- in the name of Allah -


From "Liveship Traders", Book 2: 
_____
     A sour smile twisted Althea's mouth. "No. I don't want to be the wind in
his sails. That's what I want someone else to do for me." She sat up straight
suddenly. "That is ... that didn't come out right. I'm not explaining this
very well."
     Amber looked up from her work to grin at her. "On the contrary, I think
you are uncomfortable only because you have stated it so plainly. You want a
mate who will follow your dream. You don't want to give up your own ambitions
to make someone else's life possible."
     "I suppose that's true," Althea admitted reluctantly. An instant later she
demanded, "Why is that so wrong?"
     "It isn't," Amber assured her. A moment later she added wickedly, "As long
as you're male."
     Althea leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms stubbornly. "I can't
help it. That's what I want." When Amber said nothing, Althea asked, almost
angrily, "Don't try to tell me that that is what love is, giving it all up for
someone else!"
     "But for some people, it is," Amber pointed out inexorably. She bound
another bead into the necklace, then held it up to look at it critically.
"Others are like two horses in harness, pulling together toward a goal."
     "I suppose that wouldn't be so bad," Althea conceded. Her knit brows said
she did not entirely believe it. "Why can't people love one another and still
remain free?" she demanded suddenly.
     Amber paused to rub her eyes, then tug thoughtfully at her earring. "One
can love that way," she conceded regretfully. "But the price on that kind of
love may be the highest of all." She strung her words together as carefully as
she strung her beads. "To love another person like that, you have to admit
that his life is as important as yours. Harder still, you have to admit to
yourself that perhaps he has needs you cannot fill, and that you have tasks
that will take you far away from him. It costs loneliness and longing and
doubt and-"
     "Why must love cost anything? Why does need have to be mixed up with love?
Why can't people be like butterflies, coming together in bright sunshine and
parting while the day is still bright?"
     "Because they are people, not butterflies. To pretend that people can come
together, love and then part with no pain or consequences is more false a role
than pretending to be a proper Trader's daughter."
_____ 


To love and still remain free, being nether enslaved by nor enslaving of, to know and find acceptance in mutual totality ...expounds upon perhaps the greatest wish in dunya I have ever known. Yet time and experience and wisdom and immeasurable guidance from my Rabb have shown it is not a thing to be kept in this life, so everything has become for me a reorientation towards the future, towards the akhirah, towards Firdaus, that I might reach, among other vast treasures and gifts from Him, this one thing to complete both my own self and the ones I love. May Allah guide us always along His road, protecting us from whatever distances from Him, and bringing us nearer to that which pleases Him, ameen.