A/N: Unlike my other stories, this one is complete and will be updated daily. It is around ten chapters long. I also can't recall the inspiration for this. It just sort of...came to me.
~+~One for Sorrow~+~
It had started late into the night.
When the rest of the palace was soundly asleep in their warm, beautifully furnished bedrooms in blankets and sheets of silk and expensive cotton, the Lady Ursa found that tonight would be a night of absolutely no rest.
The cold sweat had started first. Ursa found herself stripping off the thick blankets that were covering her and rolling them into a sloppy pile at the foot of her bed, leaving only the thin sheets covering her. Her long night gown was hitched up past her knees and rolled up past her elbows so that the cool air drifting in through the windows could cool her heated skin. She flipped her pillow over so that the cold side of the pillow was facing up. She pressed her flushed face against the cool fabric and kept repeating the process whenever the pillow got much too warm. Her long hair was piled up on the top of her head so that her neck, slick with sweat, could get a bit of relief.
Then the stirring began. At first she thought that is was normal. After all, her maids and friends that had experience in carrying children told her that stirring was normal. And either way, she was familiar with the feeling of her child moving around inside of her. Normally, she would smile softly and place a hand gently on her stomach, synchronizing herself with every movement that the baby made. But as the night wore on, the kicks started to get sharper, the stirring was not ceasing, and her abdomen was beginning to ache. The movement wasn't soothing. It was frantic, desperate, quick, and relentless. The pressure was agonizing. No, something was definitely wrong.
The heat was beginning to be too much. The one window that was open was not allowing in enough of a breeze. It seemed that her bed sheets were radiating heat so as to ensure that she would never find relief from her discomfort. She placed the back of her hand against her forehead and felt the droplets of sweat collect on the back of her hand. Her lips were cracked and dried, her throat was parched, she was panting with fever, and the stirring was getting worse.
Something was really, really wrong.
The woman thought that perhaps if she opened all of the windows, the heat would dissipate. She wasn't concerned with the possibility of catching a cold or of getting the child sick by accident. At this point, she just needed enough air to breathe in this stuffy furnace that had become her room. She pressed her hands flush against the soft mattress below her and propped herself against the headboard of her bed. She breathed in and out slowly and was about to swing her legs over the side to stand up.
But before her foot touched the wooden floors of the bedroom, the stirring became violent.
Ursa felt the sharp pain vibrate through her entire lower body and couldn't hold back the shriek that escaped her lips. This was a foreign feeling. The pains of childbearing were supposed to be a lot lower than where this pain was coming from. She expected there to be pushing down lower, signaling the attempts of the child trying to push its way out. But this…it felt like the pain was inside of her. As if the child was trying to push its way out of her stomach rather than down lower. As if it was in danger and it was looking for any way at all to escape.
The woman was confused. Shouldn't there have been water? Or at least sheets soaked in some way? The Lady was panting and trying to lessen the pain shooting across her abdomen as she grabbed the edge of her expensive sheets. Biting her lip again as the pain continued, she pulled the sheets aside to assess whether it was time—whether this was really it. She shifted to the side slightly so as to get a view of the sheets underneath her.
Ursa choked out a scream and a sob. Disgust crossed her features.
Blood. Bright, red blood.
Something was going terribly wrong.
Another intense wave of pain and pressure was felt on her pelvis and the woman cried out again, this time louder and sharper. It took only seconds for someone to hear her cries of distress. Ursa's lady in waiting and her midwife came barreling in through the room, their skirts and dressed picked up from the bottom as if they had been running through the halls. They saw the Fire Nation woman bent over and clutching her stomach, whimpering, crying, and begging for help. The sheets were pulled aside to display the crimson stained blankets. Another sharp cry was heard and Ursa threw her head back in agony.
Their reactions were instantaneous.
The lady in waiting called back to the young maids and asked them to bring a tub of warm water and as many towels as they could find. The midwife rushed over to the Fire Princess and tried to assess the situation. She leaned the Fire Princess back against the headboard and piled as many pillows, quilts, and blankets as she could. As soon as the woman was leaned comfortable against the pillows, the midwife lifted the nightgown until it was past her hips.
The midwife gasped. "They're only seconds apart!"
The lady in waiting was busy rushing in the girls carrying the water and the towels. Her features screwed into that of frantic worry. "How can that be? That would mean that she's—"
"—three months early. I know," the midwife called back. "Quick bring the towels, hurry!"
They all stayed with her for the painstakingly long night that was presented to them. The pains and contractions were coming relentlessly and it seemed as though this labor was far more painful and taking innumerable amounts of energy out of the poor young woman. The tears kept coming and she kept whimpering to all of her maids that she felt like she was dying. They knew that this was the delirium that came whenever someone was in the midst of child birth pain. But somehow, it seemed as if something was off about the crying, sobbing, and shrieking.
It was with one final heave that Ursa had felt relief. The stirring, kicking, and sharp pains had stopped. The pressure had stopped and she felt terribly empty. She collapsed back into the pillows and started gasping for breath. The sweat on her brow made her hair stick to her forehead and her entire body was hot. The throbbing and soreness was already taking over her and she immediately started to feel the after birth fatigue. She longed for the cries of her baby to distract her. She longed to feel it cuddled up in her arms so that she could focus not on the soreness, but on its pink, rosebud face. She wanted to see her child. But…
…the room was strangely silent.
The Fire Princess panted and gasped, filling her lungs with as much air as she could. In a voice that was cracked, hoarse, and strained, Ursa rasped out a question to her maids. "What is it?"
Nobody had answered her at first. There was a shuffling of skirts, tapping of feet, and even a few muffled coughs that echoed through the rooms at uncomfortable volumes. None of the younger girls wanted to say anything. Some were trying to keep their sobs quiet. The midwife was busy staring blankly at the bundle of blankets in her arms that was holding the baby that the Lady had worked so hard to produce. It couldn't have been helped. The lady in waiting was the Fire Princess's most trusted servant. If anyone had to tell the poor woman, it would be her.
She stepped forward with her head held high and her eyes shining nothing more than the utmost pity for her mistress. "It is a stillborn, my Lady."
Confusion crossed the woman's features. A dropping feeling washed over her and she felt a new kind of pressure collecting on the back of her eye lids. She blinked and felt the moisture trickle down her cheeks as she croaked out another response.
"Again? A second time?"
The lady in waiting bowed her head and didn't dare look her mistress in the eyes. She clutched her hands tightly and responded as levelly as she could.
"Yes. I'm very sorry."
