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Navia and her wives don't attend every event that takes place in Natlan. She's not sure it would be appropriate even if they were so inclined, and they do have responsibilities in Fontaine.
However, they do attend some, because they have friends there now and travel is largely quite easy. Not quite as many in the last few months, because Navia is more tired than she used to be, but they came for Mavuika's birthday and now, not quite four months later, they are in Natlan for Chasca's birthday festival. (Which is not actually being held on her birthday, it's a few days later - something about a scheduling conflict with another, older tradition.)
They are less close to Chasca than they are to Xilonen and Mualani, but she is close with both of them and Navia does like Chasca, they just don't see her much. Her particular role in Natlan means she goes out on her own quite often.
And in any case, this is very likely to be the last Natlan festival they will have the opportunity to attend before their son is born. He is due very soon now.
Navia's anxiety about childbirth is now less important to her than her desire no longer to be pregnant. She hasn't really enjoyed any part of the process, but this stage is particularly unpleasant. Her belly is just in her way.
She misses being able to curl up behind one of her wives and snuggle close, legs tangling together. She misses not having to reach past her wretched belly to do things. She misses fitting. In her clothes, in narrow spaces, in the space between the beautiful women she loves. (They make room for her. It's not the same.) She misses not feeling ungainly, she misses being able to move easily enough to ravish her beloveds as thoroughly as they deserve.
Soon, she tells herself, and a celebration at the Flower-Feather Clan will pass some of the time left to wait delightfully.
They arrive in Natlan to Xilonen looking more irritated than is usually her habit since the system for her protection in Fontaine was revised. (Navia has in no way reduced the protection of the Spina di Rosula, but they're encouraged not to let Xilonen notice them.)
"I'm really sorry," she says as soon as she sees them. "There was a miscommunication. Mualani took the teapot to the Springs to collect Benny's dads."
"Quite reasonable," Navia says, because they are older men who have lived physically difficult lives.
"I guess," Xilonen says, "but I didn't want you to have to go the long way." She's digging through a box. The teapot from Fontaine is in a storage room adjacent to her workshop.
Navia smiles. "The Flower-Feather Clan is not that far from the Stadium," she points out. "I'm pregnant, not an invalid."
"We're sorting something out," Xilonen says. "You can't walk that far." It's a statement, not anything close to a question, and Navia admits that she probably couldn't. Her back is already aching - it's been a recurring problem for quite some time, but today is worse than usual.
"Wretched ants!" yells a familiar voice somewhere outside. "Misuse of priority reserved transportation options draws the wrath of the Great Dragonlord!"
"But someone took the good wagon," Xilonen adds, tone dry. "Ajaw is really mad about it. There's no way you could be comfortable - or safe - on Mavuika's bike and mek transport doesn't work over distance this far from Fontaine." She reaches the bottom of her box. "I'm going to kill someone," she growls. "Mavuika!" She bellows the name.
"I was right outside," Mavuika says, leaning in the door. "Where are we?"
"Someone took the last spares without updating the list," Xilonen says. "We can't fix it. And if I try to make some now the wind will change before I'm done."
Mavuika nods. "Sounds like I'm up." She smiles at Navia and her wives. "Are any of you afraid of heights?"
So. In almost no time at all Navia is in a hot air balloon, gliding through the sky over Natlan. The balloon's heating element is damaged to the point of being entirely non-functional, but that doesn't matter because the Pyro Archon is providing the flame.
It is an interesting aspect of Natlan's relationship with their Archon, Navia thinks, that Mavuika will often do things with and for her people - and her friends - it would be unthinkable for anyone to ask her to do.
Mavuika's satisfaction is evident when she successfully reduces the flame at the perfect rate to make for a gentle landing at the Flower-Feather Clan.
The Flower-Feather Clan isn't quite as relaxed as the People of the Springs but they aren't as loud as the Children of Echoes. The company is good, the food... at least isn't pungent enough to make her ill, even if she feels enough nausea not to want to eat it. Navia is enjoying the festival.
They've done their best to provide her with a comfortable chair and it's no-one's fault her back is in spasm. She'll ask Clorinde to rub it when they get home.
The many saurians appear to be finding her particularly interesting tonight. It's charming, Navia thinks, right up until a small one butts her shoulder with its head, stares at her, and squawks in a way that makes her feel rather berated.
"I don't have any snacks for you," she tries.
The saurian makes another displeased sound which draws the attention of a big one, which leans in to examine Navia disconcertingly closely.
"What do you suppose they want?" Furina asks. Clorinde is tense. The saurian is very large.
But then it makes a noise at the small one, and they both turn and leave.
"Strange," Navia says, wincing as her back twinges again.
The drama is apparently not concluded, because a few minutes later the two saurians - she's fairly sure they're the same ones - return. The large one is now herding Chasca towards them. Mavuika, Xilonen, Mualani and Benny are trailing behind them, looking a mixture of curious and amused.
"I'm coming, you don't need to keep pushing me," Chasca complains. "You said you'd be fine with this, you know, you did not have to come if you didn't want to and I'm going to tell Mom that you were being a jerk at my birthday par-"
The saurian shoves Chasca especially firmly towards Navia and her wives and screeches, raising its wings threateningly, and Chasca stops her complaint mid-word.
