Cassandra and the inquisitor were going over their troop requisitions in western Ferelden when the pains came. It was as Cassandra speculated about sending a few dozen more men to Crestwood for the rebuilding efforts that Guinevere cried out, doubling over the table.

"Inquisitor!"

"It's fine!" Guinevere gasped, digging her fingers into the tabletop. "It's fine!" One hand clutched her stomach, which was impossible to completely hide then, even with Aurelie and Vivienne's most careful tailoring, or how wide the skirts in Orlais had become the last few months. Josephine had wrung her hands privately with Leliana and Cassandra that she was already getting veiled questions and comments from some of their noble allies.

"Should I call for someone?" Cassandra asked, reaching to her hip where her sword was not, though she could hardly challenge Gwen's pregnancy to a duel.

"No. No!" Guinevere breathed deeply. "I'm okay." She straightened up and passed the back of her hand over her forehead. "They started this morning," she explained to Cassandra.

"Doesn't…doesn't that mean the baby is coming?" Cassandra asked hesitantly, looking at Guinevere as if waiting for the appropriately hysterical reaction to this.

"Yes."

"Shouldn't we do something?" Was she going crazy? Guinevere was standing there telling her the baby was coming and they were going over troop requisitions! There should be a nurse! She should be in bed! How much time was left? Why wasn't she more concerned?!

"Not yet," Guinevere said, shaking her head. "It will be hours more before the baby comes." She grimaced and massaged her stomach with one hand.

"Oh." Cassandra's dark brow furrowed. That didn't sound right, but she didn't know enough to dispute it. Growing up with Uncle Vestalus has not provided much exposure to these things (though she knew quite a lot about how to dissect and dress a corpse, for the average person). "Are you certain?"

"Of course." Gwen smiled. "I've seen lots of women in the clan give birth. Labor is always longest with the first baby. We have plenty of time."

Cassandra still thought maybe the inquisitor should be abed, but far it from her to argue on this subject, particularly with such placid reassurances. Tearing her eyes from Guinevere's face and stomach, she turned her attention back to the map, and they went on. Guinevere's pains continued, coming more and more frequently, and with greater force, until they seemed to be every handful of minutes, and Cassandra was really hoping Josephine might suggest that Gwen go lie down.

"Inquisitor—Guinevere—this can wait," Ambassador Montilyet said at last, lowering the parchment in her hands to the tabletop. "Perhaps it's time to call the midwife?"

"Thank you!" Cassandra couldn't help but input.

"It's okay," Guinevere insisted. "But I wouldn't say no to a walk. Cassandra, you could show me the repairs of the eastern wall?" Cassandra glanced at Josephine, who gave the smallest of shrugs. Cassandra could see the ambassador worrying her lower lip, making her piercing bob, but she said nothing, so Cassandra and Guinevere went out to walk the battlements and review Skyhold's most recent repairs.

"How do you know when it's time?" Cassandra asked as Guinevere lifted her face to the slight breeze, still breathing carefully.

"When the water breaks, that means the baby is ready to come," she replied, looking up at Cassandra.

"Ah." Cassandra hoped the noise she made indicated this meant something to her. The times when she was keenly aware of her lack of familial experience were few, but far more frequent since Guinevere had taken her aside in the war room to explain her situation. She was the last to hear of it, but Vivienne had implored Cassandra not to read too much into that.

"She doesn't want you to think badly of her, dear," the former First Enchanter had said. "You know she's always had a soft spot for you."

But Guinevere had trusted her with the truth, and Cassandra chose to take that to heart. The baby, though, was part of why she had put off leaving the Inquisition. She and Gwen had spoken of her rebuilding the Seekers of Truth, reforming them into what they began as: a tool for keeping the Templars in check. But she had not raised it in much seriousness since hearing of Guinevere's condition. When the inquisitor had less need of her, then she would go.

"How long do you think we'll be in Skyhold?" Guinevere asked.

"The Inquisition? I couldn't possibly say. Part of that is up to you." Guinevere nodded slowly.

"Yes, I am concerned about that…" She sighed. "I…I had thought about going home," she confessed softly to Cassandra. "With the baby. It…feels wrong to be away from the clan. But I have too many duties here to leave it…" Her jaw tightened and she swallowed a noise of discomfort, her breath coming in labored pants, before carrying on. "Still, there must be an end to it sometime, yes?"

"When we're done cleaning up from Corypheus, I suppose."

"I don't think that will be anytime soon," Guinevere said. "Won't Ferelden and Orlais want to take over for us at some point? Manage the recovery themselves?"

