95 - Come Out, Little Larva

“Come out.  Come out, you little larva!”  Mariush’s voice was rasping as she pushed with the next contraction.  One hand slid up and back to grasp Diryish’s forearm.  “Come... it’s time it’s time it is more than time... I’m so ready for you to be born!”

“Breathe now,” Mother said, crouched in front of Mariush, whose eyes were locked upon the large mirror angled so she could see the birth of her child.

“RRRRRRRRR.” It wasn’t a scream, more a growl, a low sound, and then Mariush stopped, panting.

“Once more and then the hard part will be done.  Let us get this child to the air, child.”

“MooootherrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRR.... Ah Ah AH!”

Diryish flinched as the sudden pain in his ear sent a razor shard of glass through his head... and ignored it... he sent a thought to the hive world data, a tag so he could call back.  Then he went back to this moment, when his hands were being crushed by Mariush as the baby crowned.

“Once more.  Once more.  Push woman!” Thriti’s voice was very firm.  “Push now!”

Mother caught the babe as it emerged, deft fingers unwinding the cord that had been wrapped around the tiny body, cleaning the face, and laid the baby upon her mother’s suddenly emptied belly, soft where it had been distended hard, skin wrinkling and relaxing.

Mariush’s arms came down and gathered the baby close.  

“When did I take all my clothes off,” she said absently as she guided the baby up to a nipple.  “I don’t remember.”

Diryish shook out his hands and forearms, grinning from ear to ear, placed his aching old fingers on Mariush’s shoulders, kneeding.

The afterbirth was almost unnoticed, a minor aftershock, after a ground quake that was enough to destroy buildings.  Mother caught that as well and inspected it to make sure it was all there.  “Good.  Very good.  You have a small tear, daughter, but nothing to truly worry about.”

I see this every time, the baby... she latched onto her mother with an urgency that showed her commitment to life, to living.  She’s strong.  She did not cry.  She coughed, spit out the fluids of birth and breathed and then seized onto her mother with mouth and both hands.  I suppose the larva does not fall far from the hive, hmmm?  As all babies, she is ugly.  As all babies, she is the most beautiful thing on the planet, my daughter, my girl.  I hope I live long enough to see you safe, being raised as an Emir-al’s daughter, in a Emir-al’s house, far away from this toxic royal hive.

Mother cut the cord and wrapped up the package of afterbirth to be dried and kept, and Shashi pushed herself to sitting again and began singing another encouragement to a woman birthing.  People all over the upper Loggias would be listening. The bees came down in a ringing drone and crowned Mariush and the faint fuzz on the baby’s head, tasting the skin of the newborn girl.

Mariush flinched as the bees stung her, and then relaxed as the modified venom coursed in, giving her new energy, beginning to replace lost enzymes.  The baby didn’t flinch and even broke her suction to coo at the bees.  Diryish nodded thoughtfully.

He rose, slowly.  “Women.  I have something to attend to immediately.”  Mother nodded at him as he left and she rose to join Shashi.  The two of them sat and sang together, as if the baby were not yet born.  The two of them lied to the city, listening for the birth of the baby. If the Hive Lords did not know the baby was born yet, it would give them all a little more time before the plotting started, before the possible attacks started.

Mariush, sore, tired and worn out, looked into her newborn daughter’s eyes as she suckled and smiling, burst into tears.