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Prologue - The Coular event occurred"

~The Bern Seer~

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A cold wind twisted through the woods, weaving between the trunks of alien trees, then rushed out across the prairies of Lok The frigid air joined other breezes, and together they wrapped around the remote outpost on the old frontier planet Residents called it a town, but it was nothing ether under another freezing, ,inhabitants curled under sparse blankets in tight fetal balls The town had not yet been naue and hidden as most of its residents It existed on no book of official record, a conditionand everyone in the collection of huts anted for soood way

And the least lawful aroup’s wont--continued to stir at that late hour They gathered around the hearth of a dying fire, rubbed their calloused hands over the fading warmth, and openly dreaded the morrow’s toil

Their whispers travelled up the chier trail, the wisps drifted out over the co by the wind from the woods If the s--they would have seen two figures, foolish and desperate, staggering in the opposite direction

Clinging to one another--laboring across that patch of open ground--they seeer to reach that fire From their mouths, streams of breath-smoke trailed out in plu else leaked out: a path of wetness leading back through the trareen blades, freezing alongside the next day’s dew

The woman clutched at the pain in her sto like broken skates

The other figure pulled her along, urging her with desperate whispers

The woony over the sleeping village, a warning shot for as to come The insects across the prairie, and deep into the wood, stopped their nightti and sees went nurass while thehis own nals of suffering, puffing out in visible screa huts

The citizens of the village were used to such sounds The fetal balls kicked in protest and turned, but they did not stir There was h the back than for the chilling cries worh and continued to yearn for sleep

Out in the commons, Mortimor bent over his neife, Parsona "Get up," he pleaded "We’re alain Her body folded in half, her thighs up against her swollen belly She shook her head at the request; loose strands of sweat-soaked hair matted to her face and wisps of stea with her fever--but she wouldn’t be

Mortimor looked across the co with the promise of a fire Less than a hundred meters away So close

He worked an arm under his wife’s back to lift her, to carry her the rest of the way, but the spash her and into his own body

The child would coht back," he assured her He flexed his legs to rise--to run for assistance--but Parsona’s hand, squeezing with the last of her fading ht, clutched him in fear

Mortimor froze, unable to seek or provide help So he yelled for it Begged the heavens for it He blasted his pleas in several directions--but no hureorse Mortiround Her teeth chattered against each other in response to the cold, pausing now and then to grind together in paroxysms of pain Mortimor tore off his thin shirt and draped it over her chest He fell into a rhyth in deep breaths of his own, corunts and pants of labored exertion an vibrating with fear The only two things he truly loved in the galaxy were being taken from him Slowly Horribly Before his very eyes and on a miserable, cursed planet

A flash of lanced up to find a tall, thin figure sliding through a crack in the darkness It was a ht He cah his clothes His head was bald and uncovered, but his face showed no sign of discoainst his narrow chest--a bed sheet

The strange rass at Parsona’s feet "It’ll be okay," he said, his voice fuller than his frame

Mortimor was too transfixed to thank hiaunt face and skeletal features The stranger turned to hi him more than the re to be fine," the man assured hied Parsona’s legs, one at a tiround Both hands coordinated every , reedy fingers wrapping around each calf andthem into place He told both of the the fear and panic fro just the pain

"Push when I say push," he said His narrow hands went under her dress, resting on her belly while eyes the color of ice squinted into the black beneath her he for the first time

"Push," he commanded, a hint of exciterunted with effort, her head rising off the grass as she contracted muscles in a stomach formerly lean and hard Her eyes narroith the strain, her ears closed off to all noise but her own pounding pulse

Mortimor brushed the hair off her face with his palm He cradled her neck as it rose froe of the sheet close to her body

"Breathe"

The voice was so co they’d heard it Mortimor kept an arm under his wife’s head; he leaned down to press his lips to her cheek, to whisper his love into her ear Her eyes rolled back in exhaustion as she fought for long pulls on the night air

"Push"

The stranger asked the impossible, but his tone deain, wrestling against the stabbing pain that threatened to overwhelhtmare that would never end

"Breathe"

So different A release Parsona felt a path reveal itself, an opening that would lead her away froy toward it

"That’s it Push"

She no longer needed to be told

Mortier; he could tell soed Hope swelled in hi He felt otherwise powerless Guilty He wanted to absorb her torture, to wick it away like moisture from her brow The forest wind dove down fro away layers of heat fro his love

Parsona heard Mortith She fought for all three of the with tears of exertion, she pushed so hard the world went silent All that remained was the distant thunder of disco of her pulse

And so thing, long sustained by a cord and dwelling in darkness, moved into the universe

Under a canopy of stars, a baby girl was born