The Seduction of the Midwife Hkelga

Standing in the chapel narthex was a full-figured woman built of firm fat over solid muscles. This was a stature built from living a life hauling water, tending the land and hefting children. She was holding a simple clay lamp. Hooked on her forearm was a hoop handled willow basket. Amber lamplight limned the simple linen surcoat she wore when she one handedly peeled off a damp snow specked cowl, gave it a shake and flung it back across her shoulders. Glops of wet snow splatted on the time hammered oak parquet. She then straightened her wimple and strode into and across the nave.

The chapel of Saint Gilrith, the patron saint of woodworkers, was a space of intricately carved wooden panels become dark with age. It was an affirmation from the long-buried hands of master craftsmen. An attestation to the Saint’s realm.

Hkelga, the woman in the linen surcoat, knelt in an alcove praying in front of a twice-sized statue of Matageita, The Divine Matron. The Goddess commanded the space with the warm glow of the handlamp casting dramatic shadows.

The statue was carved from an ivory coloured and fine-grained wood. A cascade of storm tossed black curling hair and a cloak of carved walnut flowed down together about her body to continue in a fan out across the top of the polished cherry wood altar.

The idol was squatting, naked, voluptuous and pregnant. Nobly bearing down with fists clenched and arms braced. With some sort of magic the Matron’s delicate face wavered between the intense grimace of child birth and one of profound sagacity. 

Below a glowing golden halo hovered unattached a few inches away from the upside-down head of the infant. He hung half born from The Mother. The babe’s eyes piercing but calming, forgiving, peered from a beatific face. An ivory hand proffered a yellow rose carved from the palest of amber

Hkelga prayed for her husband and herself. She prayed for him to renounce his oath of celibacy at the altar of Saint Deindel two years after the twins were born. She also prayed to carry another child.

They already had six children aged from fourteen years old down to the last two, twins, at age six.

She loved her children, being pregnant and bringing life into the world.

She loved motherhood and everything about it. Even the hard parts. It completed her.

Her dream had always been to birth a dozen children and raise them to be faith filled, hard-working servants of the Greater Good. Her desire to help birth and hold her grandchildren and great grandchildren. To be abundant and surrounded by innocence and love.

The sage green shawl about her shoulders was stippled with multicoloured tufts, like a field of summer blooms. Each one was for a child she had helped into the world. The pure white were for the stillborn. It was a vestment of sorts showing her renown as a dedicated and experienced midwife. 

Standing up, she moved to the plain marble stoup at the altar’s side, scooped salted holy water with cupped hands then poured it over the idol’s widespread feet. She then dabbed some on her own brow before leaning in and kissing the left then right foot of Matageita.

After patting her hands dry upon her apron, she pulled out a plain linen cloth bundle from which she unwrapped three crescent shaped biscuits. These she crumbled onto a silver platter between the feet of Mother Matageita.

She stiffly lowered herself again and resumed silently imploring The Great Mother to recognize her dedication.

She had been doing this more or less nightly for over four years now. Nothing had changed. Ashamedly, she admitted it was wearing on her conviction. 

After her 81 iterations she arose with reluctance and sloped shoulders of her dismay.

As she opened the door to leave she had a hollow feeling and, maybe for the first time, began doubting her faith. 

A damp chill wind checked her as she walked out the side door into the moonlight and onto a landing that overlooked the lake to the east. The blustering extinguished her handlamp.

She took a moment to close up the small lamp and stow it in her basket. Grimacing into the wind she adjusted her head scarf and buttoned up her collar. Soothing scents of oak and birch smoke waxed and waned as the wind tussled in shifting gusts.

It had turned from chilly to almost balmy while she had prayed.

Perhaps spring has sprung she thought.

Her eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight. It was slanting, diffused, through a low hanging cloud threatening to become fog. She flinched when a yellow orange streak made pastel by the haze briefly flashed across the horizon.

Ahead, a vast field of snow and windswept ice glowed in the moonlight. It was the deep lake that ‘her’ village was built around.

Crisscrossing the lake were grey streaks of the ash scattered walkways. There were a few dark silhouettes, fuzzy in the quasi fog, that ambled about. Some with lanterns making luminous blobs to contrast with the dark cold. Others bare shifts of shadow.

The homes around the north side of the lake were dark hulks with eyes of glowing windows and wigs of dark leafless trees on a backdrop of smoky smear.

To her left, at the marshy south shore, she could barely see the grey comforter of fog creeping over the lich yards where the pagans, what few were left, lowered their dead into the tannic waters among crumbling cairns.

Thinking of the pointed cap pagans of old, her mind wandered to the stories she had been told about the pagan fertility rites during her great grandmother’s time. These occupied her mind as she navigated the icy switchbacks of the walkway down the bank then out and onto the lake.

