Mira woke many times that first frigid night, gripped by a horrendous fear. It was as if in her sleep she’d forgotten about the child and suddenly remembered he was there, lying next to her. Myret’s words when she first taught Mira to read the stones were more true than Mira could have ever imagined. The weight of having the child and knowing he needed her to live and knowing how much she loved him terrified her. Her mind would create horrible imaginings where the boy was squished or dropped or not fed enough, and the thoughts made her sick.

Each time she woke, she would set her hand on the babe’s skin to see if he was cold and listen for the sound of his breaths, and only when she felt his warmth and heard his little lungs working was she soothed enough to fall back asleep.

Halvar’s cry woke her and Fell simultaneously in the early hours of the morning before even the birds were chirping. Mira fed the child back to sleep as Fell rubbed Halvar’s back, and the love Mira felt was so strong that it brought tears to her eyes.

She had never encountered anyone who spoke of what happened before life began, but she was certain that there must have been something before she was born because she knew in her bones she’d met Halvar before. They’d been together once upon a time, and now they were together again, and nothing had ever felt more right.

The following moons felt like one long, confusing day.

Halvar would wake. She would feed him. They would sleep.

Everything blurred together into an endless dream where she was always exhausted and bewildered about what time of day it was or how many days had passed since the boy was born.

Her body ached from the labour and relieving herself burned between her legs so much that she hated going. Mira was tempted to drink less water to spare herself the pain, only she was brutally thirsty all the time since the child was sucking all the liquid out of her. There was no pattern in when she and Fell woke and slept, and her nipples were bloody and raw, making her despise wearing clothing.

People came to see her. Dania. Myret. Rowan. And many others she did not know so well. Ama, whose anger had been soothed by her own baby girl, visited often with sweet words of encouragement.

“The days will make sense again,” she promised.

Even Inga came. Even the man who lost his arm. Sigyn. Bjinn. Orvir. Ødger. Toke. Vreydis. The visitors slapped Fell on the back, laughing with joy for him. They brought pungent soups, herbed stews, salted meats, and soothing teas. They gave Mira things that had belonged to their children who were now grown. Teeny leather boots. A hollowed-out branch that had been filled with seeds and sealed; when she shook the branch, it made a hushed rattling sound that always drew Halvar’s attention. Bracelets with the mark of Alva, goddess of healing on them. Mira struggled in her sleepy state to remember who had brought which gift or when a visitor had come last.

Almost every part of that long day felt baffling, and often Mira and Fell would find themselves laughing at nothing as they were too tired to respond any other way. Only when Mira looked at the boy in her arms could she make sense of the world. She would forget about all the aches and exhaustion and feel so happy she could cry. Often, she did cry, as she was too tired to resist the tears. The black hair of his mother. The blue eyes of his father. Almost always wrapped up in thick furs with just his little face poking out.

Slowly, she began to understand him, to anticipate his needs, and he cried a little less. Every day it seemed there was something new about him that had appeared overnight. An expression. A sound. A way of moving. The colouring of the child’s skin changed many times, and he grew so quickly Mira sometimes cried. And, even more slowly, Mira felt her body healing.

When the boy was two moons old, Dania came to their tent and spoke in an impish, demanding voice. “You are coming with me.”

Mira was half-asleep and so grumpy and did not feel like going anywhere. “Where?”

“The hot pools.”

“I cannot bring Halvar; it would be too hot for him,” Mira said. “And then, when we get out, too cold.”

“You are not bringing Halvar. He will stay here with Fell.”

“I—” Mira did not want to leave him. She hadn’t been away from the babe for more than the time it took to relieve herself since he was born.

Dania interrupted =sternly. “If you stay here like this, you will go mad.”

Mira did feel a little off. But that’s just tiredness, she reasoned. I cannot leave him yet. He’s too small.

“When was the last time you bathed?” Dania smirked.

It was a fair point. If Mira was being completely honest, she could not remember.

A flood of terrible scenes entered Mira’s mind. “What if something is wrong, and I am not with him?”

“Fell will be with him, and if something is truly wrong, he can come to find us.” She turned to Fell. “Right?”

