Threes

Why do they measure pregnancies in thirds? Some archaic custom, I guess, but why?

Tomorrow marks the end of the first third. I'm hoping my second third will be what Auntie Mara calls the contented cow phase: getting over the dragging tiredness and the worst of the ups and downs, and into a time of productive energy and serenity. I'd like it if dancing didn't make me ill, even if it's just for a while until my balance goes and my joints loosen.

During the week Ulf asked why I wasn't getting hassled by the clan about getting married off. I think he's been avoiding visits home because he feels he'd face the inquisition about whether he's found a good woman yet and whether he could do with some help. I counted off the reasons: I'm still getting some leeway because they feel guilty about my contract, I think they still have hopes about Jonny, and for some reason it's not usually done to arrange a marriage when the bride-to-be is pregnant with someone else's child.

But the truth is that it's different for Ulf and me. Ulf will father children for the clan only if he brings a woman home. Otherwise his children will be part of the wider kin-group but not of Atamahara. Has he been away too long that he forgets that? My children are the opposite: Atamahara by default, with the blessing and curse of Rona'a. Viewed rationally, the clan has reason to want me happy and here and not too attached elsewhere. That was overridden by the threat to Paiho and the fact that the pod made me valuable enough to counter that threat, but now the threat is past...

Why was it me they contracted away to save Paiho? Why not Ulf? I was there, and newly graduated, and biddable. He was already a veteran of podder wars, and contracted elsewhere. I was glad to have so clear a way to serve. So why does it still rankle?

Things are different now. They could try to arrange an alliance using me -- and an alliance is the only reason they'd have to marry me -- and I could say no.

No matter. Tomorrow I fly to Gyng. I said I'd take Karlstein back to his father, and while I'm there I'll see if I can make some headway negotiating between the old man and Auntie Mara. How can two people I respect so highly be so impossible with each other? How can two people who must once have loved each other be so impossible together? And if it can happen to them, could that happen to me?

I was thinking of them both as I packed: the things they've made, common and special, that are part of my life. The clan-dress of fabric Auntie Mara wove, and the broad long sash under it that will support my back as my belly grows. The hair bead Uncle Ashlar carved to replace the one he gave me as a child, and the guardian pendant I now wear that he carved for Auntie Mara when she was pregnant with his son. 

I think Karlstein is turning out well. He's a carver, like his father. I think, if not that three of our four parents are from the clan, the clan would have liked a child from me and Karlstein.

Argh! What does it mean that one of my kinsmen is starting to look good to me? Maybe I will get that mid-pregnancy burst of energy and enthusiasm, and where in the void is Jonny? I've made him no promises and asked nothing back, but I would have liked... would still like this to be our child together.

I guess I hadn't considered all the different ways that could be difficult. Hrmph. And now I'll go and enjoy one of the benefits of being planetside and take a long and decidedly luxuriant bath. In the small bath-house. With the door wedged shut.

Heartbeat

One heartbeat. All the expected lumps and bumps in the appropriate places and proportions. Sometimes "normal" is worth celebrating.

Also worth celebrating is that I finally received the standing with the Republic that Eva had requested of me when I joined Re-Awakened.

I'd been worried about the time I'd been spending in pod. Now that I've done this, perhaps it's time to settle.

Can I? Settle? My dreams are strange and vivid. The ancestors would keep me home: the erendati would lead me in a dance of fire and the interstellar void.

Words

Words aren't my thing.

When I need what others need from words I find the rhythm and the melody, and dance. It's always been this way, as long as I can recall.

Even when I first changed bodies to the disposable puppets of osteoplast and recycled biomass that I mostly use when I'm flying, the first thing I did was try dance steps. The feet weren't strong enough, the hip flexors not flexible enough, so I made notes for my clone profile.

Except that now I'm not dancing, and the things that come out in dance have nowhere to go. So Auntie Ellie has suggested I try words.

Words, words, words....

We've fought too much over words. I should be thinking about "freedom" and "self-determination", but just now I'm thinking about "I think I love you, m'dear". The start of our first fight. About words and actions and misunderstandings. About sitting on his bed with the quilt the aunts had given him wrapped around me as he stormed out the door to go get drunk.

I'd tried to tell him about mother. About the illusions of love she traded in, and how the words made me feel hollow even though I knew he meant them well. By then he was too hurt to listen or care.

We made it up. I learnt to call him "love". I learnt -- again -- not to talk about some things.

Actions matter more than words, but the words give meaning to the actions. 

I'm thinking too much. Home in body but not in spirit. And the body is so strange: so tight and tender and richly ripe. So transforming. So creating. So, so tired. I'm becoming something else, my boundaries shifting and blurring. Sometimes I just want to cry.

But I'm surrounded by the fabric of clan life where there are dramas that need action, unlike mine. Kerem's boy is crawling and into everything. Auntie Yana is dying, slowly, her bones crumbling and organs failing. The feud between Auntie Mara and Uncle Ashlar -- nurtured these twenty years -- is in one of its hot phases. And with my interstellar riches I've turned Paiho into a building site, foundations and laser lines marking out the shape of the surgical unit and clinic that I hope will be finished before any more here have need of it. These things bring me back when it seems I've flown too deeply into the void. The jostlings show me my edges even as those edges shift.

But still, ancestors and erendati, there are things I would learn from you. Not about the clan or exile, now, but about this strange pairing and its consequences. 

Will this child be healthy? Will I carry it to term? 

How do you say both "I miss you so much it hurts" and "I'm making a life on my own"? 

How do you hope without expectation?

How will he know unless I tell him?