|
|
|
|
Looping coils of thick tail helped An'Thaya to the floor and the Emperor's body slipped away to his two-legger form. Concern left his face a mask of worry as his arm slipped around An'Thaya.
"Tay?"
The Amazon managed a wan smile for her wife before looking up at Callan. One hand was tangled in his shirt, a death grip that was the only outlet for the pain she was allowing herself at the moment.
“I’m ok… it's time… just a little early is all.”
S’Hean to the core she refused to give in until they were alone. No matter how much she loved Jaiden her genetic instinct over rode everything else. Callan was the only one she would allow near her until Cal’Lanth was born… and he was presently trying to force his way into being just that.
"Then go," Jaiden said, turning to head after the children then. "I will watch over Robin and see to it she finds comfort." If Tay's child had chosen to come now then there was no time to waste and she knew it. She looked back over her shoulder and gave the couple a quick smile.
"I'll be waiting to hear how it goes," she said before she disappeared into the next room in time to grab the ears of Ruan and Cadan before they tried to "make" Robin's bed for her.
"Go? Just like that? Go?" Callan stared at Jaiden as she vanished. "But..." He looked rather helplessly at Tay. "It's time then. All right. I can do this. WE can do this." One strong arm snaked around her waist as the other slipped under and her and scooped her up.
"I shouldn't have had you ride...I really shouldn't have." He shook his head as he headed for the door, paused and looked back over his shoulder, then shouted, "I DO NOT HAVE DANDRUFF!"
So... it was time. Off through the Keep he and his Empress went and as they did, Callan did his best to make soothing conversation, as much for her as himself.
He was a warrior, an Emperor, a father three times over and a grandfather. He'd killed for sport, in war, and in defense of the people he loved... yet for all his acts of cowardly hate and heroic courage, he'd almost lost his first wife in childbirth and the child along with her. Mira's life was a miracle, and Task's surviving her birth had taken nothing short of the healing work of a god.
It was with no small amount of worry he carried An'Thaya to the Lair, their private chambers, and with no small amount of prayer to all the gods that had brought his Silver and Black blood into existence as well as the goddess who had marked him with molten gold.
They were going to need all the help they could get.
Tay had managed to keep a lid on it until they reached their chambers, but once the doors closed and it was just the Empress and his Emperorship, she tested the acoustics of the room with a growling scream and latched onto his ear with small fingers.
"Hoooooooly Hells," she hissed, "Ooooh my Gods…. I don't remember it hurting this much." Tears had actually started welling up in the Amazon's eyes and she let out a whimpering little gasping cry. "Water… I need to be in the water… please?"
Letting lose her iron grip on Callan's sensitive pointed ear she let her head fall back, a cascade of flaming curls tumbling over his arm as his wife sucked in a shuddering breath. Breathe… right, that was always such helpful advice… she had half a mind to hunt down and kill whoever had thought up that wise little tidbit of useless idiocy. AT the moment, there were more important things to worry about, like the contraction that seemed to be pulling her entire body into one single focal point, like matter into a black hole. Plunging into their soul she sought out comfort from her husband, the steady anchor in the center of her life that was Callan Blackthorn.
Somewhere, deep in her subconscious, Tay knew something was wrong… she had borne nine children before this one… one of which had not made it into the world.
The Emperor's teeth were ground together, jaws clenched out of both extreme concern for An'Thaya and this unborn son, but also out of the pain of his ear being twisted and hauled on as he carried her into the bathing chamber. He let out a slow, hissing sigh of mild relief and a short wincing grunt as his ear seemed to ignite with heat. Idly, he wondered if it had turned dark purple but the thought skittered away, absorbed into the maelstrom of emotions and, yes, fear.
"An'Thaya?" Callan strode down the steps of the steaming, mineral heavy water, "Slow down..." His fingers gently pulled several sweat-dampened curls out of her face and shoved them back behind her ear, "Look at me..." He lowered her to a step that left all but the rise of her breasts completely submerged, "breathe, M'Tashnae...you have to breathe."
