Oihana woke up before dawn; Zorion, held carefully between her body and Arnas's, was making soft sounds of discomfort. He was hungry, of course. Oihana bent to kiss his cheek and then lifted the baby, making sure he hadn't soiled himself again--she had last changed his cloths only a few hours ago, after moonrise. She held him to her breast and stood up quietly, pacing the tent. She was awake now, there was no sense in trying to get more sleep out of the night. Anyway, Arnas had watched the baby for most of the afternoon so she could get some extra rest, and now she felt antsy, on edge, as she always did when she slept during the day rather than at night.

She cooed softly to Zorion and stroked the soft down growing on his head. It was such a strange blessing to get a new baby just after she lost ... her thoughts veered away. It was too painful to think her name, and it evoked too much. Oihana pushed open the flap of the tent, still holding Zorion close, letting him suckle, and peered outside, catching the faint pinkening of the sky.

And a rumble in the ground.

And then shouting.

"Interlopers!"

Oihana gasped and stiffened, and Zorion turned his head away from her breast and started to wail. "Sh. Sh." She tried, desperately, to quiet him, and moved quickly back into the tent. Arnas was already awake, strapping on his weapons. "Be careful," she said, in a voice like iron. "Be careful. We love you." She turned again, her face very pale. At the moment all that mattered was that she protect her son; she'd have to go to the caves. She sped up to a jog, her body, recently taxed by childbirth, protesting with every step, but she ignored the discomfort.

Where was Renna? Oihana looked around
By the time she reached the mouth of the river her heart was pounding, but Zorion, face pressed to her chest, was almost quiet, as though he knew it was important, or could sense her urgency.

She knew the caves, had explored them a long time ago when she had come to visit the border on the rare occasion the Hibai had come so far west. She'd thought she could escape, but hadn't gotten a chance. The tunnels were stocked with some dried foodstuffs and blankets, but were woefully dirty and damp. She fell in with some women, oldsters, and children, and tried to help where she could; someone up ahead carried a torch. Behind, the sounds of battle faded, and she felt her heart wrench. Selfishly, she wished Arnas were in here with her and not out there... but she could do nothing about it.

At last they emerged into one of the safe chambers, and Oihana let herself collapse, staggering backwards against a wall, trying not to remember another battle, the day of her capture. She slid down to sit on one of the blankets another woman had unrolled, and looked around. She ought to take care of more than only her own child, but most women were doing only that, taking care of their sons and daughters, nieces and nephews. Oihana had no relatives among the Zerui, and her Endikai relatives... it had been more than ten years since she had even seen them. Vainly she searched the caves for her older sister or her younger brother; she had seen both, briefly and uncomfortably, at the Gathering. Her parents had passed on.

Instead her eyes caught on a small, skinny girl, not much older than she had been when Hibai took her, who looked lonely, no longer helping any of the children. In fact, it almost seemed like people were ignoring her. Was it... Oihana's eyes widened. It was Esti alab'Zeru! And the rumors were clearly true, that she had married Iñaki because she was pregnant. Oihana felt her mouth turn down in pity. All that was bad enough, but she'd seen the boy, and he looked too weak and weedy to make it in battle. Arnas, at least... Eguzki help him... he knew how to fight.

She pushed the thought away and moved to sit beside Esti, touching her lightly on the shoulder with her free hand, the other still holding Zorion close to her body.

"Aizu," she said quietly. "Here." She held out a blanket. "It's cold in here, you should take this. I'm Oihana alab'Gaizka." She ducked her head a little, hoping Esti had not heard of what she had done to Hibai.

Esti stood in the mouth of the cave, watching silently as the interlopers destroyed their camp, as women and children made their way from the wreckage to the safety of the caves. And perhaps it was just the sad tension in their faces, or the worry branded on each woman's brow, but she couldn't help but feel their angry eyes were directed at her. "Get the smaller children toward the back, keep them behind the older ones. They'll be safer there," she said quietly to a passing neighbor, and the woman nodded, moving into the caves to direct the children. Esti had the faraway feeling that her neighbor thought the suggestion was incredibly obvious, and rubbed at her brow anxiously.

She slid down against the stony wall, feeling the ridges of her spine scrape the rocks through the leather cloak. Undoing the clasp, she took it off and set it aside, spreading it out on the ground for the kids to sit on, but none would come nearer. Esti's hands automatically went to the little hill that was now her belly, trying to get some comfort out of the life there. If she imagined hard enough, sometimes she thought she could feel a separate heartbeat from her own there, but now there was only silence. The baby was keeping quiet, and for good reason, but Esti wished that anything would drown out the sounds of screaming from their campsite.