"Are you sure?" She frowns at Navia. "Navia? What's wrong?"
Navia blinks. "Nothing that I know of. I assure you we're having a wonderful time."
Chasca shakes her head. "Coya says there's something wrong with you." She puts the back of her hand against Navia's forehead. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm quite fine," Navia says.
"You're not," Chasca says firmly. "Coya wouldn't lie to me." She raises her voice. "Can someone find Citlali and see if she's not drunk yet?"
"I'll go!" Benny says immediately, and runs off.
"Navia?" Furina and Clorinde are both concerned, now. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing!" Navia exclaims, exasperated. "My back hurts and I feel nauseated. I feel like this every day."
"Is it worse than usual?" Mavuika asks. She's looking at Navia oddly.
"Perhaps a little?"
"Do you know what's actually wrong?" Chasca asks, and Navia is about to say that nothing is wrong when she realises that Chasca is asking the saurian.
The saurian makes a noise, and moves its wings, and -
"Humans don't - oh, no. Are you sure?" Another movement, and Chasca nods. "Okay. Thanks, we've got this. Take Chime somewhere else, I'm not sure she should see what happens now." She turns back to the humans. "Coya says Navia's in labour."
"Your saurian friend says I'm in labour?" Navia echoes disbelievingly.
"Technically," Chasca says, "my sister says you're laying your egg, but there's kind of a vocabulary issue between species."
"She's right, too," Citlali says, coming up with Benny. "And you've been doing it for hours."
"I can't be." Navia stares at where the saurians are disappearing into the crowd.
"Do we have time to get her back to Fontaine?" Mavuika asks sharply.
"Not if you want both her and the baby to survive," Citlali says flatly.
"The wind's in the wrong direction for a balloon," Chasca says.
"We should have brought the damn teapot with us," Xilonen growls. "We could have sent them back to Fontaine and just moved the teapot."
Navia blinks. The Natlan side of the conduit hasn't moved since it was installed. Apparently she is not the only one who has come to think of it as an entirely fixed location.
"I'll go get it," Chasca says.
"You've been drinking. You are not flying Soulsniper when you've been drinking," Mualani says immediately.
"I'll go," Mavuika says.
"You've been drinking too!" Xilonen grabs her arm.
"No-one else is fast enough and we have to get her back to Fontaine," Mavuika says.
"Why? Flower-Feather Clan have healers who can deliver a baby," Xilonen says.
"I'm not, am I?" Navia whispers.
"Because of the leylines!" Mavuika almost shouts. "The connection to the leylines happens at birth. If the baby is born here he'll be connected to the leylines in Natlan." She looks at Furina, now. "I don't want to do that to you. It's not right."
Furina's hand is tight on Navia's. "For you to be my son's god?" Her voice is steady, but it's the steadiness of Furina the consummate actress. "Better that, I think, than the alternatives, for all that Neuvillette is kind."
"Are you sure?" Mavuika looks at Navia and Clorinde, now.
"I think," Navia says shakily, "that on matters divine I will trust Furina's judgment." She doesn't know what it means, not really, or how it will affect her son's life.
Mavuika nods. "Then call the healers," she orders, "and let's get Navia somewhere more private."
"We'll start here," Citlali says, and presses her fingertips to Navia's forehead. The pain dulls immediately.
"Oh," Navia says. "I hadn't even realised it comes and goes." Now that the pain is less acute she has more of a sense of it.
Citlali's expression is wry. "It's your first time," she says, not without sympathy. "Next time you'll know."
And that is a thought Navia isn't even going to consider.
In what seems like the barest moment she's been taken indoors, to a room that is perhaps even meant for this. There's a birthing chair waiting for her.
"You two hold her hands," Citlali orders, and Clorinde and Furina do just that, even as Xilonen and Mavuika are undressing her from the waist down.
"Palta is on her way," Mualani says. "Navia, if you want any of us out of the room you just say."
Navia is numb. She's giving birth. When did her mother know, she wonders. When will she know that -
"Hey." Xilonen snaps her fingers in front of Navia's face. "Get it together."
Navia blinks. "Isn't it too late for that?"
"Never," Mavuika says. "Navia, look at me." Navia turns her head to face her. The twin suns in the Pyro Archon's eyes are glowing brightly.
This, Navia thinks, will be her son's god.
"She's really losing it." Citlali sounds very far away.
"Navia," Mavuika says, "Right now, in this moment, you are alive. That's all that matters. Your family needs you, so you need to focus. And breathe."
Navia looks to either side.
Both of her wives look terrified, she realises, and she remembers Mavuika telling her that Clorinde's deepest fear is losing you and Furina -
She breathes in, breathes out. "Furina." She swallows. "Tell me about my mother."
She's never asked, before. Too cruel to remind Furina of all those she has known and lost, too strange to remind them all that Navia and Clorinde had taken a lover who was centuries older than they were.
