AUTHOR'S NOTES:
July always seems to be a lost month for me. I intended to update much sooner but it has proved the summer of our discontent, alas. But for all that nonsense, here is big important chapter. I hope you enjoy!
QueenMariaTheresia: I hope I didn't scare you! I certainly didn't mean for it to sound ominous on Thorin's part. From my/his POV it is more his inner turmoil over not being able to have protected Fili and Kili. He fears he may be equally incapable of looking after his own child. But he is certainly determined to- that will not waver I can assure you.
ErikaRexen: You are one of my readers who I know is a close ringer for Meisar with the ginger Rapunzel thing going on. You know what the drill is, pregnant or not. I think you are probably taller though :)
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The baby began to stir again as soon as she was awake. She thought rubbing the great mound might sooth him but the jostling only became stronger as the earliest hours of the morning wore on. The child was restless, an eagerness to feet and hands that came up and almost out of her skin. She touched her stomach only to feel it was as hard as a rock underneath, and the baby, comfortably settled into the lowest reach of her pelvis, weighing on the bones as much as the bladder by now.
"There he is," Thorin murmured against the subtle shift beneath her skin. His breath was on her neck, hot and pluming, stirring her as deeply as the baby did. "Awake."
"Like his mother," Meisar groaned. A week now perhaps, Eda had said when she took her bill of health the night before. Poking and prodding her insides had indicated that the particular of those enchanted, secretive dwarven doors that would allow the child to arrive remained closed. A week seemed an eternity in those final days, huge and always sweltering from the inside, breasts swollen with milk and bladder pressed to the size of a pea. But the child was raucous, a good sign.
"These are impatient days," Thorin added, sliding his hands underneath the tented fabric of her nightgown, to stroke and mutter half-asleep. A cramp peaked in the bottom of her belly and tried to ascend along the line of her weary muscles. It was deterred quickly of its own accord but Thorin was sprung at the sound of a sharper groan and Meisar wrenching his hand away as she curled on her side.
"Meisar! Is it time?"
Meisar waited silently for the pain in her side and back to dissipate. "No... no. It's going down. The midwives tell me it is common the days leading up. When the child is ready, we'll know."
"These ARE the days leading up," Thorin retorted, worriedly.
Summoning all of her strength, she sat up and held the bedpost to stand, wobbling on her feet with the gravitational pull of her midsection. Her stomach felt even lower than it had the previous day, in spite of the baby's established settlement in the bottom-most part of her stomach for well over a week. But Eda had seen no change in her expansion, where the child would tunnel down, ever the dwarf. The pains had come for several days in the base of her abdomen, fleeting, and resurfacing sparsely, if at all. Inside the child kicked his morning kicks, the languid ones that felt like he was stretching, just as they did in the morning when they awoke.
She retired back to the shelter of the covers and Thorin's body heat for lack of desire to do anything else.
"I think I will miss this," Thorin exhaled into her hair.
"Miss what?"
"To feel this child grow within you, and move, and become alive."
"Oh, you mock my discomfort Thorin. Besides, having this child to hold will far surpass this."
"I know," Thorin conceded. "A few days they say? Can the healers be sure of it? I would not go this day if…"
"I forgot about that," Meisar grumbled, guilt-tinged. She held Thorin's hand close against the child's continued stirring. "I will not grudge your going if you must."
"A celebration of the young Master of Laketown's betrothal," Thorin drawled sarcastically. "Bard must be glad of his choice of bride or the whitefish boil in celebration would not have emptied the lake of its most flavorless denizens."
"Betrothal? He could not be more than a child." She remembered the baby-faced youth who had greeted them in Laketown. He would be a man now by men's reckonings.
"If they waited as long as we do they would pass out of existence altogether," Thorin snorted.
"Ah," she groaned, hand on her belly. The ache inside twisted at her side muscles, burrowed into the pit of her stomach and stayed a longer moment than she expected.
"I will not go if you think it is too close to the time," said Thorin, almost hopeful.
"Doubtful it will be today," Meisar guessed, rubbing her stomach in discomfort again. "I wish though."
"I would remain if you are unsure."
