The Tale of Iha Fhisra

[Philomena]

So, recently, I tried to make a new character here on Mizahar, but I did not do my homework: I wanted to make a midwife in Hai. And didn't realize that the population of Hai is sterile. Yeah... way to go Minnie Lefting.

But! I absolutely fell in love with the story. I'm not a great writer, but when I love a story, I really want to write it. This is one such story. So, my normal method would be to write it in n a little text file, and hide it away and NEVER SHOW IT TO ANYONE EVER CAUSE DONT PUBLISH THINGS CAUSE THATS SCARY OH MY GOD.

But, little Minnie Lefting, she does try so hard to grow up.

So, I thought, perhaps, I would do something a little different - as I write the story, I thought, perhaps I would post it here, instead. If anyone wants to read it, or suggest changes, or edit if you're a true saint, or even write a guest chapter if you want to work with me closer than... well, closer than any of you are probably crazy enough to ever want to work.

It will be something like reading a Charles Dickens novel in its original form - serialized, little snippets of the story coming out from one week to the next. I am probably being silly, probably this will bea long collection of posts that noone ever reads. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and all that.

Just as a final note: Nothing in this thread is IC. Nothing. This is all just imaginary Mizahar, its just me writing a story about 'What if Hai was not sterile, and this girl lived there, and I could make the people and the gods there whatever I wanted.' Nothing I say here is meant to overlap or influence the lore of Hai (which is still an awesome city - if you dont want to be a midwife) or Mizahar, or anything outside of my little brain.

[Philomena]

Summer 45, 482 AV
The Gates of Hai
----------------------

The rope bit painfully into the tender flesh between Mara's swollen breasts and swollen womb. She wept, but tried to remain quiet with it, terrified of who would be waiting in the haunted pits when she landed. She had heard stories, of the guards peering into the dark pit, to watch the shadows of Zith, or even feral men, descending on the new prisoners, the sounds of tearing, crunching bones drifting up to the Gate.

The shadows, here, were thick and sharp, and Mara's eyes flew wildly around the room, seeking a still, well lighted place. There was none. The closest was the ring of sunlight above her, from whence she was being lowered, whcih she could just see by contorting her back just so. And it was worse in its way - the shadows that were there were sharp edged and clear, and seemed to laugh wickedly over her.

//Drop// the shadows seemed to say, //Drop into our city. Drop and come and live with us, be our plaything, Mara the Brave.//

And then she did. She did not know if it was cruelty, or if it was simply difficult to tell the depth of the hole from above. She fell about 8 feet, with a sickening crack in the bones of her face and right hand.

And then, the tearing began.

Her womb had pulsed painfully all day, and she had kept it to herself. The child, she thought, it must live. The child must live. The guards who carried her looked on her with a sickly horror - a cursed soul. It would take them little, she had known, for them to push her into a drift of sand, and ride on. Who would know different? For all the terrors of Hai, death, alone, sick, pregnant in the desert with no water, that was sure for them both.

But now, on the floor of the entry chamber, she had wanted to find somewhere to scuttle off to, somewhere to hide. She flet like a cat, seeking an empty horse-trough to crawl beneath and birth her kittens. She felt the animal nature of labor, with a sudden intesnity, and tried to crawl, not so much as a conscious choice, as with the intense thirst for life that all animals share. But she pushed up on her one good hand, and her face throbbed sharply. She scrabbled forward, but the pain and her night-blindness made the world a whirling, visionless blur. SHe feel to her elbow, and heard herself screaming, felt a hand on her, so rough she could not tell if she was human.

"Haifa! She is with child!" the voice spoke rough, deep, the tongue of the Benshira, the tongue of her own people.

A woman, shrill and thirsty answered, "Praise Yshul for that, there will be twice as much meat. Don't try to tickle my morals, Ptirya!"

"Please... this child is from Yshul, do not take my child. Do not take my child!" she managed in the shreds of her voice.

The two were silent a moment. Finally, Haifa said with a quiet sharpness, "Very well. I will watch her. Fetch the midwife, Haifa, and be quick about it, damn your pitying eyes."

The darkness and the pressure on her pelvis combined to make the world heavy and inexplicable. The pain in her face throbbed. Mara started to try to crawl again, and felt a blow to her arm.

"None of that, girl. Lie down here. You're my meat, I won't have you wander off to some Zith-shyker."

