For ilexia

I apologize for making you wait so long, the muse has been stubborn.

Thanks for the R&R MaryRose, you ROCK!

rider-of-snakes - I hope to have your answer up very soon.

Why do I love Beka?

What's not to love?!

Seriously. Love is one of the strange words that means many things.

I love weisbrau and a good steak but not in the same way that I love her.

My love for Beka is a much stronger emotion that comes from being tested in ways both intentional and accidental. We rely on each other for many things and that includes our lives. She saved my life more than once and though it's rarely mentioned I have done the same for her.

I choose who I love very carefully, because loosing someone you love is painful and I have had more of that kind of pain than I care for. So my love for Beka is a singular thing, not the same kind of love I hold for Trance or any of the other women in my life. (Stop laughing, I can hear you, you know.)

Beka rescued me from a place both terrible and part of my heart. She chose me - someone she barely knew, over someone she loved with all her heart and to me, that was an ultimate sacrifice. After that, she could have set me adrift anywhere but she didn't, she encouraged me to stay, helped me to better myself and to see myself for what I am. I love Beka the way I do because she loves me. It's something that grows because two people, not just one, feed it.

We have shared a lot of ourselves, we don't have to put on a mask and be someone else for each other, we are comfortable with the other person as they are. You know what I mean … how you try to be the person that you think whoever you love wants you to be. It's not like that with us; we love the person they are, not the person we wish they were.

I love her because she has made me a better person, because she cares enough to make a place for me in her life. I have not known a love like that since I was just a child. She's beautiful and strong, wily and gentle. She lets me know the limits of our relationship; I know where I stand with her. I still test those limits pretty often but it's strangely comforting to know that she won't let me get away with anything. Knowledge is power, especially for the weaker. She would do anything for me and I would give my life for hers. Everything she has done for me may have had a few selfish undertones but it was mainly to help me. She never lies to me, I always know what the score is and the fact that she trusts me so much that she allows me into her life is one more reason that I love her.

Trust is something that I prize and very few people in my life have been people I could trust in a positive way. I have always known that people want me for their own reasons, but Beka has never tried to blow smoke on why she cares what happens to me.

I know I have been a bother to her, a drain on her finances, bought her more trouble than I think I am worth and still, she has never turned me out. She listens to my schemes, even if she seldom accepts them but the fact that she treats me like a contributing adult makes me feel good about myself.

Other people in my life, though beloved, have never wanted me for me, but for what I could do for them and they often abandoned me when they got what they needed.

Beka is everything I ever wanted in a friend.