Chapter 7: The Promise and the Awakening

Seeking Fasting Woman

Firebird found Fasting Woman outside her tipi, grinding herbs in a stone bowl. The old medicine woman looked up as Firebird approached, and something in her face must have revealed her turmoil, because Fasting Woman set the bowl aside immediately.

“Come,” she said simply, gesturing to the tipi entrance. “We will talk.”

Inside, with the flap closed and sage burning in the fire pit, Firebird sat across from the old woman and tried to find words for what she was feeling.

“Morning Star kissed me,” she finally said. “Not like a child. Like ... like a woman. Twice now. Deep kisses. Wanting kisses.” She looked down at her hands. “And I ... I kissed her back. My body responded the way it responds to Red Hawk. I wanted her. I still want her. And I don’t know if that makes me...”

“Makes you what?” Fasting Woman’s voice was gentle but firm. “A woman who desires another woman? Or something worse that you’re afraid to name?”

“I’m married to Red Hawk. He’s my husband. I love him. But when Morning Star kisses me, I feel the same hunger, the same need. Am I betraying him? Am I—” She stopped, unable to continue.

Fasting Woman was quiet for a long moment, studying Firebird’s face. Then she asked, “What did you promise Morning Star in the moon lodge? When you taught her about her body, about the desires that would come—what exactly did you tell her?”

Firebird thought back to those four days in the moon lodge, to the conversations with the elder women, to the private moments when she’d tried to explain to Morning Star what her changing body would mean.

“I told her ... I said that when these feelings came, when her body wanted touch and intimacy, she should come only to me. To no one else. Only me.”

“‘Come only to me,’” Fasting Woman repeated slowly. “And what did Morning Star hear when you said those words?”

“She heard...” Firebird paused, the realization beginning to dawn. “She heard a promise. That I would be there for her. That I would meet her needs.”

“More than that.” Fasting Woman leaned forward. “She heard a commitment. ‘Come ONLY to me.’ That is not the language of caregiving, Firebird. That is the language of pairing. You said: I am yours in this way. You are mine in this way. We are bound.”

Firebird’s breath caught. “I was just trying to protect her. To make sure she didn’t—”

“I know what you were trying to do. But words have power. Promises have weight. You told Morning Star she could come ONLY to you. Do you understand what that means?”

When Firebird didn’t answer, Fasting Woman continued, her voice taking on the cadence of teaching.

“Red Hawk placed a restriction on Morning Star. He said: No man may touch you. Ever. For your entire life.” She held up one finger. “This was to protect her, yes. Because any man who lay with her would be using her. She cannot consent to male touch—she has the mind of a child in the body of a woman. Red Hawk’s rule was merciful. But it was also a prison. He trapped her—not cruelly, but completely. A woman’s body with a woman’s desires, but no man, ever. Do you see the cage he built?”

Firebird nodded slowly, something cold settling in her stomach.

“But then YOU made a promise.” Fasting Woman held up a second finger. “You said: Come only to me. You gave her an outlet. You gave her hope. You gave her a way out of the cage. But you also gave her something else—you gave her a VOW.”

“A vow?”

“Yes. Listen to the symmetry, Firebird. Red Hawk said: No males, ever. So Morning Star cannot go to anyone else for intimate touch. You are her ONLY option. But you ALSO said: Come only to ME. That means you bound yourself to be available to her. You made yourself HER only partner. Do you see? The restriction goes both ways. She cannot go to anyone else—and you promised you would be there for her.”

Fasting Woman’s eyes were intense, holding Firebird’s gaze. “This is not caregiving. This is MARRIAGE. You promised exclusivity. She heard that promise. She understood it in her way. And she is holding you to it. She has every right to do so, because you GAVE her that right when you said ‘come only to me.’”

Firebird felt the ground shifting beneath her, everything she’d thought she understood rearranging itself into a new pattern.

“Morning Star knows she cannot have a man,” Fasting Woman continued. “Red Hawk made that clear. She accepts it—not because she fully understands why, but because Red Hawk said so and she trusts him. But she ALSO knows: Firebird is HERS. You told her so. ‘Come only to me’—that is a claiming. That is a vow. And she is holding you to that vow.”

“But I’m married to Red Hawk,” Firebird protested weakly.

“Yes. And does Morning Star ask you to stop being his wife?”

“No. She ... she doesn’t seem bothered by it at all. She sees us together. She knows.”

“Exactly.” Fasting Woman nodded with satisfaction. “Here is what shows Morning Star’s wisdom, even with her child-mind: She is NOT jealous of Red Hawk. She sees you and Red Hawk together. She knows you are married to him. She knows you share his bed, his body, his life. And she does not compete. She does not demand you stop being his wife. She does not cry or rage or feel betrayed.”

Fasting Woman leaned closer. “Why? Because she understands SHARING. She understands that you can belong to TWO people in different ways. She accepts that Red Hawk is your husband. She is HAPPY to share you with him.”

“But she also knows: You made a commitment to HER. ‘Come only to me’—that was YOUR promise to HER. And just as she accepts your bond with Red Hawk, she expects you to honor your bond with her.”

“She doesn’t want ALL of you. She wants HER SHARE of you. The share you promised. The intimate touch between women. The bond that is hers alone.”