“Uh... yes.” Fell said this, but his face said, No, please don’t leave me with him, what if I don’t know what to do?

Dania laughed and pulled Mira’s hand. “Let us go.”

“Go.” Fell gave her an uneasy smile. He picked up the sleeping boy and held him close. He smirked. “Go before I change my mind.”

Still, Mira could not move.

“We will be fine!” Fell laughed at her. “Just do not be gone too long... I am only jesting. Go.”

Mira’s heart sped. “You will come if you need anything?”

Fell nodded, and Mira left her son. It was a horrible, ghostly nauseous feeling. Guilt and fear all mixed in with a deep tiredness that never waned. Halvar had never woken to find her gone. If he did...

There were tears, but Dania pulled Mira along, stripping quickly when they reached the pools and jumping into the steaming water. Mira followed. The water stung between her legs, causing her to wince and pause.

Dania knew immediately. “Give it a moment.”

It did pass. They floated near the pool’s edge, and Mira did not admit it, but the water felt wonderful.

Dania pulled a skin out of her furs left at the edge of the pool and poured a sweet-smelling substance out into her fingers. “Take some,” she ordered.

Mira mimicked Dania, rubbing her hands together until the mixture grew bubbly before coating her skin and hair with the fragrant foam. It smelled like summer flowers and pine and left her skin feeling tingly and fresh. Dania helped her rinse her hair, and she returned the favour, and this too felt wondrous—to do something feminine and simple without a heavy infant in her arms, to see her friend’s face, to feel her muscles relax in the steaming water.

Mira had not seen Dania’s body before. Her legs were long and strong, her hips and breasts full, round. The girl was beyond beautiful, and Mira tried her best not to stare for politeness’ sake. But it comforted her to see that Dania’s stomach appeared normal.

She’s only one moon ahead of me. In a moon, I could be my old shape again.

They talked for a few moments more, about Halvar and Illa, about the healing, and the strange substance they had used to clean themselves.

“I made it,” Dania said. “I had been saving the ingredients for a while; I didn’t want to use it without you.”

The sweetness of their friendship warmed Mira’s heart but not enough to block out the ache she felt being away from Halvar.

Dania must have known she could not keep Mira much longer, for she laughed and said, “We can go back now.”

They dressed as quickly as they could in the frigid afternoon air and ran to their respective homes.

As Mira reached the tent, she could hear Fell’s hearty voice from within, singing. She peeked inside. Fell had laid the boy on his chest. The child slept, unbothered by the rise and fall of Fell’s breathing or by Fell’s thick hands stroking his back. The sight was everything to Mira, and she wished half a dozen times over that she would never forget it. Her two favourite things.

“Was everything fine?” she said when Fell noticed her and stopped singing.

He laughed. “You were gone less than a quarter of an hour.”

“It felt like forever.” Mira stripped off her furs that had soaked the water off her body and slipped into the dense grey bundle of wool and fur beside Fell, stroking Halvar’s face. “Did he wake?”

“No.”

“What happened while I was gone?”

Fell laughed again. “You walked outside. I picked him up and lay here like this. Then you came back.”

Although she’d been worried sick the whole time, Mira was glad she’d gone. She felt rejuvenated. Refreshed.

Fell got a mischievous look on his face.

“What is it?”

“I have a question, but I do not know when is a good time to ask it.” He looked at her with a playful frown, seemingly trying to determine if the time was then and there.

“Ask it.”

Fell smirked and sat up, placing Halvar back in his basket. He lay back down beside Mira, still hesitant to speak.

“Fell. Tell me what it is.”

“I was wondering… when we—”

Mira figured out his question before he found the words. He wanted to lay together. She’d sensed this many times already but tried to ignore it as it felt impossible.

She laughed at him. “I do not know when. Not yet.”

“But what if I was really gentle?”

“Even then, not yet.”

He was frustrated but smiling. “How will you know when it is time?”

“I do not know... when I feel like I can?”

He laughed and pulled her close to him, unbothered by the wetness of her hair against his tunic. “Would you say that you feel like it might happen soon?”

Mira kissed him. “I do not know,” she said. “But as soon as I do, I swear I will tell you straight away.”