"No, it is perfectly sound, Thorin. Go. A king's duty is that," Meisar insisted. A hot twist of pain reverberated from her loins to lick her spine; she braced her hand against the small of her back with a sharp wince. "It is going away, it's fine."
Thorin extracted himself crisply from the warmth of the coverlet and set into his morning grooming; Meisar hauled herself up to sit behind him by tugging the back of his sleep-shirt for leverage.
"Have your ladies come. I don't want you alone for a moment, if you insist on my going," Thorin said insistently, Meisar plaiting his hair through her groans of discomfort. He took up his comb himself and managed the temple braids and easing the snarls from his sleep-knotted locks in front. "I'll not depart until Eda is here at least."
He made quick effort in the bath chamber, emerging to the sight of his young steward Floi, kin to Balin and Dwalin, at the chamber door, awkwardly clearing his throat. "My liege, we must make ready. I have your breastplate ready to attire you."
"Hmm?" Thorin answered.
"Your traveling armors, my liege. And th- the ponies are prepared for departure, the company to escort you already ahorse, and Bard has sent the boat to arrive for us at three," stammered the young steward in the most official voice he could summon.
"I am certain they would wait a few moments," Thorin groused at the steward. "Do allow me to don the rest of my garments and I will be with you."
She had let Floi into the bedchamber to attend to Thorin's trousseau, selecting from the armoire his cobalt-velvet tunic, a pair of black moleskin breeches with matching embroidery, and a sleeveless black surcoat with vair mantling. Cobalt was spring's color, its distinct way of arriving in the north- balmy, subtly shaded low skies with steady rains, a powdery sky when it let up. Thorin excused Floi while he attired himself, breeches, tunic, leaving the surcoat to fit over his traveling armors. He donned his boots with the silver-capped toes, meticulously polished, and rings, and crown.
"You look every inch my king," Meisar sighed from the bed. "You strike me in lighter colors; they complement your eyes."
Floi knocked and Thorin hissed behind the bedpost. "Were you indisposed and I not a king with obligations to his neighbors, I would be every inch your king indeed."
"That you have been, and I will bear us the fruits of it within the coming days," Meisar giggled. His eyes became those powdery cobalt northern skies toward her, almost as balmy. Doors lurched open in the antechamber and made them winter-pools again, chattering voices, male and female. He got off the bed and called for Floi and his breastplate.
"Ah, there he is," Dwalin quirked, entering without a knock. "Dressed, are ye? It's close to the time."
"Indeed it is," he laid his hand with a pinched look in his mouth on Meisar's stomach, tugging her coverlet up in the company's presence.
"T'would be polite to meet Bard's barge upon the agreed time, after all," Balin shuffled past the steward, patting the young dwarf on the shoulder reassuringly. In their fine clothes, he and Dwalin cut aristocratic figures, ready for the noblest whitefish boil Laketown was like to see in some time. Freyda lumbered in after them, pausing to hand Brundin to Dwalin for farewells. The scared hands held the baby dwarf delicately, prodded his nose to his and drew a porcine laugh from the child.
"Soon the same fer ye and Thorin, verra soon," Freyda said, patting Meisar's belly in turn. She slid into Thorin's spot on the bed, took up folding linens and tiny blankets; they were in a suitable pile on the chair next to Freyda already, but would never be in short supply, she had assured.
"You ought to be resting. Let your ladies handle it," Thorin admonished Meisar, propped up and rolling swaddling linens into tight rolls, her arms barely able to reach out over her stomach.
"Nê lutur rathukh khuzd," Meisar waved him off dismissively, over a pang in the pit of her stomach again. Balin grinned behind Thorin.
"She has pains in her belly and back, Balin. That means the time is near?" Thorin appealed to Balin for help. "Perhaps you ought go in my stead."
"There are always pains in the back and belly when a dwarrowdam's expecting," Eda pushed past suddenly and boisterously. "When do the pains come, my dear? Are they close together? Or further apart still?"
"Comes and goes," Meisar murmured, a bit woozy. "Far apart... I suppose."
"Ah then, my king, there you are. When the child is ready to be born, they will be like waves upon a shore, in a coming storm. But I shan't worry your mind with that. It's all things we know."
