Notes:
--Whee…finally, a new fanfiction. ^^;; The story of a character that I made for a roleplay board that, sadly, later died. ;-; But despite that, I still felt somewhat inspired to go on with her…so there. :P
--The main character is a witch in the terms of His Dark Materials…but the land is different from Phillip Pullman's Oxford. Hopefully that didn't just turn off half the people who came here looking for a Lyra/Will. ^^;;
--This is something of a prelude…I know that's not allowed, but…neh.
A desert of ice lay outside, as vast and wide as the ocean, trimmed with lacy coniferous forests looming like arrows with their dark-fletched ends facing skyward, points embedded in the ground. Infinitely smooth, the tundra lay touched by only by the sparse towns inhabited by humans, and imprints were never left for long. It was a place of solitude, and, to Chiroru Weirun, a place of mystery and tranquillity.
But not at the moment.
Breathing heavily and nearly limp with exhaustion, the femme's head lolled off the back of the bead, her arms angled weakly on both sides; it was a small bed, the only one vacant late at night, and for such a serious matter. Her throat was raw with screaming, and she noted only vaguely from her peripheral vision that lights were flicking on in the other cottages. The sheets, once an immaculate and fragrant with the scents of meadow flowers, were now dark with blood.
But despite all this, all of her pain, she could hear the fevered crying of some distant babe, and her mouth stretched in a smile so broad that her cheeks began to pain. Finally, nine month's of quiet stewing, of despairing…finally, she would receive something from it, retain some fragment of her mate's memory through the last remaining of his blood on this world.
Her awareness wavering haphazardly on the brink of the tundra's darkness and the even more final darkness of unconsciousness, Chiroru raised her head from the end of the bed and watched with half-lidded eyes as the midwife, her eyes still narrowed in the residual effects of sleep, nonetheless smiled in elation as she passed the newborn into the mother's view. Chiroru grinned and her arms rose from the bed, ready to embrace the now-awakened life wailing hysterically. But as the babe's form fell into a shaft of moonlight, illumining his moist, towel-laden frame, her arms fell limp and she keened with the abrupt life and loss, though the child had not been a stillborn. Her head fell back in a dead faint, the dullness of the world around a last imprint on her failing perception and her voice failing even as her mind continued the mourning howl.
A boy, a boy…the child was male.
And so came to be the youth's life, who was conceived by love but born into life even as his mother lamented loss. The next morning after his birth, the still-weak femme's eyelids rose to the beckoning of sunlight filtering through the musty windows. That, of course, and the febrile tapping of some creature's beak frantically demanding entrance into the midwife's cabin. Shedding all pretenses of some lingering weakness from the night before, Chiroru arose from the bed in the same frenzied manner as the bird pecking outside, her nimble digits quickly making sense of the lock on the window and throwing it open. Immediately, the Laughing Falcon that had been wild with worry outside exploded into the cabin, his little frame making a large impact on her chest as he dived into her embrace. Squawking madly, these hoarse sounds accompanied by shrieks, the bird and the woman collapsed onto the bed in relief.
{"Malarowa!"} Chiroru cried, deploying private speech to her dæmon, nearly sobbing into the falcon's plumage, which was mainly composed of muted honey hues pleasing to see. The pinions of his wings, his tail, and a mask over his sepia occuls was a deep black, giving the bird a handsome appearance. {"Malarowa, I'm so pleased to see you…"}
{Well?} the bird demanded in reply, seeming not to be listening to her at all. But Chiroru knew Malarowa well; he was only hasty to skip the introductions, to figure out what had happened the night before. {I could not make it the night before; I be sorry, 'Roru! At Belhourne I was, waiting for you to come home, but you did not, and then I knew truth! What has happened, then?}
At this, Chiroru's happy airs abruptly fell, and then the falcon emitted a keen of loss as well – he knew. But still, the woman felt inclined to continue, and did so. {"It was last night, of course, and then I began to feel that it was the time…so I landed, and I caused distress among many of the townsfolk here, and…and the child came, of course."}
{Alive?} Malarowa prompted, his small talons navigating the callused regions of her hand and perching upon her knuckles. He was a very small falcon, a bird whose true species originated from the neo-tropical areas of the south. Why he had settled that way so long ago, Chiroru had never known, and would probably never discover. She knew nothing of the southern world, preferring to stay north with her own kin and the place which had, of yet, been left un-tainted by the human's natural destruction as they went about carrying out their ideals of "colonization."
{"Yes, of course."}
Both paused, and their eyes met in a silent sadness met by they two. Malarowa was the first to speak, his voice a funeral bell that struck hearts dumb and lame. {Ah, then…it is good…that he is alive.}
The gender was enunciated like something mildly disgusting, or at least something to be a bit sad about, though it was clear that Malarowa was still very happy. The same reply would have been given had Chiroru explained that the babe was mentally deficient in some thing or another, though perhaps with more elation if the child had been female. And, really, it was a sort of deficiency.
