Ayn's Healing

Chapter 31 - Ayn

Kari stepped into his role decisively, with the confident humility he did everything else. He worked on raising two Gammas, Liam and Yann, a pair of twins who had just gotten their wolves. With his team in place, he would have enough headspace to work on the things that interested him, like the reorganization of the border patrol. His aim was to reduce the number of rogue breaches that had increased in the last years.

He also had to join a bunch of raids, to support his alliances and make new ones. I don't know how many of those involved house cleaning, but in general I didn't like when he went and I didn't like seeing new rings in his hair.

I however, had a harder time splitting my energy and my brain between the pack-witch work and the Luna duties.

As opposed to shifters, I could not function with four hours of sleep per night. My days were an exercise in prioritizing and delegating, and the Alpha was impressed by what he thought were the fruits of my Teaching Clan education. I thought most of my skills were actually the fruit of my lazy and pleasure-seeking personality, always looking to maximize the time spent on the fun stuff.

Growing my core by offering the touch to Kari's and Timo's warriors was fun. The Alpha was not pleased when I invented the term "lambda recycling", but this was exactly what I was doing - healing the lambdas many times faster than their wolves could, so that once they finished the session, they could be used for border patrol afterwards.

A more exotic entertainment was studying the Wolves' Way,which I did because I wanted to avoid any surprises like the one on the day of our ceremony. I secretly thought that, maybe, this would also be the knowledge my tree required, thus enabling me to hit the proverbial two birds with one stone. But, after I went through the laws and their interpretative guidance - going as far as to consult on their subtleties with Xander and other pack elders - my tree didn't show any signs of satisfaction. If anything, it wrapped its branches even tighter around my core.

House work was definitely not fun, and I shamelessly delegated it to Teresa and Mia. One of the few times I went into the kitchen was on the morning of the Winter Solstice. I baked a decadently chocolatey cake, following a recipe I had asked from Ina's father, and which I had received from his daughter, accompanied by an ironic commentary on my drive to become a domestic Goddess. 

***

We share the Solstice dinner with our family and the freshly raised Gammas. There is laughter all around the table. We bet on Mia's actual due date, since she is so round and so big that Timo is convinced the baby would come before January. We play board games where Teresa kicks our collective ass, per the usual procedure. We stuff our faces with delicious chocolate cake. But when Kari touches his sister's swollen belly, wishing his unborn niece goodnight, my core cracks under his sadness.

Not long after we got to our room and started undressing in silence, Timo knocks on our door.

"Alpha, sorry to bother. Mia's water broke and she asked for the Luna."

I have never seen this strange expression on Kari's face - the slightly dilated pupils, combined with the tensed lower lip. I need a moment to realize this is his fear.

"Don't worry, I will take care of her." I say to him, slipping back in the dress I just took off. On my way out, I see through our window that it has started to snow. It's a good night for a wolf pup to be born.

"Oh hi, A" Mia greets me from the top of her bed. " Good you are here. Do the magic and get this baby out of me. I had two contractions and I will for sure not have a third one".

I start laughing wholeheartedly but stop when I realize that she is not joking.

"M, magic doesn't work like this. You have to do this with your own powers."

I see she is disappointed and I am wondering what exactly are they taught in school about witches' abilities. I hug her and tell her that I can stay there with her if she needs me. That, even if I cannot magically extract the baby from her, I can help her with herbs, oils and my exquisite sense of humour, to make the whole experience more comfortable.

It's warm and cosy in the room and the new snow is covering the old with a fresh layer. If Mia wouldn't scream from time to time in the throws of a contraction, one could think we are having a regular women slumber party. Hours pass by, and I make her iced raspberry leaf tea, and feed her dates to help her bring the pup into our world. As she drifts out of the conversation more and more often, Teresa sends for Timo.

Mia doesn't turn to her mate, instead she speaks to her mother, telling her to take her away, she's tired and cannot do it anymore, she will have the baby another time or somebody else should have it for her, but now she has to go to sleep. I know that, when women say that they are done with it, they are actually close to the pushing stage of birth, the one where the uterus starts to contract from the top, more efficiently but also more painfully.

I promised Kari I will stay but I am really not needed. Under the gentle directions of Teresa, Mia is letting her wolf take control and bends over the side of the bed. Her muscular legs are planted into the floor and she gently sways her naked hips between contractions to help the baby descend. I marvel at her goddess-like beauty, creating life. It feels like I am intruding in the sacred moment that it's the arrival of their first born. I crawl in a corner and watch the snowflakes that dance down towards us from a purple low sky, until I hear the glorious scream of a pup fill the room.

I cry, because this is what I do when my soul is full, and because nobody is paying attention to me, to tell me how undignified this behavior is.

I also cry because, when Teresa cradled Mia so lovingly in her arms, supporting her through the birth of her female, I realized that this will be forever denied to me.

Morgane won't be there to hold me, to feed me dates and herb-flavoured ice cubes, to remind me that my core is strong. She won't be there to heal my birth injuries while cooing over my baby, no female will watch me placing the sacred mark on my child's wrist.

Morgane, mother of Ayn, is dead and I don't even know why.