What is it for, really?

I really wish I had time to write again, but I haven't recently. Work has been eating my life. I really could sleep all day and still be tired probably. But enough whining. Things really have been good mostly. The kids are doing well, Aaron's job is going well, my job is going well (albeit crazy at times). I realized last night as I drove home from the movie I went to in Davenport how lovely silence and aloneness can be. To not say a word or even think about anything for even an hour... After being constantly surrounded by people it really is good. And there was rain.

Soon the rain will wash away the sun
As I melt with you
I am ghost

03/1 - Leaving Behind

Namiri Eversonia stared forward into the falling rain as she rode through it. The dimming light of the overcast dusk made it impossible to tell if the droplets on her face were splashes from the rain or her own tears. There was no sound now but that of the rain falling and hissing on the magical shields over her and her companions' heads as they rode through the trees. The forest they rode through now was green and tall, more verdant than Eversonia could recall having seen outside the gardens of the Nami-land palace. The Nami-land was known for its dry, arid climate, so the gardens were one of the few places the water-callers could keep vegetation from the southerly lands alive. On a day like this, the usual mothers with their children and groups of scholars from the Academy would be missing from the dirt paths that criss-crossed the gardens. Eversonia felt a pang of homesickness again as she remembered watching the people wandering the flowering garden paths from her room high above in the palace. She knew what she was doing was necessary, but she hated to leave her palace and her parents. All this duty, all this responsibility did not stop her from feeling the aching sadness of leaving all that she had ever known or loved, even if she was coming back to it at some point in the future.

A muffled squeak coming from her left caught her ear. Turning, she caught a smaller girl riding next to her struggling to get her legs untangled from the harness straps. Eversonia was used to riding the six-legged Ara-beasts that carried her party, but not all her traveling partners were as skilled in riding the Aras as she. Eversonia let a small smile cross her face as she held out her hand to the girl.

"Verien, please don't fall off. Again." The small blonde-haired girl paused in her struggles just long enough to grab Eversonia's hand and throw her a miffed glare.

"I told you, I didn't fall off the first three times! The Ara threw me! It's true! I hate these things. They always make me fall in the mud." She kicked her Ara in it's chitinous sides. The Ara didn't seem to notice.

"Anyways, Soni, I was okay! I wasn't going to fall! Also, isn't the rain great? We never get this much rain back home! Ooh, it's so cold and wet... How's it getting through the trees anyway? I mean, look at all the branches! All those leaves should..."

Eversonia turned back to her Ara as Verien continued chattering about the rain, the trees, her shoes getting wet, anything that came to mind. As usual. Sonia mourned the loss of the silence, but only for a moment. Silence with Verien around was a precious commodity. Not that she begrudged her best friend her chattiness; in fact, it was one of the things that had drawn her to the small girl in the first place. At the young age of 6, Eversonia's parents, the Namir and Nama, had noticed their daughter was unusually quiet and pensive for her age. Thinking that this was due to her necessary isolation in the palace, they had sought a playmate for her. Even at that age Verien, daughter of a palace hunter, was boisterous and happy. The two bonded immediately, each the perfect match for the other. Eversonia could count on one hand the number of times she had seen Verien frown, and could not remember ever having seen her cry. Now she and Verien went everywhere together, Sonia's parents believing that she would be safer with a companion. So now, even on this venture, Verien was by her side. It gave Eversonia a measure of comfort to remember that she was not truly leaving everything she loved behind.

After all, she thought, with her best friend by her side she would never be truly alone.