Drained by blood loss and exhaustion, Tara wavered in and out of consciousness. She was freezing, shaking so hard her teeth felt ready to break. She couldn't open her eyes, but she heard snatches of sounds. A high, soft, mewing cry, and the sounds of females hushing and cooing. Bank that fire up, the oldest female voice said.
She's shaking, Brodha! She's so damned cold!
Tara knew that voice, but she couldn't decide if it was a terror or a deep, deep comfort, nor could she understand how it could be both things at once.
That'll be the blood she lost. Cover her good now. Go ahead and lie behind her, give her your warmth.
And then the bitter cold washed away, and Tara felt a powerful heat engulfing her, arms like stone coming round her and drawing her into the lovely, lovely warmth. She smelled a heavy, heavy male scent—something between an animal and a man, blood, and winter wind—and she understood that she was safe and pain would not touch her again. She passed into sleep.
Sometime later—no time at all to the exhausted young woman, in deep dreamless sleep—Tara felt the heat of a hard fire on her cheeks. Nestled deep in furs, Tara woke with an uncommon feeling of security, and for some reason she thought of her mother, thought she was a little girl again curled up in bed with the woman whose face she could only remember in dreams.
Then she heard a high pitched mewling sound, the tiny cries of some non-human creature, and at once she was conscious. She opened her eyes, and saw Ushatar sitting by the fireside in awe of something bundled in silver-tipped wolf fur. Brodha stood gazing over his shoulder, and she could hear the soft rumbling sound that she'd come to associate with Ushatar's extreme pleasure or joy.
"He—hey—" Tara croaked, and the Uruk-hai warrior and Orc healer turned to her with bright, expectant faces. Ushatar's eyes were liquid with tears, and he tried to speak to her and found there were no words.
"Told you so," Brodha crowed gently to Ushatar. "Welcome back, Tara dear. How are you feeling?"
"Shitty," she breathed hoarsely. "That's—that's it? The baby?"
"Her," Ushatar murmured, standing up with painstaking care. "A female. Maybe the first ever born."
Tara couldn't take her eyes off of Ushatar. Everything came back to her: his strong arms holding her up through the birth, his soft encouragement breathed in her ear, even a strong dream-like memory of being held in his arms, which were so warm, where she'd come to no harm. And he'd certainly wept, which was as odd as could be on his hard features. He knelt before her, his face deadly serious and yet full of pride and sweetness. No one had ever looked at Tara with such open eyes. "Ready?"
She nodded, and Ushatar placed the bundle down beside her. Tara drew a little breath for courage—still apprehensive about what'd come out of her—and peered over into the thick fur.
She promptly lost her breath.
"See how good you did?" Ushatar asked quietly, sitting next to her.
Tara couldn't speak: she was caught by a bright, alert pair of silver-grey eyes—her eyes—surrounded by impossibly thick, long black lashes. But that was where humanity ended, and truth be told, there wasn't much human to begin with in those glossy star-struck depths. The baby girl was Ushatar's slate-grey color, and behind the infantile plumpness Tara saw his sharp, high cheekbones and smooth clean-cut jawline. Then Tara realized that baby's lips were just like hers, full and prone to pouting, but a deeper grey than her skin, with the slightest hint of the black blood that flowed in her veins. She had parts of Tara, but she was completely Uruk-hai, and Tara shook her head in astonishment, whispering, "She's beautiful."
"You like her, Tara?" Ushatar asked, a slight catch in his voice.
Tara couldn't take her eyes off the baby. She wanted to examine every part of the child, commit it to memory forever. "Ushatar—I love her. She's so lovely! Like a little star…"
"A big star," Brodha laughed. "You're little body just had enough, decided she'd have to make do as she was. But she's strong, she's ready to join the world."
The baby gave her little mewing cry again, so different from the howling squall of a human infant, and Tara laughed softly. She pulled the wolf-fur down a bit and a little grey hand—plump, with thick, strong, sheer fingernails—shot out to explore. Tara put her own pale finger against the little palm, and the baby grasped on tightly. "She's so strong!"
