The Long Road To... - 35. Happy Birthdays

“I ran for Leaf when she started before sunrise. Meg and him are in with her,” Mane spit out.

Foal looked down suddenly. “I forgot to wake you… sorry…”

They looked up at me, worry was written all over them. Petal called out again. They sat close, protectively.

I nodded and walked over to the fire. It was slowly dying. I grabbed the last piece of wood and tossed it in.

“More wood,” I told them and left the house. I lingered while gathering it up in my arms. I had seen this before. I was not needed inside. Nature could only take its course.

There were no changes in the house while I made the few trips to stock the wood and stoke the fire. Mane and Foal sat near Petal’s door. I heard her pain coming from within more than once. The fathers whispered words of comfort to each other.

I walked back towards Bear’s tree. There was chatter from the branches above, I searched. Bear was behind another slow-monkey and it took a few moments to realize what they were doing. Another life was being created out here as well.

I took my time, gathered a few pieces of fruit from the trees, and retraced the distance back to the homestead.

Leaf stood alone before the fire. His face a wash of emotions, not all of them joyous. The sounds through the open door exuded happiness in the whispers. I crossed to him. He looked up startled, then smiled.

“It’s a girl.”

I nodded.

He visibly shook whatever emotion he felt off and led me to the door. Meg came out quickly and shut it, practically in our faces.

“Best to leave them alone for a few moments,” she whispered. “Now, let’s see what we have for breakfast around in here. Ah, good, some fruit…”

Meg fussed up some food for us while we waited on the small family in the other room. Before too long, Foal appeared at the door and waved us in.

Petal looked absolutely exhausted, but she smiled to me all the same. “Sage,” she whispered.

I leaned over and looked down at the newest member of their family.

“Doesn’t she look like me?” Mane grinned broadly.

“She looks like me!” Foal elbowed him.

Petal chuckled and held Sage tightly. I peered more closely and searched for any resemblances. All I could tell was that Sage definitely favored her mother.

“Come now…” Leaf said gently. “They both need their rest.” He looked down at Petal. “We will check in on you in a little while.”

In the main room, Mane and Foal continued to playfully argue which one of them Sage looked like. Leaf glanced up at me when I left for the barn. Some chores could not be put off. I would let them all enjoy some moments of joy without any of the daily burdens.

Leaf followed and waited until we were completely alone before he spoke.

“So… I understand what Horn was trying to tell me… it’s true then…” He nodded back to the house and waited a few cautious moments before he prodded again. “About them… being a family…” He let it drift off and waited for my response.

I nodded.

He smiled and shrugged. “Curious,” he began cautiously. “Seems like Mr. Riggers… Meg… they must all have an idea...”

“Never asked.” I shrugged.

He looked me in the eyes. “Fair enough.” He grinned.

While we watered and checked on the animals, Leaf told me some of what Horn had said to him. He had mentioned how when he and Foal were laid up together, Foal had mentioned his two “devoted friends.” When Mane and Petal finally appeared, Horn had been stunned at the closeness and tactile displays. Although they had been discreet, through little interactions and observations, it soon became clearer to Horn what the nature of the relationships was.

Leaf stayed on and worked alongside us without judgement. Petal nursed and began doing light chores again. We all began to adapt to the new life with a child in the house. Leaf helped to made it easy and safe.

We spoke beyond Sage and the kids, or more properly, he prompted and talked while we worked. Slowly, as the days passed, we learned some more about each other and those in, or from, our lives.

Horn’s mate, Breeze, was expecting their first child. Leaf would leave to be with him for that. Horn himself had vowed he would never leave home again. He would not take any chances once the child was born. Never again. His family would be his life and reason. His anchor. His future. His one true home. He was Leaf’s last family. Leaf would always have a place to call home.

At night, I carved a new totem for Leaf. One mixed of the signs of friendship, the moon he worshipped, and the signs of the one he had carved for me when he had left with Horn months ago.

The future became clearer for the family and I realized it would be an independent and perfectly functioning one.

Mane, Foal, Petal, Sage, and any future additions, were and would be at peace. I was pleased. Somehow, I felt that I had fulfilled my promise to Colt. If he were able to see them now, he would be smiling.

When Leaf left for home and Horn, I felt alone. The kids and others did not isolate me, in fact, they tried to include me. Somehow, I did not feel part of them. As I sat under Bear’s tree in the dark, I began to wonder at how I always seemed to feel that way. Apart.

I had been a part of many groups: family, armies, caravans, and friends. Within those, I was a part and apart. I had felt part of something with Thorn. Even in the brief time I was with Mari, I felt a part and still apart. Here I was a part of a large, extended, created family and also apart from it.

I heard movement coming down the tree. Bear clawed his way down toward me. I could see above him, the female waited. The increase of fat around her middle signaled her pregnancy to my eyes.

Bear sniffed around me looking for food. I handed him a piece of bread. He ate it slowly, as he did everything. Before long he was sniffing for more. I had nothing. He waited for a few moments. Before climbing back up to the female and they disappeared into the canopy and darkness.

The days were all the different chores and labor. The nights were quietly spent in the barn loft or by Bear’s tree. I preferred the tree. I heard more chatter some nights. It seemed Bear had developed a harem, three females. Two looked pregnant.

I did my fair share and more when I could. There was always another roof to mend or boat to repair. Still, there was a lot of time to myself.

