Note: Some strange things can come to your mind when you are waiting for a bus, standing in the shadow, and then sitting in the bus and watching the evening sun that colours the clouds so beautifully... Elanna and Galen first appeared in Time of Heroes (by me...) Thanks to Shamiran for medical facts about pregnancy, although I didn't use them much...
My beloved son
Ljuuli ljuuli ljuuli lastu/ ljuuli ljuuli pikkarastu/ ljuuli ljuuli piendy/ ljuuli ljuuli ljuuli bai...
A Karelian lullaby, basically tells the baby to sleep peacefully
"The man reached to touch the woman's cheek. 'I love you,' he whispered and kissed her gently. She felt her heart fill with joy. He really..."
"Stop that reading," an unkind voice said. "Those books are wasted on you." Elanna Entreri closed the book and turned to watch her husband. It wasn't even dark yet, but Galen was already drunk. He was leaning on the door, holding an empty bottle. His dark eyes were tired and annoyed.
"A wife should be cooking, not bothering her small head with that rubbish," Galen continued and walked across the room. He sat on a chair near the table and glared at Elanna. "Well, I'm waiting here for my food! Move it, woman!"
"Yes, dear," Elanna muttered and got up slowly. She was seven months pregnant and her stomach was slowing her down. She took a plate and filled it with soup, the same one they had eaten for three days now. Galen looked at it disapprovingly, but started to eat. Elanna sat down and opened the book again, ignoring Galen's look.
"You can't even read all them words in that," Galen sneered. Elanna looked at her husband calmly. "Some day I can. It'll just take some time..."
"Women are not meant to read," Galen said, emptying his plate. "You serve men. That's it. But have your books if they're so important," he continued. "Just as long as dinner's on the table at time."
"Yes, dear," Elanna said. Galen glared at her and then got up, swaying a little. "I'll go to pub. No need to wait. You're no good like that, so I'll find someone who is," Galen smirked and turned his back on her, walking out with faltering steps. Elanna took the plate and washed the dishes. Then she sat down on the bed; the pain in her back was getting worse again.
The baby moved. Elanna put her hand on her stomach; hand caressed the cheap fabric of her dress, and the baby under cloth and skin. Her child. Her little boy. She wasn't sure why she thought that the baby was a boy, but there were no alternatives. It wasn't superstition; put a broom under the bed and things like that. It was in her blood, in her. She was carrying this child, and she knew it had to be a boy.
She wanted to call him Artemis, after her own grandfather. She had feared that Galen would object, but the man had simply laughed and said that he hoped the child would indeed be a boy. "A girl's a waste of time," Galen had explained, drunk also then. "Stupid little airheads, would turn out like her mother..."
Elanna realized that she was crying only when a tear fell on her hand. She stared at it, a small drop of water that looked like a crystal against her sunburnt skin. It shouldn't have been like this. It really shouldn't.
She had fallen for Galen Entreri's eyes. Dark grey like storm clouds, dangerous and inviting at the same time. He was a tall man, with brown hair and muscular body, and all the girls in the neighbourhood had been in love with him. And yet he had chosen Elanna...
She had imagined their life together. Children, of course, many of them running around the farm. Dogs and cats for the children to play with. She would take care of the animals, he would work in the fields. Hard work and hard living, but happy.
Then Galen had informed her that they would move to Memnon, away from Elanna's relatives, away from everything and everyone she knew. She had been already pregnant then, expecting their first child. Then, when they had moved in that little shack they now called home, Elanna had dropped a jug. It had broken. Galen had slapped her, again and again, until the slaps became punches, and finally kicks, when Elanna was laying on the floor, crying.
She had lost her first child. Her first child became nothing more than piercing pain and a little puddle of blood on the floor. She had cleaned it up, shivering from fear and pain. She had cleaned it up before Galen would have noticed it and hit her again.
What happened to the man I loved, she often asked herself, in the middle of the night when Galen was snoring beside her, or when the bed was empty and he was having a good time somewhere else. What happened to me, she often added. She could hardly remember the time she had been happy, but the memory was still there, if she just tried hard enough.
Her mother calling her to help with cooking. Her father singing a song of a knight who had defeated a powerful dragon. Her friends calling her to play, and later calling her to dance. Her first meeting with Galen, their first kiss. It had been so soft, so romantic. Galen had sworn he would always love her, never hurt her, never leave her side.