"I'm afraid I require more reassurance than that, Eda," Thorin protested. Dwalin, standing at the door, was approached by the timid steward; the lad whispered something in his ear which he in turn relayed to Balin. Balin cleared his throat.
"It is past the hour now; we need be on our way if we are to present ourselves at the meeting-place in time," Balin informed Thorin. "Bard will meet us there."
"How I anticipate my good garments stinking of whitefish and lantern oil," Thorin growled under his breath defensively, glaring at his impatient party.
"Thorin, it is quite alright. I am perfectly well."
Eda took his arm and led him into the antechamber where his steward was waiting with his traveling armor and cloak, hurrying him into them over his tunic, shucking on the surcoat over them.
"I would slip out before nightfall. If not, expect me on a dawn barge tomorrow," Thorin craned his head back into the room, wriggling out of the grasp of the steward who was still trying to fasten the breastplate to his side. He crossed the room and knelt on the ottoman next to the bed, offering a parting kiss to child, then mother.
"Innik, mine heart," Meisar smiled through another wave in her belly. "I promise you all will be well when you do."
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The pains ebbed and flared for the hour that followed, each wave following the last in quicker succession as the time wore on. She took her time at rolling linens to keep her mind occupied, watching Siv and Brynja working together to hang a bar from the top of the bed so that it came down like a swing on a tree.
"What's it for?" Brynja questioned earnestly of Eda, supervising them with an eye in the back of her head and constantly open.
"For a lady at her birthing bed to hold herself upright, and let gravity do its part," Eda answered cheerily. "Make certain it is very sturdy. Hang from your hands by all your weight, Siv, when you've got it."
"Why me?" Siv quorked. "Are ye mocking me as portly now, cousin?"
"Only your head with that ridiculous coiffure. With all of your baubles you outweigh Brynja by a stone at least. I'll not have our queen be tumbling down in her iynêd for your idleness."
Meisar waddled away from the head-ringing kvetching of the women to the bath chamber and sat herself heavily on the closed stool there. She had taken to keeping a series of flannel pads wedged up tight between her legs as the birth drew near and the flows that accompanied it came heavier now, but for the first, it was tinged with pinkish blood. Eda owed the leakages to normal processes, and of a denser sort that her irascible bladder; the healer had insisted on daily reports of it, unpleasant as it was to expel much less share. She pushed her skirt up over her thighs to assess and mercurial tides came again, sharp like a knife in the bottom of her back.
She held the towel rail along the wall to limp back out toward the door, doubled over.
"Meisar?" Emli squawked out. Bent forward, with her hand on her stomach, she wobbled toward her. Emli's pattering gait became like that of her dogs, similarly swirling around her at the moment, frantic and quick-footed. She wrenched her arm from her side to drape over her shoulder and whisked her toward a comfortable seat.
"Sit, m'queen, sit now. Have a rock back and forth. It'll help ease the ache a bit," Eda ordered. "There ye are." She wiggled the back of the chair so it went back and forth briskly. Brynja caught Redcoat mid-air from his attempt to leap the obstacle of her stomach and assault her face with worried licks, shunted the dog out to the antechamber with an ox-bone.
"How do the pains do?" Eda inquired, palpitating closely with the dwarrowdams all gathered around so close their exhalations robbed the air of oxygen altogether and made her dizzy. Her stomach seemed to constrict, pulling itself tightly in before twisting brutally again. The pressure felt akin to a bout of gas that might pass itself brutally in time. I might call on Donbur and ask she amused herself silently waiting for the overbearing sensation to pass. It sunk into her side and dissipated and her sigh of relief preceded the same from the dwarrowdams.
She had only put her heels to the floor to rock back when it burst.
"Ohh!"
The women jumped back from her as if she had Smaug himself readying a bellyful of fire to breathe. Truthfully, her stomach did have that feel. But lower was the opposite. Fluid gushed hot into the well of her thighs and soaked her underskirt front and back. She clawed at and pulled up her skirts and found the puddle darkening the cushion under her, soaking her clothes, coming in slow rivulets down her legs to make a ring at the top of her stockings.
"Dis!" She clutched the now-heaving expanse of her belly.
Dis came around and dropped her cup at the sight. "Mahal! Your waters!"
