It began with a whisper from Elder Shyara.
"You are ready now," she said, placing a warm hand on Charlisa's belly—not pressing, but sensing.
Charlisa looked at her, startled. "Ready… for what?"
The elder smiled, her eyes gleaming like dawn light on river stones. "To begin the weaving of another soul."
The words settled over Charlisa not with shock, but with gravity. She had known it would come one day. After the rains, when the land opened, so did the wombs—that was what they said. Still, hearing it aloud from the mouth of one who had helped guide dozens of births made her heart flutter like a stirred leaf.
That night, around the fire, she shared the elder's words with Kael.
He listened in silence, gaze steady. Then, slowly, he reached for her hand and laced his fingers through hers.
"I've dreamed of little feet beside ours," he said. "Of you holding a child with your eyes and my stubbornness."
She laughed softly, then leaned into him, heart full.
Her heart was now longing to be a mother. She once thought it would be difficult to raise a child and it might increase the financial and emotional burden, now those were nowhere to be found because she knew here she won't be the only one to raise a child. She would be free to do things that she wanted to do.
Here are the elders that she can trust her child with to teach values, virtues and life skills.
Kael would be an excellent father to their child. In modern times, she met many excellent men but she couldn't see any future with them. Mainly because their patience levels were too low to raise a child with.
---
The next morning, the preparations began.
Charlisa was taken to the House of First Light, a quiet, reed-walled structure near the river, where women gathered to prepare for conception. She was not alone—two other young women were there, wrapped in soft linen robes, faces solemn with anticipation.
Elder Duma, keeper of fertility rites, gave her the first instructions.
> "The body must be clean. The mind must be still. The spirit must be aligned."
Charlisa began a daily cleansing ritual—herbal baths infused with blue-lotus petals and steam made from boiled bark, to "loosen fear from the bones." Her meals were changed to lighter fare: grains, honeyed roots, steamed greens, and soothing seed pastes rich in warmth and life. No nightshade plants. No dried meats. Everything had to be fresh, sprouted, or fermented for ease of digestion.
Kael, too, was included.
He drank a bitter infusion of roasted nuts and crushed root bark every morning, followed by long stretches of breathwork under the supervision of the village's male elder-guardians. They whispered instructions about vitality, endurance, and purity—not of perfection, but of intention.
And every evening, the couple sat together beneath the goddess's tree—Nalura, they called her, the goddess of fertility and growing things.
They were taught a chant, simple but potent:
> "As the soil receives, As the river forgives, As the moon remembers, So shall we give life."
Meditation was essential. Charlisa was encouraged to visualize not just a baby, but the kind of soul she wanted to invite: kind, curious, strong of heart. Kael was told to speak aloud to the air during sunrise, promising the ancestors what sort of father he would be.
Charlisa asked one night, "What if I'm not perfect?"
Elder Shyara had smiled gently. "No one births a perfect child. Only a whole one. Wholeness begins in love."
---
Days passed in quiet harmony, marked by steam baths, fertility massages, sacred songs, and gentle lovemaking guided not by urgency, but by reverence. Everything was done with mindfulness, care, presence.
"You are no longer just making a life," Kael whispered once, brushing his palm over her stomach. "You are becoming the soil where it will root."
Charlisa closed her eyes, breath deep and steady, and let the warmth between them soak into her bones.
It was not just a physical act.
It was a calling.
And she was ready to answer.