His fingers, calloused from countless centuries of dealing death and wielding blades, bows and anything necessary to accomplish whatever task he'd been set to laced around her tiny fingers.
"Look at me. Here we are..." a hint of an odd smile twitched at the corner's of his mouth, "Here...where two bodies merged...here...the place that led to two souls, left incomplete by circumstance, finding each other. Here...it comes full circle here and this is where our son will be born."
A stab of fear and shared agony lanced through him, white misery punctuated by brilliant jags of scarlet and yellow, "An'Thaya," His forehead lowered to hers as he fought the tremors of body and soul that echoed hers, "I know there is something wrong too...and I'm afraid. I am afraid now as I have never been frightened before. But I think you and I are allowed that, yes? A moment of fear in our lives? And I'm here...we're here together, we'll be okay, you and I...we have to be, for Cal'Lanth."
Breathing seemed to involve gasping sobs, but she did as Callan asked, frightened eyes meeting his as the Amazon willed herself to relax and breath, falling deeper into their soul and his arms. Nodding blindly she squeezed his fingers, unable to find her voice through violently surging emotions. It was about then when Tay began losing track of time to pain, her existence seemed centered around it, and her husband's presence.
Time passed outside their chambers in the normal succession of hours, a day at the Keep like any other lived in fire, chaos, blood, and other more mundane occurrences. It all seemed a world away for its Empress as she slipped in and out of consciousness, aware at times of Jaiden's questioning presence along their bond, and Callan's steady heartbeat that seemed to be all around her.
Then it all came whirl-pooling back with a sharp lance of agony that had nothing to do with contractions, the scent of half-Elven blood striking panic in Tay that had her struggling against Callan out of instinct in the darkening water, and suddenly clinging to him weakly in terrified delirium as unconsciousness loomed dangerously close again.
"An'Thaya..." Callan's voice reflected a calmness of soul he did not feel at this moment. Terror tried to spin out into his soul in shards and tendrils of sickly yellows and decaying browns; only his own will to remain in control of a situation he knew in his heart was only up to the Gods and the Fates kept the cold fear and gabbling thoughts of 'what ifs' and 'why nows' from seeping into An'Thaya's own emerald core.
"Tay..." Her voice was spoken softer, this time a gentle low touch of sound that carried from soul to soul and bridged the pain and mind-numbing fear. "Tay, I know what is wrong. Cal can't be born, not like most S'Heans...because he isn't most S'Heans."
Indeed, Cal'Lanth Blackthorn was an impossible child, an unlikely melding of DeathDream and Light's Hope, a product of two people, unrelated in any way, yet born of two carriers of D'Riel conduits, a child that defied the wildest possibilities, hopes and dreams of two powerful, ancient families.
"Thayaru...I..." This was horrible timing, he knew this, but S'Heans were so tied to their land, to the water...and Cal'Lanth was about to be born here, in the Keep, granted in the water, but not on the Aethyr laced world of his mother. A moment of helplessness flooded his emotions, a moment of fear and doubt, "I know what has to be done. I just don't know how this will effect him...or you." His fingers stroked her hair back from her face again as topaz eyes studied her face, so pale, so weary and afraid, "But it has to be done...and now." He wasn't asking permission, Flame and Chaos knew it wasn't in his nature, he was a 'do something, even if its wrong' type person.
With gentle motions, he set her on a step only slightly higher than where they'd been together in the crimson-stained waters, then tilted her head up so she could see the changes to his right hand...his sword hand, the hand with the D'Riel dragon and the wedding marks on the wrist. A black blade, scalpel sharp slipped from beneath the heel of his palm, "It won't hurt...you'll never feel it. This is only way...Tay, I can't lose you, and this is the only way I can save you both."
She would not pass out, not this time. The terrifying amount of blood and pain brought back sharp, agonizing memories of Tysane’s birth. The daughter that had not made it, the child that Tallin had cost her.
