III
By mid-winter, her stomach began to distend.
When Rinkah went to go see her, the village doctor was busy rifling through half-empty herb jars. "Hey, it's what happens," she told her, not looking up from her work. "Starvation hits, but the stomach grows! It's been happening to some of the kids. Aren't bodies the weirdest thing?"
By then they were down to one meal on most days (two if the fish were feeling particularly stupid). Rinkah knew people were starting to get creative about where they got their food, but there were only so many crickets and grasshoppers to go around. She decided to leave those to everyone else, both for her people and for the small spark of pride she had left.
Besides, she had her own work-arounds. When she wasn't out in the fields or by the river or in her father's quarters, she'd be out in the forest collecting slabs of tree bark. She showed Kaze how to whittle off the bark and rough bits to get to the cambium beneath; they would then portion some off for themselves and ration out the rest to as many people as they could.
"How'd you learn this was edible? I never would have guessed," he asked her one bright-night over rice and fried bark.
"Mother was big on this sort of thing."
"Really? My mother knew quite a bit about the outdoors, too."
His smile was tight, and Rinkah couldn't tell if he swallowed some bark wrong or if it was the mention of that woman. Kaze rarely talked about her. The most Rinkah knew actually came from Saizo the Third, who dissolved into a fractured spiel about her during his sole visit to the Flame Tribe before his death.
She was a thief, but we broke her of that. Still, she wasn't a house girl... my son allowed it since it was better than having her prancing around the house, breaking all our things. She even gave birth to the boys outside, though she tried to throw Kaze away 'cause her people thought twins were a curse.
(She remembered how he laughed then, as if infanticide were just another quirk of hers.)
That stupid bitch could barely read, but she sure could live outside. Could do just about anything out there, except swim apparently. Guess that's why she drowned in that damn cow pond. The boys were so upset when they found her.
Rinkah's mind still recoiled at the last bit, said just before her husband re-entered the room. She'd lost most of her family, but was at least allowed the grace of not having stumbled upon the scene. And of course, there was the disturbing detail that cow ponds were only ever a foot or so deep—
"So, what did the doctor say today?" he asked.
Rinkah dismissed the feral woman from her thoughts. "About?"
He gestured wordlessly at her midsection.
"That it's normal," she said through her full mouth. She swallowed roughly; the stiff pieces of fried bark grated down her throat.
"Of course it's normal, but was she at least able to tell how far along you are?"
He sounded just like her father with his incessant badgering. "I'm not pregnant. She said this sometimes happens to people… who are living the way we are."
He smiled wryly. "So you mean to tell me you're the only adult suffering from what's typically a child's ailment? That's quite the miracle."
She tossed her bowl on the table. "Isn't it?"
Early one morning, she asked Kaze to come with her into the forest under the guise of teaching him how to harvest bark—but once under the thick cover of the forest, she let her true intentions be known. "My father is thinking about requesting council with King Ryoma concerning the policy. He wants to know if you have any advice on how he should do it."
She knew the Chief of the Flame Tribe wouldn't appreciate his daughter phrasing his request so bluntly, because why would he need an Outsider's help? Still, her heart swelled when she saw Kaze's face light up. "Of course, I would be happy to assist the chief. When does he want to see me?"
She hated having to break his lofty dreams. "He doesn't. You know how it goes: you tell me, then I tell him."
He wilted a bit, but continued anyway. "Our tribe sits on the edges of Hoshidan society. The truth is, King Ryoma isn't likely to respond to your father's request for anything, let alone a meeting."
She imagined the lofty king, sitting atop his light-infused throne in the world-apart that was Shirasagi Palace. He was the Dawn Dragon's favorite child, and Rinkah understood, accepted, went along—but the mere thought of that smug bastard denying her father made her blood pulse hot with rage. "What, does he think he's too good for us?"
"He knows he is."
Rinkah dragged her hands down over her face. "Okay… okay. He's listened to you before, hasn't he? Maybe you can speak on our behalf."
"No, I've been here too long. Last time I went to Shirasagi, he talked to me like I was a rock on the ground."
Rinkah scooped out dirt from the edges of her nails. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I'm used to not being liked."
