Quiet Evening

The small group had been away for a good two weeks, coordinating with a neighboring sietch for a larger scale attack against some outposts outside of Carthag.  The fedaykin of that tribe were also eager to learn whatever techniques Sietch Sakhrar’s resident refugee from the Emperor’s army could offer.  They kept Ganten busy most of the time with training those interested, though he was able to join in on some of the strategy meetings as well.

Now he was just glad to be home…still a word and a concept he was getting used to when he hadn’t considered anyplace to be home, not even the barracks on Salusa Secundus.

The women and children of the men who had gone were in the sietch’s common area to greet them.  Aida was the first to find Ganten, peeling towards him and shoving whoever was in her way with a wide smile and a whoop as she jumped up into his arms.  He quickly shifted her to his left side as she held onto the front of his stillsuit, telling him she missed him and asking what he’d been doing.  She didn’t notice the slight wince from her flying leap, or his attempt to cover it up.  The real test would come with Rayan, who was a little slower than Aida lately.  This was due in part to her being seven months pregnant, otherwise she would have joined the scouts on the trip.  He saw her wending her way to them, a hand resting on her enlarged stomach as she gave a little wave.  She stepped past a couple reuniting to greet Ganten with a slow kiss.  He only broke it off when she wrapped her hand around his neck to pull herself closer, squeezing at the hidden wound.  

He was able to hide the reflexive grimace only partially.  Rayan’s eyes had narrowed slightly as they inspected his face before shifting back to the happy expression she had worn before so Aida wouldn’t suspect something was wrong.

“Have a good trip?” she asked, her hand having moved up to the back of his head to stroke at his damp hair.  Ganten remembered how much he missed that touch as he relaxed under it.

“It was successful, if that’s what you mean.  We’ll see how successful it was when we attempt that sortie next month.  I hope Aida wasn’t too much for you to handle—“

He tickled at the girl’s arms, causing her to squeal and bat his hand away.

“No!” She exclaimed, her face growing sly. “I helped Mama and Uncle Abossim took me worm riding because he said Mama needed a break because I was helping too much.”

“She’s helpful but gets underfoot when she wants to feel her brother kick all the time,” Rayan murmured with a smirk and a light rub alongside her stomach. “Let’s get you settled back in.  Baba looks like he could use a rest, doesn’t he, Aida?”

Aida rolled her eyes with a dramatic sigh.

“Mama just wants to kiss you without everyone watching.”

    “That’s part of it.  Fortunately for you, you get to stay with Uncle Abossim and Aunt Zartha for the night so you can play with all your cousins and stay up until dawn.  How does that sound?”

    Aida’s eyes crinkled as she smiled broadly.

“Yessss.”

—

“Strip,” Rayan said.

Ganten snorted as he looked up from where he had set his fremkit down.

“I thought you’d at least give me some time to freshen up first.”

She directed him with a deadpan look, which was further accentuated by her fists on her hips.  She stepped up close enough for him to feel her swollen belly brush against his torso as she rested a hand on the back of his head, presumably to ease him into a more malleable frame of mind.  Ganten was already halfway there as he twisted his neck down to kiss her under the ear.  He felt her other hand slip down the collar of his stillsuit, then she was stepping back, holding her hand up for him to see, the fingers swathed in red.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he quickly blurted.

She rubbed her fingers together, squinting at the blood before squinting at him.

“What is this?”

Part of him wanted to say “my blood,” but he knew he’d get slapped for the sheer cheek of it if he did that.  It was as if she could see the gears trying hard to click in his head and form a solid excuse, and she wasn’t impressed.

“It’s nothing.  Really.  We ran into some trouble on the way back here.  Ifrak treated it and said it’d be fine”–he shrugged, flinching at the pain the motion brought him–”It’s not that bad.”

Rayan pressed her lips together as she continued to rub at the blood on her fingers.  She didn’t seem the least bit convinced.  Her hands came up to start undoing the clasps at the top of his suit, Ganten’s flying up to arrest the motion.

“Wait, wait–”

A hiss came out between his teeth when she peeled the neck of the stillsuit away from

his skin, reopening the wound that had dried partway on it.

    “Nothing, hm?” she hummed, flipping the throat flap down further to inspect the damage, causing the blood to slither down his shoulder.

    “I may have–exaggerated.”