Furina's eyes come into focus. "Your mother? She -" Furina smiles, sad and distant. "She was beautiful, of course, you take after her quite strongly, and she was thoughtful and intelligent and a beautiful dancer. We danced together in L'arbre de la vie. The reviews were outstanding - some said her performance was almost comparable to mine." Her voice softens. "I think if they had been honest they would not have included the almost, but of course it was not done to suggest that any performance could equal mine."
"Of course," Navia echoes. It hurts, despite Citlali's spell.
"Keep going," Mavuika orders. Navia looks around the room and sees things are different. There's another woman here now, crouched in front of Navia. Palta, she presumes. Xilonen is standing by Clorinde, leaning into her like she's supporting her weight. Mualani is doing something similar with Furina, and the Pyro Archon is watching over the scene like...
... well, like a god.
"She was clever," Furina says. "Very funny, when she wanted to be. Callas approached her after a performance with some terrible line, something awfully smug and silly. She laughed and said that either he could do better than that, or she could do better than him. He walked away, you might have thought he was quite offended, but he was back the next night with beautiful flowers. He said that he was sure she could do better, but he didn't think he could, and he was open to suggestions for improvement..."
Navia bites back a scream.
"Keep talking," Mavuika's tone is gentler this time. "Navia, you're doing well."
"I thought she was taking a risk to have turned him away at all," Furina says. "She was quite besotted with him, but -"
Navia doesn't manage to hold back the scream this time.
"We need a Vision healer," Palta says.
"May I present -" Furina says, and the Singer of Many Waters is there. The pain eases.
"It's not enough. She's losing too much blood," Palta shakes her head.
Maybe it's now, Navia thinks. Maybe it was like this. "Will the baby be all right?"
"Mavuika," Xilonen says, and Mavuika moves to take her place by Clorinde. Xilonen steps away to the centre of the room. "Listen to me," she says, eyes on Navia, and her skin lights up, bright lines glowing along her body. "And hear the echoes of the valley."
Navia doesn't see what she does, she has to close her eyes and scream at another wave of pain, but there's something else now, a pulsing beat that seems to join with her heartbeat and the pain is easing.
"Benny! Get in here!" Xilonen yells.
"Huh?" Navia hears. She opens her eyes, panting for breath, and sees Benny running into the room and instantly averting his eyes. "What am I -"
"Healing. Get ready now," Xilonen orders. "I can't sustain it long."
"Right!" Benny nods. "Say when you need me."
Something is happening, Navia thinks. The baby might be moving, finally -
"Push," Palta says. The pain is coming back.
"Benny. Now," Mavuika says.
"Teamwork is dreamwork!" Benny says, and punches the floor. Navia feels Pyro energy curling over her skin, warmth seeping into her and easing the pain again.
"Good," Mavuika says. "Everyone will now be calm." It's not even an order, it's a divine command. "Navia, you're doing great."
"Push," Palta says.
Navia isn't sure what she can feel, the last pulses of Xilonen and Benny's energies mingling with the Singer of Many Waters and all swirling in her body, but there's movement, and then she hears a wail.
"Is she - is this enough?" Xilonen demands. "I think Iansan -"
"She's okay now," Palta says. "The three of you together is a lot and the rest should be much easier." She straightens. She's holding the baby and wiping away some quite revolting-looking gunk. "Here's your mother, kid." She puts him on Navia's chest and moves Navia's hand to his slightly sticky back. Mavuika and Mualani are nudging Clorinde and Furina, who both reach out and put their hands on the complaining baby too.
Navia looks at her wives and their matching expressions of awed wonder, and then at her son. He is red-faced and screaming, and he is sticky.
Cute enough, she supposes, as far as newborns go - she's seen them before and they are rarely appealing - but he is sticky. And, she realises, urinating on her shirt.
Despite that, she instinctively wants to stop anyone else besides the three of them from touching him. Her first impulse when she sees a fourth hand reaching towards him is violence.
She does not actually move. For many reasons, one of them being that the person reaching towards her son is Mavuika.
The baby stops crying when she cups his head in her palm. "What's his name?" Mavuika asks.
"Callas," Navia says. "Callas Caspar de Fontaine."
"I welcome you to the world, Callas Caspar de Fontaine," Mavuika says, her hair lighting up and streaming behind her. "Carry my blessing and my love with you, wherever you may go and however far from here you roam. You will not be bound to Natlan, though you will always have a place here."
When she takes her hand away Navia thinks for a moment she sees tiny lines glowing on her son's skin. They're gone when she blinks and she's not sure if she imagined it.
"What would have happened if you hadn't done that?" she asks, because that was clearly very much a thing.
Mavuika smiles wryly. "These days, hard to say. Maybe nothing, but I'd rather play it safe. Babies don't have the kind of strong connection to the leylines that can be sustained over distance. He might have had a lot of bad luck."
Navia's son's skin is unimaginably soft under her palm.
But it's still sticky.
"So do I just go now?" Benny asks. He's facing the wall away from Navia. "Because if you still need me, totally cool, I'll wait! But, you know. if you don't I might go... somewhere else."
"You can go," Mavuika says.
"Thank you," Clorinde says. "So much."