Look up, Asria!

"Babies are bits of star-dust blown from the hand of God. Lucky the woman who knows the pangs of birth for she has held a star.” Larry Barretto

"Mezoo!" Lei cried, her bright shiny face was panicky. That was all she said, her name in a certain, tense way. Five years old and Lei already knew the language of a woman’s tone. Mezoo would take her hand and come with her. Behind them came Astar and Oren.

When they arrived I was sweaty and hot. I had put it off too long, pretending I had time. Yes I have done this before.. but anyone who says that makes it easier is out of their head. I knew what to expect.. I knew how much this would hurt. "Astar.." I whimpered her name like I was the five year old and then she was at my side, her hand in my own.

"The healer is at the love wars." She told me. "We are here for you."

I saw Oren taking a place at the steps of my wagon and I was comforted by the protection she would give us now. Oren would be like a dragon guarding us, keeping the women inside safely cut off from the rest of the world. I knew she would stare down the Ubar himself to keep us safely ensconced.

"I know what to do." Mezoo told me calmly, it had been part of her training and Astar smiled at me reassuringly. I did not dare to ask if she had only been told or had any practice yet. I would simply trust. None of us had spoken about this before.. But like players in a game of chess we all instinctively knew our places. Astar lifted my head and shoulders and slipped behind me. My back leaned against her chest and she held my hands over my belly, my head leaned back on her shoulder and I shut my eyes in between, floating in a hazy world of intense feminity and sisterhood. It is impossible to explain in the meager words of language, in order to fully tell you how that feels I would have to cut my heart open and seal you up inside of it, you see.

Lei was watching with wide eyes but she was not fearful, her gaze was dark and bright at the same time. She knelt beside me and watched my face like she was reading a book. Astar kissed my temple and now and then ran a cool wet cloth over my cheeks and my throat as she spoke soothing words in my ear.

I pushed. I cried. Astar soothed and Mezoo.. after several attempts to dispel the child from my womb... calmly spoke.. "Lei.. go ask someone to help you find some yarrow." Lei would gravitate to Fonce though because she was distressed by the dismissal from her brothers birth. She knew it meant something bad.

"But Mezoo I.." she began, her voice beginning to whine.

"Now, Lei." Mezoo told her, firmly. In the midst of my pain I was struck by her.. Mezoo will be a good mother. I started to tell her so much another arch of pain ripped though me and I screamed.. unlike before. They were growing worse now.. Lei rose, her chin trembling and hurried outside. She rushed past Oren and towards Fonces wagons.

Mezoo and her mother exchanged a look over my head, my chest was heaving and I did not feel it... The puddle between my thighs. Blood, I was bleeding, I was crying.. I was fading in and out of the slipstream of consciousness. Astar spoke to me, over and over again, encouraging, waking. I tried to focus on Mezoo, to see her but everything was watery, the world was underwater. How soothing, I thought.. It doesn’t hurt here. Every time I started to drift there though.. Astar would pinch me hard and speak in my ear.. Mezoo would shout something and I'd come back, open my eyes and feel Astars hands on my own.

Why wouldn’t they leave me be? Why were they ruining everything?! I wanted to go under the water, they were supposed to be my friends!

Drift..

"Asria!"

No.. drift.. please..

"ASRIA!"

I shut them out and then felt a sudden rush of air and space and the scent of cherry blossoms surrounded me like a sweet cocoon. Oh Happiness! Like I had not felt in so long, the emotion I so often tried to fabricate when I did not feel it. "Asria.." he whispered in my ear. All the color of the world bloomed into three dimensional life. I felt his arms slid around me from behind and I melted into his embrace. I did not dare turn to look at him. Trayu. I knew if I looked he would be gone. If I looked I would see the flatness of my vision. He was only allowed the corners of my vision, haunting the corners, forever my shadowy lover. "Asria.." He said again, more urgently. "Look .. up.." The sky was pink! Pink and sweet and fluffy and then, in the blink of an eye it was midnight blue and littered with stars... "Look up!" Trayu called.. far away now..laughing as a star fell. Like a feather on the wind it tumbled down from the sky to my outstretched hands. I held it there.. so brightly that it burned me.. the kind of burn I wanted to feel forever.. I pulled my hands closer, hardly breathing as the star glowed and glowed..

"Asria!" Astar was crying in my ear and I opened my eyes like a shot, I gasped and screamed, trying to sit up.. Oh sweet skies what was going on? "Trayu!" I cried for him, confused by his absence.. by the blood all over my dress.. my floor.. Mezoos hands.. Mezoos hands.. holding the slick shiny form of my child. "Trayu.." I repeated, softer now as Astar held me and I cried.. The baby was not crying. Mezoo knelt there, rubbing his tiny chest, I could see the cord between us pulsing with life and slowly, so slowly fading..

"Just wait.. wait.." Astar whispered, her hands were so tight on mine.. Where was my star? I was still all mixed up between two spaces, two worlds..

"Where is my star?" I asked them, sobbing softly.

And then.. the baby gulped in a breath.. and shrieked with the all indignation of birth..of being ripped from his warm wet home and thrust into the cold harsh world of us. We cried, all of us.. Oren I saw had entered and stood by the wagons flaps.. there were people behind her but I could not see who. Words, and the screams I suppose, had traveled fast between the wagons. There was a relieved cheer as my son cried, loud and strong. Mezoo brought him to me, still cradled in Astars slender arms. She was still cleaning him and wrapping him as I brought him to my breast.

"He is so beautiful.." Someone spoke.. Mezoo was between my thighs again, Oren was closing in on us and I tore my eyes from my suckling son to the women.. there was such confusion there for me. "I did not swallow the star." I told them..

And then.. the world turned black.