"I don't know. This is a convenient way for them to do nothing, but keep the people happy," Cassandra said with a shrug. "It seems to me they have a good deal." She studied Gwen's profile. Once, she had been worried the Herald simply would not hold up under the pressure put on her, but there she was, still standing after everything Corypheus had thrown at them, which seemed like a miracle in and of itself. What seemed harder was…"You still think of him," she guessed lowly, and Guinevere turned to look at her.

"Of course," she said simply. "Not just because of…" She gestured to her stomach. "I…I had been so sure he would return. Even after Leliana told me she couldn't find a whisper of him. It's just his way, I thought. He wants to be alone; he is troubled by the loss of the orb and…" She shook her head, some distant confusion wrinkling her brow for a moment. "But when he clears his head, he will come back. Even if we are not together, he will come back to help us finish our work. But…" She bit her lower lip and her brow knit together. "I'm not sure anymore."

Cassandra could not fill the silence that followed; her only experience in love had perished at the Conclave, and she had cut Galyan off many years earlier. In truth, Galyan would have more experience with Guinevere's feelings than she, but she did know the ache of a missing lover.

"I think you must go forward assuming he will not," she said at last. "Solas was always a…solitary type. It's not impossible but…" Cassandra wanted to believe with Guinevere that Solas would return, but it did seem impractical to carry on with any assumption, however small, that he would.

"I thought I could change that. I thought I had changed it." Guinevere shook her head. "Or maybe just that I was different. An exception. A foolish thought." She gave a mirthless giggle. "I just…there are so many things I don't understand, and now I fear I will never have answers. And neither will this one." She rubbed her stomach again.

"I'm sorry." Cassandra, acutely aware of her own awkwardness, tried desperately to come up with something better, but her mind was blank.

"I know. I'm almost afraid what might happen if Vivienne ever finds him before I do," Guinevere said with a small laugh. "There might be nothing left of him." Before Cassandra could agree, Guinevere gasped and cried and grabbed at the crenelations, her mouth dropping open. "Oh!"

"Guinevere!" This pain Guinevere could not bite down on, and when Cassandra saw the pool of liquid at her feet, it took her a moment to connect this with what Guinevere had said earlier, about waters. "The baby!"

"Oh, dear…" Guinevere looked down when she caught her breath and stepped away from the puddle. "Oh, we should get Josephine."

"Josephine! We need a midwife! Can you walk?" Cassandra had a thought to carry Guinevere back to the castle, but the elf flapped her hands to ward the seeker off. "Is it coming right now? Can we get you upstairs? Oh, Maker's breath!"

"It's fine, I'm okay," she said, but Cassandra insisted on Guinevere holding her arm as they descended from the battlements. When they got back to the hall, and Josephine saw how Guinevere clung to Cassandra's arm, she rushed over. "Josephine. I think it's time for that midwife," Guinevere said. "And hurry, if you can? Cassandra might faint." Josephine's warm cinnamon gaze jerked up to Cassandra, who took in a sharp, offended breath.

"I've been perfectly calm!" Guinevere giggled, and Josephine smiled, and Cassandra grimaced, and helped Guinevere up to her room, pausing twice for more of her pains.

"Everything's going to be fine," Cassandra assured Guinevere, more because she could not bear the silence than because Guinevere seemed to need reassurance. "Josephine brought in another healer last month who specializes in deliveries." She started to lead Guinevere over to the bed, but Gwen shook her head.

"Let's walk a little," she said. "It will give me something to focus on besides the contractions." So she hung onto Cassandra's arm and they walked a slow, repetitive circle around her room. On the desk was a halla statuette, carved in white wood, on a dark pedestal, that made Cassandra consider both Guinevere's absent lover, and the clan far off in Wycome.

"What happened to your halla?" she asked, when she realized one of the antlers was missing.

"Oh." Gwen seemed to flush and glanced away. "I, uh…broke it." Cassandra was just deciding not to ask how, when Vivienne arrived with the healer, a Rivani expat by the name of Parvana, and her assistant, a bespectacled twig of a woman with some of the fairest hair Cassandra had ever seen, and so short Cassandra wondered if she was part dwarf.

"And here we have the mother-to-be!" Parvana exclaimed when she saw Gwen. "Are you ready, inquisitor?" Guinevere took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and nodded.

"Yes, I'm ready."


Vivienne was stationed at the door to the stairs leading to the inquisitor's chambers when that beady-eyed maid turned up, her rusty hair sprinkled with dust and her boots likewise dirty. She rushed the door, but Vivienne moved to block it.