She lay still again, moaning, crying out to Yshul, to Dira, to any god's name she could remember, begging. Something... was wrong in her hips, something was not happening that should, there. She felt a kind of numbness and tingling to her legs.

And then, time passed.

And then a strange sound, like flesh being rhythmically dragged across the floor. And then breath, heaving from effort, washed over her face, and the smell of a woman entered her nostrils. It was a strong smell, a mixture of blood and a thousand varieties of woman sweat, and the tang of birth-odor, multiplied across the dried chemistry of many, many women. And underneath this, something else: the scent of the sea, faint, and faded, but real: the salt-sick scent of the sea.

"And who are you, lady? Can you see? Shh... take a hand, then, take a hand. Calm, my little mistress. Calm..." the voice was smooth, and low and sonorous.

"Who is it, who is there?"

"I'm the midwife, Mistress. Come, come, mistress, hold my hand? Let's see if we can find what is keeping the child from coming, hmm?"

//Yes, yes... look at her, Mara the Brave. Look at her. She smells of blood, and she wears shadwos on her face, like everyone here.//

"No! No! No, don't take my child! Don't take my child!"

She felt a hand take hers regardless, a slender, rough hand, and squeeze with a strong grip.

"Hush now... hush. The gods are whispering in your ears, perhaps? You look a leper more than a criminal. Listen now to me... listen now to me, you lie still..."

The voice turned away then, towards the other onlookers, "You both, she's delirious. This will hurt, you need to hold her down."

And then, she felt the skirt of her tunic pulled up, and felt a hand on her naked hip, probing.

"Oh... oh Kihala and Dira... shattered, it is... hold her tight, both of you two..."

The woman's voice took on a brisk, quiet manner, disconnected. Clinical for a moment. And hten the woman's hand pushed, hard, against the remains of Mara's hip, and she felt a sharp stab of pain.

She screamed. She had never screamed this way in her life, not a scream of fear or anger, but of pure, unfiltered, animal pain.

"Sit her up! Sit her up! Come, come Nikali, my sister, come... lend me your hand, now, Nikali..."

Her voice threaded fluidly into song, in the common tongue, now. Mara had never fully mastered it, but caught the gist of the song.

"Just between the lips of Day and Night,
The morning kisses, sweet,
Fall dewy on from Kihala's lips,
Upon her sister's cheek.

'We victors two,' the first intones,
'We shall divide the spoil.'
You take the mother, I the child,
Unwinding from her coils."

And we the slaves, we listen close,
And we, we listen sweet,
And we, we make a living child,
And bless the dying meat."

And Mara felt her body cry out to her heart, //Push, push!//

//And Push? Push waht, you fool?// the shadows answered.

//Push! Push, make life! Make life, it wells within you.//

//No, no, you only hold a death, another little death to cast into the hungry dark.//

-------------------

The child knows, knows things as they occur. The child knows, though perhaps she does not remember. The child knows.

The child felt the tearing hand, the muscles rippling against her flesh, pressing, pressing, pressing, pressing her outward, binding close around her so for the first time, her throat ws born to the possibliity of screaming. For the first time, the child knew fear. And she heard the mother-voice, the gentle soothing call of mother voice in her heart, whirring in slow sussurations through the cord of her belly.

//Wait, my little one, only wait. This will pass, please, please, wait, wait... I will bring you into my arms, and they are nearly as warm and gentle as my belly.//

//No. You won't.//

And then a new voice came. The child's eys flew open, and the possibility of sight enveloped her. And her first was the birthing channel, fading, whirring, and a sharp, cruel face in tones of shadow-blue, with sharp, hard jewels of eyes, that looked back at the child.

"All of that rouble, Mara the Brave." she spoke softer than whispers, but a piercing steel blade to her words that cut its way into the ears. She spit the word Brave out with a torrent of mockery, "All of the trouble, for this? To spit some mewling brat into Hai? And then, to die. You pitiful mouse."

//Hush, darling one, hush... do not listen to her, do not listen to her. You are worth all of this to me. You are worth all of this.//

"And she will crawl and toddle around the floors of this shyke-hole, playing tiddlywinks with the spittle of the gods."

And a laugh came a queer hissing whisper of a laugh.

"And she will forget this. Forget you. Forget what you did to send her here, to damn your own brat. Forget me. Or... no. Perhaps not that. Perhaps not to forget me, hmmm? Perhaps not..."

