A/N: This is my submission for the super cool Greek Mythology Pregnancy Challenge (woo!) that you should all check out. I got Klytemnestra, pregnant with her oldest daughter, Iphigenia. I don't want to spoil the myth, so you should go and google Iphigenia's story if you don't know it already.
Also, you can join the challenge: .net/myforums/347_Flavors/3479302/
She knew she was dreaming despite the brightness of her surroundings. A fleet of wide-breasted warships lined the bay. She recognized it as Aulis, where she'd been as a girl to visit some faceless relatives. Funny, she thought, the wind was oddly stagnant, as if some great being held its mighty breath.
On the shore, where bristling sea grass reaches its threshold and gives way to sand, there stood a great golden executioner's block, prepared for sacrifice. It must have been of the tantamount importance, for as she scanned the beach, she met the faces of soldiers, priests, kings, and seers. To her far right she could make out Calchas, the court prophet. A solemn air of equal parts anticipation and cutting remorse hung over the assembly.
With the blink of an eye, the crowd had dispersed, ships departed and wind lashing violently across the shore. The golden block now dripped with wine red blood, pooling in an oblong ellipse, caking the sand into a gritty paste.
And so she opened her eyes with a sharp pain across her abdomen, back into the Mycenaean night with her king and husband snoring beside her, with darling Iphigenia curled safely in the womb of the queen now lurching for a chamber pot. She heaved into the vessel, crying fat, angry tears and breathing hard through the bile in her throat and nose. Blinking hard to dry her eyes, she was received into her husband's arms, clenching her jaw through his inane spousal cooing.
Sobs caught in her chest and she could only hold onto her pride for so long until she willingly folded her hot cheek into the curve of Agamemnon's neck. Despite the platitudes he hoped to soothe her with, she insisted in a voice ragged from exasperation and retching, that no, it wasn't going to be alright. Over his light-hearted jests at her maternal concern and his comforting strokes over her curved belly, she nearly shouted that no, it wasn't just a first time mother's nightmare.
The whole night Klytemnestra stared at the tiled ceiling and knew with all of her being that her unborn daughter was doomed, even before her first breath.