Even though she never knew her son, N's mother always had a special connection to his cause. It just wasn't in a conventional way.
She was too exhausted to even scream.
Ghetis ran a hand over his consort's sweat soaked hair, red eyed stare entirely detached as he regarded her, her and her heaving chest. When he touched his fingertips to her throat, the blonde's pulse pounded against his touch. "It's been too long," he said, quiet.
The next contraction rippled through her. Unlike the first, it barely squeezed a whimper out of her. Three days was long enough for any woman. Three days was also enough to make a patient man just the opposite. The last check had proven his son to live even still, trapped within the womb that housed him, but for how much longer, he knew it wouldn't last. Neither of them would.
When his bone-tired physician returned, a steaming mug of coffee in hand, Ghetis allowed the other man a curt nod. "Take him."
The older man's lips parted, perhaps to protest, before he thought better of it and set his precious caffeine down. Even the sixty seconds - he counted every one of them - to scrub elbows to fingers took too long to suit the jade king's waning patience. While he counted, he secured the leather cuffs. It was far too late for anesthetic, and they all knew it. Nevertheless, sacrifices had to be made.
Blood ran easy under the edge of the scalpel, further saturating ruined bedding with a pitiful cry when opened from hip to hip. Ghetis ignored her breathless pleas to Arceus, intent upon the gloved hands that slipped inside of her. Every minute adjustment of the doctor's arms as they pushed deeper into her swollen abdomen was plain as day. Nothing escaped him. It was a shame the opposite couldn't apply with his consort. His fingers tightened against his thighs.
It wasn't until his son came into the world that a bare smile twitched Ghetis's lips. The long-awaited wail of a newborn was what cemented it onto his face.
He already had the dark towel ready when the little prince was passed to him, and soon, only a tiny red face, topped with leafy green fuzz, poked out of the cloth. It was when his physician reached for needle and thread that Ghetis spoke, only then looking up from his heir. "You're done here."
"Sir, I -"
"You're done here. I trust that I don't need to repeat myself, again," Ghetis said, bland.
Color drained from the doctor's face, before he remembered his standing and made the wise decision to let himself out. His consort bore the same ashen cast, her bloodless lips moving, but no sound escaped them.
Ghetis stroked her wet hair once more, and smiled. "You've birthed a king." A prince of pawns, perhaps, but even a simple pawn was capable of a checkmate. "Your crowning achievement, even …" he mused, and offered a glib shrug. Ghetis shifted the child in his arms when she strained to see him, and straightened. "A pity that it's impossible to martyr the living."