And the child shuddered into a piercing stillness, and felt on her back, between her shoulder blades, the rough scratching of fingernail, pulling deep into her flesh, drawing a triangle, pointed downwards. Then, hot blue lips, pressing against the mark and drawing back to spit on it.

"There, child of the gods. There. Be born, now. And remember me."

And then, all was blackness. And the pressure began again, pressing, pressing, pushing, but the voice came sweet and filled with tears through the child's belly.

"Come, come my darling one, come before I am gone. Let me see you before I go... oh, come quick, my child..."

And she came, her face thrust forward into the cold-hot air. And her eyes opened, and above her was a ring of cold. cruel light, streaming down foggily, to crawl along the jagged corners of a stone wall. Each time it struck the wall, a new shadow oozed forth and peered at her. She could almost hear them snickering in her ears. And she screamed, and screamed and screamed and screamed.

And two slender, rough hands took her up, and pulled her to a chest, bare and warm but for a slender strip of fabric over the warmth of two hot, sweet-smelling breasts. The child's face fell into the dark flesh and cowered, and panted, mewling, as she heard a crooning voice over here.

"Oh Kihala, Oh Kihala,
The cursed blessing give,
To take the child's sleep away,
And cruelly bid them live.

Come. Come little one. We shall teach you to serve, yes. We shall teach you serve your people"

And for the mother, it was too late. The mother lay still, and motionless now, two Benshira huddled over her, parting her clothes, setting knives to her broken flesh.

[Philomena]

Winter 3, 489

"Iha. Slower, my child."

Iha was only a small girl, and at the closing of a long day, this mantra of her mother could drive her into the crabbiness of a six year old who simply wants to get some supper and go to sleep. Both of these things were, however, more complex propositions in Hai - sleep along the passageways was not uncommon, but it was not safe either. And supper - both its contents and its mere existence for the day - was a continually open question.

It was not that Iha was fast. She had very little of the boundless energy of a young girl. Hunger tamped her spirits, and a childhood in the shadow-city taught one things - taught one, for instance, that silence is better than sound, that to be ignored is better than to be noticed. No, it was not that Iha was fast. It was that Mother was so painfully slow, crawling exhaustedly along the floors of the passageways, her slender, flesh-wasted tail dragging behind her like dead-weight. They had tried other things - they had found a cart axel once and placed it under her belly, but the rough stone floors made this bruise her stomach so severely they had had to hole up for a few days to recover from it.

"Yes, mother," She put her stick to the ground and felt her way back to walk beside her. It was hard for her, too, she knew, to walk right beside her mother. To hear her pant for breath, to smell the struggle-sweat on her bare back, and the way her seal-fur smelled rank and salty with effort. She smelled of exhaustion, and Iha hurt to smell it, knowing how quickly these trips drew the meager resources of their thin rations. It hurt selfishly, for she knew that there would not be enough, again. It hurt more, because she had nothing else to love, only mother.

"I wish I could carry you."

Mother laughed. Her voice, even dry, like this, was liquid and musical. When they sang, sometimes Mother sang of the sea, and said it was like the Baths, but that it went on forever and ever, and went down so deep there was no floor. That one could forever hear the deep rushing of water, but that the water did not taste sweet, but like the sweat of he world's breast, continuously giving birth.

That was what Mother's voice was like. Iha sang with her, and she could pull her little breathy tone into something resonant enough to color and harmonize her mother's tones. But she knew she was only a kettle of water beside the ocean of her mother. Once, when she was smaller, they had taken the lights out of one of the bathing chambers, and Iha had stripped to her skin, removed even her hoodwink, and laid back in the warm, sweet water, and felt its thousand-hands against her skin. That was what it was like, to listen to mother's voice.

"You are so desperate to run as all that, Fhasri?"

"No mama. Only you sound so tired, and your belly is so torn when we stop."

His heard her mother stop, and she stopped. She swept her stick around her slowly out of habit, but hardly noticed the texture of the floor, for she was listening to the addition a quivering oscillation that had crept into her mothers voice. Mother tool her hand then, and guided it tithe long, smooth cheeks Iha had kissed, pressed against, stroked with her own fingers. They were wet with tears. Iha traced the years onto her own fingers, and kissed them from her own fingertips. She felt mothers lips on her own cheek.

"My child, come. Sing to me."