Fear faded into iron will; this child would not be lost, she couldn’t survive that again. This was Callan’s son; a product of both his parents, and a rough birth wasn’t going to kill him. Dazed emerald’s focused on the blade, then shifted to the Mithryl and gold wedding band just above it, and finally to her husband’s pale topaz eyes. The depths of her own settled, reflecting love and trust, and Tay nodded.
“Alright,” the word was breathy, mingled with tears and oddly, a laugh. So fitting that his child should enter the world this way… just how Cal’Lanth would lead his life. Difficult and bathed in blood, just like his Sire… and, if Tay admitted it, just like her too. Reaching up she caressed her Dragon’s jaw line and smiled, “It’s alright.”
"Aye..." A simple response that answered so many of her unspoken thoughts and questions. Aye, it would be all right, it would have to be. Aye, Cal'Lanth would be born of blood and Chaos, there could be no other way for a child of theirs. The blade slipped back under the skin of his palm as he slid his hand under the mineral laden waters of the pool. The glittering of the wedding band faded beneath the shimmering surface as his fingers followed the curve of An'Thaya's stomach and followed the path from one side of her body to another.
He'd done this before, hundreds of times, and the thought of WHY he knew how to deliver a child this way was not one he wanted to share with many people at this point in his life. He knew the swell of a womb, how deep most infants were buried under a female's flesh, how to bring them squalling into the world...and how the make their mothers feel pain of a hellish unimaginable level, yet remain completely conscious through it all...he couldn't have them slipping away before realizing what happened to the newborn. Where was the fun in that?
Daemonorel knew...he'd been Araxmarr's hunting mate...a relationship almost as intimate as being lovers, despite the lack of sexual contact between he and his First Captain. An'Thaya would know, his soul was hers, his memories there in vivid detail for her to re-live, but now was not the time for her to realize yet one more level of how far his cruel malice could go...
What he'd done hadn't been ordered...most of the time; for the most part, it had been done out of personal pleasure and a need to inflict agony.
"Aye...it will be alright, Tay,” Callan murmured softly and swallowed hard before he slipped one arm behind her as he dropped to kneel before her with one knee on the step between her thighs. Nodding slowly, he pulled her to him and slipped one hand up her back, then fanned the fingers out to hold her chest to him. Topaz eyes rolled shut as his fingers traced the line under her abdomen and settled on the left side of her body. His embrace tightened suddenly and the black blade slipped from beneath his flesh...and into hers with a gush of fluid that was almost the same temperature as the waters they were partially submerged in.
The Amazon jerked slightly in his embrace, clenching her jaw and inhaling sharply before turning her face into his neck.
As the blade carved a line in a gentle curve just above her pelvic bone, Callan began a frantic re-wiring of her nerves and blood vessels, a subtle change that stopped the flow of any additional blood in the wake of the incision, but also numbed her from just below the breast to just above her thighs.
"An'Thaya..." Tendrils of midnight black and silver laced with topaz sparkled deeper into the core of her soul and danced dangerously close to the conduit, "We'll be fine,” His awareness was also fixated on a third whorl of life that was seemingly tearing itself away from the place where their souls overlapped and were fused in the greatest concentration, Cal'Lanth...and his own soul seemed to be struggling to be free from his mother and father's essence, just as his infant body was struggling to be free from the prison of a womb.
“Who are you trying to convince,” Tay asked through gritted teeth, “Me? Or yourself? Oh Gods… that’s better… the feeling is going to come back though, right?” It was a poor attempt at humor at best, a direct result of profound relief as the pain disappeared, and the nagging worry for their son. “I’m rather fond of those particular nerve pathways.”
"Both...and who'd have thought it?" Callan muttered, "You and I? I've known your brother for millennia, my time...known your name, known D'Riel had a sister, and sailed on the Lisse Nwalme...and never did our paths cross until the Dryad. Remember that? Little bitty you kicked my ass. I think I still have splinters in my forehead."
