14. A Midwife for a Mermaid #3
But as she aims it, her gaze is focused on the merman’s chest, and the mother throws herself forward into Sapphira’s path. She makes loud chirping noises in her throat, quickly gaining the attention of the male—her mate.
Slowly letting Kaelen drop, the merman makes a deep, rumbling sound and slithers to the mermaid. The two embrace around their twins, who are tucked into the mother’s chest.
Sapphira falls back onto her rear, letting out a deep breath. Her heart is still thundering in her chest, the sound like a drumbeat in her ears, and her head is ringing. The mother chirps sadly and desperately in the merman’s arms. He seems to comfort her, rumbling back a response.
Sapphira’s eyes trail down the scratches along his skin and scales. His flipper is torn up. He was in a fight. But still, he fought to make it back to his family. Sapphira can’t help but marvel at that dedication.
“Cute. But it would’ve been better if you didn’t nearly try to decimate me,” Sapphira grumbles.
She and Isabel cross to Kaelen simultaneously, then pick up the man as he shifts back.
She tries not to hold him too close, embarrassed now that the threat has passed, to admit she likes him.
To admit how terrified she just was that she might lose him.
Getting under one of his arms, she helps him stand.
“We need to get him back,” Isabel says, but there’s a loud crooning when they turn back toward the portal. Isabel follows the mermaid’s gaze and the finger she is pointing toward something among her treasures.
With a grateful bow, Isabel strides quickly over and scoops up the pouch of coins. “Thank you for letting me be a part of this,” she says as she walks away.
When they return to the cottage, the portal world closes behind them. And Sapphira knows immediately that it won’t open again unless needed. That could be days, years, or centuries.
Sapphira lays Kaelen on the couch. He’s a bit sweaty but not dripping wet like her and Isabel. Isabel comes forward and feels his ribs.
“Small crack. Nothing life-threatening,” she murmurs. “It’ll take some time to heal.” She wraps Kalen’s chest and wipes his sweaty forehead with a cool cloth. His eyes begin closing, breathing labored as he whispers, “Thank you.”
Sapphira throws a blanket over him so he can rest and turns to Isabel.
“Bath?” the chimera asks.
Sapphira slowly nods.
Grabbing a change of clothes, they make their way out toward the lake. Their towels are stretched out over a branch as they enter the hidden alcove covered by trees.
Isabel averts her eyes as Sapphira peels off her wet sarong, which is suctioned to her slim body. Sapphira chuckles as Isabel quickly undresses and wades out into the water, ducking down to her chin.
Big, brown eyes watch Sapphira, who takes her time and nearly puts on a show as she struts bare into the water.
When she is wading in front of Isabel, Sapphira hands her a cloth and a chunk of soap. Isabel made the soap from plant ashes, coconut oil, and mint found in Aaelestis Shire. She uses it to wash her body and clothes.
It’s a dance as they both wash, passing the soap and keeping an eye on one another as they do. Their eyes meet over the water’s surface, coy and bashful, as darkness heats Isabel’s cheeks.
Neither of them speaks. Words are not needed. After bringing life into the world together, Sapphira feels infinitely more connected to Isabel.
As Sapphira spends the next week foraging and accompanying Isabel on house calls, she can feel that something big has changed between them, and she knows Isabel can feel it too.
“Come on,” Isabel says, laughing as she grabs Sapphira’s hand and pulls her from the cottage.
She dressed Sapphira in a skirt made of hibiscus, grass, and tapa cloth and a floral banded top. She even made her a floral headdress that reminds Sapphira of the feather ones from her home.
Isabel wears a red-and-tan ta?ovala over a tupenu and blouse. Her curls are piled atop her head, falling around her heart-shaped face, and she drips with jewelry around her ankles, wrists, and neck. It’s even hanging from her horns.
The painting she worked on for weeks is in her free hand, and the bowl of kava she prepared is balanced in Sapphira’s.
Isabel invited Sapphira to the Imataisiga—or First Day—celebration, which honors the day the Shire of Lomadaku came to be.
It’s said that before the birth of Sule?hare?n, all of this land used to be ice and snow.
That when the hero Askerh?lla traveled these lands, he melted the snow to sand and raised the land—all of Cielo, Oshmaliaen?s, and all of the other dominions—with the wave of a hand. It’s hard to imagine.
But Isabel said Sapphira wouldn’t be welcome in Lomadaku until she came to the Imataisiga, met the shiremaster, and declared herself a part of the shire.
Sapphira was terrified he would reject her, though she didn’t say so to Isabel, who was so excited. And Kaelen, still recovering from his injuries, decided to stay home.
When they arrive in town, the place is buzzing.
It looks so different from the few times Sapphira has come so far.
The stalls are gone, and in their place are games for children.
The streets are strewn with flowers, and women and men alike wear bright headdresses, flower crowns, sweeping grass skirts, and patterned tapa mats around their waists.
Sapphira has to take a moment to catch her breath; the rhythmic drum beats— DOO-DUM, DOO-DUM, DUH-DUNK, DUH-DUNK —match her heartbeat.
There are drums big and small, flutes, string music makers, and storytelling songs. It’s a celebration of life and appreciation of the land the Lomadaku was brought to after parting from C?rn?s.
“You have to present yourself to the shiremaster,” Isabel says. She pulls Sapphira through the dancing crowd, children winding around their feet, beating drums, and shaking strings of shells that tinkle like water. The sky is a lilac blue, clouds like clusters of stars floating lazily by.