And they began to walk again. Iha sang softly, one of their hymns. Their hymns all lived inside of Mothers skull, and mother did not introduce or explain them. She only sang when it was time for singing. So the songs were born without titles into Ihas mind. So Iha had her own titles. This song she called the Dust Song. The title had come to her when mother first sang it, years before, an had grown former when Iha had clumsily tried to harmonize to it years later. She sang her mothers line now with no trace of self consciousness - singing was not performance in the world of their love. It was simply a way of speaking.

"Sing me a Diraline,
I shall hear,
Sing it both sweet and true.

And I will not wait
At the Lhexine gate,
I shall not wait for you.

My mistress may weep
For my slave sweet hand
To serve you as I used to do:

But I will not stay
And prolong the day
When I shall be parted from you.

I may thirst for a sip
Of my mistress's lip
And my heart will ache crisp and cruel,

But I will submit
To the souls sweet slip
And I will not wait for you

And you shall grow old
Far away
And alone
When the the time of your life is through

And I will grow tall and blushing and sweet,
And will take unto me a husbands seed,
And I shall grow plump,
And I shall grow full of you my sweet,
I shall a head, two hands, two feet,
And shall give the world back to you.

And I shall hold thee close again,
And give myself back to you."

She heard, then, her mothers smile. Her mothers smiles had a sound, and the curve of the soft sigh of the contentment smile was like a curve of the lips pressed against Iha's tiny, sensitive eardrums.

"You sing beautifully, my child. Tip your chin down, now, do you feel how it changes the shape of your throat? Sing through that, just an ah-ah-ah"

She sang pressing her voice through the low hollow that her reclining chin made in her throat, "Ah... Ah... Ah..." She experimented, raising, lowering her chin, walking slowly, her cane sweeping back and forth, "It makes my voice sound older."

"Yes, that is a way of saying it. Now. Sing with me. And do that to darken the tone."

Darken... It was a good word, in her mind, for it spoke of warm, sad love, of the pressure of the hoodwink on her eyes.

"Sing me a Diraline,
I shall hear,
Sing it both sweet and true…"

[Philomena]

Benshira - this was the first thing the room told Iha. This was hardly a surprise. The old barracks reeked of the Benshira. The smell of wasted fat, was how Iha thought of it, for they spit and roasted their meats, at times, and precious drops of grease fell into the fires as they did. The great thug-bands were, as far as Iha was concerned, worse than the beasts in the Apiary, for the beasts at least had a lifestyle that acknowledged their position. A hungry zith might tear through a corpse somewhat messily, but unquestionably, he, or some scavenger beast, would scurry out to lick the blood from the floor. The Benshira reveled, in her mind in excess.

It was better than many such rooms, though. She had been, with Mother, into rooms in these barracks to rooms where the women were stuffed in in a terrifying cocktail of their smells, of the overhanging scent of fear and sex. Iha hated those calls, the sick, pale heat of the exhausted forms, the clammy, rough skin.

This was different. The room had the scent of two women, one young, and relatively well-fed, the other post-menopausal - this was surprising enough. One did not generally live to that age in Iha: to keep such a woman was a luxury of sorts. There was the male guard, too. The Benshira always kept a man in the room with them, another thing that Iha had never liked about the visits.

Mother took Iha's hand gently, and kissed the palm, the wriggled slowly along to guide her to a bed. Iha paled slightly. It was bright in the room, so much it changed the texture of the shadow inside her blindfold. She reached up and adjusted it, trying to make more layers between her eyes and the light. But, now, it was too late. Now she could feel the warmth of the woman - pregnant, almost of a certainty, for she could smell the thin, bitter odor of the woman's altered discharge. She reached forward gently. This was the day. She was ten now, a big girl, and this woman was to be her first mistress, all her own. Mother would be there. Mother always would be there, she felt. But the mistress would be Iha's.

Iha spoke softly, almost in a coo, as she had heard mother do, "Mistress, hello, thou art well, I hope? I am Iha, I am here to serve thee in bringing your child forth."

The woman listened, but then jabbered away too quick in the Benshira tongue, to the other woman in the room. Iha blushed furiously, trying again, switching into the Shiber tongue, which she had never really understood well.

"Mistress, hello. You well? You feels good? I am help you bring baby out."

The woman stammered back, awkwardly, trying her tongue in Eypharian, "You know talk of the masters? We can talk in that? You're a daughter of Yshul, why you don't know our tongue?"