Firebird felt tears prickling at her eyes. “I didn’t understand. I didn’t know I was promising...”

“But Morning Star understood. In her simple way, she understood perfectly. In her mind: Firebird and Red Hawk are married. Firebird and Morning Star are also married, but in a different way. Both bonds exist together. They don’t cancel each other out. She shares Firebird willingly, because love can go to two people. But Firebird must keep BOTH promises—to Red Hawk AND to her.”

Fasting Woman sat back, giving Firebird space to absorb this. “You think like a white woman sometimes, Firebird. One husband, one wife, that is all. But that is not our way—not when spirit people are involved.”

“Morning Star is a spirit child. She walks between worlds. The rules that govern ordinary marriages do not govern her. She can be both sister AND wife. She can be both child-minded AND woman-bodied. She exists in sacred contradiction.”

The old woman’s voice took on the weight of ancient knowledge. “In the old days, before the whites came with their rigid ways, it was understood: those touched by the spirits—the winkte, the two-spirit people, the seers, the prophets—they lived by different rules. A woman might have a husband for children and a spirit-wife for sacred companionship. A man might have a wife and a two-spirit mate. These bonds did not compete. They complemented.”

“You have Red Hawk as your husband—this is traditional. He gives you children, protection, the bond of man and woman. But Morning Star is your spirit-wife—this is ALSO traditional, for those who walk with spirit people. She gives you companionship, sacred intimacy, the bond of woman and woman.”

“Both bonds are recognized. Both are honored. You are not breaking sacred law—you are LIVING it. The polyandry of spirit relationships is old, older than the whites, older than their Jesus who says ‘one man, one woman only.’”

Firebird’s voice was barely a whisper. “Red Hawk ... does he understand this?”

“Red Hawk is Cheyenne. He understands that his sister is not ordinary, and therefore what you share with her is not ordinary adultery. It is sacred polyandry—the taking of two mates when one is a spirit person.” Fasting Woman’s tone was certain. “He blessed this from the beginning, did he not? When you took Morning Star into your care, into your tipi, into your life—he blessed it. He knew.”

“Do not let the white man’s shame touch you. What you feel for Morning Star—the desire, the love, the wanting—this is ALLOWED. This is BLESSED. You are living as our people have always lived when the spirits touched their families.”

Fasting Woman reached across and took Firebird’s hands. “So I ask you: Can you love her enough to be her paired mate? Fully. Completely. For life? Can you give your body to both Red Hawk and Morning Star? Your heart to both? Can you be Red Hawk’s wife AND Morning Star’s wife?”

Firebird looked into the old woman’s wise eyes and felt something break open inside her—not breaking apart, but breaking free. All the fear, all the confusion, all the guilt she’d been carrying suddenly lifted.

“I ... I love her,” she said, and the words came easier than she expected. “Not just as a child. Not just as someone I care for. I love her as ... as my heart. My partner. I’ve been fighting it, but you’re right. I AM in love with her.”

“Then stop fighting,” Fasting Woman said firmly. “Accept what you promised. Be her paired mate. Love her fully. This is not caregiving. This is marriage. Honor it.”

“Keep both vows. Love both mates. Give your body to both. This is not sin. This is sacred tradition.”

Firebird felt the tears come then, but they were tears of relief. “I promised her. I will keep that promise.”

Fasting Woman smiled, deep lines crinkling around her eyes. “Good. Morning Star is not a child crying ‘mine, mine, mine.’ She is a wife saying ‘you promised, now keep your promise.’ There is a difference. Honor it.”

As Firebird left the medicine woman’s tipi, she felt lighter than she had in weeks. The confusion was gone. The fear was gone. In their place was clarity, and commitment, and love—love that could flow in two directions without diminishing either.

She had two mates. One male, one female. Both sacred. Both permanent. Both loved.

And she would honor both vows, for the rest of her life.

The Growing Life

Three weeks passed, and Firebird’s moon time did not come.

At first, she thought little of it—her cycles had been irregular since her vision quest, since taking up the warrior’s path. But when the second moon cycle also failed to arrive, and she woke one morning with nausea that sent her stumbling from the tipi, she knew.

Gentle Rain confirmed it, examining her with knowing hands and a pleased smile. “You carry Red Hawk’s child. The spirits have blessed your union.”

The joy that flooded through Firebird was almost overwhelming. She touched her still-flat belly with wonder, imagining the life growing inside her. Red Hawk’s son. The war chief of prophecy. The child she’d seen in her vision. The very child Morning Star prophesied at her first sight of Firebird, even knowing her name sight unseen.

When she told Red Hawk that evening, his face transformed with a fierce pride and tenderness she’d never seen before. He pulled her into his arms, held her close, one hand spread across her belly.

“My wife,” he murmured against her hair. “Mother of my son. You honor me.”

Morning Star, understanding only that there would be a baby, was delighted. She pressed her ear to Firebird’s stomach, listening for sounds she couldn’t possibly hear yet, and chattered about teaching the baby to catch butterflies and find pretty stones.

As the weeks passed and spring deepened into early summer, Firebird’s body began to change. Her breasts grew tender and full. Her belly, still small, began to curve. And her desire—already strong—intensified in ways that surprised her.