's mother left, I told myself I wasn't going to get blindsided. What follows here isn't about that. It's about what creeps up on you, however, and what you choose to do once it's happened.

Madeline. I marked her. It's a personal mark. It's not something I have done before, except with the Physician, and in that situation the mark was placed in a location easily covered unless someone were to take her to their couch. Even then, is she were not smooth, it would be impossible to discern. This mark. This new mark. It's red, and black, and rests where the brand ought to rest. I'm not sure she realizes it, and it's nothing I plan to tell her, but I knew what I was doing when I put it there. Yes, I had considered something similar in a brand instead, but there is the part that doesn't wish to do this. Conventions. I often adhere to them in order to make someone else's life easier, even if they don't know it. It could, feasibly, be removed. If it were, and the holes in her ears were to close, there would be no absolute way of knowing what she is. If she were branded, it would be forever. Even if her actions didn't tell everyone what she was, giving her away were she to wear robes, that mark would. This mark does not, but it has a merging of our cultures in its creation. It had meaning. Has. Meaning.

When did it happen? I don't know. Somewhere amid the fights, and the training, and mixed into all of it. Even our expressing it took two nights, the word as I told her, not coming easily. I had determined I was not going to let myself connect to only one person, to the exclusion of all others, as I have in the past. I was not going to become attached.

I think it finally dawned on me when I was at the camp, and I joked to my friends that my desire to get up and go do things as I usually do them, was almost nonexistent. That all I wanted to do was lie around all day stroking her, and reading to my son. I told Nash when I returned from the hunt, and I think he wanted to laugh at me, state that was plainly in. Bedrudging. Attached.

It was a joke, I do have my tasks and visits that I must make or I would go completely insane, but there isn't the inside battle there used to be over such things. She wishes she could be everything for me, but I told her to instead focus on those things that she can do. I wrapped a chain around her arm two night's ago, and she held onto it with the other hand, but there was no cuff. She could have unwrapped it, or skillfully worked it loose in a convincing way. She didn't. And because she didn't, because she did extend herself past that former barrier, I was content.

The General's slave was stolen recently, and I filed away information on the thief to tell the Warrior. I went to his private apartments and discussed the matter with him. He offered the redhead's service, were she to be found. I've never seriously considered her an option. I don't know why really, but apparently it is mutual, as she's obviously never seen me in that light. She told me she thought because I am a Scribe, I would only like soft slaves. I told her I like women. That I own a soft slave, but I like all types. It's true.

Still, I do own a soft slave. I had fabric flowers made for her hair, and I tattood her skin instead of putting a hot iron to it. I don't push her toward pain, just because I can, because I realize I don't need to in order to feel all is right in the cosmic order of things.

Have I given up anything? I would say no. I fulfill certain requirements of my personality, with others. This hurts her, it hurt her last night, but it's nothing I plan to discontinue. Some would say this makes me selfish, which is fine. I told her I would not be releasing her unless she begged, and she assured me it wasn't something she'd do. Even if she did, I wouldn't release her. I like what she is, and what she does for me, but I like these others as well. It's integrating it all together...