Guiltily, she found herself fantasizing about the bawdy old rites until another and brighter falling star streaked overhead.

She paused looking up hoping for another.

A third streak flared overhead.

Three so close together was a rarity worthy of a wish! She giggled at considering such nonsense. Yet, she did close her eyes and wish a wish that matched her earlier prayers.

For a long while she stood star gazing until the haze interrupted.

Like the wind, her mood had shifted. She had hope and acceptance. She felt peace.

Looking down a bit confused Hkelga realized her feet were wet and getting cold. The ice pan around her was sinking. Again, her emotions pivoted drastically to alertness.

Decades of attending births had left her epically cool tempered.

She squatted then pushed up with her legs attempting a mighty leap to a safer place.

Instead they pushed a circle of ice around her feet down.

Not unwisely as she fell forward she spread her arms wide sending her basket sailing across the winterscape. She hit with a guttural grunt and lay still for a moment.

She attempted to drag herself up but the ice broke in a plate about her. It tilted and dumped her into the cold dark lake water.

The momentum pushed her down. She slipped below the surface with a moderate kerplunk. Such was her focus that she had not screamed. No one was near. No one noticed. 

Not knowing how to swim, she struggled to reach the surface. Her bulky winter robe and layers of clothing were quickly becoming waterlogged and pulling her down. Hanging heavy and restricting movement. Trying to remove her garments only entangled her. 

Sinking in blackness a competent and wise woman accustomed to stoic pragmatism was essentially helpless.

In time, she compulsively let out her last breath.

Soon her consciousness faded with her last thought; Goddess forgive my audacity and doubt. 

 

A gagging gush of water spewed from her with gagging and a bit of regurgitation. Then came a raspy moan as she inhaled, her eyes wide open roving in the very alive transition from the terror of death to the gratitude for life.

She made no effort of her own yet thrashing movement accompanied by the violent sounds of splashing and breaking ice were all about her.

The one fact she could breathe now was all that mattered and it was sacred.

Still in water but not dead. That is good, was her first coherent thought.

Confusion returned.

She was moving through the water as if someone was pulling her. Someone large and warm swam on their back with one arm holding her against them. Her chest against their chest. The heat from the large and heavily muscled body contrasted with the cold water.

She had been rescued!?

Rescued by someone that could rapidly swim through ice with ease while holding her. She thanked all the saints. With the movement and the increasingly thick night fog she could not see who this phenomenal rescuer was.

Is this a strange death dream or something? This thought kept crossing her mind

It only got stranger.

After an endless brief time, the astonishing swim ended as they arrived on shore. From there he, yes, she was sure it was a he. He lifted her and held her cradled in his arms against his warmth that began to steam. The titan rapidly moved with long strong strides to the nearest house on the shore. She knew the home and the family inside, indeed, she had delivered three children there. The Minkstedths were a successful Ehosan merchant family.

He shouldered the door with an air of complete agency. The locked latch snapped like a twig. Then her and her saviour were in the foyer. Oddly, no servant, nor others, not even their garrulous hound, Livia, had greeted them.  

He set her gently down upon her feet while supporting her. She was shaking but could stand. Soft rose pink light spread into the room from nowhere.

Really seeing him now, she was flabbergasted. A very tall and thick muscled man with pale blue skin looked down upon her. The blocky face wore a smirk mantled by rich golden eyes beaming intense passion.

He was bald except for a long black topknot. His only raiment a well-worn red fur kilt held by a broad belt.

The belt itself was remarkable. Tooled and sculpted leather made three faces of creatures.

To the right hip was a red scaled dragon with its horns arcing up over and around the man’s hips. In the centre a lion with a golden mane. Upon the left was a charcoal furred goat also with its horns arcing up, over and around the man’s hips.

Somewhat alarmingly their exquisitely crafted eyes moved as they panned back and forth across the room.

Finally, the man's right hand rested on the butt end of an upright long hafted great axe the head was the size of a cartwheel and made of something clear like crystal or diamond. 

Leaning his axe against the dark wainscoting, he stepped towards her holding her in eye contact. She became alarmed at how desperately she wanted him. It was as if those eyes spoke every word in the truest and simplest way with a glance and now they entered into her.

He reached towards her pulling her close in one fluid movement. While looking down into her eyes he shucked her wet outer garments one handed like some magician.

Taking a step back she glared at him for his impropriety.

He smirked capriciously as he also stepped back. His warm smiling eyes slowly worked downwards from her face. They lingered on her heavy breasts with their big stiff mama nipples and the maroon saucers of her areola. The gaze slid down to her abdomen, her broad hips, her thick thighs. All enticingly emphasized by clinging wet linen.