I walked up the ridge, high up. Towards the sunset lay the deserts, at my back, the town and the waters. Across the sands, more lands, some of which I had only heard about, some I had been to. I felt older looking at the desert. There were things I had wanted to do when I was young, places to go. I had done a lot in my life, I had even been around the world. I had seen more than I had ever dreamed as a child. The sun dropped into the desert and the moon rose from the waters behind me. The brothers were still separated in different parts of the sky. They reminded me of myself and Leaf. I shook my head to clear the thought.

I searched visible distance from my perch, not toward the sun nor back to the moon. My thoughts lay between. I knew I could not see it from here.

Somewhere out there was the place of creation. I had always thought there was time enough for that. It had been in the mountains. The mountains well past where I had been born but much nearer to our old village than anyplace I had been since. There had always been time so I had never bothered.

Leaf returned at the next new moon. He kept himself was busy during the days with odd jobs in town, but the nights he always returned to me and the farm.

“Horn and Breeze’s child will be soon.” He looked up into the tree and at one of Bear’s females. “From the looks of it, her too…”

I nodded and returned his smile; it seeped from his face.

“I will be heading back again, to Breeze and Horn, on the next full moon…” He looked down and away. “I wish you could come with me, but things are still bad… maybe even worse between our tribes…”

I looked up into the trees. The female had moved on, but Bear crept down the trunk towards me and the food at my side.

“I will stay there through the birth.”

I nodded without looking to see if he was even watching me.

We sat in silence. I fed Bear and he ate greedily. I saw Leaf smile. When he was done. Bear grabbed more fruit from my hand and climbed up into the tree, slowly and carefully as always.

Time passed in a haze of the daily progression of life. Leaf had been gone for nearly two moons. A new baby clung to Bear’s female. Sage grew fast. I visited the ridge overlooking the desert often. Mr. Riggers fell ill and got better. Fin’s boat and one other were lost in a storm. There had been no word from Leaf. I worked with some of the men on another boat. Petal became pregnant again. The third female in Bear’s harem was pregnant. The lower part of town flooded and dried out. I could not feel the Artifex Pater in the ground.

“My friend!” Leaf called to me.

I smiled broadly and forced myself not to run to him although my heart raced ahead.

“How have you been?” He clapped me on the shoulders. “I missed you! So much news!”

At supper he told us about Horn and Breeze and their newborn, Pine. It had been an easy birth, but Pine seemed sickly for a time. He wheezed and coughed for weeks, then something changed. He grew more robust and his coloring improved. According to Leaf, by looking at him now, you could not tell his life had started so roughly. The entire family was doing well.

The news he brought about the tribes and the larger world seemed to be about the same as we had heard already. Both our peoples were at war with each other and others. There was uncertainty everywhere. Ironically, this little pirates’ village was safe enough. No one paid us much mind.

“Everything is chaos,” Leaf told me later when we were alone. “The world is not the same.” He sighed.

I could not help but think it always had been.

When we had been young, we had been full of hope and longed for happiness and peace. Maybe my old stepbrother Blade had had it correct. He went to worship with his brothers and they removed themselves from the strife.

“Is it any different on the other side of the world at all?”

It was and wasn’t. People still fought over land and riches and whatever, but they were not our people. The fights, such as they were, did not seem the same. Then there was here, in this place, there was peace. No one had mentioned when the last time these people, the ones I lived side by side with, had been involved in a war.

“Not really.”

He sighed.

“People are people.”

He looked down.

“I had hoped for more. Somewhere…”

I stared at him. He still had hope and I was crushing it. How many times had I done that to people? Even across the seas, I had left people without hope.

“Maybe someday.”

He smiled broadly.

We climbed the path to the ridge overlooking the desert. The dusk brushed up against us as we watched the sun sinking into the sands.

I shivered for a moment, then I felt an arm around my shoulders. He did not say anything. It had been so long since I had felt genuine human touch. I almost shied away. I held myself still.

We prepared to spend the night on the ridge and spread ourselves out under and against a large outcropping that faced the sunset.

I fell asleep before even starting a fire.

In the middle of the night, I woke and was not surprised that Leaf was not beside me. The sound of the crackling wood comforted me.

I heard a soft shift of movement from above. I twisted my neck to see him above me on the rock in his position of prayer to the moon. He was on his knees, arms raised, and his palms to the sky. His head hung down in supplication. Being underneath, I could see his face in the glow of the flames. His eyes were closed; his face relaxed. There was no expression, no emotion. No wind moved his hair. His breathing seemed regular and his body still. He held his bulk in total communion with the moon and was in a total state of reception. He… it, was beautiful, this sacred act.

Suddenly, his eyes rolled open and caught mine. I felt ashamed, a villainous spy. He merely smiled and gave one nod before his eyes closed. Though he had returned to prayer, he still smiled.

I felt, more that heard, him return to sleep at my side and we slept peacefully.

Back on the farm and under Bear’s tree, it seemed like there were slow-monkeys everywhere. I listened to them all night now. Their quiet voices were comfortable sounds during Leaf’s absence.

Before he went to visit home, we had talked about traveling. I could not resist his presence and smile when he dreamed to going to the side of the world he had never seen.

There were safe places. Places that did not care about the difficulties between our peoples or our wars. As this village of pirates was, it had begun to feel like a cage. They were places and pockets of people and lands still to visit all over.

The kids were grown up and did not need us. Not that they ever did in the first place. Now that Mr. Riggers had named them inheritors to his farm, even less so. Mr. Riggers, and Mane, and Petal, and Foal, and Sage, and the newly arrived Mint were safe, secure, and loved. Any debt I had to Colt had been paid a long time ago.

It was time to leave.