Arya stood before her mirror with a frown that twisted her features. Her hands were draped over the swell of her abdomen as she observed the changes her body had gone through over the past three months she'd spent away from Ellesméra. It hardly felt like three months had gone by. It was hard to believe she was already approaching her fourth month.
The long cloak she wore around in her room was large and had the ability to engulf her entire figure- swollen middle and all. It bothered her greatly that she couldn't fit into the majority of her wardrobe anymore. For the past decade she'd been slender and nimble and quick and agile.
Arya sighed. She felt the antithesis of the way she was before she was… noticeably pregnant.
With a shaky breath, she stood to the side and almost winced at how far her abdomen pushed out past her breasts, but she still held herself close. The old, nearly crippling fears began clawing at her mind, threatening to make everything worse as it constricted her chest and locked her legs in place.
"Breathe Arya." Fírnen reminded her from his place on her porch. His silence and ability to remain completely still made Arya almost forget he was there. He blended in so well with the rest of his natural surroundings that he could easily be overlooked despite being in plain sight.
"Okay…" she glanced over at him then let herself sit on the footboard of her bed and just breathe. She closed her eyes and took a few deep draws of air in through her nose and released them via her mouth.
"I have a better handle on myself." She smiled sheepishly at him, though it was to cover the anxieties that festered beneath the surface. "Not much better, but it's progress…"
She let her left hand fall to her belly and she sighed as she tucked her chin to her chest.
"You're doing well, Stjarna Bjartr." He encouraged and she laughed softly to herself. "You've come a long way. Remember how you felt that first night?"
"I do, yes." She looked up at him with wide eyes. "I don't think I've ever been more afraid."
He hummed in approval. "And here you are. You've made it through to this point where you can show open affection to your hatchling and not seize up, not that doing that is bad. It's okay to be afraid in any measure in any circumstance, especially the one you're in."
Arya bit her lip. "I feel like this… calm… or whatever it is… I feel like it won't last. I'm still… scared. Of everything. I'm just waiting for the moment when it gets to be too much again and I'll cave in on myself and have to start back at step one." She closed her eyes at the tears that welled in her eyes. "I'm not… I'm hardly ever positive about this… Fírnen. I wish I was and I have so much to be positive about. I shouldn't… feel this way. It's wrong." She sniffed and wiped the tears from her eyes using her fingertips before they could fall.
"It's not wrong. You have a lot to worry about. You have an entire forest to run. Students to teach." He shifted in what looked like a shrug. "External relations to keep the peace. Your relationship with me. With Eragon. Your cousin who is downstairs with Elva, cooking their breakfast." He grinned. "It seems Elva is teaching Eila how to cook eggs with vegetables."
"I'm glad to hear both of them are eating. Neither ate very much last night at dinner and they had a full day of swimming and walking clear across Ellesméra. That can be exhausting, depending on how much exercise they actually ended up getting." Her soft smile was only momentary. "I'm starting to see them both like my own children. I worry and care about both of them."
"See? Motherhood is building itself into you and it's changing the way you see things. You're… more relaxed with how you communicate with people. You're more approachable." He gave her an image of herself from his memory. The slight scowl she wore in that image was no longer present. Her eyes seemed softer now. Everything about her seemed less severe when she compared the image in her mind to her reflection in the mirror.
"I'm not ready for motherhood, Fírnen." She spoke while looking at herself in the mirror. "I have the maternal instincts of a rock. So what I can communicate with Eila and Elva like they're my family? They're not… children. I'm having a baby. The first child I've ever held was Ismira and I could barely do that without trying to get out of it and run…"
"It'll feel different when you get to hold your own hatchling. He will have lived within you for a year. You two will have had time to bond." Fírnen explained as he watched Arya stand and approach her full-length mirror.
"It's been almost four months and I haven't… done much to bond with him. I'm just trying to manage all that I'm going through." Her eyes softened when she parted the folds of her cloak, revealing the window of clear flesh which had grown in response to her baby's growth. She frowned when she ran her fingers along the lower section of her belly. It felt rippled, like an improperly stitched wound that had healed sunken below it's usual surface of the skin. Stretch marks. If they felt deep now, they probably would be even deeper after the baby was born. A new wave of self-conscious energy washed over her.
"And like I said before you're doing well." Fírnen encouraged.
"I'm trying to." She sighed, then looked over at the green dragon who had since let his head hang through the window. "He's grown so much." She spoke quietly as she let herself observe her son with more detail so she could share the image.
"He looks like you." Fírnen mentioned as he watched his Rider.
"He looks like Eragon. He's got his general face shape."
"His features are yours, though. The way his eyes look. His mouth."
"He's nearly seventeen weeks old." Arya looked over at her dragon.
"And I am a dragon who is almost eleven months old." Fírnen reminded and Arya sighed.
"You both are getting so big." She smiled. "It's almost your birthday. One whole year." Her eyelids slid shut. "So much has happened…"
Everything from Fírnen's hatching; to feeding him and watching him grow; to their first flight; to visiting Eragon and Saphira when he spit his first jet of flame; to flying off after saying goodbye and sailing high above the moonlit clouds; to coming home with Roran, Katrina, and Ismira; to learning about her pregnancy with him, and everything that had happened afterwards flitted through her mind. "You're getting a Hatching Day feast." She said as she looked over at him. "I insist upon it and nothing you say can convince me otherwise."