To her own surprise a guffaw blurted from her. She paused looking at him wide eyed mouth agape in awe verging on fright. He dropped to one knee and lowered his head down. It seemed humble enough at first but his hunger was apparent in his sub movements and breathing braced with the constrained vanity of a youngish god.

They were thus for a while before she slowly looked down, reached out and ran her fingers across his scalp and down his thick neck.

A shudder of pleasure rippled through the deity’s body. His shoulders relaxed. A soft grunt moan puffed out of him.

After a few moments of caresses his arm came about her gently pulling her forward as he raised his head and nuzzled her soft belly.

The heat from his body flooded the room and her goose flesh subsided into a fuzzy warmth dissipating what remained of her stunned anger. Any propriety was being crushed by her own hunger.

She felt she should feel ashamed or alarmed. Instead, she felt safe to be reckless. Which further aroused her.

The blue man stood again then began pulling the fine furs and wool cloaks of the Minkstedths from their rack and one by one began layering them into a bed.

As he finished he spoke with an unknown accent in a deep soft voice that resonated from his chest. Hkelga found incredibly this seductive.

“I asked the Great Mother herself who was most befitting to bear my child. Whom of all down here would best raise the child with love, in safety, with wise guidance and ample opportunity." He moved around behind, as close as he could be without touching her, continuing in a whisper

“I desire YOU, HaChelgka.” Something about how he mispronounced her name stirred her heat further.

“For you, you are a vessel of exquisite dimension and thus worthy of portaging the embodied soul I leave in your safe keep. This towards a vital destiny. Even as this abstraction of you is necessary, neccessary far beyond you or even I, I am filled with gratitude that the Unseen Woman, and the Wizened have sent me to you. You are exquisite beyond my dreams.

I long for the moment none too soon when I shall immolate you in the furnace of my desire.”

When he finished he moved to the cloak rack. With his back to her, he removed his meretricious belt and crimson kilt. Carefully hanging them, he patted the beasts and their six eyes closed. When he turned about she could see that indeed, he was quite obviously aroused.

His way of speaking was from some higher place. It left her alienated but with a desire to be included, to glimpse that sublime state of existence.

Despite his odd cant, Hkelga blushed, butterflies and arousal displaced the last protestations of adulterous guilt. It had been years since she felt wanted in this way.

Anticipation began building as the naked blue hulk sauntered closer. 

With haste she began pulling off her unwieldy wet garments that remained until she stood with her rotund white curves glowing pinkish in the dim light.

I must have died. This is the afterworld that awaited me. She thought as a mix of terror and excitement joined her already intense emotional state dissolving all she knew and opening her on every plane.

I can only give in to this current.

Visually the world shifted. Imagery overlapped in fanning iterations that her heartbeat followed in flutters and her breath would stretch into transparency.

Then, without further words, she was pulled into him. On this higher plane it was like the tendrils of a tempest or the steady draw of a vortex. His strong arms wrapped around her with solid gentleness.

Hands moved down her large frame below her massive buttocks and lifted her up as if she were a child. Her legs wrapped around his hips as her arms wrapped about his thick neck.

Becoming lost in an urgent sense of passion with her womanhood pulled wide and glistening she hugged him tightly. She could feel his huge phallus hot and pulsing as it pressed against her thick bush and up past her navel. 

He lifted her slightly. He then slowly brought her down onto him a bit then up again then down a bit deeper with calm deliberation.  In time, it filled her completely and then some. With this mothers and midwife’s experience she also knew the sensation was something she could breathe through. After she had, it felt perfect. It was her turn to turn the mortar on the pestle.

The two continued thus and in many other constellations for near an hour. At the end she was a quivering whimpering mass of sweat sheened bliss. 

When he finally came it was a near torrent that lasted minutes. Copious amounts flowed out of her, down her legs and onto the tussled furs and cloaks. 

Through the glow of her own ecstasy she could see him with muscles tensed, head thrown back mouth emitting a roaring hiss interrupted with gong like sounds. His skin split in a fine web of white light. The fine lines cracking like the mud of a dry lake. The cracks releasing more of this pure white light until it filled the room and her.

She climaxed again, to the point of complete dissolution.

He stayed unmoving inside her until they both collapsed wrapped in each other.

Later he sat cross legged next to her caressing her arms, chest and especially her belly. Her growing belly.

"I will eternally be grateful for this. You have done and will do me, several other deities of The Fulcrum and indeed all good people a great honour. Yet, there is one more thing I ask of you. This child will be special, extraordinary. Yes, great midwife, all children are special. But, as you shall see, he will be superior to others in most if not all things for he is a godling. Beyond this, his existence is vital to many. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that he be kept humbly, that you keep him unknown, until he can fend for himself. For when his destiny manifests.

Furthermore, my lovely HaChelgka, only you amongst mortals shall hold these, his, truths. I, we, he and I, need your promise in this.”

