F E L K A
sensitive material: pregnancy
Darkness had brought a striking cold as a companion. Even within the confines of the Temple, Felka's breath showed as a plume as she whispered in the quiet. Her soft voice echoed dully against the cavernous stone walls of the shrine. She hoped fervently that the outlanders wouldn't hear her. A large group of them had appeared as if from nowhere, and while Felka was, of course, curious about the meaning, if there was one, of their arrival, she preferred to conduct this ritual in private.
Felka always came to the shrine on this day. It was the day her Mama's blood had spread across the beaten dirt floor of their hovel until it matched the boughs of the maple outside the door. Mama's tenth child had been her last child. They had waited to bury her until the babe could rest in her arms. It was also the day that Felka had learned the gods were dead. At least, inside the bubble they were. Maybe outside they were waiting to grant all the prayers that had built up at the edge of the barrier. Maybe one day someone would find a way through the dome, and the gods would shower enough blessings down to make up for all the bleeding Mama's, dying babes, and weeping fathers. Felka wondered if there could ever be enough blessings to ease the pain in her heart.
Still, Mama had loved the gods. She had begged Felka to pray for her, to pray for her son, to pray for the gods themselves even as the blood leaked from her cheeks. Felka supposed the worst that could happen was she had to wait until she found a way through the dome before the gods heard her prayers.
"...and so Rae helped to name the oak and the wolf, the willow and the deer, and all the other plants and animals of the world, even ones which do not live with us now. And they were glad, for they loved their names." Felka finished her whispered recital of the children's story and lapsed into silence. She would say a prayer, but every year she started with one of the stories her mother had used to teach her daughter to read and write. It was her way of remembering them, of honoring her mother when she had no one living to whisper the stories to. She had saved this one, of her favorite god, for the tenth anniversary of her mother's death. Things felt different this year. It was as if an expectant hush had fallen over the entire dome. The Outlander's arrival must be a portent of something. How could they not? Her father had raged that life had no meaning, but Felka knew that couldn't be true. There had to be a reason the gods had locked them in this cage. She had to believe that it was for protection, that there had been something outside that was worse than the starvation of those born within.
"Rae of the forest and field and all the rest, I have come to you again to ask you to remember my Mama and all her babies. There're too many others like them. I need to help the. Please." Felka always prayed to Rae. Vi had proved too impermeant, Mort too intractable. Caido must surely be important to bother with anyone so inconsequential as Felka. Nature contained death, yes, but it also held life. It was in the woods that Felka had found the bits of nourishment that allowed her to survive where her siblings died. All good things in her life had come from the forest in the end. Except for her Mama, and her Mama ahd brought her the gods.