There was a touch on her shoulder, suddenly, and she turned toward the contact almost too quickly. Oihana alab'Gaizka -- there had been mentions of her, when Hibai had died, but she had been one of his concubines, so Esti thought nothing of it. And she had a baby now, a beautiful baby. Hibai's, or had it been long enough since he had died? Esti didn't know anymore.

"Aizu," she said. "Esti alab'Zeru. Come sit down, we can share the blanket. There aren't many." She smiled, taking her hands off her belly long enough to take the blanket and spread it over her bare legs -- in all the rush, she hadn't had time to put on her breeches, and her tunic alone was cold -- and hold it for Oihana to settle in. "You have a beautiful son. What's his name?"

Dimly, she wondered how she had known the baby was a boy, swaddled as he was, and decided that it didn't matter. Maybe it was an instinct that came with being a mother, or being a future mother, in her case.

"Thank you." Oihana smiled at Esti and took a bit of the blanket, pulling it over her own legs. It was cold at nights, and she too was wearing only her tunic, one that opened down the middle and wrapped around her body, so she could nurse Zorion.

"His name is Zorion," she said, smiling with the self-consciously ridiculous pride of a new parent at Esti. "You may hold him, if you like. It's good practice. He's a very good baby; he hardly cries at all. A blessing. Do you know when you're due?" She glanced down at Esti, guessing that her child would come some time in the late fall or early winter--a hard time to have an infant. She had been very lucky that Zorion was born in summer, when there was little change of starvation or freezing.

Then again, they were all too close to death even now. She could not forget the war raging outside the caves, no matter how much she wished to. There was every chance that none of them would even live to see the winter... but she pushed these thoughts out of her mind and huddled half beneath the blanket, her legs just brushing the girl's.

"Oh," she said, blushing at the offer to hold the baby. Esti reached out and gently stroked Zorion's downy head with a finger, taking care not to bump or poke him. Even that light of a touch to someone else's child made her a little nervous -- the last thing she would want to do was hurt it, and then have it out to the tribe that she was terrible with children, a terrible mother. "Oh, I'd love to... that is, if you think it's alright. I wouldn't want to make a mistake or anything, and hurt him somehow..."

She shifted a little bit closer, sat up straighter, and held her arms to mimic the way Oihana held hers. She was surprised to see that it made a little cradle, with her ever-expanding belly as the base. And Esti was even more surprised, when the warm, silky bundle that was Zorion landed in her arms, how comfortable she felt with him there. Something cold and tense inside her began to melt away and she felt like crying with joy, even though the war was still happening outside. She smiled. "Zorion -- it's a wonderful name. Perfect for him. Iñaki and I like Aitor, if it's a boy."

Esti was startled at herself for saying it, but quickly recovered in time to answer Oihana's question about when she was due. She didn't know exactly, because the healer hadn't seen her since the first time, so she said, "I'm due this winter," in a rather vague kind of way. Esti counted backward in her head. It had been late spring when the raid took place, and it had been four months since, well past midsummer now. So she had five or so to go. "Probably close to midwinter, I imagine. If we'd been planning for this, we never would have done it this way, not with the baby being born in winter and all, but... Eguzki wills it."

She sighed and swayed Zorion gently in her arms, looking down at him fondly. "I don't think he -- Iñaki -- is happy about it yet. Maybe I shouldn't be."

"Oh, no. You should always be happy about a child." Oihana smiled to see how pleased holding Zorion clearly made Esti. She recalled how much comfort she had taken from Idoya when she had been so new to the Zerui, and bewildered, and alone. "Aitor is a wonderful name, the name of one of my uncles, actually." Perhaps he was still alive, or outside, fighting. It had been so many years, she only recalled him for his braids, which he'd let her play with as a child when she rode on his back, guiding him by the long cords of them as though he were a horse.

"I wasn't happy, at first, with Zorion... it was a bad time." And Hibai had always known, she thought, that he wasn't his. That was certainly an additional stress, but she didn't want to have to explain the full story of the Hibaii to Esti. It would take too long to understand, and she wasn't even sure she understood. Besides, it was over now. "But now that I have him... you'll see. It's a kind of instant love. It's hard to explain if you've never had a child before."

She didn't want to leave Esti holding him for too long--

Well, in honesty, she had to admit to herself, Oihana was simply very covetous about her baby. Arnas teased her about it: she simply hated to let go of him for the barest moment.