Fell sighed and kissed her back, running his fingers along her cheeks.

Gradually, Fell began to hunt and train more regularly, and Mira began to find a rhythm in Halvar’s sleep and feeding. She spent her days tending to him, playing him the harp, and visiting with Dania, though, at first, leaving the tent with the baby stressed her a foolish degree (mostly she feared he would freeze in the time it took her to walk to another tent). Mira even made the occasional basket while Halvar slept, tucked neatly between her thighs so he could still feel she was close even though her hands were occupied.

She asked Dania about being with a man after having a child, but the girl had no true answer.

“With Hald, it was soon after, maybe one and a half moons? With Layf, it was much longer, three moons, I think? Maybe more? With Illa, it was two.”

“But how did you know when?”

Dania shrugged. “I just waited until I felt like it.”

When the earth was slowly waking from its frosty slumber, and Halvar was three and a half moons old, Mira finally felt like it. Halvar was sleeping in his basket, and Fell had just returned from training. He was shirtless and drenched in sweat and beautiful in every way.

He flung himself down onto the furs in their tent, breathless. “Rowan is getting better,” he mused. “Much better.”

Mira climbed upon him, and he watched her for a moment, unsure. She began to move her hips the way he had shown her many moons ago, and in an instant, he had her on her back and was inside. He had her twice more that night and again the next morning.

Their life began to take on a sensical rhythm. Fell looked less and less exhausted returning from the hunt. Mira was more likely to be awake in the day and more likely to be sleeping at night. They ate meals at the times they had before Halvar arrived, sometimes even chatting around the hearth as they used to.

When Myret visited, she asked if there was anything done in Mira’s homeland when women had little children that she would like to have in the North. Mira could think of nothing; mothers and babies and wetnurses were not much seen back on the Isle. Myret asked if there were any myths from Mira’s country about childbirth.

Mira told her a tale believed by many in her homeland. “Back home, they say that the gods made the first man and then the first woman in one day. The two looked around at the world and at each other, and the woman spoke first. She asked what was happening. The gods thought this bad of her as they had made the man first, and so it should have been him to speak before the woman. Because of this, they cursed women with childbirth.”

Myret told Mira a different tale. “In the North, it is said that the gods made many people, and for years the people lived happily; only when they grew old and began to die, they were heartbroken.

They did not want to leave their friends and lovers alone in the world and grew angry with the gods for their skaels. Many of the gods sat and debated with one another, frustrated that the people were not happy with what they had been given.

It was the wisdom of Vaneurim that solved it. She realized the gods were happy with their existence because they had been able to create something lasting, but the people did not have the same power, and so their lives were without meaning.

She sat atop a mountain peak and waited. The people knew she was there but worried she was to punish them for their ingratitude. It was, after all, Vaneurim who nourished the land the people grew from; it was she who had given them life. The people sat and debated, much like the gods, about what they should do about the goddess on the mountain.

A young woman left the people and climbed, compelled by her faith and trust in the gods, to ask Vaneurim what needed to be done to soothe the suffering of her fellow people. As a reward for her bravery, she was given a great gift. She became vaneruigk, and after the first child was born, the people’s unease settled. Death was not so terrible when they had something they could leave behind for those they loved. Vaneurim gave men the seed of life, but the women were given the soil and some of the goddess’s magic because it was a woman who faced the fear of the people.” Myret smiled. “In the North, giving life is a reward for speaking first.”

Mira laughed. “I like this story much more; I will think of it as the truth.”

“Probably neither of them are true,” said Myret.

Mira was surprised to hear the woman say this, as she always struck Mira as very devout.

Myret explained. “I think we are sent to live here by the gods to learn; that they choose for us the perfect life to explain what they wish for us to know, what our spirits need to know. A brave man will learn a different lesson than a cowardly one; a woman with children will learn a different lesson than a woman without children. There are even some who do not need the lessons of a man or a woman, and so they come here as neither. Childbirth is just one way of teaching us.”

Mira did not like this explanation. She did not want to think of her entire life as one long lesson.

Myret laughed. “When you are as old as me, and you have seen the turns of skael and felt the sting, you will not judge this view so harshly.”