how harsh the tribulation of woman, to suffer pain when there is none for the man she chooses.
with the previous nightfall had come a sense of settlement, of ancient anticipation. and by midnight, mireille had sought @Chacal and @Rosalyn, made fearful by the clutchings of lighter pain along her abdomen. in this time, the fiery obsidian became only mireille: daughter of surf and salt, child of cliff and pine, a mother to be made.
the darkness hours were sleepless, and as morning cast down the soft pall of a new day, the pains began in earnest. such were they that mireille found herself shocked each time, stifling the cries in her throat as she paced between the roja den and bluepeace meadow.
for etchings of time, the agonies abated; mireille was able to drink water, to speak with those who gathered around her, to seek the comfort of the sea for her aching body. she ate little and seemed to glow with a fervency that spurred from the earthen core of her most primeval instincts.
laughter, perhaps, through the fear of what was to come. and in resignation to this pain, mireille handed over her want to call for @Val, to lift her voice in singular desire for him to be here, to attend in a capacity that belonged no longer to any man of sapphique.
throat tensed then, perhaps the glow around her vitally scarlet frame dimmed momentarily, only to brightly sail into the maw of the red-hot teeth that were hers now to endure.
in the saltmarsh, they started once more, and mireille gasped out to her sister that she must return to her den, their walling of thorns and twisting verdant tendrils, fruit-laden vines which curled down from the ceiling; she had found a mossy hollow deep within the tangle, the long-forgotten throne of some long-forgotten god. a great tree once, now only the nesting cup of a vacant stump reaching up toward unseen canopy with moss-blunted edges.
summer trilled in the meadow.
and mireille wept for her mother who was not with her, groaning in louder volume as the briarmade guardians of the tangle closed in protectiveness around her shadowed den.
oh, maman!
but this, alone, to a woman of the wild shores, clench jaw; bear down, uncaring now what eyes might see, for all belonged to those in blood and in love and mireille needed them now.
a wail, at last, to announce the child @Miette, a freshet of tears baptizing her when the crimson wolf found her firstborn a daughter. oh, a daughter! mireille shook in the heaviness of delivery, carefully uncauling the girl and smoothing her soft fur, almost unbelieving that so small a body had come from her own. ”sobeille miette,” she whispered, looking up toward chacal; their brother, sobo, named again in the salt wind that whispered through the thornbranches.
back now, into the din; mireille closed her eyes but found she was not afraid.
her body did as it was bid; she breathed, she found her strength in a low moaning hum, guttural and increasing until she gasped a second time —
@Chantale! second daughter but with no less pride endowing her birth. mireille swept the birth away from the newborn’s fur, growing more confident as the moments went on; a daughter tucked carefully against the first at her breast, and her eyes were warm upon them, tears coursing hotly even as she let out a hoarse laugh, nosing over the baby girl in wonderment. chantale and miette, and all was well for a short while.
more now, and this time she felt the pains faster, turning back to the vibrating thrum in her throat, stretching her body against the soft floor of the nesting hollow and experiencing herself thin into a starlit knife of pain, but only for a moment.
a boy, @Tousaint. where mireille might have turned her face from a man, this boy she had made of her own body, wrought him of flesh and blood and spirit, and she stared at him once he too had been cleansed; she marvelled at his perfection, and felt in her heart only love for him, determination to raise him as his tonton sobo had been: loyal to their shores, loyal to the women of his family, fierce in what he chose to do.
the lwa, perhaps, gathered in transparent silence to watch over yet another birth, granted mireille a longer respite this time; despite the thorns and the trancelike aching of all her body, she beckoned sapphique to gather, to see.
and before those who saw, mireille gathered the last of her strength. it was late afternoon now, sleeking into a vibrant evening sky; the sun touched the first of its descent when @Thibault was born, a second son, a fourth child, the last, and mireille loved him at once as she had with the others, this boy born of her spirit, of herself, of her home. a brother for tousaint, as etienne was to theo, as loko and sobo had been to her and chacal and coraline — sister eternal, wherever she was.
a kiss for each forehead; pelts smoothed; mireille could not tear her eyes from them, even as she lapsed into silence, the trembles of adrenaline whispering away as warmth took its place and she felt herself fulfilled beneath the great eye of the universe, over which surely her maman erzulie had seen the four new grandchildren she would guide from beyond the stars.