The splinters were Fionna’s fault, Tay pointed out weakly, and I didn’t so much kick your ass… as lay on you for a bit whilst I was unconscious. You carry me around quite a lot… have you noticed?
The black blade stopped, its path beneath her bulging belly complete, then retracted.
"Well.” He took a deep breath, shaking breath, "Let's meet this little person that's left us both suffering with hiccups, morning, night and afternoon sickness and no sex for nearly three months..."
Black wings shredded the back of Callan's t-shirt, he'd not taken the time to strip himself, only An'Thaya. The silver tinged wings dipped low and while one wrapped carefully around An'Thaya and cradled her, the other pushed against the floor of the pool, steadying Callan as both hands slid around his wriggling, stretching son within his mother's womb...and paused.
Gods...no wonder there's so much blood...
Expletives flooded the single sliver An'Thaya didn't have access to in his soul. Cal's wings...they should have been soft, wrapped around the babe like the wings of an emerging butterfly, a chrysalis. They should have been soft, flexible. These were already hardening. Then it occurred to him...a little over twelve months. Tay had carried Cal'Lanth almost 3 weeks past the usual near eleven for a hybrid child. Cal'Lanth's wings and bones were advanced beyond the newborn stage and the tiny claws that tipped each wing point...'finger' and could be found at the 'thumb' of the wings were literally carving An'Thaya up.
What’s wrong? The Amazon knew her husband well enough to be able to tell when he was trying to keep something from her, no matter how dazed and half out of it she happened to be. Is he all right? There was strained note of distress in her tone, her focus completely on Cal’Lanth, leaving her oblivious to any possible damage done to herself.
"He's fine M'Tashnae...a little...irritated I think from being confined when he knows its time to be free, but Cal'Lanth is fine..." Callan kept his utter fear concealed as best he could as his gaze left her face a moment and the first rays of Aerdon's golden sun hit him full in the eyes. Warmth began to spread across the waters, seeping through the wards that protected the ledge from too much or not enough heat and casual observers.
Behind him and unnoticed by either he or An'Thaya, a single thread of gold lanced through the waters, a glimmering dart of color that flashed and was gone, then another, and another. Flickering shimmers of power rolled just under the surface of the bathing pool like a school of phantom fish then vanished from sight below the waters.
In the absence of the Aethyr, Sha'tris had been drawn to the birth of this child. A child born of dual conduits was an irresistible lure to the soul of Aerdon, this child would be the wielder of frightening power, of gifts given by many gods, and would one day have to make the same choices his father had...to walk in light and struggle to live the way he should, or live the way he wanted to.
A soft whisper of breath danced across the waters and caressed Callan's cheek, then An'Thaya's, but Callan's focus was not on the forces around he and his wife and son. His attention was on saving both Cal'Lanth and Tay...and time was running out, he could feel it in her body, her heartbeat, could hear it in her voice and sense the drop in her body temperature. Only the waters kept her from growing cold.
A low growl of frustration rumbled out of Callan, every time he thought he had Cal where he needed to be, something in An'Thaya was cut or severed...and finally, the Emperor felt the wing tips pull free and enter the world. A few tugs and a sharp yank later, Cal'Lanth Blackthorn all but fell out into his father's hands with a fresh billow of his mother's blood in his wake.
"Well, well..." Callan lifted the child's body and cleared his mouth and nose...and Cal'Lanth let out several infant bellows of outrage and wrath.
"He sounds like you, with all the griping and carrying on..." He looked from the shock of black hair and off-colored skin, the skin of a newborn as his fingers tucked back two perfectly formed, inky black wings, "Tay?" Callan's fleeting smile faded, "Oh gods...Oh sweet Flame and Chaos, Tay?"
"Oh gods...Oh sweet Flame and Chaos, Tay?"
