Avarice

Chapter 36: Blackbird

Should I lie

Should I cry

Should I fly or die?

I think it's time to stop pretending pain

My Warrior – And One

The pain was unbearable.

It was like having a white-hot hammer forced down her throat, shoved really. Her whole body felt like it were rebelling against itself, pulling itself inside out, so that the inside of her could be laid bare for all to see. She was distantly aware of the people within the infirmary, though their presences seemed to come and go like apparitions, ghosts really. She wondered if they were even really there.

Mary, the nurse who had stitched up Reaver all those months ago, was down by her legs. Her words were loud, insistent, a buzzing like a headache, push push push.

Naveena's voice sounded distant even to her own ears, like she were hearing someone yell from the summit of Mistpeak. It felt as if she weren't really speaking, but listening to herself speak. Amidst the different spectrums of pain, this seemed to her as natural as breathing.

Those apparitions came and went - push, push – She could see Elliot, at her side, face drawn and pinched as if he had been through the Void and back, his hands curled and clammy within her own. His eyes were wide and afraid, and his lips moved with words she couldn't understand but could see. Sorry, sorry, love, sorry, please—

Whatever for, she wanted to ask. It was all her fault, wasn't it? All her fault, yes. All her fault.

Love, sorry, okay, child—

Be quiet, please, she wanted to say.

Push, push, push.

Of all the things she could've thought about during this, she thought of her mother. Sometimes she could see her, around the edges of the bed, a shadow of a woman she had once admired so much. Blood seemed to be everywhere on her, though. Concentrated on the hands. Sparrow would look at her with those eyes, the eyes which were a reflection of her own, and would whisper, so, so gently,

"My, the mess you've made for yourself, Veena." And the smile that graced her lips was cold and every bit one of disapproval.

Yes, yes she had made a mess, hadn't she?

The pain was getting worse. Her eyes pricked with tears, and her hands fisted the cold, white cloth of her bed beneath her. Elliot was at her shoulder, his whispered words loud and booming in the shell of her ear. Sorry, sorry, fault, mine—

No. Her fault. Only hers. Push, push, push—

Logan was the one who most resembled a ghost, a shadow that lurked in the corners of the room. His face dour and set, his gaze stern and his bottom lip chewed to ruin. He never looked at her. She wanted him to look. Look at what you convinced me to do!

She gasped, screamed and yelled. Distant gasps, distant screams, distant yells. Her skin felt like it had been lit on fire. Maybe it had. Situational irony, from beyond the grave. Don't let Reaver stray you from the path!

Push!

When it all seemed over, her world was plunged into black.

Naveena woke up to silence. Pure, unadulterated silence. Her body felt heavy, like she were weighed down by a ton of bricks. She felt herself stir, her legs twitch and her toes wiggle. Her entire body ached, the feeling of old pain. Her eyes opened, slightly, narrowly. The breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding escaped her lips.

"Your Majesty…?" Asked a familiar voice. It took her a moment to place a name to it.

"Mary…" She rasped. Her throat burned. "Water…"

"Right, of course." A few moments of silence brought her a glass. Naveena sucked it down eagerly, feeling as though she hadn't had a drink in years. As if all her life she'd been wandering the desert, parched, with a tongue like the sand. Naveena wasn't sure she'd ever been happier to see water in her entire life.

The glass shook in her hands, and she asked, rather shakily, "Mary… my—"

"Hush," Said the nurse, taking the glass from her hands. "Hush, child."

"My child—"

Mary looked pained, as though something had been drawn out of her, "There were… complications, Your Majesty."

Complications. The word drew through her like a knife. "Complications? My… are they—"

"You had twins." Said Mary. The older lady sat in a seat next to her, fisted the crimped edges of her dress. "One of them… did not survive the night."

Naveena felt as though something inside of her had died. As if something deep within had crawled up and died within her. She sat up, and all at once her throat felt again horribly dry, like she were still deep within the desert.

"Why?" She asked, and it was all she could ask. The only word she felt she could really say. "Why?"

"Premature birth," Said Mary, her voice as gentle and soft as it could possibly be. "The complications of it, especially during twinning… often, the results are dire indeed. You are truly lucky that even one—"

"A boy," Naveena asked, quietly. "Or a girl?"

Mary's face looked drawn in on itself, the wrinkles of her face opening up to some dark chasm. "A boy. A very fragile little boy."

"I want to see him." Naveena said, her voice raspy, rough. Her throat stung. "Please."

Mary's frown deepened, and Naveena's eyes were unfocused on the wall ahead of her. She felt as though she were falling apart, threads of her pulled away and carried into the wind, scattering to the four edges of the world. Forgotten. How she wanted so very much to be forgotten, to be a nameless face in a nameless crowd.

"Your Majesty—" Mary began to protest.

"Please."

Mary drew herself up from the chair and left. Naveena watched her go, watched the way her thin shoulders were squared and her body tightened, uncomfortable. There was something in the gait that bothered Naveena so.

