Work Text:
Lili is up earlier than Emily, before the sun rises, when the grey light of dawn is there, but not yet coming through the window of the cabin. Only the faintest of difference in the shadows that outline the walls and furniture of their home speak of the coming sunlight, and it isn’t enough yet to pull Emily from the depth of sleep.
For Lili, sleep has been difficult, these past few weeks. Erratic. Fatigue is a constant and yet her body is in turmoil and the strangeness often pulls her awake when she’d rather be unconscious. She sleeps during the day, naps, more than she has ever needed, and yet at night is overcome by restlessness that brings her here, watching the shadows lighten, in the pre-dawn hours.
It is warm in the bed, with Emily. Emily’s arm tucks protectively around Lili’s waist, the hand loose over her stomach as if, unconsciously, it is shielding the fragile life underneath. Emily is soft and warm, and they are lying skin against skin. Lili knows that the air around them will be colder out of the blankets. The stove hasn’t gone out – it holds its embers well overnight – but needs stoking, soon. Lili is reluctant to come out of the safe cocoon of Emily’s arms and the thick quilts.
But she has been awake too long, and the many annoyances of early pregnancy are already pressuring her to get up. Her bladder, mainly. But the edge of hunger will soon turn to nausea and after over a month of dealing with this, she knows that she needs to eat, to nibble some crackers before she gets sick.
Slowly she shifts and lets Emily’s hand slide away, tucks her body away from the embrace and slithers from the covers. Emily is a sound sleeper and Lili is good at this, being quiet and stealthy, so there is only the soft shift of Emily’s body snuggling deeper into the covers, adjusting to the empty space of the bed.
Lili doesn’t need to light the lanterns and she moves across the room, shivering at first until she finds some clothes, wraps herself in her thickest sweater. It hangs loose and low, just as she likes it, covering her to the thighs in warm wool. It isn’t a sweater she wears out – just around the cabin, at times like this. For comfort. It replaces the warmth and security of the covers and Emily’s arms.
She doesn’t worry about disturbing Emily as she opens the stove to stoke the fire, laying new wood across the glowing embers and watching them crackle to life. It is a quiet process, and they are both well used to sleeping through the scraping of the stove’s door at night.
Standing by the window Lili can see outside, at the smudgy grey and blue of morning. The window is not perfectly east, but she can still see the lightness of the horizon where the sun will soon come up. Sunrise is one of Lili’s favourite times. Though well used to the day, now, no longer a night ranger, Lili still thinks of nights spent at work and returning at this grey time of morning, trudging back through the walls of the fort, back to safety and home, before the sun ever comes to light the sky. Lili liked those times. Has always liked the colours of sunrise.
The blissful quiet of the cabin is punctuated only by the crackle of the fire in the stove and Emily’s soft breathing. Lili loves this, too; loves Emily and their life but lives for these moments of quiet and peace, when it is nothing but Lili and the dawn.
Soon the birds will begin to rise and their sounds and song will fill the air with their delight of morning. It is early May and the migrating flocks have returned. Just a week ago Lili and Emily had watched a flock of huge white birds, swans, fly past; heading north, to the far reaches of the land, where they will nest.
For now, though, it is just Lili, Lili and the quiet and the slow grey approach of dawn.
The crackers rustle but Emily doesn’t stir. She won’t, not yet. Lili is grateful for the mild taste, the crumbly texture of the crackers in her mouth. They are good crackers. Emily made them sometimes just for snacks but makes them more now, to help Lili. It is hard to have a baby.
In the cupboards Lili finds tea, as well, her own, crisp dried mint leaves, and sets the tiny pot on the woodstove to boil, watching it heat. The mint is good, will settle her stomach with the crackers.
Her body is no longer her own, and she is often reminded of this, in the sickness, the tiredness, and this too-early wakening. Emotions will flood her from strange sources, as though this new life doesn’t just reside in her belly but also her mind, too, as though the odd surges of sadness or anger or joy are the baby’s, and Lili is only a receptor, feeling the thoughts of her child as they share a body.
She doesn’t tell Emily this, very much. Not yet. Not because she does not trust Emily but it is difficult to articulate these thoughts and the way she feels as though a sort of explosion has happened inside of her. She struggles at times – as she has always struggled – with the intensity of emotion, and of fear, this reality that occupies her in both mind and body. She is going to be a mother.
The mint leaves steep in the boiling water, and a jar of honey thickened by cold waits for her spoon to sweeten the drink. Other times, Lili eats candied ginger and is forever amazed that something with such spice could soothe the stomach. But now is a time for a warm, minty cup of tea to warm Lili all over.
When it is gone she dresses for real, pant and a properly-fitting shirt and then her jacket and boots, and she leaves the cabin’s dim light with hardly a sound from the solid wooden door. The air is sharp around her, still cold this early with spring still developing around them. Lili watches above the trees at the halo of pale light peeking from the east, the pink and yellow tinge that hovers around the cluster of clouds at the horizon.
Around her the forest is waking up. The first birds are making their song into the clear air, welcoming the sun. So too is the grass and all the trees, the buds and leaves of new growth, the life beginning again for the season. Lili knows this just as she does the birds though the plants are silent in their joy. She feels them. She feels the forest quiver in anticipation of the sun and its warmth.
The lake is impossibly still, this morning. A mirror of water, still grey in the dawn, dark where the stone cliffs throw their shadows. A ripple passes through the middle where a fish rises to the surface. Lili crosses the grass and brush of their cabin’s clearing and breathes the scent of cold morning air tinged with the smell of the lake. Not a single breeze touches the water and no wind rushes through the distant trees like an approaching visitor.
She sits on the rough-hewn bench that was Emily's first woodworking project and closes her eyes to listen to the sunrise. The light touches her eyelids as it comes. Her ears fill with the joy of a new day incoming, echoed by all of the life around her. The sun breaks over the cliffs in a burst of red and yellow behind her closed eyes; she opens them to watch the rays shine across the still mirror of the lake.
And Lili knows that those same rays are touching the window of the cabin and shining down over the beautiful sleeping form of her wife. Illuminating golden hair, and Emily will wake and stretch and not worry that Lili is gone. Emily will rise and make breakfast, and in moments Lili will turn back to the cabin to greet the scent of porridge with sweet frozen berries.
For now, Lili is at peace here, as she is every morning, greeting the day with the new sunlight on her face.