Yamina Kazi<br/>"Little Bit"<br/>Dismounted - near Kuritan refugees<br/><br/>The<em>Locust </em>was safely tucked away inside the DropShip.  Though there were other BattleMechs available in the hangars, Command had not seen fit to bestow one upon her.  Well, no matter.  The<em>Locust </em>was hers and she was its master.  She was neither Dispossessed nor penniless and had both a berth and the promise of a meal.  It was far more certainty than many knew these days.<br/><br/>Yamina had gravitated towards the children.  There were shattered vermin suits about, with their much larger than expected dead occupants, but they could not hold her fascination like the children could.  Yamina had always loved children, even these rather stoic and shocked Kuritans.  Soon she was sitting on the ground amongst them, almost lost due to her size and visible mainly by the white hair.  Several anxious mothers and a few reserved fathers hovered nearby.<br/><br/>"Long ago there lived a sheikh, what you might call a shogun, of the Aneza who was so hospitable that they called him<em>Essaffah</em>, or the Welcomer. One day a stranger raised his tent pole not far from the camp of Essaffah, near enough to become his neighbor. The man was poor, but since it was the sheikh’s custom to provide for all who lived in his vicinity food and drink and clothing from his own stores, the stranger lacked nothing."  Yamina was telling a tale to them from her own culture, and going slow enough to allow one of the older children to translate for those who did not speak English.<br/><br/>"For seven years the two men lived as neighbors, and to mark each year of their friendship the sheikh gave him a present of a pure-blooded mare. Whenever a raid was successful, the sheikh would give the neighbor and his sons a share of the spoils.  Under<em>Essaffah</em>’s protection the humble wanderer increased his possessions until he owned three herds of one hundred camels each. He was now a man of wealth..." she trailed off as she looked towards the preparations to climb out of the gravity well back into space were wrapping up.  One of the children, a beautiful little bot of perhaps 4 or 5, was sitting in her lap and used his hands to draw Yamina's face back towards him and the other children.<br/><br/>"Mina-san, what's a camel?" he asked in a high voice.<br/><br/>Yamina smiled and let it eclipse the concern in her heart that they'd not be able to bring the children to safety.  "You know what a horse is, yes?"  She whinnied like a mare and the children and her laughed at the silliness of it.  "Well a camel is both like a horse and not like a horse."<br/><br/>"That doesn't make any sense," a girl in the group objected.  "How can something be and not be?"<br/><br/>"It's like Master Chuang Tzu," the oldest boy arrogantly explained.  "Reality is nothing more than your perception of reality.  What might be to you might not be to someone else."<br/><br/>Yamina and the small boy in her lap shared a grave look then giggled at the sudden turn their story time had taken.  "Mina-san, the camel?" he prompted.<br/><br/>"The camel," she agreed.  "Imagine a horse only much taller and louder and smellier with hair as rough as an outside rug and legs taller than even your father.  And we all know fathers are the tallest men in the world."  Yamina continued with her tale and the circle of children grew ever tighter around her.