She turned back to her husband, studied him: the hollow of his cheek, the way his sallow skin wrapped tightly around his thin bones, how his once-fitting clothes now danced on him. The dark circles beneath his eyes made him seem almost skeletal, but even in all his dreadful wanting she still thought he was the most beautiful thing she'd ever laid eyes on. But there was another version of him, the stockier one with red hair and angry eyes. The one who never would've been thrown away. "What about Saizo?"
Kaze nodded slowly. "He could. But if I bring him here, will your father be open to speaking with him?"
"If he can get the king to ease up on us, I'm sure he'd let Saizo sit on the chief's chair for at least ten seconds."
"Wow, ten whole seconds? Outstanding." He smiled like the sun. "I'll send word for him to come as soon as he can."
Five months into the famine, and she finally gave out.
One moment, she was plowing the fields; the next, she was looking up at the sky and her husband's face. He was gripping her shoulders, repeating her name again and again. She couldn't keep her eyes open for more than a few seconds without the world tilting on it's axis; so she clenched them shut, silencing the sun's infuriated orange glare.
Rinkah felt herself being lifted off the ground, and the world went away again. When she resurfaced they were back home, and Kaze was shoving a bowl into her hands.
"Eat it," he begged. "Just eat it."
They had already eaten their singular meal for the day, and the bowl wasn't filled with fish or even insects. What is this? She dipped her hand into the white fluff and it sank inside, the thick, gummy substance melding around her fingers. The sound it made was unbearable; her empty stomach folded in on itself shyly.
"It's okay, I promise. I'm eating it too, see?"
Rinkah trusted Kaze. She took some of the mystery food in her mouth. She could hardly register the taste, but whatever it was had a rounded, dense consistency. In the midst of the gelatinous mush there were crescent shaped ovals, and when she bit down on them they burst wetly in her mouth.
"Please just finish it."
Normally she would've teased him for his insistence, but she was still dizzy and he sounded desperate. So Rinkah shoveled the food into her mouth just like she would any meal, pushing down her stale nausea.
Once she was done he guided her to bed, tucking her in like a child. She kept her eyes closed as he stroked her cheek, lightly tracing her tattoos. Kaze eventually buried his face in her hair. "Do you feel better?" he asked, voice pinched.
Barely—but still, a technical yes. She nodded and turned towards him.
Kaze nearly had to drag her to the doctor the next day. He even entered the small office with her, which was expressly forbidden for Outsiders.
The doctor narrowed her eyes when she saw him. "I thought I told you you aren't—"
"We don't have time for this today!" he snapped. "She passed out in the fields last night. Do something."
She glared at him one final time before turning her attention to Rinkah. "This is a waste of time," she sneered under her breath. In all frankness, Rinkah agreed. There was hardly any rice to go around; the winter harvest wouldn't be for another month; with each day, there seemed to be less fish and insects to catch; there were only so many trees with edible cambium. The cause of her blackout was obvious, and the solution was still a ways off.
The doctor ran through her standard litany of questions, eyes half-lidded as she nodded mechanically with each response. But she immediately perked up when she noticed the size of Rinkah's midsection, camouflaged by her winter gear. "Woah, you're so much bigger than you were two months ago! That's nuts."
She poked Rinkah's midsection, eyes shining with fascination. And then, to Rinkah's numb dread, she felt something inside poke back.
The girl in front of her froze. She felt around her midsection with a more purposeful touch. "Well, it's all there. Head, arms, legs. Looks like you're pregnant after all."
There was no joy in her tone. Rinkah hardly felt any herself.
"How far along is she?" she heard Kaze ask from behind her.
The doctor pulled a book from her shelf and leafed through the pages. "She's pretty big." She looked up and Rinkah, then back down again, comparing her size to whatever was written down. "I'd say about six months?"
She phrased it as a question, but a six-month timeline fit—it had been about that long since her ritual with Orochi. Still, she had a hard time digesting the number. Six months meant she was more than halfway through. If she hadn't blacked out and been forced to see the doctor, she likely would've been in denial up until the moment of delivery.
"It's weird that you didn't feel anything," the young doctor went on. "Not even a kick? A little flutter? Hiccups?"