Isabel presents Sapphira to the shiremaster, a man with tanned, weathered skin like cracked and leathered goat skin.
The wrinkles under his eyes are deep and craterous like the Kona Fissures, revealing a life filled with joyous laughter.
He has a long, pointed beard and speckled hair tied up in a knot.
Isabel pulls Sapphira down to kneel before the shiremaster, who sits on a large, beautifully decorated tapa mat surrounded by his citizens.
“For you, Shiremaster Isikeli,” she says.
Head low, she holds out the painting she has worked so hard on. Late nights are stained with coral, red, and yellow ochre clay paints. The painting is of Lomadaku’s representative animal, the four-winged Bairne, featured in the center of the canvas with splashes of vibrant, loud colors framing it.
Shiremaster Isikeli takes it with a bow. “Welcome. Thank you, cherished child,” he intones in a deep, rumbling voice. “Rise and state your business.”
Isabel raises her head, but Sapphira keeps hers down. Meeting the shiremaster’s gaze, she says, “An offering from Sapphira Tuisaravere of Aviara. We brought you these gifts in exchange for your blessing to invite Sapphira to be merry and welcomed by the land of Lomadaku, in the stars’ name.”
Sapphira now presents the bowl of kava, and Isikeli hands Isabel’s painting to one of the women beside him so he can take it with both hands.
“Thank you for the gift. Now rise.”
Sapphira raises her head, sweat beading along her temple as she meets the man’s kind but steely gaze. She is shaking, her nerves so different from those she felt during the meetings on her birthday, when she was presented to the princes of the seven kingdoms.
“I accept you, Sapphira Tuisaravere, as blood and flesh of this land.”
The breath rushes from Sapphira’s lungs as her shoulders slump forward, and she can feel Isabel’s warm hand on her back.
A woman rushes to the shiremaster’s side with stacks of hollow coconut shells, and everyone nearby gathers around as the man calls, “Come, drink, and be joined by the stars!”
Hands clutch coconuts and dip one after another into the bowl of kava, cups overflowing and spilling until it is gone.
They join the people sitting in a circle, their cups between their knees, as a group of burly men with dark tattoos across their foreheads march toward them.
The men's headdresses are the tallest Sapphira has seen, and their skirts made of natural materials, like grass, bark, and even shells, are full and billowing around their hips as they stomp and chant, winding in a circle around the tapa mat. "
One man blows a conch shell trumpet as the others dance, swinging bamboo tubes.
They sit, surrounding Sapphira and the others, as they strike the tubes on the ground in a rhythmic beat.
Sapphira is overcome by it all, her chest filling to burst and her heart beating fast as she tries to take in all the noises and flashing colors.
She doesn’t feel as overwhelmed as she did the night of her birthday, and her skin is buzzing pleasantly and feverishly.
Her eyes feel wide and wild, and her hair is frizzing under her feathered headdress, which takes effort to keep upright.
Isabel’s laughing, smiling face beside her glows with the sweat of pressed bodies and overflowing joy.
The man leading the song and blowing the conch trumpet begins to speak. Music continues behind him as he tells a fable, his voice carrying over the sitting group and those who’ve gathered to watch.
Sapphira is mesmerized as he tells of the Great Clam and a greedy king who cleaned the ocean, rivers, and lakes around Cielo of clams. He devoured every one of them until he came to the final one—a giant clam he could not open. He offered handsome pay to anyone who could open it, but each failed.
Soon, the villagers began to starve, and many around the kingdom died as the coral reefs began to die and bear no bounty.
When the villagers began to rage, demanding the king’s head, he finally returned the giant clam to the ocean. The clam burst open and spawned thousands of eggs that quickly birthed new clams to feed the villagers.
The fish and ocean life returned to the vibrant reefs, and the clams never ran dry.
When the music stops and the fable comes to a close, the shiremaster shouts, “Hail the stars and flesh of this earth!” He claps once, then downs the kava in one large gulp. He claps twice more.
Following him, everyone else claps and lifts their cups. Sapphira brings the drink to her lips. The smell is earthy. She takes it in one gulp, the spicy, bitter drink burning her throat as it dribbles down her chin and neck.
She claps twice, wincing as her head pounds. The noises seem louder than before, and the lights are brighter too. Isabel’s hand on her shoulder is like a brand.
Her lips are numb, her limbs loosening as if she were stepping into a hot bath. Her worries and stress melt away until her mind becomes a goo.
“You did amazing,” Isabel whispers in Sapphira’s ear, her lips close and warm breath billowing over the shell of it.
Isabel pulls Sapphira up again, and they join the street celebration.
As time passes, Sapphira feels a euphoria grow inside her that is nearly frightening.
She smiles and dances with Isabel and the others, grabbing a wreath of flowers and winding it around her neck as she stomps her feet and skips across the packed earth, her hands joined with Isabel’s.
The night is long and merry, and Sapphira enjoys spiced meats and vegetables from banana leaves dug up from a pit in the ground filled with hot stones.
They feast, eating and drinking until their bellies are bulging, and dance under the light of the blue stars, which dip and bob around their heads, twinkling as they move with the rhythm of flailing hands and writhing bodies.
It might be the kava crumbling down the walls she’s kept up between herself and the truth, but Sapphira knows she wouldn’t rather be elsewhere. She could stay like this forever, Isabel’s hand in hers.