Iha bowed her head. Eypharian. This was an easier stretch for her. Dua'la was Eypharian, and had spent a good deal of time with mother over the years.

"I am born to a Benshira, mistress. But I am not raised one. I come to help you with thy baby, coming, to be thine in the birthing of her. Can I… feel your belly?"

"If you want."

"Oh no, mistress. I am thine, I do as thou wouldst have me do. But if I could touch thy belly, I would tell thee of the health of thy carrying."

"I do not need a slave. I've been a slave, I do not need one for myself," she spit the words almost angrily.

Iha nodded, "I am thine, if thou wouldst accept me or no, mistress. Accept me then, for the child's sake, if not for thine."

"A blind child? You are, what -- eight? You cannot be old enough to have your blood come yet. What would you do for me?"

"How many children have you seen born, Khejia?" the older woman spoke now, in a low throaty tone, in Shiber, "Three? Two? This is Shifra of Hai. She has felt twelve high-seasons, and has seen more than you shall see in all your life. One grows quickly in Hai. I will not insult the Servant of Hai and her young ward by suggesting that they choose poorly in letting the girl serve you, Khejia, no matter how angry it might make the Captain."

There was a silence. Iha felt a strange rebellious pride at the outburst. She WAS those things, she was Iha Fhisra, the Midwife's Daughter. She knew, perhaps, a tenth of what Mother knew, it was true. But already she knew more of Birth and Death and Pain than this child perhaps ever would.

Khejia relented, said softly, "Very well."

Iha nodded, and moved a slow hand, much softer than her mother's, for she did not have to walk on it, in a downward arc toward the warm source of the woman's skin. She reached belly, and it was still covered by a thin linen tunic.

"I will… have to lift this, mistress, if you would have me tell you things."

The woman spoke back, after a pause and said softly, "Very well. I have no virtue anymore. There is no shame I do not warrant, anymore."

So, Iha did. Undressing the mistress, Mother had long since taught her, this was the first of the Gates, which one must tread through with head bowed. She did so, then, bowed her head humbly, and murmured, "As you wish, Mistress."

She put a hand on the woman's belly then, and took the rest to reach for the woman's hem - she could not reach it, she knew this - it was not her first time doing this part. But she kept her hand on the belly, head still bowed, and gathered the hem up with movements of her fingers, pulling the skirts up to the belly, then over the top of the woman's still small belly.

She sang very softly, then, as her finger touched the woman's belly, prodding gently to feel the outlines of the newly awakened womb.

"Kihala, Kihala, your holy lips,
Lay down, lady, pray me, and press a kiss,
Kihala, Kihala, your holy arms,
Embrace this child, protect from harm."

Her belly felt soft, still, and tender, but this is not what woke Iha's mind - it was the smooth, plump, sun-fat skin, moist and clear beneath her hands.

"You are new here. You have been here not so long, mistress?"

"I… have been here twelve days."

"This child…. it is from… the other?"

The woman did not answer, and Iha felt her tense. She left the question, and ran her fingers down the woman's belly, to the top of her pelvis, seeking the bone there behind the woman's thick hair. She smelled her fingers first - the woman smelled clean, healthy in her sweat. She then carefully measured the fundus with her fingers, setting them apart, and drawing them together. Her other hand held the top of the woman's belly, gently.

"You are not too far along, mistress?"

"No."

"You… will be wishing the baby born?"

There was no voice, only the sharp intake of a breath.

"I mean no offense, mistress," Iha responded in her tiny child-voice. Mother was behind her now, with a gentle hand on her back, "I ask all the mothers, for many of them wish the baby gone before it is born. Its is not so good to be--"

"You can cut it out?"

Iha stopped, interrupted. She cocked her hand, and spoke very softly, "We can… relieve the baby of Kihala's gifts."

"IT will be gone, though? I will not have it?"

"Yes, mistress, if you… if you wish it."

"Do it. Today. Do it."

"There are consequences, my mistress. IT is a… a difficult thing. Many women cannot bear children again."

"Do it."

"If… my mistress asks me it, it shall be done. You must rest. It is painful if you do not relax, my mistress. I would not cause my mistress pain."

"Be done with it."

Iha was silent a moment. Mother gently kissed her cheek, and murmured soft in her ear, "It is what must be. This child is not you, my beloved. You must serve our people."

