"Mother. I'm pregnant."
Just like that. "What? What'd you say?"
"Mother, please. This is very important news. I'm with child, I'm going to have a baby, your grand-baby... Mother... are you listening?"
Yes. Exactly like that. Little ripples in her drink. Moss-wine on her fingers. Kalah sucked her knuckles dry.
"So," she said as she tipped her head back and downed the wine like a shot. It didn't burn the way she wanted it to, anymore, but it was still there for her on days that a dull ache bubbled up and threatened to make her feel things the way she used to. "You finally figured out one of the many side-effects to your profession."
Rica sighed. "Mother-"
"What? Am I supposed to say congratulations?" Kalah laughed as she flicked her sticky fingers away from her glass. "Congratulations that you stayed still on your back long enough for some thankless nuglicker to pump you full of his seed?" She paused and ate up the silence. Kalah raised an eyebrow at the girl and tightened the corners of her mouth until they turned up in a mockery of a smile. "Well, congratulations."
Rica actually flinched at that one. For all the bravado she conjured up when her younger sibling was around, the girl was still far too soft for Dust Town. She swallowed the hurt and tried again. "You don't understand what I'm trying to tell you. Just listen a moment."
"No, Rica, I do understand." The cold panic, the desperation and need. But above all else, the blind, stupid hope that would keep her awake at night with a hand on the growing belly that could save or damn her. Kalah understood that all too well. "There's a doctor in the back alley, a little ways past this building-"
"Mother! No!" Rica still managed to look beautiful with horror and disgust painted across her features. Kalah had been like that once, many years ago. Or maybe Rica just looked more like her father than Kalah would want to admit.
Her sweet little ticket out. Born a healthy, squalling pink and shamefully female. How quick was it that the food, the dresses, and the deshyr himself vanished afterward? Kalah was not drunk enough.
"This is a good thing," Rica was saying. "This is what I wanted. This child doesn't belong to just any smith or merchant class. This child, my child, is nobility. The father is Prince Bhelen, himself, future king of Orzammar."
"Prince, huh?" Kalah's hand trembled as she grasped for the near-empty bottle of moss-wine at her feet.
"Yes, prince."
Kalah emptied the rest of the bottle into her glass. Prince, king, paragon, it didn't matter. Her deshyr had been part of a very old, high-ranking and influential family. It didn't matter how beautiful Rica was, how sweet and good-natured a babe she was, how perfect. His blood running through the child's veins wasn't enough to stop him from abandoning them in Dust Town far worse off than they started out. No one wanted a whore who allowed yet another casteless bastard to fight and crawl its way out from between her thighs. How did he expect her to feed an infant with no trade to ply?
"Bhelen wants to name the child after his father." Rica's voice was a buzzing murmur in the back of Kalah's ears. She rubbed at her earlobes and forced the rest of the wine down.
Her casteless trash husband had liked to say they married each other out of love. That they didn't care that their child would be casteless regardless of gender. What a load of swill. There was a distinct difference between love and giving up. It didn't matter how many casteless brats she squeezed out; the first one had already determined she'd be stuck in Dust Town until she died, the rest were just merely more mouths to feed.
The day she told him that, he left for the surface and never looked back. And his little trash progeny followed him skyward several years later. Maybe she should have told the girl where her daddy had planned to carve out a living so she could find him. Maybe it didn't matter.
"He wants to name the whelp after his dad, does he?" she muttered. "What if it's a girl, Rica? What then?"
Rica's brow lowered and her lips thinned. "Then I suppose we'll have to name her after you."
Kalah blinked. She wished her glass weren't empty. "And what then? How can you feed her and keep her safe? How can you-?" How could she keep the child from turning out just like they did?
Rica rested her hand on her mother's shoulder. Soft, unused, it smelled faintly of perfume. "You haven't been listening to me, Mother."
"Stone, let it be a boy; my daughter doesn't deserve this."
"Mother. You need to pack your belongings." Rica had that tone in her voice. Like she was ashamed. Or worse, pitying. "Bhelen wants me closer to him, because of my condition. I asked that you be allowed to come with me."
"But-"
"He doesn't care about gender; only that it's his." Rica grasped her mother's wine-spattered hands and began to gently pull her to her feet. "Now pack your belongings. An escort will be here to take us to the Diamond Quarter, soon.
"The Diamond Quarter?" And there it was, that hope. Always strongest in the moments right before they were tossed out on their untouchable arses. The hope she'd spent years of drinking trying to snuff out.
"It's okay, Mother. Everything is going to be okay. There's so much to do now, but we're okay."
It was too good to be true. But Stone, did Kalah want to believe her daughter. She stood up and went to go get her things.