"I… felt things," she admitted. "I just wrote it off as being a symptom of the hunger. Besides, we haven't been able to conceive for five years. I was starting to think it might never happen."
But now, it was. She thought back on the sort of soul she had summoned: the green, watery artisan who would surely be out of step with ways of the Flame Tribe. To be an outcast was fine for an ordinary citizen, but a future chief? Unacceptable.
"What are the chances of her carrying to term?" Rinkah turned to look at Kaze. His fingers pressed to his lips, he stared at her midsection pensively.
The girl rubbed her collarbone. "Chances of carrying to term are… less than they would be normally. Still, you carried this long, and that's a good sign. I would say the biggest threat right now is stillbirth."
"And how do we minimize that?" Rinkah asked.
"You're gonna need all the nutrients you can get." Her eyes flickered over to Kaze. "You're her husband. Make it happen."
His features—normally so placid—hardened with understanding. "Yes, of course."
Even with how stupid she felt for not accepting her condition sooner, Rinkah still caught what the doctor was telling Kaze to do. "He's not giving his food to me."
"Rinkah—"
Rinkah stood up. She paced towards the doctor and before the girl could react, she had grabbed her by the collar and slammed her against the wall. Several books toppled onto the ground. "You may not care what happens to this Outsider, but I do. I'll be damned if I watch him starve!"
"I'm already starving!" he said, prying her fingers from the girl's shirt. "We all are, including the baby. It depends on you for food. It makes sense that you should receive double the amount."
"I've done just fine for six months. What's another three?"
"It's a lifetime." the doctor said, slightly out of breath and a touch taunting. "You might carry to term. You might even give birth to a living thing! But, hey, let's tell a joke: it survives infancy. What about childhood? Adulthood? You not getting enough food now is setting it on a collision course of failure. Any mother worth her salt would choose her child over her husband. You fucked up the first six months, the most you can do is get your shit together for the last three. Now," she pointed to the door, "get out, and take your leg-humping Outsider with you!"
"You know she's never going to treat you again, right?"
She swore Kaze was still blushing. Rinkah rolled her eyes. "It doesn't matter what she wants, she's duty-bound to treat us all."
They pushed the door open into their home. "She didn't even prescribe you anything…"
"She did, but it wasn't for me. Though if you try to follow through with what she said, I'll just throw your food to the dogs."
"Why must you be so difficult?"
"Because her 'prescription' wasn't about the baby at all. There are plenty of people in this tribe who would love to see you starve to death."
Rinkah didn't know what she hated more—the truth in her words or Kaze's lack of outrage. "Doesn't make it any less true. If you won't accept my rations, then I'll find more for you some other way. I promise."
As if to illustrate his point, he walked out the back door in the direction of the forest. She knew he wouldn't want her out in the fields so soon after her blackout, and Rinkah didn't quite feel like it besides. Flames could quiet down; even the God of Flame was at rest in Nohr.
Still, the kitchen needed cleaning. Kaze had left out the bowls from the previous night still out, unwashed; curious, she took one and held it up to the natural light. And there she saw it, those yellowish creatures crusted over at the bottom of the bowl.
Maggots. He fed her maggots.
The winter harvest was always the least fruitful, and by most measures their harvest that year was a disaster. But the root vegetables held, which was more than any of them expected. There could be no celebratory feast because of the demands of the policy, but the tribe still gathered around the Great Fire Pit to give thanks.
But unlike most celebrations, the chief was nowhere to be seen. It seemed that between his duties to his king, his village, and his family, Saizo had finally found peace long enough to come to the Flame Tribe. Normally, Rinkah and Kaze would have greeted Saizo at the mouth of the valley, taken him to their home, fed him something (as laughable as that was), and then escort him to the chief's quarters; but given the circumstances, Rinkah could only send a pair of escorts to take Saizo to her father.
This was because, as heir to the chief's chair, she was expected fill her father's role in his absence. She strode over to the Great Fire Pit with her belly pointed towards the sun, her husband trailing her dutifully. For once Rinkah was glad to be the subject of everyone's stares.