{"Yes. Very good,"} Chiroru agreed, only having time for that small phrase when the midwife came in, carrying a bundle of obvious contents in her arms and looking very pleased too see the new mother. Her hair, a few strands loose of their bun, signaled her flustered feelings, but she carried the babe nonetheless and held it, very reverently, out to Chiroru. A smile again exploded onto the femme's face as she took the child, but her eyes seemed still deep with sadness. He was wrapped in a towel, evidentially the only cloth available at the time, and was sleeping. Malarowa issued a trademark burble akin to a soft giggle, and strutted awkwardly to the side of the bed to overlook the child, his dark beak carefully leaning over and nudging the newborn's little dæmon – at the moment, a minuscule baby bird, bare and a vivid pink. Its eyes were like two bulbous sores on its head, dark and bruised and closed.
Satisfied, Malarowa pulled away and nodded, once, to his human. {She shall settle as a bird, someday. This be truth.}
{"And how do you know, exactly?"} Chiroru asked, with a small smile as she rocked him back and forth. In her chest, new feelings stirred; anything, anything she would do for this child, if only he would remain happy, his entire life. She would oversee it, and make it possible. But even as she thought this, her heart fell in a downward spiral. His entire life. She would watch his entire life, and be unable to stave away the inevitable death that came from being human, and mortal. It was the way.
{Look! Look! You see?} the Laughing Falcon said, his wings unfolding slightly. {Even now, when she be not truly conscious, she chooses the body of a bird! It be the blood, the blood that run in them.} Witch blood, they thought together, but neither said the word out loud.
"Excuse me, my lady," interrupted the midwife suddenly. Her dæmon was a slender, elegant swan that outshone everything in the room with its immaculate plumage. He and Malarowa's eyes met, and they nodded to each other, as if to exchange the most pleasant of private conversations. But Chiroru could sense the unease in both human and dæmon…which was really only natural, she realized; she had appeared the night before without a dæmon, so really it was very lucky she had been able to find anyone at all that had accommodated her, on such short notice and on such awkward pretenses.
"Oh, yes," Chiroru said, suddenly very embarrassed. What had she been thinking, exchanging no words with the kind old woman? "I am Chiroru Weirun…and I'm sorry for any inconveniences I have caused you." It was a flat greeting that only an idiot would have used, but no other intelligent answer manifested in Chiroru's mind. "And this is Malarowa."
But the midwife understood, and only nodded with a grin. "And I am Ousha, and he is Gyelan." Then she, like a small child, crawled up onto the bed and sat next to Chiroru, surveying the young one steadily. No arm was reached out to touch him; the only contact made was with her eyes. It was really quite symbolic, and the lack of praising, of cooing eased Chiroru somewhat – as if to affirm that it was her baby, her child, her little one…hers, and only hers. Approbation would have only annoyed her, really.
But Ousha did have something to say.
"I understand that it is none of my concern, my lady," the midwife said, "but I do have but a single question."
"Ask it. I will answer, and it will be truth," Chiroru said, even to herself sounding now far too formal for the situation.
"Where is the father of the boy?"
For a moment, Chiroru felt something cold grip her heart, like a claw of ice; but then it retreated, and left her clear to reply. It still hurt so. But her word was strong, and was not broken.
"He is dead," the femme said quietly, stroking the forehead of her child – her boy, her son. "He had died a long time ago, taken with sickness in the cold." It was a lie, but close enough to the truth that Chiroru felt no wrong saying it, though she had promised. Malarowa shifted uneasily, not one to break a vow with seamless composure.
The woman licked her lips contemplatively, and the swan tilted his head at Malarowa, feathers ruffling sympathetically, unaware of his unease.
"Ah, well…" Ousha said, "I'm sorry. But that's the way of life, I suppose."
"Yes. Yes, it is." Chiroru continued to watch the baby, completely lost in his young beauty, his perfection…and yet, the single most fatal flaw any young one would have. Even now, thinking about it made her eyes water, made her heart bleed. He would die, someday…die, of old age, while she lived on. He would die after a life of hardship, of a confused and mixed heritage that would bring nothing but prejudice against him. And then she would be all alone, again. But this time in misery for what she had wrought…him.
{But that shall come later,} Malarowa whispered, in a voice meant only for her. {Worry not about it now. Truth: life be good, and he be life.}
Chiroru shook her head, unwilling. {"But it will come, and that is what matters."}
"K'dros," the witch whispered, her eyes closing to hold back tears.
"Hm?" asked the midwife. "What was that you've said? Cadros?"
"K'dros," Chiroru repeated, pronouncing it correctly. The word's emphasis was on its second half rather than the first, with the "k." Then, copying the tongue of her dæmon, which was void of contractions and wholly simplistic: "It be his name, and when people call him, he will know to reply."
Ousha smiled. "A lovely name. From where does it come?"
"His father."
"Ah, his father's name?"
Chiroru was suddenly overcome with a desire to spill all of her secrets – her secret lover, his origins, their happy times. Her deception. But it was not for the midwife to know. She was only human; she would not understand.
"Far from it," the femme only replied. "Though I suppose it did come from him."