"My waters, but that means-"
"The baby is coming, Meisar," Dis announced high and raw.
"What do you mean the baby is coming. They said there was still-" Meisar shrieked through the next wallop of pain.
"That's not the way babies work," Dis retorted briskly. "They come when they wish and this one is coming now."
"Pray Mahal they reach the king. Is he away across the lake yet?" Eda breathed, unfastening the ribbons swiftly on Meisar's robe as she began to pant like a dog from the heat, her face so flushed it looked like a ripe tomato. Once she was comfortably down to her shift, the dwarrowdams all helped her to bed and to scoot her bottom to the edge of the bed and hold her legs up and apart for Eda to assess. Damp from washing in the basin, the cool, calm hands reached up into the inferno that was tearing her womanly parts from the opening up. "Rest now, my queen. Breathe in and out, one step at a time."
"Send someone after the king! He is on his way to Lake Town!" hollered Brynja, her hands clutched to the side of her head, rubbing her plaits into a mess at the crown of her head with worry. She ran about the room weaving amongst the dwarrowdams like a chicken with her head detached. As suddenly, heavy footsteps rushed forth from the outside, and Gimli burst into the chamber looking for his mother.
"Gimli, for shame!" yelped Meisar, flinging the sheet over herself.
"I heard a distressed call, mother! Came to see if-" Gimli gawked in terrified bewilderment, averting his eyes from the sprawled, wailing queen and her heaving stomach.
Emli crossed the room in a flash and taking her son firmly by the shoulders, turned him round and hurried him out. "I have a special duty for you Gimli. Go to the council hall, alert the council that the queen's birthing pains have begun, and tell them to send their best rider on the fastest pony that can be mustered. If he can manage a real horse, even better. Go now!"
"Aye, aye, mother!" Gimli turned on his heel and obeyed.
"He's a natural sprinter, my dear, have no worry," Emli assured Meisar, fluttering back to her side.
My baby will be here and Thorin will not. Her fear twisted the knife already in her.
As soon as her son had sprinted off, Emli began delegating frantically to the gathered dwarf-women, chambermaids summoned by the commotion all crowding the chamber too. Meanwhile, fresh pain curled itself around her womb and shot through to the bottom of her back like a knife.
"Is a swaddling blanket prepared? Was that water boiled first? Go to now, girl!" Emli circled the chamber efficiently, directing a bevy of confused maids. "You two, keep the hot water constant! You, see to fresh linens!"
Eda rose from her place on the stool by the bed's foot and gave Meisar a look that she understood intrinsically as confirmation. "Your dwarven door has opened of its accord, and very swiftly indeed. This child is coming, with or without Thorin."
"It hurts, Eda. My back… my… ohh…"
"See that she gets air!" Eda hollered at the gathered, frozen dwarrowdams. "I will return, very briefly, my queen, do not fear."
"Please don't leave!" Meisar's caterwaul threw Siv off from her side.
"Calm now, my dear. The child will feel your frets and fears, and nary did a happy babe come into the world so," Emli advised, calmly as she could manage.
"If that were true, childbirth would not be so… ahhh!"
"I am only off to get my kit for midwifing, and to fetch a few reliefs for you, my dear, including Virta."
Bring her mother she wanted to say but her tongue wouldn't form the request over the pain.
"Walk about the room in a circle if you must. It helps. I promise," Dis assured gently. "Easy now, come on."
"Thorin! Have you sent for Thorin?!"
Dis cupped her clenched fist in hers. "A pony has been dispatched with the messenger, the fastest pony in the stables."
Aroin shook her head worriedly. "They must reach him before he reaches the lake. Else they will need a boat of their own and a faster rower."
"Hush, Aroin! You'll only upset her! Not the time at all," scolded Emli.
Aroin continued, relenting a bit. "Well, they'll have to catch up to him before the barge leaves for Laketown. He's not been gone more than several hours. A king's retinue is slow I'm sure."
Virta trotted in with Eda bringing up her rear, slower with age but no less sharp as she went to work again. "Lie down now, lie down, rest and be calm, my dear," Eda's lilt was particularly sing-songy, though there was panic around its edges.