"As you wish, Stjarna Bjartr." He pulled his lips up in the best smile he could manage. "I would not stop you."
Her smile fell when the baby kicked and she involuntarily placed her hand over the location where she felt him. When she looked through the portal of skin, he was grinning brightly.
Arya's frown softened and she tapped her thumb over where he had jammed his foot a moment ago. He shifted and pressed his hand to the area; his expression became curious.
There was nothing Arya could do to stop her tears at that. This is the first time she'd actually been able to interact with him. She moved her thumb and tapped on an area only an inch from where her thumb was before. His hand followed and she felt it when he reached to meet her.
Fírnen watched the interactions with interest. He knew it was good for Arya to finally be able to play with Juniper. She could understand their new relationship and begin to build on it as they grew into knowing each other with a conscious mind.
"Fírnen?" She asked quietly.
"Yes?"
She smiled at him. "I'm making a person… he's part of me and I'm part of him…"
"He is, isn't he?"
"Mhm…" she hummed as she continued playing with her son.
"Feel better now?"
She nodded. "A little bit…" she gave him a shy smile.
"I think it's safe to say that it's more than just a little bit." He spoke gently into her mind, feeling a weight lift from her chest. He knew she used to see her baby as a complete stranger, but now that they're getting to interact with each other, she was learning that her Juniper looked up to her, and that he always would because he is her son and she is his mother.
"I'm worried I'm not going to be good enough." She said softly. "I want to be the best I can for him. He deserves that and more."
"I believe you are going to do very well, Arya. He deserves a mother who believes in herself to care for him and you deserve to believe in yourself as well." He said soothingly and a small smile cracked across her features.
"I'm going to try even harder." She said quietly, but with confidence.
"You're already doing well, Arya. I know I can't tell you to stop worrying because it's okay to worry, and I wouldn't want you to stop worrying and lose responsibility. I'd only suggest worrying less. I understand that you can never tell a mother to stop worrying, because she never will."
Arya huffed out a laugh. "With the amount of worrying I'm doing, I suppose you're right in that I'm doing well." She sighed when Juniper stopped playing with her. "Maybe I should go downstairs and see what my apprentices are up to." Her smile returned. "I'd bet coin that they're either kissing or flirting with each other."
Fírnen gave a thinking face. "Mmm… I think perhaps Eila would not participate in that outside of their rooms. Elva, on the other hand… she might be the one doing the flirting."
"Either way, we should find out before they get themselves into trouble." She looked past him and to the outside. It looked like it might rain. "It's getting late anyway. We need to start the day even though we don't have much going on."
"Sparring." Fírnen reminded her.
"If Elva's sword is ready. Rhunön needs to finish the hilt and grip.
He hummed, then nudged the air. "Get dressed Stjarna Bjartr. You'll need to do that before anything else."
She looked down at herself. "Oh, right." She smiled at him and he bowed to her before pulling his head out of her room.
"I will be out on the deck with the hatchlings." he said.
"Alright. Elva's dragon is only a few days old. Be easy with him."
"Of course." He offered a smile.
"I'll see you soon, Fírnen." She bowed to him.
"See you soon." He nodded, then backed away further so he could spread his wings and leap into the air. Arya watched him take off into the sky, then turn once he was above the trees. She smiled, then looked down at herself.
"He keeps good care of us, doesn't he?" She let her hand rest on her abdomen and held it there for a moment before heading back into her room. "I don't know what I'd do without him, Juniper. He's so special to me. Just like you." She smiled at herself before heading to her wardrobe to pick out her clothes for the day, knowing she'd have to get new clothes made soon. She desperately hoped that she wouldn't have to wear dresses.
She picked a loose black tunic and flexible trousers which looked appropriate enough to go out in, despite how she usually used them to sleep in.
Some things she would just have to get used to, and for Juniper, it was worth it.
A/N: *Leaps down from scaffolding* Hello there :)
Yep, this is shorter than normal. Yes, it needs to be here because I feel like it needs to be here. Yes, I almost posted a very bad decision (involving Eila) I had written during a stint of time where I hadn't slept in roughly twenty-four hours. I wrote this instead because it was needed and I also wanted to.
It was brought to my attention about Murtagh showing up, and he did... in an older version that I scrapped. I had written all the way up to chapter 38 when I decided it wasn't good, and re-wrote everything starting from chapter 28. In this newer timeline, Murtagh hasn't shown up... yet. The timeline is still getting formed. Hopefully I'll be able to post more often. They might be shorter chapters, but creativity does take time. One of the issues I had with the first version was that I hadn't given myself the proper amount of time to work through everything, and discrepancies and inaccuracies were heavy among those chapters. Plus, I didn't like the flow of those.
In terms of Arya, she is nearing the end of being sixteen weeks pregnant. For an Elf at almost seventeen weeks with a single child, she looks to be about twenty-four weeks in a human pregnancy, and that is because of the developments Juniper needs to go through with magic and everything else. It was said in the books that Elven children are practically super saturated with magic, which is why such a large portion of an Elf's pregnancy is dedicated specifically to developing magic (in my mind). I have that all worked out. Trust me, I've been thinking about this concept since before I even finished Eldest... three years ago.
That is all for today, friends! I hope you've enjoyed this chapter, as always :)
-Lady Arlo