Birth

She was swollen with life. Her belly threatened to tear at the seams right then and there, but, even still, the baby inside her refused to come. She pushed again. Her fingers sunk into the buffalo hide that cushioned her squatted position atop their sleeping rock, warm beneath. The fire was low, she was already sweating enough without its heat; the thin tendrils of smoke spun like the seed pods from the maples on the bluff above their cave. He, River, her partner, lover, and father to the already too-stubborn child inside her, dabbed the sweat from the sloping brow above her speckled, grey eyes, set deep like secrets in her skull. Though, in this moment, her squint proclaimed their plight loudly, without heed. But she didn’t scream. She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. She pushed; she gritted her teeth and wrapped her fingers around River's forearm and squeezed as she pushed again, but still the child would not be born.

She, Wren, looked past the fire and out the mouth of River's and her home, their cave. Their escape. She hoped the mammoth hides hung thick at the cave's entrance would muffle her moans enough to hide her vulnerable state from opportunistic predators, or, more distressingly, Wolf and his tribe; the tribe that, until just a few full moons past, Wren and River had been a part; the tribe that, for now, had not yet discovered their whereabouts. Wren and River's and the tribe's split was less than amicable. But even Wolf, as temerarious as he was, would not risk traveling at night, especially this night where the moon vanished with the blink of the sky's great, dark eyelid. The light of the tiny, flickering fires above was not enough to navigate the cliffs in which Wren's and River's cave was set. Even as the starlight swirled like water current, pushed and pulled by some great wind above. The light of the midday sun was barely enough light to navigate the steep path, Wren reminded herself. River had chosen their temporary refuge for just this reason. Wren and he were not family to the tribe any longer; Wren and River were traitors, their lives forfeit; their very existence threatened Wolf's own, for if they could defy him and survive, if the life inside her could survive, why then could he not be defied again? River knew this the same as Wren.

Wren screamed. But just for an instant. River caught the scream with his hand. Wren bit. River bore it. She touched between her legs. And there, slick and wet and tiny, a head like a mushroom cap.

Finally, the child slipped from its cradle inside her body and sunk low between her pelvis. She pushed. River left his position behind Wren and situated himself between her spread legs. Wren quivered. She pushed one final time and, as if the child might have so easily chosen any time in the last half day of Wren's labor to greet the world, their baby slid from Wren and into River's waiting hands.

The newborn’s limbs relaxed unsettlingly, splayed across River’s open hands.

The umbilical cord coiled around its neck, its arms and legs, across its still chest.

The cave was quiet. Just the crackle of the fire.

River’s hands quivered. Their baby shone blue through the dim.

A few moments passed. Moments like winters. Blinks of frozen flash. With each one, the life they imagined, the family, the child, all of it, it all began to shatter.

They couldn’t let it. They wouldn’t.

Wren and River uncoiled the cord. Wren cleared the baby's nose and mouth of their mucus like she had watched the tribe's mothers do so many times. Wren filled the baby’s lungs with breath. Her breath. Their breath.

River bit through the umbilical cord when it shone white. Wren massaged the baby’s chest.

They didn’t believe. They knew.

The fire extinguished.

The dark shrouded their fear.

And then she cried.

It was a girl. Their girl.

She would one day earn the name Needle, but now, that night, she was just their baby. Their live, living baby. Wren lied down and held her close to her bare chest, pressing the baby's ear to her heart so as to provide the squirming infant girl with some sense of order in the chaos of being ripped away from the only life she'd ever known. And the first of her deaths.

In Wren's heartbeat, Needle would always find home. The baby calmed. Her cries turned to whimpers. Her hands grasped at Wren's sun-soaked skin and found purchase around River's outstretched finger. Wren offered the baby her nipple. Needle latched on without hesitation. She drank. Needle's hunger would continue to prove insatiable, a good sign.

Wren and River looked from their child to each other. River's eyes were wet. Wren wiped his tears away and pulled him close so that her own tears might mix with his. Needle burped and Wren and River snorted with laughter.

This is why they had left, run, escaped, hidden; Needle was their reason for existence, now more than ever. She always would be. Even when they would find themselves mountains apart, split by raining fire, separated by the tearing of the sky itself, Needle would lead them back together.

But that wouldn't be for many suns and moons to come. For right now, their trio of beating hearts pounded like heavy rain as they drifted to sleep, a family, forever bound.