Lion Head Mesa thirty-ninth

to join? oh! this man was a test. Toula felt something ugly within her, something foreign and awful. she refused to nurture it, to let it grow. Toula felt colder, though, in this one’s presence, and did not like it. to Zaahira, she declared: it does not matter. I have seen enough. Toula found it in herself to look now to Zaahira with gratitude. and greater than that, the very thing this stranger before them did not have, before she looked to him once more.
we provided Khaba a mercy he has proven he would not extend to even one of his own. you are welcome—I imagine you might have been next. and for that, you owe me your life, Toula corrected coolly, and I give that back to you this day once more. I want nothing from a man I cannot trust.  
not even the answer to her other question—lies he must tell himself, to feel better about his misplaced loyalty. one day, when he was older, she prayed that he might grow wiser to see his error. 
go in peace. but do not return, unless you do not value the very thing I give to you now. a smile. she would not suffer his brand of poison, nor his delusions any longer. if he did not listen, he would be perhaps the first to find that Toula’s kindness was not a bottomless well. escort him outside of our walls, she dismissed him effectively.
and still she lay, comfortably and well protected—the command for something far more terrible on the tip of her tongue should he do something worse to displease her.