Past that, she did what her father did: presided. She could only sneak a few lines with Kaze every so often, because she knew that just as everyone's eyes were on the pit and each other, they were also on her: the rebellious chief-in-training, the one their tribe's savior would have hated. I can sit here and do nothing along with the best of them she mused, holding back a bubble of laughter.
"That Outsider's brother is an arrogant, pigheaded dastard! He should consider himself banned from Flame Tribe grounds!"
Rinkah was taken aback. Their tribe didn't appreciate Outsiders, but he had never taken to outright banning any from their territory. "What happened?" she asked, voice small even to her own ears.
Her father huffed, running his thick fingers through his thinning hair. "It doesn't matter. He refuses to help us. Probably halfway back to his decrepit Outsider village by now."
Eight months in, and she still couldn't believe it.
So one bright-night, Rinkah decided to drill it into her own head. She sat down before their hearth cauldron, which she knew in some Outsider circles symbolized the womb. Staring into it's dark, empty depths, she repeated to herself: I'm pregnant I'm pregnant I'm pregnant I'm pregnant I'm pregnant. She didn't dare think I'm going to have a child, because she followed a god of truth and refused to dishonor him any further by ignoring reality. There was no promise she'd give birth to a living thing. Even after swearing to never feed her larvae again, Kaze still made good on his vow to keep her fed by through frying bark, boiling insects, making one week's worth of root vegetable rations stretch out to cover two, counting out rice grains to do the same; but despite his efforts, she knew it probably wasn't enough. Perhaps whatever damage her denial had done was irreversible.
But even if she did have a child—then what? Few as they were, children of mixed marriages were accepted as full members of the tribe, but a future chief was another matter entirely.
The words echoed in her mind, as though she could actually hear her great-great-great-great grandmother's booming voice. No Outsiders!
She imagined those words going up in flames and smoke, just as she had the night she and Kaze decided they would marry. If her child lived, would they be accepted as heir? Perhaps not—but surely, they could be.
You're dead, she taunted the old crone. Who cares how you feel?
She gave birth in late spring.
Labor was the most painful thing she ever experienced, but while she knew some women who had theirs last several days, hers took no more than an hour. Three midwives gathered around her, and Kaze held her hand while she pushed, pushed, pushed. And just as she'd always been told: first came the head, then the rest slipped out like a serpent.
After that, Rinkah clenched her eyes shut. It was one thing to acknowledge the possibility of stillbirth, and another to face it in the moment. She strained hard to hear an infant's cry and when she didn't immediately hear one, she assumed the worst. She couldn't bear to open her eyes and see the devastation on Kaze's face; she blocked out the voices of the midwives, refusing to hear their nervous whispers. ("What a shame. What a waste. How should we tell her?")
She did not want to know the sex. She did not want to see it's face. She didn't want to know if it's looks favored her or Kaze, if it was born with hair or not, how big it was, if it had the face of a future chief. What was the point? She had given birth to a dead thing.
And then: a thin, strangled cry.
It wasn't as robust she'd hoped it would be, but it was something. She opened her eyes and saw that Kaze was smiling; he bent down and kissed her forehead. The midwives were handling the baby—wiping it down, checking its vitals. The most senior among them then placed the squirming infant on Rinkah's chest.
A girl. She was lovely. She had her father's gentle eyes, and a mix of both their complexions. Her hair—no more than a wispy tuft—was bone white like hers. Was this a future chief? She certainly had the spirit of a fighter. To defy the odds like she did was the strength of their tribe, embodied.
At this point, she hadn't yet noticed that the girl was light as a feather, or how positively tiny she was. She also didn't notice how her every intake of breath was long and labored. What she saw was an infant, growing into a girl, growing into a woman, and all the things she had the potential to become. She was the legacy of their lineage, stripped of its flaws and concentrated to perfection.
During the last month, she and Kaze decide that she would choose the name for a son, while he would choose the name for a daughter. After the midwives had left the room to give the new parents their privacy, Rinkah looked to Kaze. "So, what'll she go by?"
He stroked the girl's white hair. He could fit her entire head in the palm of his hand, and still have room left over. "Midori."
The Green Heir to the Flame Tribe. She could live with that.