Moments later, Elliot appeared, with a bundle wrapped in his arms. Naveena refused to look at him, but he pressed the boy into her arms, and she held the boy gently, delicately. As if moving just a bit would snap off the baby's arms.

He was a quiet, fragile little thing. He had big, baby-blue eyes. Her eyes, Naveena thought, though she wondered if the color would change as the months passed. The boy was bald, no hair yet, and was decidedly pink. A bright, shiny, nearly sickly sort of pink that made Naveena's heart sink.

No name. Not yet. She didn't think she could bring herself to name the little bundle in her arms.

"Elliot." She said, her voice a whip. Anger bubbled inside her, a frustration pent up so much that the only thing she could do, could say was, "Get out."

Elliot stirred beside her, his face hurt, his eyes wide, "I—"

"Just go," She whispered, and then spat out, as if the word itself were poison, "Murderer."

Elliot stood, looming over her. She didn't dare look at him, glance at him. After a while, Elliot just gave out a shaky, deflating sort of sigh, hitched by something… tears, maybe? But he left. It was just her now. Her and her child, her child without a name.

The boy gurgled, curled fingers around her pinky when she showed him it. Naveena wasn't sure if she had ever seen anything quite so beautiful in her entire life.

After a moment, with those fingers curled around her own, in the silence of her own company, Naveena finally allowed herself the leisure of weeping.

It was raining. A light drizzle, accompanied by thick black clouds that promised further thunderstorms. Naveena could feel the icy fingers of the rain slipping down her back, though she felt too numb to even shiver. Beside her, Elliot was the very model of a statue. He wouldn't even hold her hand.

The priest had been brought from Oakfield, a practitioner of the Light. His words were low and droned, and Naveena barely even heard him. The twin had been a boy, even more fragile than her nameless son. She couldn't look at the boy for more than a few moments before squeezing her eyes shut and turning away. The sight had made her stomach churn, had made her sick.

Logan, who was on the other side of her, whispered something in her ear that she couldn't understand. The words were soft, comforting and meaningless.

Walter was somewhere off to the side, and Naveena thought she had glimpsed Page a few times. An elusive figure, that Page. Like a shadow.

They buried her dead child in a small gold box, one that was barely any larger than the full length of her forearm. He was to be buried with the rest of her family in the catacombs, the first to go after her father. Naveena imagined one day that there would be so many tombs within. Who would go next? Her? Elliot? Logan, even? Her living son? Surely whatever god existed within the great expanse of the sky was not that cruel.

Still, the thought made her heart sink and her stomach fill with bile. Her shoulders shook in the rain, and chills she'd been holding back seemed to rack her entire body. She fell to her knees, and Logan moved down beside her immediately, along with Elliot. The priest stopped mid-sentence.

"I'm okay." She muttered, fast and quick when the priest kneeled in front of her. "Please… just continue the service."

The priest shot her a strange, odd look but did as she asked. When he finished, with that same sentence that all funerals seem to end with, "Ashes to ashes and dust to dust." Naveena could feel the tears rolling down both sides of her cheeks.

The rain seemed to pick up. Naveena watched as the priest lifted the gold box, her eyes leveled at him, and watched as he turned to the looming shadow of the catacomb. He disappeared, and so did her son.

Elliot moved quickly, shouldering past her, never once looking up at her. It left just her and Logan. She couldn't see Walter anywhere, and she looked for him solemnly. She didn't want to look at Logan, not right now. Not ever, maybe. The rain was making her hair wet, plastering bangs to her forehead.

"Sister." She heard Logan say. Naveena stared straight ahead, at the buckles of Logan's clothes.

"It's over, between Elliot and I." She said, simply, with a voice that seemed so incredibly detached. Like it hadn't even come from her at all. "I've lost a son, a husband, and soon I may even lose an entire kingdom."

"You will not lose," Said Logan, reaching for her, pulling her tight into a hug. "I promise it."

"Lying is wrong, Logan." She told him, wrapping her arms around him.

Naveena sat on the edge of her bed, away from Elliot. She didn't deign to watch him pack his things, and not a word was said between them the entire time. The silence itself seemed unbearable, long and stretching and near interminable, but she allowed it to continue, wanted it to continue because there was nothing she felt she could say.

There was the snap of one of Elliot's bags being closed, and his shoes swam into view as he stood in front of her.

"You're leaving our son." She said, quietly. "You're not hurting me, you're hurting him now, don't you understand?"

"He isn't my son," Elliot replied, his voice cracking. A mere whisper. "I know that."

"You don't know that." Naveena spat. "How can you even say that?" The feet in front of her shifted their weight restlessly.

There was a click on the nightstand beside her bed, and Naveena looked up just to see Elliot's fingers leave the wedding ring on the surface, a slight sliver of gold against deep mahogany. She stared at it, and felt her heart break entirely then, as if it were the final straw. The break didn't seem clean at all.

"I'm leaving, Naveena." Elliot said, finally, his voice so incredibly hurt that it felt like a whip to Naveena. "And you can't make me come back this time."

And he left with his bags over his shoulders, and Naveena didn't even watch him go.

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