Iha nodded, and realized this was what troubled her - the Benshira woman lowered into the city pregnant. It was like her own mother. But, Iha was not a Kihala worshipper, alone. She knew Dira, too. And more than this, she knew the great sister Nikali, who always said to listen, to listen to what the mistress asks.

She went out to their travois, quietly, and opened the battered skin-sack that held Mothers tools. Today, her tools. She drew a bundle of thin rods, desiccate sinew dried around a plug of rice starch and dried fruit gums, and a long, slender metal hook, then took the thick bundle of rags, and returned, inside.

/It is not me. It is not even a someone yet. Just a little egg seed. And my Mistress asks me to do it. Give me courage, Sister Nikali./

/You are very brave, little servant. Your Mother will be proud./

She closed her eyes, and the tautness in her relaxed. The Nikali-voice came sweet and soft, sun ick swollen, into her thirsty ear, and made her feel, truly, the gentle comfort of the implement - to no longer be an agent, only a tool ini a mistress-hand. To be the one who brings joy, pleasure, comfort, release.

/To serve your people, child./

[Philomena]

Winter 7, 489
The Leper Colony, Hai
-------------------------

"Fhisra… wake up little one."

And she was. It was a strange sensation. To wake suddenly in Hai was not a strange occurrence, it was a survival instinct. One learned quickly to skim timidly along the edge of sleep, so that one could cower back if something angry, or hungry appeared, without the impediments of waking. It was a sort of adrenaline injector, kept just inside one's dreams, to let fear return quickly enough.

This was different: When she woke, the girl felt not startled, but instead, incredibly, indescribably calm. It was a strange sensation to her, a dangerous one, and the very placidity of it began to well up a new terror in her heart. But then, she felt fingers on her face, the softest, most sun-sweet fingers she had ever felt, and the calm settled over her again. It was a strange, foreign calm, the echo race-memory of a calm. The closest she could come to understanding the feeling was the vague memory of falling asleep on Mother's back, when she was small enough to be bound there, and those memories bore the haze of distant past.

"Who are you?"

"You know me. But, not for a few years yet."

Iha felt the warmth of the woman, seated on the stone floor beside her, the smell of her, rich and honeyed and eminently seductive. She reached a hand toward the woman, and was surprised to find her thigh, her belly, naked and bare. She felt the woman's plump-soft hand wrap around her belly, and draw her up, into her lap. Iha rested her head against the woman's bare breast, and felt her hand wrap protectively around her face, a depth of darkness overlying the charcoal dark of the blindfold, filling her with shuddering, powerful comfort. Just how she would have it.

She whispered very soft, very soft, back, "Lady, how did you know?"

Lips curled into a smile kissed against her forehead.

"You are the lady. I the servant. I have heard what you wanted. Come."

And Iha was standing then, and walking. The woman never sat her down, and yet it was so, her hand wrapped in the skiing, as humid as a pool. Her eyes were mimed to black, and she walked through the smells of the passage for once with a strange lack of fear. The woman stopped, and guided Iha's hand to in her own to touch… metal. Round, and on something mobile. The roll of a wheel, and all exceptionally light. But long. The woman released her hand, and Iha foot the metal, a round tube. It was strange, smooth, slick with clean paint, and built into a broad rectangular frame, on two small wheels at its feet. The center of the frame is filled with a taut sheet of canvas, covered with small, buttoned pockets. At the head, two poles taper in, to pick the contrivance up and drag it by. A Miner's travois, agile and narrow.

"What is this?"

"You wished to carry your mother."

"It is too beautiful! People will think I have stolen it."

"You are a wise girl."

She felt the lips on her forehead again in that smile. Then the hands guided hers again to the surface of the travois. The cloth sagged mildly, know, the nap of the canvas was worn and soft. The tail of the frame was bent, the tires pitted and dirty. The metal was rough and mildly rusted.

"I can carry Mother in this?"

"It will be hard. It will teach you strength, and patience."

"I will be strong, to serve Mother."

"Yes, I think you will."

And Iha felt the woman's face draw close to her and kiss the small of her neck, gently. She shivered, and the woman spoke very soft, "Be careful with yourself, dear one."

And she was gone. Iha walked around the cart and took the handles up. The wheels groaned slightly against their tired axles, but were fluid. The cart was heavier than she expected, but not unmanageably so. She turned and, her sight was back to her, the faint outlines of the hoodwink shadowed unpleasantly against her pupils. She shuddered, but nodded, bowing her head. She pulled the handcart slowly down the passageway.