Divinity

AN: Written for SaoirseParisa's One Word Prompt on The Village Square Forums. My prompt was "life".

She was alone when she gave birth, and although she was frightened, she preferred it that way.

Her eyes were glazed as she stared at the small window above her bathroom sink. She gripped the porcelain in her slick fingers, waiting. Weed the tomatoes. Harvest the cucumbers. Plant more onions. Her lower back began burning again. Feed animals water animals milk cows gather eggs—

Her thoughts stopped. She hissed through the pain.

"Molly?" Her Harvest Sprite's voice was a timid squeak at the keyhole. "Are you okay?"

"Go away, Finn." There was blood in her mouth when she spoke. Her lip was swollen where she'd bitten it. That was hours ago.

"But I'm worried, Molly!" Finn persisted.

The contraction ended, and she could breathe again. "You don't have to be. This is perfectly natural."

Natural, as in, no pain meds, no epidural, no peanut-shaped foam pillow between my legs and ice chips to chew on for nausea, she added irritably. Just thinking about Irene's face at the clinic all those months ago made her cheeks flush with fury. Bitch thinks she can look down her nose at me for having a child without a ring on my finger. No way I was going to let her put her hands on my baby. So I'm doing this the natural way. The hard way.

But she'd known that hard was how it had to be, from the moment she'd taken the test nine months before. She'd gotten stares. Whispers trailed her wherever she walked. Perry came to the farm one morning to talk to her about the benefits of a child growing up in a two-parent family, and she'd sat down with him on her couch, sipping tea and nodding thoughtfully along to his advice.

And after he'd left, she'd cast a pointed look at Mount Garmon and had gone to water her plants.

All of her well-meaning neighbors gave her sympathetic smiles when they saw her. They thought of poor Molly at the farm, slaving away with the animals and the crops and spending lonely nights in her house while her body swelled up with an unknown man's child. A wanderer, they'd said. A vagabond. Maybe the Wizard…?

She wasn't upset at any of them. Well, except Irene. Bitch.

It wasn't her neighbors' faults that she'd married someone who made it look like she didn't have a husband.

The next contraction ended on a reflexive push. She met her own wide eyes in the mirror and set her jaw. This is just how is happens. Like when mother died. Like my first winter here when the coop blew down and I lost all my chickens. A little pain and then something good comes of it.

Her knees buckled and she folded to the floor, a retch fighting its way up her throat. The bathroom tiles were cold against her bare legs. Animals give birth on the ground, she thought blearily. In the dirt, in the grass. At least my floors are clean.

Her body wanted to keep pushing, and she didn't know how to stop it.

A human is born, he lives a little while, and then he dies.

Her mouth twisted in a wry smile, even as she bore down again.

Well. Most of us, anyway.

The baby was bright pink and squalling like a storm. She nearly dropped him when she lifted him from the floor, but she tightened her grip and brought him, soaking wet, to her chest. His eyes were bluer than the sea. He had his father's hair.

"Molly!" Finn beat the door with his tiny fists. "Are you okay?"

Her whole body was wracked with tremors—whether from pain or adrenaline or unspent fear she could not tell. "Gimme a minute," she panted. "Just…gimme a minute."

She felt around with her free hand for the towel she'd pulled out of the closet earlier, and when she found it she clumsily wrapped it around them both, patting the squirming baby dry as best as she could.

Almost hesitantly, she peeked down at her chest. A tiny face peered up at her, somber and, for now, silent. He was covered with a fine layer of fuzz, like a peach. She stared into his eyes, wondering.

When she looked up again, the Harvest God was standing above her.

She was too weak to be surprised, and so she could only gaze up at him, speechless. She knew what she looked like, naked from the waist down and covered in her own blood, white-lipped, shaking. His robes trailed in the pool of blood on the bathroom floor, and the light that emanated from his body made the tiny bathroom gleam like bronze.

"I don't think I can stand up right now," she finally said.

"Don't." He knelt down and lifted her into the bathtub. Her arms wrapped protectively around the bundle in her arms, she watched as the god—the man—her husband—ran the hot water and sponged her off. The tub water turned pink. He drained and re-filled it.

"His name is Florian," she told him. She hadn't discussed names with him. It's not like we meet for dinner every night.

"A fine name." His skin glistened with water as he ran the sponge over her sweat-soaked shoulders. Molly peeled back the towel. As the Harvest God's light fell on Florian's face, he squinted and squirmed.

"Hi," she whispered. He yawned. Or maybe he was hungry. She couldn't tell. She didn't know.

They'd all three of them have to figure it all out together.

"Is he going to live forever?" she asked suddenly. "Like you?"

"Would you love him any less if he was not?"

Molly hugged Florian tighter. "No," she said fiercely. "I'd love him more."

"Then, what does it matter?"

"Well, I mean, is he going to be like you? Is he going to be divine?" She shifted in the water, feeling Florian snuggle closer to her chest. "Will he be able to make plants grow, or maybe make animals healthier just by being around them? Or maybe he'll always be healthy. Or... or, will he be able to make his friends not fight with him, or maybe he'll be able to make people like him and never make fun of him?" Her voice dropped. "I hope so. I hope he'll make Irene eat her words about children growing up fatherless. I hope he can stifle anybody who might talk bad about him behind his back for anything-for what he looks like, or how smart he is, or how he doesn't have a father-a visible father," she corrected quickly, when she saw the Harvest God's grim expression.

"A poor use of divinity," he said darkly. "You would burden our son with immortality for such trivial matters?"

Molly flushed. "I just want to know what kind of life he's going to have."

Her husband's eyebrows unfurrowed, and small smile curled the side of his mouth. "A good one?" he offered, placing his hand on her cheek.

They both looked down at the baby.

"Yeah," Molly echoed. "A good one."

DRABBLES. DRABBLES EVERYWHERE.

I've had zero time to write lately and it really shows. The only time I have to write is at work, but I also have to * work * at work, so I'm sorry if this one seems rushed. I'm glad I finished it, though.