Eve swallowed the thick lump of nerves in her throat as she sat, perched, on a long metal slab in the dimly lit circular room.

The table was, perhaps, the most jarring aspect in the healer’s—for lack of a better work—hut. It was a circular room that wrapped all around the base of the jivera tree, with jutted up through the center with pride. It was an old tree, with peeling black bark that sometimes shed onto the floor, judging by the shavings she spied littered around the base.

The table was cold and hard, whereas the room was warm, bordering on hot, with an overpowering woodsy, pungent smell. A jivera tree’s bark could filter out most smells, but not even the ancient tree could help that smell.

Eve wished Khiva was with her, as she tilted her head back to look up at the rafters of the ceiling, seeing strange herbs and objects hanging from twine, objects she didn’t necessarily want to take a closer look at. She wished her partner was there, but Eve had wanted to get confirmation of her suspicions first, especially right then.

She didn’t want to add to his stress. And frankly, there had been no physical symptoms—like morning sickness—that she was pregnant. And while she was due for her period any day, Eve somehow knew that it wouldn’t be coming.

She didn’t know how she knew she was pregnant. Her body simply felt…changed.

“You say your male is Keriv’i?” the healer asked, walking back around the trunk of the tree so that she came into plain view. She’d been fiddling with something around the other side of the tree as Eve waited, with her blood already drawn.

“Yes,” Eve said, eyeing the healer. The healer was a Laoti female. In fact, there seemed to be many Laotis on Dumera, considering their home planet wasn’t far away.

Eve couldn’t help but be slightly intimidated. Despite her surprisingly quiet and soft voice, Kxiwi was three times the size of a human woman, with the strength of perhaps ten. Khiva had told her that, due to their strength and size, Laotis were the only females who worked in the mines.

But Kxiwi was a healer, even though as she walked, the whole floor of the dwelling shook. Eve watched a fleck of black bark fall from the tree as she approached her on the table.

Kxiwi peered at her closely, coming within arm’s length before pressing her face even closer to look carefully into Eve’s eyes. Eve was taken aback, not used to someone, other than Khiva, being so close.

Kxiwi had black eyes. Pure black. So black that Eve could see her dim reflection in them.

Slowly, Kxiwi pulled back, but not much. Laotis, she’d observed, didn’t have the same notions of personal space, at least to the extent that humans did.

“I do not need testings to know,” Kxiwi said firmly, jerking her head down. “The moment you came to me, I knew.”

Eve’s heart fluttered. “You knew what?”

Kxiwi blew out a breath. “That a youngblood grows within you.”

“How do you know?”

“The Laoti…we see what others cannot. The hands of our deity, of the universe, guide us towards knowledge.”

Eve hoped she didn’t offend her by saying softly, “I had suspected I was pregnant, but I was hoping to see proof of it before I told my male.”

Kxiwi regarded her, seemingly amused by her statement. “Humans have always been close-minded to our ways.”

“Have you seen many humans?” Eve asked, curious. “On Dumera?”

“Humans come and go as they please. None stay for long, when they can have their glittering, floating cities, without earth, nothing to ground them. I never understood the appeal,” Kxiwi said, her tone dismissive.

Eve knew she was speaking of the colonies and couldn’t help but say, “Those glittering, floating cities are not everything they appear to be.”

But Kxiwi seemed to know that already. “I never saw the appeal,” the healer repeated firmly.

“I have no intention of returning,” Eve found herself saying. “We intend to stay. For a long time.”

Kxiwi waved her hand, “Stay, go, I do not care. What matters is that you are with a youngblood and if you need the blood testings I formulated to prove it, I will show you.”

Which she then did, not that any of what the healer said made sense to her.

At the end of her lengthy explanation, Kxiwi said, “It is difficult to know how long you will carry, or how long you have been with a youngblood, given that your male is not human. Hybrid pregnancies are unpredictable and I do not have any accounts of a human and a Keriv’i reproducing. However,” Kwixi said, in her accented English, “my knowledge, my instinct, tells me you are no more than a moon cycle along with the youngblood. If you are not planning to leave like you claim, we will need to monitor you with closeness and precision. I will also need some blood from your male, so bring him to me when you next come.”

Eve’s head swam. Less than a month along.

She was pregnant.

To her surprise, her vision went blurry with tears and wetness dripped down her cheeks, which she hurriedly dashed away.

Kxiwi leaned closer, seemingly intrigued by her tears, in a purely scientific way, and Eve guessed that Laotis did not cry.

“Interesting,” the healer mumbled. “Do you mind if I collect a sample?”

Eve suddenly laughed, the question so unexpected. And though she gave no answer, Kxiwi disappeared from view, returning a moment later with a clear vial, which she used to capture two or three of Eve’s tears.

The healer capped it and held them up to the dim lamp that swung overheard.

“Humans do this because they are pregnant?” Kxiwi asked, turning the vial this way and that.

“No,” Eve murmured, wiping away the rest of the tears, though a few more took their place. “Humans cry for all kinds of reasons. But these tears…these are happy. Because I am happy with this news.”

“Pregnancies happen every day,” the healer said, turning her eyes to her. “What is there to be happy for?”

Eve bit back a grin. She’d always heard that the Laoti were direct. She sniffled, hopping down from the cold metal slab that was so out-of-place in this ‘witch hut.’

“What happens next?” she asked.

Kxiwi looked back to her vial of tears. “Return to me before the next moon cycle ends or unless you feel, within you, that something is wrong. Your body will know. Bring your male when you come back.”

“Okay, I will,” Eve said softly, her fingers floating down to her belly, where their child grew.

Suddenly, she couldn’t wait for Khiva to return from the mines so she could tell him the good news. He would be excited, she knew. He’d sometimes mentioned children and had told her often, in the heat of their lovemaking, that he wanted to impregnate her, to start a family line with her.

But it was more than that. Their lives, at that moment, were so entangled in the past. The past of Kerivu, of his family, of Everton, of Madame Allegria. The past was nipping at their heels, a constant reminder.

For once, it would be nice to look towards a future. A bright future, on their new home colony, with their first child growing inside her womb.

It wasn’t long ago when she believed she would never have a family, never experience the intimacy and warmth of a lover, a partner. A part of her had given up on that dream, though she’d longed for a family of her own.

It was all coming to fruition.

It was a time for beginnings, she decided, smiling to herself.