Tsaheylu

The Fall

The next morning I woke up to the feeling of Neteyam's hands on my belly, his voice low and quiet as he mumbled away to it, clearly trying not to wake me up. "So you be good to your mum for me, she's growing you for the next 9 months and it's going to be hard on her." He says somewhat sternly, though as I peered my eyes open I saw the grin on his face.

"You talking to the baby?" I ask groggily, my voice deep and thick with sleep. Neteyam seems to jump a little at the sound of my voice, his eyes slowly panning up my body to look at me. He beams at me, giggling at himself as I smiled lovingly down at him. "You know he can't hear you right?" I tell him, putting a hand on my somewhat flat belly and rubbing it slightly. The nausea was making my stomach churn a little, though it was only a feeling so far which I was thankful of. "Eh, that doesn't matter." Neteyam responds, lifting himself up to the top end of the bed as I sat myself up.

"Good morning, beautiful." He cooes, letting me lean against his shoulder as I yawned. "Good morning, handsome." I return, rubbing my eyes tiredly. "You been awake long?" I ask him, smiling as he kissed my head. I tilt my head up to face him and press a few kisses to his lips, enjoying the feeling of his warm arms snaking around my body. "Not all that long, maybe 5 minutes. Me and baby girl were having a great little chat just the two of us." He says, putting the emphasis on girl. We had only known for almost 24 hours now, and yet he was convinced that I was having a girl. Saying how he wanted a little princess to cherish and shower with all the affection he could. "I'm sure he said so much to you," I retort, making him chuckle. In my opinion it was too early to start speculating about the gender, but it was fun annoying him with my difference of opinion.

Call it mother's intuition, but deep down I just had a feeling that the little life inside of me would become our son.

"Anyway," He changes the subject, squeezing my body a little as my stomach starts to rumble, "What are we up to today?" He asks. I shrug my shoulders as I let myself wake up a little more, having no clue whatsoever what we should do. However, before I could respond to him a whir of black curly hair comes running into the Pod, a begruding boy following her.

"Morning!" Tsireya calls out, panting a little as she stops dead in the room with Lo'ak in turn, his face sour. "Morning," I respond, looking to the pair with a little shock. "What's got you so riled up?" I ask Lo'ak, noting his annoyed expression. "Tsireya dragged me out of bed and ran here while muttering something about how we have to get to you before you go to breakfast." He murmurs, running a hand over his face. I nod my head as an sympathetic smile tugged at my lips, having had Tsireya do that to me more times than I could count. "Yeah, I pass the baton to you now. I've done my duty for 18 years, it's your turn." I tell him, with a laugh. He scowls at me but manages to chuckle, collapsing down on the bed across the room from us.

"Why did you have to get to us before we go to breakfast?" Neteyam asks, stroking his fingers over my shoulder as I did similarly to his chest. Tsireya puts her hand on her chest and tries to catch her breath, her eyes going frantically between me and the door. "We... forgot... The girls... Already at breakfast..." She pants out to me, pointing to the door as I tried to make sense of her words.

"We forgot? The girls are already at breakfast? What girls? OHHHHH..." The pieces finally fall into place as I realise what she was talking about, going back to the conversation we had had with Zoria and Ria two days ago. 'Can we join you?'

I slowly get out of the bed and stand up beside Tsireya, rubbing her back as she takes a few deep breaths. "Did you run all the way from the feast circle to their Pod," I say pointing to Lo'ak then continue, "And then to here?" She nods her head and straightens herself out, meeting my eyes. "All the way, full sprint. I needed to tell you before you walked in with Neteyam and ruined the game." She chuckles, looking to my husband on our bed. He looks purplexed, trying to figure out what we were talking about, and I realised in all the excitement about the baby and his hunt I hadn't told him about Zoria.