"My Lady Inquisitor's up there!" Siobhan exclaimed. "I've got to be with her!"

"No, you do not," Vivienne said. Guinevere trusted her maid, but Vivienne had never extended such magnanimity—there was something about the elf that put her teeth on edge. There was a cunning air about her, a slyness to her movements, an oiliness to the way she spoke to Guinevere. To allow her into the inquisitor's chambers at one of her most vulnerable moments was not something Vivienne could countenance, short of a request from Guinevere herself. "The healers have specifically requested the birthing room not be overcrowded."

"She needs me!" Siobhan argued.

"She needs a healer," Vivienne said. "Which she has. You can busy yourself elsewhere, I'm sure."

"A woman needs someone with her, you should know that," the maid said, a slight wrinkle in her nose. Vivienne did not have to guess at what thoughts were in her head. Ice Queen was usually not a reference to Vivienne's talent for ice-based spells.

"Which is why Cassandra is with her now, at her request," Vivienne replied. Cassandra had more or less ended up pressed into the position by virtue of having been with Guinevere when she went into labor, but telling the maid Guinevere had had the chance to ask for her, and had not done so was more likely to discourage her from pressing this.

"I can help," the maid insisted.

"If you are needed, we will send for you."

The maid glared, her mouth twisting up, and Vivienne stared her down, daring her to speak whatever biting remarks were clawing at her teeth. Smart woman—she choked them down, turned on her heel, and strode off.

Cassandra emerged a few minutes later, while Vivienne was contemplating what it was this maid thought she was going to get out of her relationship with Guinevere.

"How is she?" she asked at once.

"Holding up," Cassandra said. "I can't believe six hours of this is normal." Vivienne shrugged.

"I've heard it can last all day," she said. "But I would take Parvana's word on this." While pregnancies did happen in the Circle, they were hushed up affairs, and Vivienne had never been present at the birthing bed for one. Nicoline had said that Laurent had been "difficult," but she hadn't expanded; Vivienne wished now that she'd asked.

"All day! How is she supposed to manage this all day?"

"Women do," Vivienne said. "Why don't you take a rest, dear? I'll go and keep her company for a while."

"I don't like this helpless feeling," Cassandra said. "There's nothing we can do for her."

"You were letting her hold your hand, weren't you?" Cassandra nodded and flexed her right hand, as if remembering the strain Guinevere had put on it. "Well there you have it, seeker. That is what you can do for her that the healers can't. The comfort of a trusted companion will always mean more than that of a stranger. And with her so far from her clan now…I imagine it is of particular importance to her that we are there."

"I hadn't thought of it that way," Cassandra admitted with a thoughtful look.

Vivienne paused as she turned towards the door, and cast a last glance over the hall before adding in a lower voice, "Don't let that chamber maid in. She has other tasks with which to worry herself." Cassandra made some noise of query, but Vivienne said nothing more before mounting the steps to the Inquisitor's chambers to offer what strength she could.


The knock at the door came on the tail end of a weary moan from Guinevere, and Vivienne disentangled her fingers from the inquisitor's to go investigate. Ambassador Montilyet lingered at the entrance to the stairwell, clutching her clipboard and worrying a chapped lower lip.

"Madame de Fer," she said. "Is there any update?"

"Not yet, I'm afraid," Vivienne said, stifling a yawn.

"It's been twelve hours," Josephine said, as if Vivienne might not be aware of how long this had been going on, as if she had not been at Guinevere's bedside much of the time, listening to her howl as the birthing pains wracked her, watching her energy deplete hour by hour like sand through an hourglass.

"Indeed it has."

"What does Mistress Parvana say?"

"The baby will come when it is ready," Vivienne reported dutifully. "There is nothing we can do but wait, dear." As much sympathy as Vivienne had for Guinevere, watching the process had dispelled any doubts that may have lingered somewhere in the deepest recesses of her mind that she might have ever wanted to produce a child of her own. Bastien had asked her only once about it (if she'd ever thought of it, that is), and she had laughed so uproariously he had thought she was making fun of him.

"Can you imagine? Me, a mother?" she had exclaimed, shaking her head (this was before Jean-Phillippe, before she had mentored an apprentice of her own), before pointing out that mages were generally discouraged from reproduction. Now she thought it didn't matter much what her motherly qualities might be or not be—she did not ever want to lie like that at a mercy of some other being, whether it was a demon or her own child.

"Very well," Josephine said, because she could say nothing else.