M’traliel had left two hours before. Nothing more had been mentioned on llhaesa despising and not wanting any role in government. The subject was still rattling around in llhaesa’s mind, but she refrained from discussing it with Jahrae – yet.
And so the two had retired to the master bedroom, gone about getting ready for bed, and now were about to settle into bed. Llhaesa loved to make a great show of fluffing pillows; to counter her pillow routine, Jahrae loved to straighten the bed linen and duvet.
Their respective bed-rituals complete, llhaesa passed Jahrae her pillow, and both propped them up on an angle against the headboard. With this done, both jumped into bed, Jahrae more dramatically and forcefully than llhaesa’s elegant landing. Wiggling into position, reading lights glowed to either side of the couple. Jahrae moved to half-lean against llhaesa, while llhaesa slid her left hand onto Jahrae’s right leg. Both grabbed their current read de jour, llhaesa holding her read with her right hand, Jahrae with both hands on her book.
Jahrae preferred modern electronic books; llhaesa paid an extra premium to obtain old fashioned hardbound paper books, for she loved the feel of a paper book in her hands.
Jahrae was quickly lost and absorbed into her reading, while llhaesa read one page of her book, made it halfway through another before M’traliel’s words overtook her relaxing mind. As llhaesa’s mind turned inward, the book in her hand slowly started to slump forward, finally slipping out of her hand altogether.
This caused just enough of a distraction to attract the attention of Jahrae, who then moved to inquire “are you asleep? Llhaesa?”
“Huh? Whaa? Oh. Sorry, I was just thinking…” uh oh, llhaesa could make an excuse, or come clean with Jahrae. Preferring openness and honesty, llhaesa chose to outline the basic issue, working her way through M’traliel’s comments.
Jahrae for her part listened with a mixture of pondering and of annoyance that M’traliel would push llhaesa. Yet she also knew M’traliel was dear to llhaesa, that she valued her opinion, and would not be upset at their friend just for being honest in her opinion.
Finally, she spoke. “Llhaesa, you have to be true to who you are inside, to what you believe, to where your interests lie, to what you wish to do, and where you wish to go, in life.
I understand M’traliel’s greater point, in that sometimes I think – in point of fact I know – you do not fully grasp how some people feel about you. And that number is increasing by the day. Every time you do a concert, every time you speak on politics, every time the illegal broadcasts play your music and talk about your political outlook… more people come to know of you.
When they hear and see the replays of these things, you become another friend to them, someone who can make their world – our world – a better one.
I’m your wife – just as you are mine as well – and I’m not here because you are famous, or that you have huge earning potential. I am here because you are an incredible person, with a million little and big things that make you, you. I will love you no matter the choice you make here, and I would love you if you never played another note on a piano.
What matters to me is that you be all you wish to be. That is not what I wish for you, what M’traliel wishes for you, or what the whole planet wishes for you.
I know this is difficult – an incredibly tough choice to make – but all of those things that make you who you are, that make you reluctant to hold power, are precisely the things that make people clamour for you to take the lead.
You may well be the only person – think on this a minute – *the* only person in the history of this world who has the capability to bring full equality to it.
That is all I will say, unless of course you have questions you wish to ask of me. Be llhaesa, be you.”
And with that, Jahrae slumped backward onto her pillow, as the love of her life pondered the second lecture given her on this one unexpected night.
