Naiara’s Birthday: Uncle and Aunts

At just after midnight, the door started opening and closing with unsettling rapidity. The hooded elfwoman who’d arrived during the labor was first, slipping out the back steps with nary a glimpse. Then the “midwife,” such as he was, with an unsettling sort of bundle in his arms, going straight to the washroom with a flickering gaze at the floor below. Finally, the other three guests of the Bittertongues exited together, huddling briefly on the landing. A cigarette was passed between hands, a flame was struck, and then they turned and descended half a flight to the common room.

All the tired, drawn, hopeful faces in the Gilded Rose turned towards them, studying them with a curiosity that bordered on avarice. The two women looked nothing alike, really, and neither of them remotely resembled the man. But in that moment, the smiles on their faces were all of a kind.

Tarquin glanced between the other two, puffing pensively, until Fells nudged him in the ribs as a necessary step of her dance of agonized impatience. The boss snorted and took a step forward. There were at least twenty people down in the common room, and they were all looking to him for an answer – and for once, the prospect didn’t worry him in the least. After all, it was pretty simple.

He plucked the cigarette from his mouth, spread his hands, and found Padraig and Thenia in the crowd. “Master Al’Cair, Missus Al’Cair – yeh’ve a lovely gran’daughter. Naiara Bittertongue, yeh lot!” The second half was shouted quite loudly, because at that point near on every soul in the room had burst into raucous cheers. Tarquin turned to Annalea, Fells being occupied shouting herself hoarse. “Job oughta be like this mair often,” he murmured.

Annalea smirked at him. “What makes you think it can’t?” Chortling, Naiara’s godfather stepped down into a welcoming sea of strangers who were, tonight, his bosom companions. A drink was in order.

–
She’d dug the vial up from beneath the rowan tree just after Threnn’s first call. In the morning light, the mixture’s glow was barely discernible, as much a product of the sun filtering through the crystal as it the magic swirling around inside. When she went upstairs to catch a few more hours of sleep, she laid a strip of white cloth in her windowbox and placed the vial on top of it, so it could gather the sun’s warmth. Blessed by day and night and in-between.

When the time came, the vial rode in her pocket all the way across the city, nestled close to her heart. It stayed there as they counted off the hours, as people came and went. When Threnn put an arm around her shoulder for yet another walk around the room, Anna twined her sister’s fingers with her own, and every step became a syllable of the Name she’d written with the goddess as her witness.

Then came the hours of blood and pain, where the body that had never been anything but hale and hearty betrayed Threnn at last. While they waited for Indarra to arrive, Anna exchanged worried looks with Haemon, and thought of the fading cries of kits in a cave.

But then, at last, there was a girl, a tiny baby in Fells’ careful hands, letting out her first shuddering cries as she was given into her father’s arms, and then her mother’s.

Anna still had Threnn’s blood on her hands as she edged closer to Bricu and reached for the vial, but that was all right; it would only strengthen the spell. A mother will bleed for her child just as much as a father does, after all. She bent over her sister and her niece as she unstoppered the vial and poured some of its contents on her fingertips. It was warm as it splashed out, whether from her own body, or whether it had retained the sun’s heat, she’d never know.

Bricu placed his hand on her back as she brushed sigils on the baby’s forehead, lips and heart with gentle fingers. Anna looked up, waiting for Threnn’s permission. Her sister brushed sweat-darkened hair from her eyes, and nodded.

Annalea smiled, and whispered a Name in the curve of one tiny ear:

Etaine.

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