"Is the baby coming, Eda? Is this time?" Meisar pleaded.
"For certain," Eda confirmed. "Could not the little lord of the lake betrothed himself at a better time!?"
"Aye, even the child knows his father would'a rather been here than eating bland old fish with Bard's kin," Virta crossed her arms smartly. "Should'a sent Urdlaug to show them a proper banquet, again."
"Hush! I hear they've been bringin' peppers and hot curries up from the south and east again. Wouldn't mind that on a juicy trout now," Brynja offered. "Ye ever had curry powder, Meisar? The red's hot but the yellow's mild and flavorful. Bofur brought some-"
"Speaking of hot, why not try a soak in the bath," Dis suggested, hurrying the two off their tangent and to Meisar's side to help. "We'll discuss spiced fish when all of our bellies are settled."
Nodding wanly to the notion, Meisar resisted the urge her body was in to fold her entirety into itself, and curl up tight like a millipede under light. Once Eda had ascertained her width and declared it unready to deliver quite yet, she allowed the women to help her into the bath. Dis sponged the sweat from her neck, tracing a concerned fingertip along the bulging vein.
"It will help a bit, don't worry. When I was at my birthing pains with Kili I used a warm bath. His was a quicker ordeal."
"Are they here, Dis? Are they with us?" Meisar murmured, eyes lolling. The steam and heat were making her dizzy but the hot embrace of the water had taken some of the edge from the pain already. Virta peeled off her clothes down to her drawers and bodices and waded into the water to be beside her. She motioned to one of the dwarrowdams crowding anxiously on the side of the tub to do the same. Siv volunteered, naturally. The two dwarrowdams flanked her and held her hands tightly, Siv's rings digging into both of their flesh. She wrenched them off and flung them, told Brynja to keep them.
The water embraced her the way she imagined it embraced the child in her womb, a quiet lull, hot and dense. Eventually Eda put her hand up into the expanding width of her and declared the time was ripe. They helped her onto the bed and laid her back against the stack of pillows so that she was elevated slightly.
"Lay back and relax. I will check you to see exactly where you are," Eda's hands prodded at her gently. The midwife chuckled. "You are quite ready I think. Less than an inch and it should be quick."
"Inch? Of… what?"
"The female parts dilate to let the child out. For dwarves, as opposed to humans or elves I always say, must be open a bit more before the baby can pass," Eda explained gently. "Move about if you can, the more the better. It helps the child to come down and the… part to open down there and let him pass."
Wrapped in a sheet, she tried to stand again but it proved impossible. She lowered herself buckling to her hands and knees, clawing her shift back on over her wet skin.
"I can't… it hurts," Meisar whined. She braced herself on the hard floor, the grooves digging into her knees and her nails clawing at the stone. When she buckled on all fours, Eda and Virta quickly lifted her upright. They slung her arms over their shoulders and walked her slowly around the bed, but her legs were jelly underneath her. The pain shot up from the backs of her knees, to her spine, to the heaving mass in her middle that was shifting down and butting what felt like a large head at the door.
"Put me down!" Meisar pleaded. "I can't walk! I can't..."
"Then you must be close. Come, come, lie down then. Virta, get her some water. Lasses, make her comfortable. The pillows, Siv, move them so she can sit. And more hot water!"
Siv took to pillow-fluffing, stunned into obedience. The maids ducked out in a flurry of nerves for the water. More chambermaids came and went with basin after basin of hot water. They brought ice also and her ladies wiped her forehead and neck with cold soaked towels.
Another contraction ripped through the pit of her belly. "Ohh!" She saw that there was blood on the towels laid under her.
"No need to worry. A little blood is normal. That just means you're close now, and this may be a short labor after all."
"Shaf!" Virta hollered.
Emli brought her case of herbs, dramatically fanning herself as she bore witness now in silent awe. The mother-dwarfs, with Emli at their helm, all came to be at her bedside as she gave birth. They jostled about for position, fussing, ever fussing, until Dis shouted and bid them all calm themselves or she would have them dismissed. They were all there now, Dis and Emli and Freyda and…. Bira, where was Bira? Bira, who had birthed fourteen children; she wanted Bira more than anyone.
