Heart VS duty
The Sanctuary of Athena, year 993 A.D:
Due to how rare it was for women to be members of the Gold Saints, Daria and Irina had learned from the start that they would need to work even harder to show that them being women, would not matter as Saints.
"Daria? Daria, are you here?"
Now, at the age of nineteen, the twin sisters had been the Gemini Saint in this generation for three years, and were the second duo of biological sisters rising to the Gold Saints, alongside Aquarius Skadi and Scorpio Ragnhild. But right now, it was the older twin that the younger one was searching for.
"She better not have given birth already!"
Currently, there was a very good reason for why Irina had gone out on missions as the Gemini Saint over the past six months; that Daria was expecting a child with her lover, Altar Vlad, and was due any day now in mid-summer.
She met Taurus Aziz in his temple, the African Saint busy as always with making medicines and what else he would need off-duty, from his studies as a doctor in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.
"Oh, welcome back, Irina. If it is the condition of your sister that has made you hurry back, there is no need to worry about her entering labor yet."
Hearing this, the younger Gemini sister took a deep breath of relief, setting down the Pandora Box with the Gemini Cloth inside on the floor as she allowed herself to calm down.
"Am I being more difficult than normal with how anxious I am for her entering the birthing bed?"
"No, I personally find it perfectly normal and understandable that you want to be near Daria now, as it is her first childbirth and both of you are fearing that the Curse of Gemini may be acting up during the birth, since it unfortunately is a risk that Daria may lose her life."
Death in childbirth. The three unspoken words that Irina feared to be the outcome for Daria, since they were the first Gemini sisters over the past centuries since Lydia and Elena, both who had died without leaving any descendants behind due to Lydia being twelve at her death and Elena avoiding any physical contact with men outside the male Gold Saints in the five years before her own death, and Sade, the sister in the previous Holy War, had never been pregnant with a child in her body despite living to the age of 40 years.
"Translate those scrolls from ancient Egypt into Arabic, and give yourself something else to think about."
Somehow, Irina was not surprised over this.
"You are just using my interest in being able to read as many different written languages as possible, because one never knows if that skill may come to use during missions."
Pulling out her own notes about how to translate the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and Demotic scripts to Ancient Greek, Irina knew that she had been extreme lucky to find that granodiorite stele back in Egypt during one of her first missions and getting the chance to learn how to read those scripts.
Thankfully, it did not take long before Daria appeared, her huge stomach showing that the arrival of her baby could happen any day now. Dressed in her everyday clothing like any other Viking woman, Daria showed no sign of being the older Gemini Saint.
"Irina, welcome back. Shall we go up to Lady Athena and Pope Anshu together for your report about this mission?"
"Yes, please."
Yet as they left the Temple of the Ox together, Irina noticed in the body language of Daria that there was something on her mind that she did not dare to say aloud so people could hear her.
"Are you starting to feel the cramps grow stronger and more closely?"
Daria shook her head, taking the hand of her sister as if needing some emotional support for what she was about to reveal.
"This pregnancy…has made me realize that my heart is not fully into the role of a Saint. That I would prefer to live a normal life, that of a married wife and mother instead."
Oh. Irina had seen the signs of how Daria was proud of being a Saint of Athena, but also that yes, her heart was not fully into it as people may expect. For many Saints, their role was for life, but Daria wanted something more than just having to fight for humankind and serving a Goddess. And in Vlad, she had found a way to remind herself that even Saints were normal humans with wishes and desires of their own.
"Leave the fighting to me, then, since Hades and his army are rather unlikely to know which one of us is the oldest twin. Besides, you will have a very good excuse to not leave the Sanctuary, in having to care for this little one."
No way that Irina would let people look down on her sister for desiring a life outside the duty of a Saint and loyalty to Athena. Humans were unpredictable, and would change throughout their lifetime. To not expect some form of change in any manner at all from childhood to adulthood, by gaining new experiences…was ridiculous.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
The next day, Daria entered labor, and Aziz brought along some local midwives to help with the childbirth.
"JAG SVÄR ATT JAG KOMMER ATT HACKA DE DÄR TVÅ FÖRBANNADE ROMARNA TILL KÖTTSTRIMLOR MED MIN EGEN KÖTTYXA OM FÖRBANNELSEN DYKER UPP NU!"
Of course, it was to be expected that there was some foul words and curses from Daria during the contractions, and with Irina offering a more or less literal translation, most of the gathered women who knew about the Curse of Gemini, did agree that Romulus and Remus deserved to be chopped into meat strips as the least punishment for causing this sort of multi-generational curse.
"Um…I know that I am pretty much useless right now, but…Are she alright?" Vlad asked nervously from the doorway at hearing Daria muttering to herself in her native Swedish where Ragnhild and Skadi was supporting her for a small walk around the birth chamber until that it was time for her to start pushing, the Silver Saint showing understandable worry about the whole situation as he was the one who had knocked up Daria the previous autumn.
"We will tell if something goes wrong. But please, leave this to us who have experience in those situations," the oldest midwife requested, but said this in a kind voice which did not dismiss Vlad being worried as the father.
"Something to calm your nerves, Vlad, do not get drunk, though," Irina offered a cup of wine to him, trying to ignore how her left shoulder was aching in a manner it had never done before. Her birthmark of the Gemini symbol, and she did not doubt that Daria must be feeling the same about her back, over her heart.