What a fool she had been! She knew that now, but despite everything she still loved Galen. Maybe there was something that could change the man, change him back to what he used to be. Or maybe he has always been like that, some small voice said to her whenever she was crying, laying on a floor and bleeding, cleaning up the mess Galen caused when he was drunk, listening to words of how useless she was...
"But I love your father, Artemis," she whispered, to the child inside her and to herself. "And if I left, what kind of a life would you have? I want you to have all the happiness in the world. I want you to have a family," Elanna whispered. Maybe everything would be different after the child was born. Maybe Galen would stop drinking and be a father to his child. Maybe...
Elanna picked up another book. This one was old and written in big letters. It was a children's book, full of stories about knights and good mages, chivalry and heroes. She wasn't sure if the child could hear her, but still she opened the book and started to read out loud. At least it helped her.
"There was once..." she started and then coughed, her voice had always been quiet, and if she didn't speak for a while, she almost lost it. "...a knight who served his king with all his strength and heart. But little did the knight know that in a short time he would need all his strength and all the power in his heart to overcome the great danger that would plague the beautiful kingdom..." Elanna's voice became softer, the words flew out of her mouth easily. She had read this book so many times, read these stories to her unborn child that she knew them by heart and didn't stammer even with the harder words.
"...the knight looked up and saw the dragon fall down, defeated and destroyed. He got up, his armour covered with the blood of the creature, his sword now plunged deep into its heart. He had won, and the kingdom was saved. As a reward for... Ouch!" Elanna cried when the baby moved suddenly. "You like this, don't you?" she asked, a single tear flowing down her cheek. "You will be like that knight. You will save those you love and defeat all evil. My little Artemis," she whispered, caressing her stomach.
She must have fallen asleep, because she woke up when Galen staggered in and fell on the bed. She moved quickly, getting out of the way just in time. Galen mumbled something and then fell asleep. Elanna looked outside from the door Galen had left open and saw that the sun was almost ready to rise. She got up and walked to the door.
The people of Memnon were in the streets. The people of night went to bed while traders got ready to open their shops and stalls. Elanna looked at them passing by and then stepped inside, closing the door. She didn't want any noise to come in and disturb Galen's sleep.
Maybe I should leave, Elanna thought, her hand once again caressing her stomach. I could go to a temple, have the baby there. I could get a job, raise the baby, maybe go back home... Galen started to snore. Elanna looked at her husband and sat down on a chair, taking a book and starting to read it. Not yet. Maybe he would change.
She had fallen asleep again. Galen's hand slapped her awake, while the other took hold of her hair. She was thrown on the floor, the pain in her scalp was terrible. "My wife doesn't sleep when her husband needs food!" Galen bellowed and kicked her on her knee. Not the baby, please, don't hurt the baby, not my little Artemis, Elanna's thoughts raced when she tried to get up, protecting her stomach at the same time.
"Make me something to eat," Galen said, walking back to the bed. "And it'd better be something else than soup, and make sure it's ready quickly. I haven't got all day to watch your face."
"Yes, dear," Elanna said, getting up, although the pain on her knee almost made her cry out of pain. "Whatever you say." I'm not strong enough, she thought. I can't go because I'm too weak. You give me more strength, she thought, touching her stomach. Maybe after you are born, maybe then...
Two months later Elanna gave birth to a boy. The midwife said it had been one of the easiest ones she had ever seen. Galen had taken one look at the child, and then headed off to celebrate with his friends.
Elanna took her baby, holding him close to her heart. The boy had a pale skin, but his hair was almost black, and his eyes were the same kinds of storm clouds as his father had. The midwife, washing her hands, saw the crying mother, holding her mother. Crying and laughing at the same time, kissing the short dark hair and tickling him under his chin.
"My Artemis," Elanna whispered, and could have sworn the baby smiled. "You will do great things, you will be a great man. I promise you that, I promise that with your heart you can be anything you want to be. Be good, my child, and help those who cannot help themselves," she muttered. "Some day help me..."
When Galen returned late that night, drunk and angry, he saw his wife asleep, holding their son. He reached out a finger and touched the child. It was strange, the feeling that went through him. "Foolishness," he muttered and wiped his finger on his tunic, like touching the child had made it dirty. He gave his wife and son one more look, and then headed out to find a girl to spend the night with. When the door slammed close behind him, baby Artemis woke up, starting to cry, and it took a long time before he calmed down again.