Meisar's head pounded against the onslaught of contractions in her belly and felt the babe shift, readying to come. Siv pressed the nosegay of fragrant herbs against her, the aromas said to help alleviate some of the agony.
The midwives poured basin after basin of hot water and readied fresh linens and swaddling.
Bira, poor fat Bira with her face all red, came puffling in at last. After her it was who Emli reentered the chamber with a grim face, and Meisar's stomach dropped further (the baby none more though).
"Fear not," Emli mustered her prim smile. "They've sent a separate boat after the king's barge, with a fast rower too. Men's barges are clumsy and slow. They'll get to him."
"They've left the docks?" Brynja begged confirmation dismally. She patted Meisar's hand with a frown.
"It could be hours still before anything happens," Emli attempted a modicum of comfort, arranging herself beside Brynja.
"Nay, I think she is almost ready to push," Virta disagreed. Eda disappeared back under the sheet and nodded in agreement after a considerable silence.
Meisar flung herself back, unsure herself whether it was despair of Thorin's absence or the contraction that tore through every fiber of her midsection and loins. "I need him! I need my husband!"
"My dear, the birth of a child is katbâna . He would not be permitted entrance until the babe's born and had a chance to acquaint himself to his mother. 'Amad is always first."
"Tradition," the voices of the closely-gathered dwarrowdams all ascended in buzzing unity.
"'Amad," Meisar squinted with coming tears, the word on her tongue so sweet it took the pain away for a moment and left her head lightly swimming, afloat on a cloud. "'Amad."
"Yes, yes, 'amad. You are going to be so soon, dearest sister," Dis cooed, her tears whether joy or sadness indiscernible. "He loves you already this babe; he wishes so much to be yours he could not even wait for his father!"
"What if it's a girl?" Siv pondered aloud, inviting the withering looks of the rest of the dwarrowdams who had come to share in the tender sentiment.
"Won't know until the bottom half is out," Eda came back.
She could smell her own sharp sweat through the herbs though, the kind that was distinct and animal, borne of fear. Her body was soaked entirely in it; she could have wrung the shift and hung it to dry. Even the sheet Eda had draped over her knees for modesty's sake felt like wearing wools in the summer heat; she twisted it away. Pulling her shift up bared the volution of her belly. She could see and feel the baby wholly, moving, barging at the door of her womb. Every shift was a new tear in her being, sinew, muscle, skin and bone all rendered pliable as clay to give life, but inside, felt more delicate than parchment, like holding an open scroll in two hands and pulling, able to tear at any moment but the fingers trembled and wrists strained.
Her fingers were wrapped firmly around Dis's hand, her pale, fragile hand going red in hers, clammy with her sweat. She has done this long before and under worse circumstances. I will fear nothing, I will fear-
(The fastest pony will not bring him here before dark)
She let a keening wail through another flash of heated pain, as her belly contracted. When it subsided, she saw stars, and her breath caught in her throat. "Mahal help me," she cried. "Thorin…"
She scrunched her face and moaned through the contraction, growing in ferocity with each passing minute. "Is it always like this?"
"Yes, yes it is," Dis answered matter-of-factly. "But at the end you will have your baby. And this kingdom its heir."
"Ouugghh, he's coming!"
"A hearty babe, I think," Eda clucked. "Dwarf in true."
"I will explode! I need… I must push!"
"Not yet. No, no, no. I will tell you when to," said Eda.
The scent of more steaming water being poured into the basin soothed her for a precious moment. She managed to sit up in the bed as another round gripped her. Dis wiped her forehead with a bundle of ice in a towel. The fierce heat pouring from her body melted it on contact. A burning, fierce pain kept up its relentless tearing at her body; she could feel the density of the child coming downward.
"Push now, Meisar! Push!"
Push she did, bearing down with all her might. Her body stretched and rocked mightily. The pushing went on so long she felt the veins in her neck and head bulge and then shrink to the size of threads, waves of dizziness, breathlessness overcoming her after each effort. It went on and on with the dwarrowdams all gathered on the bed or at its foot. Griet and Bertha held off to the side, Elsa hollering every once in awhile for them to bring more water, more linens, a towel full of ice. Their voices, the commotion, the commands all melted together. Eda's was the only voice she could summon the strength to follow.