Just as both the sisters had feared previously, soon they could feel their respective Gemini symbol start to feel more like a burn.
"Tror de verkligen att de kan använda förbannelsen till att döda mig i barnsäng och låta Irina strida ensam, precis som Elena tvingades göra efter att hon förlorade Lydia? Nej, absolut inte!"
A dark shadow began to hover around Daria, but the sight of it seemed to only make her even more determined to survive.
"Irina!"
"Yes! Another Dimension!"
"Wait, do not enter the other dimension right now, Daria is vulnerable…!"
Too late, both the older and the younger twin sister had already vanished through the portal.
Bringing themselves into the other dimension, Irina supported Daria against herself as their shared collection of various viking swords, shields, spears and battle axes showed up around them. This collection of real weapons was a secret from Athena, intended to be used in the coming Holy War as a way for the sisters to take the army of Hades by surprise.
"I know that it can not be long for your baby to be pushed out soon, so I will try to be quick!"
Grabbing an ax and a sword in each hand, Irina aimed for the shadow above her sister. She managed to cut it partly in two, allowing Daria enough time to release the ultimate attack of the Gemini Saint:
"GALAXIAN EXPLOSION!"
As it had only passed a few minutes at most, they returned together to the birth chamber.
"Do not run off like that!" the oldest midwife scolded as Daria sunk to her knees in pain from a new contraction:
"We were trying to avoid the Curse taking me by dying in childbirth….ow, ow!"
There was no time for more talk, they could see that the birth was close now.
"Come on, Daria, get yourself up in a squatting position!"
It felt like hours for Daria as she pushed to get her baby out, even as the Norwegian sisters supported her in the upright position, but upon hearing the crying, she realized that not only was the infant finally out of her body, but it was alive.
"A boy! It is a little boy!"
As her son was placed in her arms for that first skin contact between them, in this new and strange world outside her womb, Daria felt her eyes get filled with tears from various emotions:
Joy over that her baby was alive and healthy, triumph over that she had survived both the pregnancy and the delivery, and yet a small dread about if she had a second child, she might not be so lucky next time.
"The Curse of Gemini will haunt other female Gemini Saints in this manner just like it had done in the back of my mind the last months…the fear of dying in childbirth…"
But the voice of Vlad brought her out of those thoughts.
"Daria! Are you alright?!"
The sight of him, the father of her baby, reminded Daria of what she had started to desire for herself ever since getting the pregnancy confirmed.
If I survive the Holy War, I will retire as a Saint of Athena and return to the life of a normal woman. To merely be a married wife and mother, if Vlad wants the same.
That was the secret conflict within Daria that only Irina knew of so far, her own desire VS her duty as the oldest Gemini twin in this generation.
"Look, Vlad…" she whispered with a tired smile as she allowed him to hold his son, "Do you remember what we talked about for names for the baby? We have been blessed with a little Eric."
Smiling for herself in happiness over the fact that her sister had survived, Irina took the chance to just enjoy the scene of the now expanded family being together there in the bed so Daria could rest after the childbirth.
"Irina…I know that it is very late in the evening, but please, can you make some fresh bread? I really want some of those now."
The question made Irina smile.
"I am not surprised that you are hungry after all this hard work, Storasyster. In fact, I prepared a dough just in case, let me bake them in the oven first and I will be back soon enough."
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Thankfully, the dough had not fermented so much that it came over the edge of the bowl where Irina had left it in the morning.
"Small bread buns made with wheat flour, of course it will be a special event with me becoming an aunt!"
While the oven was heated up by fire, Irina made the dough into small buns before pulling out the coals with a long iron stick on the floor so she could place a wooden board with the buns inside and then quickly closing the opening with another board to avoid the heat escaping.
"Kind of late for baking bread at this hour, Miss Irina?"
It was the Virgo Saint Hiresh, who must have arrived back from his own mission.
"Special request from Daria. You would also be hungry like a wolf if you had been in labor for most of today to give birth. She and Vlad have gotten a little Eric this evening."
The mention of her sister seemed to give him the needed clue.
"Ah? My congratulations to all three of you, then, both the happy parents and the new aunt."
Laughing, Irina checked on the bread buns to avoid them getting burned and then tossed one of them to Hiresh.
"Here, a little hot snack to eat on your way up to the Chamber of the Pope for your report."
As the bread buns came straight from the heated-up oven, Hiresh had to blow on his fingers to avoid blisters from the warm bread as he temporarily had to throw it between each hand.
"Ow, ow! Fresh from the oven, indeed! But thank you, it is a long way between Greece and my native India, even for a Gold Saint traveling at the speed of light."
Smiling, Irina returned her focus to the other bread buns and placed them in a basket to bring with her to Daria, therefore missing the look of honest wonder on the face of Hiresh as he tasted the bread bun and literally realized that the rumors about her skills in baking bread were indeed true. Or that one well-proved way for a woman to gain the attention of a man was through his stomach with food.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Author note: Taurus Aziz being trained as a doctor at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, comes from that the 10th century was during the Golden Age of Islam. The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century.
Yup, it is the Rosetta Stone that Irina found and helped her to learn how to read hieroglyphics. This will play a role in how Seti and Ramses, the next Gemini twins in the Holy Wars, got their names despite being born to Arabic parents
Basically Daria said this in Swedish: "Do they really think they can use the curse to kill me in childbirth and leave Irina to fight alone, just like Elena was forced to do after she lost Lydia? No, absolutely not!"