The edge of Tay’s mouth quirked up, an odd smile forming on blue tinged lips. She could hear her husband’s voice just fine, though the words seemed oddly disjointed, and more importantly, she could hear Cal’Lanth.
Shhhhhh…
It was difficult to tell whom the mental sending was directed at, her eyes were still closed, the Amazon’s body limp. The membrane’s of Callan’s wing felt scalding hot against her wet skin and for some reason, Tay couldn’t summon up the strength to even lift an eyelash.
“He sounds just fine Ol’Shann,” she whispered, “what’s wrong?” Her facial muscles squinched slightly in protest to the dawning light, “Why is it so cold in here? Did you let the fire go out again?”
Golden light seemed to coalesce on Callan, his wife and squalling son, the water around them grew startling clear then was infused with the warm, molten colors of the rising sun, "You'll have to work fast to save her life, Araxmarr...already her soul grows paler, her life wanes as her blood drains away into this place where the two of you found one another."
Sha'tris...Callan knew its touch, 'her' voice; he'd known Sha'tris for eons and had a comfortable, casual relationship with the pulsing power of the land. The waters roiled in smooth waves then melded into a non-descript humanoid shape that seemed made of liquid light. Showers of water continually fell to the pool and were pulled up again, an endless cycle that maintained a seemingly fragile, androgynous form.
Callan's fearful expression went from An'Thaya to Sha'tris, then to Cal'Lanth and back to Tay. Sensing his brief dilemma of what to do with the child, the warm, watery arms of Sha'tris lifted the newborn and held him only inches from Callan and An'Thaya. Immediately, the child stopped crying, as if knowing he was in the presence of something familiar, something that would be present throughout his life on Aerdon. Shaking fingers released his son into Sha'tris' care and immediately went to An'Thaya. They fanned out on either side of her jaw, forcing her head up as her chin began to drop closer to the water.
Warmth from his own body began to flow into hers as he lowered his head to kiss her gently. Flesh shredded and ripped and fast losing blood began to knit back and within his soul, he felt a stirring among the threads of emerald green D'Riel soul...the Aethyr within An'Thaya.
"You have been claimed by Whispin, Araxmarr, I feel the power within you, it flows from your Randii to you, yet the balance must be completed, for everything you receive, something must be given." Glittering threads lanced through him, a claiming so similar to what the Aethyr had done so long ago, then raced into the Amazon's essence and began weaving themselves into a soul that had been pulling free of its moorings to Callan's.
An’Thaya made a small noise against her husband’s mouth, responding to the familiar feel of his fingers on her skin, his lips on hers. A tactile reminder of where her soul belonged that halted its regression. For a precious moment the great emerald and silvery black galaxy struggled against Aerdon’s invasion, trying to reject the foreign energy until the Amazon herself realized what it was, and subsided.
Delicate fingers lifted, sliding behind Callan’s neck and tangling into his short-cropped hair. Still numb she couldn’t feel the pain, or the healing, but her body was aware of heat and energy, of her husband’s fear and love. It held her, a willing captive to its intensity, and once again, Tay fought her way back to him. A far easier struggle this time; one with no doubts or fears, only a driving desire to be where she belonged, and to hold her newborn son.
A moment’s indrawn breath, and she was kissing him back, her light grip in his hair tightening. “I’d say he sounds more like you,” she countered as her thoughts finally gathered into some semblance of normality, the reintegration of their souls sharpening the redhead’s focus, her surroundings blossoming into crystal clarity. Drawing her head back a hair Tay smiled up into Callan’s topaz gaze, “He bitches almost as well as his Daddy. Can I have him please? Sha’tris?”
"No." A wave of absolute relief flooded Callan's body and soul as he released her from the kiss, "No, I didn't let the fire go out." His icy blue eyes searched her emerald greens, and indeed, the fire was still there, burning in her eyes and smoldering in her soul. Her body was healed, or at least well on its way, the immediate danger past, but there had only been so much he do. Torn tissues he could repair, but she had lost such a great deal of blood. THAT he couldn't fix. Only time could replace it all, even if he had jump-started her body's healing.