So she gently held out her arms for her son again. She'd have to feed him in another few hours, and would need to eat and drink something herself, so that he got the proper nourishment. For now, though, he had sunk into a quiet doze, his eyes shut, warm inside of his blanket.

"Iñaki is still very young, right?" She took Zorion in her arms again and bent her head quickly to check to make sure he seemed comfortable. "I'm sure he'll improve." If he survived. She hoped so, for this girl's sake--and for the sake of the Zerui. Two dead Warlord's sons: a very bad omen. She'd come to be a part of this Tribe. However unhappy she had been here, she didn't wish for its collapse. "Young men are always frightened of babies, it's a silliness they grow out of."

Even before Oihana reached out for her son, Esti was turning to hand him back. She felt a tug at her heart, the desire to be able to hold her own child someday, and smiled, watching Zorion doze in his mother's arms. "I can tell," she said. "I know I'm going to love my child. This is what I always wanted, to be with Iñaki. I know it sounds silly." From her seat beside mother and babe, Esti examined the pattern of dark hairs on Zorion's head, the shadows his eyelashes made on his brown cheeks. His hands were so tiny, so much smaller than hers, and she small herself...

Everything about the baby was tiny. Everything looked so fragile.

"Still, I worry... They're so small, babies are. They just look delicate, like if you touch them wrong they'll break. I know they won't, of course, but I worry I'll make a mistake. I hope Iña grows out of his silliness; I'm going to need help." She looked down at her belly, which seemed bigger in the shadowy cave, and grimaced. What kind of a world was she bringing her child into? War-torn, ravaged, against her baby from the very conception.

"I am happy," Esti murmured, glancing at Zorion. "But it's hard to stay happy when no one else is. Nobody wanted me to have the baby but me, and even I wanted... I didn't want it, at first. Iñaki was hurt. He'd been gone for two months, and Xanti --" She choked on the name, because he wasn't dead, because he had come back, and a new wave of fear swallowed her. Zeru was going to send Iñaki away if he found out. Xanti would be her new husband, and her baby considered his. There was no way she could be happy. So she would have to keep Zeru from finding out. "It was a bad time for me, too. But now I know I love the baby. I can't wait to meet it this winter. Especially after meeting you, little man."

The last was directed at Zorion, and the rest to whomever chose to listen. Oihana, mostly, but it was also for herself, and for whoever could hear and wanted to know the truth.

"Isn't your mother helping you?" The words tumbled out before Oihana realized the girl's mother might be dead. But no--Amaya alab'Zeru was her mother, wasn't she? Of course the Warlord's first wife was still alive; Oihana was only a concubine in a border tribe and even she knew word would have spread about such a death. Still, she knew that if her daughter were in Esti's condition and state, she wouldn't have left her alone like this, ostracized amongst her own people. How could it be that she, a concubine, was the only one to come and talk to her? Esti was barely an adult; she didn't deserve such treatment.

Yes, there was the regal-looking woman she recognized as Amaya, across the room, organizing some of the barrels of supplies. She wasn't looking at her daughter.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, turning back to Esti and running her free hand over her hair, almost before she was aware she'd made the motion. "I don't always know when to be quiet--forgive me. So, do you want something to eat or drink? We have food stores, and water, at least, is very important--I need some myself, for Zorion."

Esti looked up at the mention of her mother, catching a glimpse of Amaya on the opposite side of the cave, organized and calm -- almost coldly so -- as always. Somehow, whenever she felt she was doing right by her tribe and her child, Amaya appeared to make her feel otherwise, just by her presence. "There's nothing to forgive," she said to Oihana, accepting the motherly caress as comfort. "My mother is trying to help me, in her own way. I know she wants what's best for me and, well, I'm sure you've heard... the whole tribe feels badly about Iñaki. He's really very good at heart, and he tries so hard, but no one notices."

It took a moment for the comment about food to sink in, and then Esti practically scrambled to her feet, nearly braining herself on the low cave ceiling. "Yes, of course! Let's get you something to eat and drink. You must be starving. I know I am, but then, I'm always hungry now." She chuckled a little, but held out her hands to help Oihana up. In getting something to eat, the two had to come around to Amaya's side of the cave, and Esti smiled briefly at her mother, getting a brisk nod in return. Esti glanced in Oihana's direction and shrugged half-heartedly; her mother's inability to feel compassion for her had ceased to amaze.