Ushatar bit his lip, hardly able to contain his pride, or the surging of some powerful warm emotion in his heart that made him wonder if it was possible to die from joy. He couldn't take his eyes off Tara and his newborn.
Tara laughed again: the baby'd pulled her finger to its perfect little mouth and started sucking frantically. Tara pressed her fingers gently on the baby's gums, feeling nothing but two little nubs on top where her upper canines would be. Even still, the baby had a strong jaw. "I don't care how tough you'll be," Tara murmured, "I'll always look out for you."
Ushatar couldn't bear the distance anymore. He slid closer, his thigh near Tara's face, and he put his hand on her shoulder, full of gentle but earnest possession. Tara—perfectly content—thoughtlessly shrugged her shoulder up so that she could lay her cheek against Ushatar's hand, and he quite lost his mind.
"She'll be getting hungry, Tara. That's why she's sucking like that. She won't howl for you like you probably did as a little one, but she'll make her little cries, and she'll work her mouth and try to suck whatever's near it."
Tara's nerves crept back in, though the hazy glow of new motherhood kept it from going too far. "I don't know what to do, Brodha. I mean, I've seen it done, but I never really cared to watch or ask questions. And…" Tara closed her mouth before she said that feeding her own child seemed embarrassing, which suddenly was utterly absurd to her. The baby needed her: there was nothing more to it. "I just don't know what to do."
"It's not all that hard, she'll know what to do when you put her in the right spot."
"Um… Ushatar…" Tara looked up at him, wide-eyed, and she heard the faintest little moan of disappointment in his throat. Of course, she thought, he'd want to see his baby nursing. But she wasn't sure she could show herself to him so intimately.
"I'll bet you're hungry," he said. "Your friends went to make you some food, it should be ready now. I'll go get it."
Tara nodded. Once he was gone, Brodha helped Tara sit up. Tara unlaced the front of her gown and shyly slipped it off her shoulders. The little girl was much heavier than Tara expected—her bones were thick like Ushatar's—but Tara cradled her carefully. Brodha was right: the little one knew what to do, and Tara had been wrong entirely. It was a peaceful thing, a loving thing, to feed her strange and beautiful child. Tara smiled and smoothed her fingers over the baby's short, soft black hair, and rocked the little one gently as she nursed herself to sleep.
That night, Ushatar couldn't hold back any longer. He passed his precious daughter back into Tara's arms and said, "Don't make me leave you tonight. Don't make me leave her. I swear, I swear…" he breathed, staring at Tara with the fire glowing in his eyes and desperation on his face. "I won't hurt you, I won't bother you. I just wanna know you're safe, and she's safe… I want to be with you both so much…"
Tara brushed her messy black hair behind her ear, her lips pouting as she switched her eyes from Ushatar's face to the swaddled baby in the wicker cradle that Nemlii's made for her. It seemed appallingly cruel, after everything, to keep Ushatar away from his daughter. She worried her lip a little between her smooth white teeth, thinking that if he'd not touched her since they'd left that awful prison, then surely, surely now wouldn't be the time, with her fresh from childbed. Tara had an unbidden memory of being enclosed in his warm, protective grasp. "All right, Ushatar," she agreed, helpless to her own smile as he perked up with wild joy. Tara laughed a little at his exuberance and said, "You can stay- I want you to stay with us."
Ushatar bent down quickly and swept a kiss over his daughter's smooth grey brow, whispering to the baby that she was precious. As he came back up, he froze, caught in Tara's gaze. He was so close she could feel his breath, so close she saw the spark of boldness in his eyes. Ushatar leaned forward and brushed his warm lips softly against Tara's. Her heart flipped dramatically, and she forgot how to breathe.
"Thank you," Ushatar whispered, and then he pulled away, and retreated to the other side of the fire while Tara sat in wide-eyed amazement: not that he had kissed her, the exact way she'd shown him how months before, but that now—with no chance that he would take it farther than she could handle—Tara wanted Ushatar to kiss her again.