So, he knows I bear a child and it is a boy and he is special. She pondered with her mind going to the statue of Matageita and the pale infant prophet. Could it be so incredible? Do I carry the next prophet?

As his words planted themselves she felt her abdomen warm and begin twitching as a certain nausea and heaviness overtook her, a sensation of pregnancy.

This had to be a dream or the afterlife she thought again.

"I will, I promise all those things." she murmured. 

An hour later she was in her element of giving birth. The father supported her as needed but was mostly hands off. The large babe rapidly came forth, hale with thick black hair and with surprising ease.

The babe did not cry, it bellowed, it howled.

After it had vigorously suckled to its utter contentment the father took it up and cradled the mite in his powerful arms yet mindful of the bundled umbilical and placenta still attached as was the custom amongst the women of Kytharl.

He looked upon his son with intense admiration and hope. Their eyes locked for a long moment. The newborns vernix smeared face showed a deep solemnity as if his father’s wisdom had been transmitted in the exchange. The little one nodded slightly without breaking eye contact, then yawned grandly and dozed off.

The father gently kissed the child on each eye and its forehead. Then quietly chanted in an unknown tongue with a resonant polytone. After he placed the babe back on the mother's chest. 

Hkelga smiled and closed her eyes as well and dozed off herself. The man kissed her and sang a different but sill hauntingly beautiful hymn.

She awoke still unsure if any of that was real.

The blue man, The Father, was gone. Wonderfully, the babe was not.

To her initial alarm he had somehow ended up on the floor. Then, to her amusement she watched him crawling about and contentedly wrestling with a boot.

A newborn doing any of this pushed her back into the ‘this is a dream’ camp. Deciding to follow the dream she enthusiastically tended to the cherubic newborn.

Morning light diffused by clouds illuminated the oiled parchment windows of the foyer. She could see the mess of amniotic fluids and semen smeared across the cloaks, furs and floor.

Briefly her mind queried of the Minklestadts but only briefly. His subtle magics must have hidden the wild event. They seemed so irrelevant now anyway.

She felt sated and simmering with the energy of a new mom yet unsure if this was real, a dream or the afterworld.

Regardless, the here and now with this blessed newborn was transcendent of all those realities.

This is indeed a special child. The fact filled her mind as she marveled at the wee babe sitting up picking at the tufts of her shawl with his wee thumb and forefinger. The mother/midwife in her was fascinated. A babe doesn’t do that until much later.

Guilt niggled at her as she realized the profound love for this babe was somehow greater than the deep love she felt for her other six children.

The hefty babe was alert and tracking movement. His empathy was growing as well, as he knowingly was charming her with his bright eyes and smiling coos.

Hunger pangs caught her suddenly, this godling was a big eater and she would need to replenish herself soon. She would have to leave their sodden nest. Damp was becoming cool. The foyer had slowly cooled after her divine paramour had left. She could see her breath.

Then a suddenly burst of heat and orange light filled the room.

Looking up at the sudden illumination she saw another man. This one was red skinned and lithe He was also incredibly handsome despite the small horns. His image wavered in its self-generated heat. 

This extraordinary being had a scheming look about him. Her lioness hackles were raised.

Just as the unease his look gave her set in she fell over paralyzed. She became hysterical but being paralyzed it was a panic that the body was helpless to do anything about. This amplified the terror.

This entity had done something.

She lay numb on the floor unable to move. Weak pitiful garble came from her throat through her drooling slack mouth.

He strode forward and plucked the hale babe from her limp arms.

NO, NO, NO! She wanted to scream. HE IS MINE! HE IS SPECIAL! The words failed to manifest.

She pleaded with tearing eyes. 

The babe itself twisted and squirmed in the kidnapper’s arms but did not cry out. Such was the babe’s strength that the red man struggled to hold it.

With a crackling smooth baritone, the man said "Yes, he is special, but know this; The Father of Flame himself has sent me, one so exalted and ancient even this child’s ‘godly’ father is but a gnat. No actions of a mortal shall sway or obstruct me.

It is unlikely can trust me now but trust me you must. I am told this child will be safe where he is going. Safer than with you. That he will be loved and cared for. Always remember this and find peace from it. This is all the consolation I afford you." 

Without further word or action the figure, with babe in arms, turned into a thickening red smoke that sucked into itself with a loud hissing to naught.

Hkelga was alone amongst the mess of the room and her own conflicted feelings. Truly alone.

She had almost or did die. Conceived and brought to term a god’s child, birthed it and had it stolen from her all in one night.

Still she was unsure if it was real. That she had perceived being chosen, glimpsed those realms and held that marvelous babe contented her. This despite a gaping hole in her heart for the loss her most beloved child.