Written by: SirenoftheStorm
Beta: FreedomOftheSeas
Without Fear
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"The child is a girl."
Yu let her eyes fall closed. 'I will not apologize. I will not.'
"I am sorry, Nai Nai.*" Her mother in law made a derisive sound in her throat.
"Of course you are sorry. We are all sorry. She is another mouth to feed when we have little enough already." Yu nodded. It was true. She held out her arms nevertheless, and her youngest daughter was put into them. She touched the little cheek, watched the baby kick one foot, then the other, eyes barely open, still adjusting to the newness, the harshness of this world she had only just been brought into.
"Nian-Zu must be told," Yu said, carefully sitting up despite the pain that shot through her lower back when she moved.
"I will tell him. Stay resting. When your strength has come back to you, you can rise and eat something." The older woman gave the baby a sharp look, then nodded almost grudgingly. "Well, she's quiet, I'll give her that. And she can wear her older sister's clothes, so that's an expense saved. Rest now. I will bring my son."
"Yes, Nai Nai," Yu agreed, her eyes not leaving the small, wrinkled face of her daughter.
The infant clenched her hands into little fists, opening her mouth—not crying, just tasting the air. Yu hugged her youngest child close to her as if the small body were a talisman that would shield her from the exhaustion, the crushing burden of duty and need.
'You must be lucky, little one,' she told her daughter inside her mind. 'You must be luckyand subtle and strong, because this is no world for the weak. I know that all too well. I have little strength to give you—I never learned how to be strong myself.'
Yu pushed aside the faded fabric of her robe and let the baby nurse, stroking the soft, fine, downy hair that was still scarcely more than a shadow against her little head.
"I have little strength to give you" she repeated in the softest ghost of a whisper, "but I can give you this one gift. I will not teach you fear. I will not be the one to put fear in your eyes."
"Mama?" Yu looked up to see six-year-old Mei-Fen peeking around the edge of the door.
"Come welcome your new sister," she said, beckoning the child closer.
"Was I that small?" Mei-Fen asked, coming to the side of the bed and reaching up to put a small finger on the baby's even smaller fist. She was a shy child, gentle and obedient. Like her mother. Yu nodded.
"Smaller. You came earlier than she did."
The infant let out a small cry of protest as her mother took her from the breast and turned her around so her older sister could see.
"Is she unhappy because she is not a boy?" Mei-Fen asked Yu.
"No, because even though she is a girl, she is lucky," Yu said, and willed it to be so.
"I'm not unhappy either. A sister is even better than a doll," Mei-Fen decided, making her mother laugh—they hadn't been able to afford a doll for Mei-Fen, but they'd given her something even more expensive, a sister. How ironic it was!
"Would you like to hold her?" Yu asked. Mei-Fen nodded and Yu showed her how to make a cradle of her arms and laid the infant in them before slowly, painfully beginning to strip the small mattress of the sheets soiled by the birthing.
"She's got my bracelet," the little girl said a moment later. Yu looked over to see one little fist clenched tightly on the little bracelet she had made for Mei-Fen for her last birthday. It was a simple thing, made of wooden beads strung on thread.
"It's all right. She can have it," Mei-Fen added as the little fist tugged, trying to pull the captured bracelet off Mei-Fen's wrist. "I think she likes it."
'It's all right. She can have it.' Yu thought, staring down at the fabric in her hands. 'How many of us have said such things, believing it to be our duty, our purpose? It is all right. You may take from me what you need. I will bear it. And where has it gotten us? Here, in a hovel, with dirt on our feet and hunger in our stomachs. Do not be like us, daughter. Find a better life for yourself. Learn to take.'
"I will tell you a secret, Mei-Fen," she said aloud, lowering herself to kneel on the ground, level with her daughters' faces, one red and wrinkled, one suntanned and dark-eyed. "Your sister is lucky because she has a little dragon inside her."
"A dragon?" Her eyes widened. Yu smiled, placing two fingers over the baby's breast.
"Yes, right here. A fierce little dragon to bring her luck, to wrap around the pearl of her heart and make her strong," Yu told her daughter, the words a prayer, a call. Would even the littlest of dragons hear her?
"A dragon-sister." Mei-Fen smiled at the idea, her eyes sparkling.
"Yes, you have not a brother but a dragon-sister. And we are the only ones who know."
The three of them shared a moment of silence, a woman's conspiracy, fragile as a butterfly's wing.
The door from outside opened, and Nian-Zu came in, placing a hand on Yu's shoulder.
"Mother told me," he said, his eyes lingering on Yu first as if reassuring himself that she was all right. "She is healthy?"
"Yes," Yu said, smiling a tired smile up at her husband, who stood there ripe with sweat from plowing the fields, the lines of care etched into his face aging him beyond his years. "She will live. I am sure of it."
"We must choose an auspicious name," he said, taking the baby from Mei-Fen's arms to look at her. "A son would have been the greatest blessing, but she will be a good daughter to us, clever and dutiful."
Yu met Mei-Fen's eyes, a silent secret passing between them, and then she looked up at her husband cradling his newest daughter in his calloused peasant hands.
"Yes," she agreed, and within her heart she repeated her silent promise.
'You will be different, my dragon-daughter. Ruthless. I will not teach you fear.'
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*Nai Nai: mother-in-law, specifically "husband's mother" (Chinese)
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