Chapter One: New Beginnings

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Ledagh felt as if her insides were turning out. She had no idea what this sensation was, and she was frightened. She managed to stumble into her house (for she had been out picking flowers) and her mother caught her as she fell across the threshold.

"Bragher! Hurry! Bring some water!" the old woman called to her husband. Cecilah, always a strong woman, was able, even on her old age, to carry her young daughter to her bed.

"Ledagh? What ails thee, child?" the old woman pressed her face close to Ledagh's.

Ledagh did not respond. Her eyes rolled back into her head and Cecilah stepped away from daughter in fear. Bragher, Ledagh's father, came in with the bucket of water. He set it carefully next to his wife and stared at his only child.

"What is it, Cecilah?" he whispered.

Ledagh began to convulse, and Cecilah moved quickly to hold her down. "She's been taken by spirits, me thinks," she replied harshly, straining against her child.

Bragher moved to help Cecilah and Ledagh's seizures stopped.

The girl screamed out, suddenly, startling both her parents.

And suddenly, the end of the bed was awash in blood. An egg, the size Cecilah judged to be two hand's width's across, lay in it. From under the skirts of their daughter came another egg as she screamed again.

The eggs were so much larger than those of any bird ever seen by Cecilah or her husband.

Neither of them moved, too afraid to do anything.

Ledagh, her pain gone, sat up slowly and watched, as did her parents, the two eggs begin to crack.

From the first emerged a baby boy, naked and newborn. He fell aside, showing the two old people and their young daughter that there was another baby inside. The child was a girl, and she screamed to be released from her egg-shell prison.

The old woman gasped. Ledagh stared in shock at the eggs that had come from her own body and at the two children that had emerged from them.

And then the second egg was open. Another boy rolled from it, and was quiet. There was another child in the egg; baby girl, but that child was quiet as well.

The four children looked just as bewildered as the three adults felt.

And then the first girl resumed her screeches and it spurred old Cecilah into action. Bragher was banished from the room as Ledagh rose to clean herself and help her mother with the children.

They washed the screaming girl-child first. It was an odd-looking child. It had the dark hair and eyes of Ledagh and Cecilah, but the skin was tanner, as the child's father had been darker than the snow-white Ledagh. Her husband, Tyndareus, was darker skinned than his wife.

They washed the second girl next. She was quiet and content, looking inquisitively up at her mother and grandmother. She was such a beautiful child with golden ringlets and eyes like a summer's cloudless day. Her skin was like lilies and she was perfect and round. She had the skin of her mother, but otherwise bore no resemblance to either parent.

The one first boy was colored like the baby girl who had sprung from the first egg with him. The second child looked much like his egg0mate, the beautiful baby girl. His face was stronger than his sister's, making him less handsome than she. And the two males were content to be, as was the last-born girl.

Ledagh and her mother were quite perplexed by the experience, for neither had known such an odd birth, nor had either thought that Ledagh was with child at all. Dareus, Ledagh's husband, would be pleased at the births, but annoyed with his astrologers for not foreseeing the birth of his heirs. Tyndareus, or Dareus to his wife, was King of Sparta, and would be overjoyed that an heir had been born at last.

Cecilah called the children a gift from The Almighty Zeus, Jove of All. Little did she know just how right she was.

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