Incognito

18

Zac raced out after the mia although he immediately lost her in the sudden churning waves. Before the river had been calmly flowing past the falls forked river. Now it rose and splashed for fervently that it was not a wonder that Mia had been frantic about the baby. Zac climbed atop a nearby rock and skillfully hopped them toward Prosper and the land, assuming that is where Mia was headed. It reminded him of one of the king's grueling summer workouts that he had attended a year and a half ago in Cinclic. Except now steam rumbled up below him as his body immediately became ice-cold.

Moments later he had the mia's stolen baby in his arms and was slowly trudging toward the shore. Chunks of ice slid past him and when they met with warm gurgles they sizzled away into nothing.

Zac hacked his way through dense foliage with the blue baby pressed to his chest. His broken arm burned with pain and he felt his heartbeat pulse through his hand every time he angrily crashed toward vines and trees wildly swinging at them. All the while he was cursing the mia for leaving the baby alone, cursing the tree for playing mind games with him, cursing the vines for concealing the spot where they dropped the clothes, cursing the cold for slowly killing the baby and him and his sanity. But mostly cursed himself for the cruelest setting off the mia. He never should have doubted her. She never needed to earn his trust because he never should have disrespected her integrity in the first place.

When he finally was ready to give up he found the sack and their discarded clothes. Quickly he dressed the baby in the mia's goods and wrapped her in the mia's cape. He did not breathe until she was as warm as she could be.

Finally, it dawned on him that the mia wasn't there. Panicked he darted to the river and looked out. Waves tossed around and his breath departed when he spied her hair bobbing like seaweed.

He dove in, swimming with the current, thanking the Lord his father had adeptly prepared him with strong strokes. Suddenly a wake pushed him under. He was struggling to rise when he spotted the mia, still and blue. Lunging he caught her arm and leg and with the ferocious thrusts of his legs broke the surface. Cradling her head he felt for a breath. For a frantic moment, he felt nothing. Adrenaline and prayers pulsed through his wide body and faster than humanly possible he traveled to the shore. The second she was no longer submerged under the currents he dropped to his knees next to her. Tears intermingled with the river water that dripped from his face as he leaned over and felt for breath. Desperately he tried to puff air into her mouth with no avail. Quietly he sat there fro deafening minutes. Prosper eventually toddled over and sat down beside him. Very solemnly she sat until she peered at him.

"Shh, momma sleep."

Zac covered his face. "I am a despicable being. It is all my fault."

"Yo fault," Prosper quipped. She laughed then as if a reminder to herself put a finger to her lips.

Zac swooped up the mia and placed the sack from the lover that would never learn she gone on her stomach.

"Come, Prosper," Zac called and the little girl wrapped her mother's cloak around her damp body and followed the man with the wet dead weight. His teeth chattered although he wasn't worried about the cold. Guilt had flooded him. Guilt reminded him that he was the reason she had been so upset. Guilt told him that he had pushed her to this. He was the reason the baby was once again an orphan.

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Zac had dug around in the bag and found flint to start a fire with and food for Prosper. He set her down beside the fire on the cloak her mother wore and let her play with sticks while he changed into the clothes and boots in the sack, all while staring at the mia's blue cold body. He had laid her on the cot and the fire sitting outside the doorway had warmed everything inside but her body. Zac found an ax outside and clumsily but surely spent an hour cutting a tree down for firewood before rejoining Prosper by the fire. He had taken a few trips back and forth from the tree to the hut when he plopped down next to Prosper and the fire for a break. When she realized he was there she handed him a stick and chewed on another.

Zac sighed. "What am I supposed to do? I am almost well enough to go home, or to the castle and ask for work, and now I have a baby girl and a dead woman?" Zac pinched the frozen bridge of his nose and felt as if it were melting in the sudden heat of the fire. Prosper scooted closer to the fire and Zac gently pulled her back onto the cloak.

"You don't even know she's gone, do you?" Prosper cooed as if she absentmindedly answered him. "She's gone so often that you have not realized she is not coming back. Your second mother is dead." A tear rolled carelessly down his cheek and he wiped it away with his good arm, the one the mia had not splinted originally.

Remorsefully he stood and handed the stick back to the little girl. He had felt like he was getting cheated out of everything his whole life but at least he had a parent who loved him and had the provisions to care for him. But now Prosper was orphaned again unless Sir Martin would take her in. He was so selfish. He could not even care for another and yet Mia had left a life of comfort for this one babe. She gave her life for this baby the way Christ had given his life for Zac. The life Zac had wasted. Granted, the mia had been a careless mother but she had cared for her adopted mother.

He brought another load of wood back from the woods although his arm and foot pained him. He felt it was his duty to provide fro Prosper. On his last load, he went back to retrieve the ax. He walked back through the barren, bleak forest searching for any game. While the sack had some food there was no protein and Zac craved meat. A bird or a squirrel, even a rat would satisfy him. He was willing to eat whatever the ax blade caught.

He very suddenly broke through an evergreen wall and came upon the hut. Ans saw her. Standing. He broke into a run and gathered up the mia before she collapsed. She was bone cold and still wet but he clung to her like she was life itself.

"Don't scare me like that." He whispered into her mangy hair.

With chattering teeth, she replied, "A life for a life. We are even now."

"Is that a thank you?" He laughed pulling her closer.

She shivered and mumbled, "I do not say thank you."

He realized how cold and frail she was and he tried to remember the last time she had eaten. He picked her up and placed her back the cot. He was digging around to find her fry clothes when she whispered, "Prosper?"

The girl had toddled inside. Zac scooped her up and gave the mia her clothes and her baby. Then he took the mia's knife and sent out for dinner.