Chapter Five
I could hear the women still talking around me, but it was as if their voices were lost in some kind of fog that was closing in on me. I was trying desperately to process what they had just told me, but no matter how hard I tried to work through it in my mind, I couldn't force myself to let it sink all the way in.
"Bannack is leaving?"
I repeated my question, hoping that somehow I had mistaken what they had said, but deep down knowing that I had heard them exactly right.
Leia came up beside me and rested a hand on my arm. So small and fragile looking, she had a presence that was strong because it had to be, like a delicate flower that had been forged out of pure steel. It was the fire and chisel that created her as she was.
I felt them guiding me towards the furniture in the middle of the main room of the house, and I allowed them to. I had no reason to distrust these women and in that moment they were my only source of information about Bannack and what was happening around me.
"The warriors have decided to leave the compound and explore the rest of Uoria," Leia explained.
"After the battle with the Klimnu down in the mirrored realm they all realized that none of them, not even the king, knows what the rest of the planet holds, or what types of threats there might be out there. They're unwilling to just sit around and wait to find out if there is another species out there like the Klimnu that might want to destroy the Denynso and take over the compound. It seems that discovering your existence made them even more insistent," Eden said softly.
"Why me?" I asked, looking into each of the women's faces in turn.
"You have lived under the ground that they walked on every single day and they had no idea," Zuri said, "It upsets them that they are known for being the best and most fearsome warriors in all the galaxy, yet they were unable to protect their compound from invasion, and didn't even realize that there was an entire other species living just beneath their feet for as long as they have been around."
"My mate, Pyra," Eden continued, "is especially worried about our child. He or she is the very first child born of this generation of the Denynso, and Pyra doesn't like that he doesn't know what could be out there that might pose a threat to his baby."
"He or she?" I asked.
I had never heard that particular phrase used before, and it struck me as strange that she would use it to refer to her unborn child.
"We don’t know what the baby is," Eden explained, "We have no way of knowing. If I were going through my pregnancy back on Earth there would have been ways for me to know long ago if I am having a son or a daughter. The Denynso don't have those ways, though."
There was only a hint of stress in her voice. With the words she had said I would have expected to feel bitterness, or even anger, coming off of her. Instead, I just felt nervousness and the sweeping love that came over her as she mentioned her mate, just like the love that Zuri had felt when she thought of Ero.
"Do you wish that you were back on Earth rather than here with the Denynso?" I asked.
Eden looked at me and shook her head emphatically.
"Absolutely not. Uoria, this compound, is my home, much more so than Earth ever was even though that's where I was born and raised. I didn't know it until I came to this planet as a scientist sent to do a project for work and met Pyra, but this is where I was always meant to be."
I envied the confidence and absolute security that radiated off of her. She had total conviction in what she said, and her heart fully believed every word of it. This really was where she belonged and she couldn't imagine leaving.
"There are other ways than the Earth ways to tell what child you are carrying, you know."
Eden tilted her head quizzically at me and rubbed her belly tenderly.
"The midwives told me that they don't have any kind of technology that can show the baby like they do on Earth, that they take care of it through their own forms of medicine. None of them have ever been able to tell what a woman was having until it was born."
"Ah, but that's the Denynso," I said, smiling for the first time since Bannack had left, "and I'm not a Denynso. My kind has always been able to tell. I could find out for you now if you'd like to know."
Eden nodded and I could feel the hesitance she had felt toward me disappearing. She was learning to trust me, and as she did, the other women did as well. It was a nice feeling, something soothing and comforting in a time when I needed those feelings more than I had in my entire life.
I gestured for Eden to lie down on the couch and I sat beside her, perching just on the edge so that I was close enough to rest my hands on the sides of her swollen belly. It took me a moment to orient myself to the positioning of the baby. Once I did, I reached up to my neck to take my compact, but realized that it wasn't there. I looked around frantically, terrified that I had lost it somewhere between climbing up from out of the ground and removing my dress for Bannack.
Leia dipped down and scooped something up off of the floor.
"Is this what you're looking for?" she asked.
Relief washed over me and I nodded. Before she handed it to me, she opened the sides of the silver compact, revealing the two mirrors within it.
"What is that?" Zuri asked, walking over to look at the compact more closely.
"Please don't touch it," I said sharply when Zuri lifted her fingers to touch the mirrors, "I was born with that compact and I will die with it. If it's broken, there is no way to replace it and I will no longer have the abilities that it gives me."
I hadn't meant to sound angry, but it terrified me to think of my compact getting broken. It was the one remaining link that I had to my family and to my kind. Without it, I would lose everything within me that made me me. I didn't know how to function without it.
"I'm sorry," Leia said, leaning forward to hand me the compact.
"It's alright," I replied, hoping to calm the fear that had started to build in her, "Do you remember when the other woman, Elianna, stepped out onto the floor and it turned back into the sky? I explained that it was a reflection and that she had to believe in what the reflection was showing her in order for it to be real?"
"Yes."
"This," I held up the compact so that she could see it clearly, "is how I made that reflection. This compact enables me to do many things, and one of them will be to tell Eden what type of little one she should be expecting very soon."
The mention of the baby broke the tension in the room and the women all smiled. I opened the compact and placed it with both mirrors flat against Eden's belly close to where I knew the baby's head was positioned. I flattened my palm against the mirror and concentrated on what the mirror was reflecting to me. It was far more difficult to reflect a baby, especially one that was unborn, because they don't know yet how to understand what they are feeling and associate it with concrete thoughts. Instead the compact reflected the essence of the child back to me. This was the inarguable elements of that baby that were stitched into him from the moment of his conception and that would stay with him throughout his entire life. These were the very core of a person, the basic foundation on which all of that person's thoughts, feelings, and perceptions would build.
Having gleaned all I needed to from the reflections of the compact, I closed it, and carefully looped the repaired chain back around my neck. I smiled at Eden.
"You will have a son," I told her, "A boy with the power and spirit of his father, and the strength and courage of his mother. He will have within him the capacity to do amazing things."
Eden had tears sparkling in her eyes and I knew that my description had surprised her. She didn't think of herself as nearly as strong and courageous as she truly was, but I knew that through this baby that she was carrying, one that would be entering the world very soon, that she would learn to see herself in the way that she was made and to see herself in him.