On the Path Unwinding // [Navya's Labor]

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

NAVYA RHODES

She was forty weeks and one day the morning she awoke to Weaver's alliance being torn asunder. She'd slept poorly between the Braxton Hicks contractions and the sheer weight of her midsection. No amount of pillows could ease her sore back and no amount of wet wash clothes could cool her forehead. It's a good sign, her cousin (the midwife) kept saying, but Navya could tell, even she was getting worried. At first dawn, Navya scooted to the edge of the bed and for the umpteenth time in the last fortnight, submitted herself to inspection.

Her cousin - normally so cheery and optismistic - finished prodding Navya and sat down heavily at her side. "You haven't progressed."

"That's okay. Our little one will come when it's time. Right?" She leaned back to gather the pillow, building a fort around her alien body.

"When was the last time you felt any movement?"

Navya went suddenly very still. She'd felt the vague tightening over night but no kicks or punches, no twists from the baby itself. She blinked and found her world warped by tears. As quickly as they could, they navigated Navya downstairs to the kitchen. Kiara was already at the stove, warming oatmeal. She whispered to their cousin as Navya settled herself on the breakfast bench.

"Eat these. I'm sending for mother and father."

In the cup, Navya found only ice chips. She munched on them. "I should have gone to the Capitol where they have surgeons."

For once, no one disagreed with her.

An hour later dawn came in full force and they could no longer ignore the television blaring in the corner. While her family raced from their apricot orchard to the victor's home, Navya split the ice chips with her teeth and watched the bloodshed. She couldn't remember such a violent games. Weaver was not the focus of the morning; most of the attention went to Ross Wolfe, and then Iona Holbrook. Tears escaped Navya at Weaver's ally's death. She finished one cup and immediately Kiara refilled it, even though ice was difficult to come by. She kept eating and kept feeling nothing at all.

But if she could not feel anger or grief or despair, she still cried.

As the tide of the fight shifted from Iona towards Weaver, the first horrible cramping rolled over her.

She spilled the cup.

The kitchen transformed into a whirlwind of activity. Her parents arrived and immediately dispatched her siblings to let the Rhodes, Mr. and Mrs. Persimmon and Miristiomas know. Only Kiara and the midwife remained, pressing cloths to Navya's forehead and offering her numbweed to chew on. At some interlude between the pounding, exhausting contractions, she looked at the kitchen window. Pravnav was chasing Junior and Ekain around in the tall grass while Tobias and Drogon looked on. She swept the room, trying to register her faces, and found herself surprised but relieved to count more than her family present. Tamron Rhodes. Ikaia Miristioma. They were watching her but they were also watching something else.

When Weaver fell, it was not so much a cry of anguish, but a guttural expelling that escaped her.

"Push!" The midwife gave her permission, at long last.

Navya did what her body had long wanted to do. Once, twice, and on the third time the mid-wife caught the baby in warm blankets. Navya leaned back against the wall, her forehead matted with sweat, her body so far beyond pain. For a moment, she simply tried to remember how to breathe.

Then her baby learned to do the same and wailed for the very first time.

"Do you want to cut the cord?"

She shook her head, fighting back tears. It should have been Harbinger. They should have been in a small cottage on her parents' apricot orchard with their two cats and no knowledge at all of the inner workings of the Hunger Games. She bit down on her lip as the midwife nestled her child in her arms and Kiara stretched the phone cord to reach her ear.

"I've tried to reach him but I don't know... with everything..."

"I'm not leaving a message," Navya said, her throat raw. She didn't dare look down, for fear she'd lose herself in the tiny face. Instead she listened to the dial tone, ringing and echoing. When it finally connected, she barely had enough breath - laden with joy and grief and pain and confusion and hope - to say, "Harbinger, my heart, you have a daughter."

table coding (c) ghosty