“Lay down on the cot,” she ordered, taking him by the upper arm to guide him there should he try to resist.  Ganten didn’t plan on resisting, not with a grip like Rayan’s clamped onto him.  “Get that suit off and I’ll fix that shoddy job Ifrak calls first aid.”

    Ganten decided it was best for his own wellbeing to not object, so he traded out the dusty stillsuit for a pair of light trousers.  He had to do without a top for now with Rayan working on him.  She seated herself on a floor throw pillow at the head of the cot, her medical supplies assembled on a little slab of a table.  She had to convince him to take a shot of spice beer too, saying it would help to take the edge off of the needle that would be sliding in and out of his skin.  Ganten had balked at first.  He still remembered how he felt the day after their wedding and how he would have preferred death to a hangover.  

Rayan, was of course, right though, as the small amount of alcohol provided a decent haze against the sharper jabs of the stitching.  He’d even downed a second shot once the needlework started.  It certainly put him more at ease than he would have been if he had his wits about him while she worked.  Ganten occupied himself by resting his hand on her stomach, moving his thumb back and forth slowly to feel the child within stretching and turning about.

    “Does he seem sort of…big for seven months?” he asked distractedly as the baby pressed a heel into his hand. “Or is that normal?”

    “Well, you know what they say about tall men,” Rayan replied with a sigh as she gently wiped at the gash with a sanitizing ointment.

    Ganten lazily smirked up at her.

“Actually, I don’t.  Remember who you’re talking to?  Enlighten me.”

    Rayan’s smile turned cloying as she paused to pat the hand he had resting below her navel.

    “Tall men make large babies, and this one is still growing, which is why you’re going to have a sprained hand after I go into labor.”

    She leaned down as far as the swell of her belly would permit her to peck him on the lips before straightening back up and working her needle through the top part of the gash.

    “It’s also why I don’t plan on us having too many children.”

“Oh, you never know,” Ganten countered, mouth forming into a lopsided smile with a slight raise of his brows. “We might have another happy little accident, or two.  Or three.”

    Rayan slanted a look at him that was all mock threat.

“Sometimes I think I preferred you before you managed to develop a sense of humor.”

    “It was always there, I just never had a reason to cultivate it.  So what about four, or five little ones?”–his fingers crawled up her belly to her arm, then shoulder as he pulled her down so he could kiss her–”Six, seven?  We can rival that uncle of yours and his horde in no time if we have one every year.”

    Rayan was giggling by now, a hand pressed flat on his chest, hiding the needle in her other fist as she twisted her head to the side to get away from the lips on her neck.

    “Stop that!  I might jab you on accident!”

“You’re already stabbing me anyways.  What’s another poke?”

    She relented enough to nuzzle him on the end of the nose, her thumb rubbing back and forth on the hand he had on his chest as her loose hair tickled at his face.

“I’m not popping out a child a year.”

“You really shouldn't think in absolutes–”

    “Two,” Rayan whispered, kissing him gently and slowly. “Anything after that will have to be an accident.”

    “Accidents.”

She playfully flicked him on the chest.

    “Don’t even go there, Gan.”

He only smiled in response.  He would have never dreamed that he would be thinking about or discussing children with a woman–his wife–given what was in store for his life since he had been inducted into the Emperor’s service.  It was all good fun, teasing her as he did.  He knew they wouldn’t be having a dozen children running around like a pack of noisy wolves.  A small family was enough.  He was simply glad to have a family at all.

    Once Rayan had finished stitching the wound closed and binding it, she put her utensils away and washed up, dimming the glowglobes in their yali.  Ganten felt her curl up against him in the darkness, wrapping an arm around her as she snaked her arms around his trunk.

    “Lying about your injuries aside, I’m glad you made it back,” she said into the darkness, nuzzling his rough cheek. “But don’t you go off and get yourself killed before I have this child.  You’re obligated to be there for what’s going to be a long birth.”

    Ganten’s hand sought out her belly in the dimness, his fingers lacing into her own on it.  He could feel her steady breathing on the rounded surface, the baby’s movements having slowed to sluggish kicks.

    “I’ll be more careful,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her forehead as he closed his eyes. “No more reckless skirmishes then.”

    That would mean he’d have to sit out what the sietches had been planning during their get-together.  It killed him a little…but it was better than him actually being killed and leaving Rayan widowed again.  The thought of her grief was enough to overpower his disappointment at being left out of the fight.

    He slept well that night, back at his home sietch with his wife by his side.