Black wings swept back, their tips leaving eddies in the water as he looked up at the shimmering, liquid form of Sha'tris and his now quiet son, "Aye, I suppose I have to admit," A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, "he caterwauls as well as I do."
"Aye he does," Sha'tris' form sank eerily into the water and the golden light from her presence illuminated the water around the Emperor and his Tay. "And he is as surely yours as his father is." The soul of Aerdon itself lowered the child into An'Thaya's pale arms with the sound of flowing water and drops of rain as Cal'Lanth was laid in her embrace. A molten stream of sunrise colored water flowed across the infant's forehead, a ghostly echo of a fingertip, then stroked back two tiny wings and tucked them properly against his back before he was released entirely to his mother.
"Welcome into the multiverse, little Blackthorn, little D'Riel. I think you'll find it a most...interesting place." A faint ripple and the soft splashing sound that followed was all that told the pair they were alone with their son. Eyes so blue they'd surely not change in color peered upwards and one tiny fist closed around a lock of damp red curls and pulled them to his mouth.
"He might complain like I do, but I suspect he eats like his Daro Ro..." Was Callan's soft, half-whispered comment as he sank to the steps beside her and pulled her and Cal into his lap.
"Doste' Iman, Thayaru...you and our son are wonders..."
There could have been a million of Sha’tris in the room, and An’Thaya would not have noticed. Tears were brimming in her eyes as she gazed down at the son they had fought so hard to bring into the world. Settling back, exhausted, into Callan’s embrace she laughed softly, “Oh yes… like you are a light eater love.” Letting her head rest on his chest, Tay sighed in deep contentment and tugged the strand of hair out of Cal’Lanth’s mouth, settling him in to nurse. “Look at that, he does take after you.”
Mischief danced in the depths of tired eyes as the Amazon tilted her head back, lifting one hand to run pale fingers along Callan’s jaw, tracing the cleft in his chin, “Doste’ Iman, Callan,” emerald jewels warmed as she repeated a few words she had said once before in this room as he had carried her from it, exhausted and half asleep, “you are pretty wonderful yourself.” Her lip twitched in self amusement and Tay turned her head slightly, kissing his chest, “and… I don’t mind if you tell anyone I said that. Ouch! Oh! Hey… no, we don’t bite Amil, especially not there.”
"Well, WE don't, I do..." Callan snorted out a bit of laughter that still echoed his earlier terror as he tightened his hold on his wife and son and rose from the pool and started walking, dripping wet, back into their chambers with a towel dangling from one wing claw that he snagged from a large basket near the doorway.
"You know, I DO ruin more boots this way...and my t-shirt will never be the same again. I never had that problem until you, you know that don't you?" He nuzzled at her ear then brought the towel around within reach as he set she and Cal'Lanth on the bed. The towel, already warm from the morning sun hitting the stone ledge and walls went around her shoulders and he gently dried her body and hair as best he could then peeled the rest of his wet garments off and tossed them aside. A pair of black flannel trousers were pulled from a trunk at the foot of the bed and finally dressed and dry, he pulled the down comforter over he and An'Thaya as his son began to drift of to sleep.
"And...I'm not telling people I'm wonderful and I've got you to back it up. First of all, I like them to think I'm a black-hearted bastard, and second of all, I think you're just a little biased." His fingers stroked back unruly locks of flame colored hair and he spooned into her and wrapped one heavy arm around her...and had started to drift off to sleep when it occurred to him...
"Tay? Do we have diapers here? Or am I going to have to run to Wal-mart?"
Tay’s aim was unerring as she reached back and smacked her husband upside the ear.
“Go to sleep.”
There was a distinct pause.
“Can you get me a pint of ice cream whilst you are there? Kidding! In the trunk over there, the one you’ve somehow managed to avoid smashing.”
|
|
|
