It had always been dark around me.
It is a beautiful world, described by Rin as if I was in space and everyone else were stars. But my world made things very, very difficult. I can't even see my own wife's face properly. Never know what her eyes look like when they're staring into mine, never know how her hair looks in the moonlight, and most of all, how happy she looks while carrying our child.
I constantly have to use pressure to feel my way around, to use it as my "eyes". Many vampires are constantly nervous around me because of it- since my very presence is too heavy for them to bear.
It had been a cool night nearing summer when Rin's water broke.
She had been yelling at a maid for embezzling when her core stilled and water with a slight hint of salt filled the air.
"Kanae..." She says quietly. I dismissed the maid with a wave of my hand, and picked Rin up. I sped through the halls and reached the birthing room, placing her onto the bed. Behind me, I can sense the midwife, her assistants, and several of our maids making their way into the room.
I grab one of the chairs and set it next to the bed, my hand making its way into my wife's and gripping her hand as tight as I could without hurting her. Her core fluctuates between anxiety and fear. Her breaths grow shorter and shorter.
I bring her hand against my lips, as a reassurance for both her nerves and mine. My lips kiss it over and over, and I murmur, "You'll be fine. Our Rido will be a healthy baby boy and he'll grow beautifully."
Her hand shakes in response, but her core pulls itself together in determination. It fills itself with strength and love until it overflows and holds itself up against the pain once the contractions start. I can see each wave of pain make its way into her core and her breaths stutter. She moans in agony and her grip on my hand becomes tight enough to shatter it. But I don't mind.
I'll happily allow Rin to shatter each and every one of my bones if it'll distract her from this torture.
A babe's cry reach my ears and I turn. The core is deep and powerful. It is small and compact, but there's something terrible happening. I can see it panic, lashing out several strings to take out those it takes to be a threat. Half a second after, snaps echo in the room and several cores disappear.
A baby's core is supposed to be weak and undeveloped until the third month, but this- my Rido's- core is mature. Already knows of its mortality and the dangers its path in life has laid out for it. It is already aware.
I scramble up from my seat when two more cores are extinguished, one of which had been holding my baby. I use my own core to cover and quell the panicking orb. I ignore the screams of horror around me, and takes several strings out and pins them into each and every core of the vampires who aren't related to me.
I send out waves of positive emotions into them, forcibly erasing their earlier memories of horror and replacing them with a joyous one. I compel them to ignore the damages done to the room and finally call the strings back when I'm sure they're convinced Rido is a harmless baby whose birth is cause for celebration.
"It's a girl!" The midwife's surviving assistant announces joyously. The midwife is dead, the realization is a horrid punch to my solar plexus. And my Rido is a girl. A baby girl who'll inherit the empire. A girl whose rule will be made even more difficult simply because of her gender. My baby girl. My Rido.
I accept a blanket from one of the maids and clumsily wrap her body with it under their instructions, ignoring the judgemental amusement radiating from them. I head over to Rin and hand our Rido to her. Her core dances with joy and relief. She embraces our child happily and says, "Rido. Your name will be Rido Kuran."
Her core, who had been laying passive before with a slight touch of dread in it, began showing signs of panic once more. I quickly force it to stay still at the very least, letting the emotions wash over the tiny core and bleed out without any lives suffering as casualty.
Two nights later, Rin is well enough to leave the birth room. I haven't left our child's side whatsoever, slightly surprised she's taking my presence well and forcing her core to stay still whenever it begins to get agitated.
It isn't safe to leave her to the maids, for the exact opposite reason Rin and I had worried over weeks before. So I materialize my familiar from my shadow, a cat my mother described to be a witch's cat, with sleek midnight blue fur and bearing my shade of eyes. Hopefully he'll be enough of a companion to her.
Rido takes to my familiar immediately. She clings to the fur with her pudgy, tiny fists and utterly refuses to let go. I can't see her, but it sends me flashes of the sight of her core. It sits still in content, choosing to be a complete contrast to the one I have to regularly keep still. My familiar also gives me the feel of how her body is curled into it sometimes, making me miss the time I held her in my arms.
But the empire is keeping me busy right now. Things are tense and the tentative peace treaty we have with the Vampire Hunter's Association is deteriorating. Many Aristocrats are whispering of discontent, of corruption and unreliability in my family, and it's becoming more and more difficult to stamp them out. Rin is getting more and more stressed with each vampire undermining her rule, each jab made on her gender and each jab on her reliance on me.
It all leads up to us seeking comfort from our daughter, however sparse our time with her may be. Rido herself doesn't seem to mind being left alone. Her core radiates happiness and understanding when I see her and Rin had cooed that Rido smiles at us when we enter the room.
But there have been many a vampire who've approached me on her. We haven't shown her to our citizens, haven't mentioned her in the slightest except to announce her birth. Many are suspecting something, and all the Purebloods know she's aware.
"...girl too, after all."
Ah. Did I just go here unconsciously? I open the door and see Rido's horrified core and Rin's highly amused one. My pressure tells me Rin is shoving Rido's face into her breasts. Well then.
"Rin." I sigh as I close the door and dismiss my familiar. Rin's core turns euphoric when she looks at me. Rido's, on the other hand, goes further into embarrassment. "Don't break our first child."
Rido's very, very delicate and she tends to panic easily.
"But she's so cute!" Rin isn't angry or disappointed actually, she's just saying this to tease our daughter even more.
"And she'll be the Vampire Queen." I tell her quietly as I move to her side. "She can't do that if she loses all of her dignity."
"Dignity, shmignity!" Rin's core becomes indignant, and angry. Waves of hatred, shame and disappointment makes it way from her and she hits my arm to scold me and ground herself. "She'll have to be bold and downright shameless before anyone takes her seriously! Stupid sexist men will always be an obstacle for our princess."
Rido's core turns still at our words. Surprisingly, it doesn't lash out. Retreating into itself instead and occasionally letting me see that it's in shock and denial.
"Kanae," Rin says with a touch of uncertainty and amusement in her voice, "I think we've lost her."
"I think so too."