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Bianca is quiet. I can see she wants to say something in return, but she doesn’t know what. To be honest, I also wouldn’t know what to say in return to that. I’d just want to keep listening to see if there’s more.
“You have to awaken it still,” she divulges.
“There is more?” Bianca asks, incredulously.
“Much more,” the dryad smiles again. “But now is not the time for that. You must rest. Focus. Nurture.”
Upon saying those words, she places her hand on Bianca’s stomach. We both watch her, as she closes her eyes, humming a melody that doesn’t seem familiar to either of us. When the dryad opens her eyes, she nods to herself.
“Yes, you must nurture,” she confirms. “There is a small one within you. One with eyes like the sky.”
It doesn’t hit me immediately what she says. It takes me a moment or two to register it, for my mind to truly comprehend what it means. Then, the knowledge settles inside of me, nestling like a little kitten in a basket where it aims to fall asleep.
“Once you no longer nurture with your body, but rather your mind and your heart, you will return here, and we shall speak again,” the dryad says.
She spins her hair about her head, lifting grass blades, leaves and flower petals all around her. A moment later, they all drop to the ground, and she is nowhere to be seen.
“Did you see that?” Bianca gasps.
“Scratch that… did you hear that!?” I say, turning to her.
Her eyes lock with mine. I press both my hands to her belly. I can’t feel anything. Her stomach is normal. It’s not bigger or anything. I doubt it is too far to tell. After all, the first two times, I was careful. Then, when we expressed our undying love for each other, I stopped being careful. I wanted this to happen. I still do.
I don’t know when exactly she conceived. But the dryad somehow does.
“I’m… pregnant…” Bianca whispers, looking down at her belly, where my hands are still resting. “I’m having… a baby…”
“We are,” I smile, correcting her.
I cup her chin with my fingers and make her lift her gaze once again. “A baby with eyes like yours,” I repeat. “I couldn’t have asked for a bigger miracle.”
“Are you… happy?” she asks. Her cheeks flushed at these words, as if she’s embarrassed to ask me.
“What would ever make you doubt that?” I wonder gently, gazing at her lovingly.
“We never discussed it,” she clarifies. “I don’t know if you wanted to wait or– “
“Wait for what?” I interrupt her.
“Some time to pass,” she shrugs.
“For what?” I ask again, smiling from ear to ear. “What it is you think I need time for?”
“I don’t know,” she says again, smiling.
“I just wanted time to find the one I love, the one who will be by my side no matter what. Now that I have found you, I need no more time for anything, other than to be with you in every way possible. And creating new life with you… that is more than I could have ever hoped for.”
“Oh, Edmund…” she exclaims joyfully. “You don’t know how happy your words make me…”
“I love you, Bianca,” I whisper in her ear, wrapping my arms around her.
She locks me into an embrace, with her arms around my neck, and lifts her eyes to meet mine. “I love you, too.”
I kiss her softly, under the sun in the woods that is the next step to discovering her true self, her true strength. When I pull away, I feel overwhelmed by love for her, for this new life growing inside of her, new life that we have created together.
“I am so happy to be by your side, while you discover your strength,” I tell her, pressing my forehead to hers.
“You are my strength,” she tells me. “You and this little baby.”
