As soon as Mi'ishaen and Aleksei has gone to catch food, I got up to begin looking for firewood. Bahlzair merely looked toward the ruins of the cavern, which were still issuing puffing clouds of dust into the afternoon sky. It was not until I had returned, cut a circle into the earth with a katar, and began searching for flint that he spoke again. As I am no expert at the Undercommon hand talking, so I had to reply that he was using a few words with which I wasn't familiar. He nodded, then signed slowly, checking for comprehension. When he came upon words that left me bewildered, prestidigitation cut the Common meaning of the word into the dirt. So it was that after a few minutes, I understood his first question.
"This horned thing is a new mistress, is she not?"
When I finally did understand, I laughed. "She does not wish to be a friend to me," I replied out loud in Common, signing what few words of the sentence I did know. "She prefers that I hold my head up beside her, as though I were equal."
"But in doing so, you obey her, and your obedience is the obedience of a slave," Bahlzair signed carefully and slowly. All the words were familiar to me, and he did not have to translate.
"I know," I signed simply. "But slavery is-" I foundered for an adjective strong enough for Mi'ishaen's aversion to the practice.
"Abhorrent," Bahlzair supplied, signing the word first, then writing it. "Detestable. She does not understand slaves who wish to serve, knowing only those who have been forced to do so. She will not take kindly to being made a mistress."
"But what if she were a different type of friend, one who did not harm me? Just because she holds my chains does not mean she has to rattle them. I would do anything she asked, if she only asked me-"
Bahlzair held up his hand to stop my poor and emotional signing with a simple hand. "Did she ask you to carry on the charade of being dominated all that time? Or was that a decision you made yourself?" he signed slowly.
I did not answer.
And Bahlzair allowed a smirk to pull at one side of his face.
"Then truly you will do all she asks, for you will teach yourself to stop thinking like a slave. Go forward in this way of acting. Do not think of yourself as a separate creature, that only does as it is commanded. Think of yourself, instead, as the other half of her, seeing what she cannot, doing as she has not yet thought to command. In so doing, you will find a most protective and caring mistress- and perhaps much more."
He turned back to the mountain, and I left him alone so that I could find stones to strike. When I had done so, and had finally encouraged the sparks to rise in flame, I sat next to him in the dying twilight.
"What will you do without your friend?" I signed carefully.
"There will never be another like her," he signed. "I do not wish to serve anymore."
"Your grief strikes me," I said, not able to sign the sentiment appropriately.
Bahlzair nodded, and turned his eyes back to the destroyed cavern.
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