"And stop, yes, you can stop pushing," ordered Eda finally, holding up her hand with the forefinger poised.
"But the babe's not… still in…" Meisar panted hard. "Why must I stop? Is the child stuck?"
"Nay, nay. A few short breaths, my queen. You'll need your energy to get the baby past and into the world. It is the worst part, but over soon I promise," Eda assured.
"Careful makin' that promise," Freyda snorted, Brundin in his sling utterly indifferent to the fuss about him.
Meisar followed Eda's direction carefully, breathing in and out several times, willing her body with every sinew and every fiber to its task.
"Slowly, slowly. We're to get the head past and the shoulders, slower the better, make a gentle coming for the babe," advised Eda, Virta posited beside her, ready with the swaddling blanket.
"Oh aye," Freyda agreed. Brundin started to get fussy and she handed him to Griet. "If ye try the babe like a windlance ye'll be all the sorrier." She winced, looking down at Brundin pouting and bouncing in Griet's arms, as if his sheer breadth of body didn't remind her each day, all of the dwarrowdams momentarily following suit knowing she had so learned it the harder way.
"Shot into me hands like a black arrow, that one," chuckled Bira, tickling the down on Brundin's cheek. "Though I had him steady all the time, he wanted into the world quicker than I could bring him down. Sweet little one, never knows what the mother endures when they come too impatiently. So slowly, love, slowly and surely."
"Another time, another time," Meisar gasped, the memory of it all to gruesome to fathom at the moment. "Slow it is, slow… I will..."
Bira's apologetic hands rubbing her head took her out of the wracked body and into another, still her own but a distant one, a smaller one. A young dwarfling with burrs in her hair from playing on the mountainside that Bira patiently picked one by one and stroked her head reassuringly every time one snagged and pulled. A girl who had never married a king risen as good as from the grave. An orphan of the firestorm, a beardless runt.
"It is a dwarf for sure! I feel lots of hair," Eda chuckled a few minutes later.
"You laugh at me, Eda!?" Meisar caterwauled through clenched teeth. She felt in that moment as if she would tear in half and the pain half took her from consciousness. The midwives and her ladies stood about and fanned her and fussed until she regained herself. Dis was still clutching her hand, rubbing her head calmly.
"Ibrêkh," Virta relayed to Eda.
The command rung hollow a moment, her energy wholly sapped. Numb legs, buckling from underneath her, she tilted herself up at such an angle to allow gravity to aid her but it made her too dizzy and she reclined down on her back again.
Yavanna strengthen me, if I am to kiss the little hands and feet that greet me from beneath my skin.
"I want," Meisar felt the words garble on her tongue like the spill of little stones on a floor. She tried to speak and clacking sounds emerged, her tongue erupting into spasms.
"I know you want your baby," assuaged Dis quietly. "Strength and courage, sister. He is almost here."
Is my husband? Is my Thorin? Even surrounded by the care of the dwarrowdams, his absence was a desolation. She wanted his big, solid hand to be the one she held; Dis's she was on the verge of crunching down to the bone.
"Mahikyil!" crowed Emli. "I can see him! It is a good sign, Meisar. You're close."
"How close? I can't bear it much longer!" Tears poured from her eyes to mingle with sweat and the cool water Dis was dabbing in nervous rhythm over her forehead and cheeks. Her sobs echoed to the bone but it did nothing for the burning, tearing wrath of the child's deliverance.
"The babe is crowning. Push, push hard when I tell you," Eda directed. Dis pried open Meisar's hand to place the amulet of Yavanna, Thorin's gift, inside. She soon found two of them as she rubbed the stone damply in her palms.
"Eili made it for me before I bore Fili. It will bring Yavanna's blessing doubly."
"Triply," Freyda hastened to add, taking her amulet and folding it into Meisar's opposite hand. Dis and Freyda closed her fists around them and held tight on either side, giving much-needed inertia to her forward strains.
Rapid, urgent waves came fiercely and out of her belly into the fibers of her womanhood where the child's mass was shifting and grasping to light. The exodus from her belly was swift and wrathful and Virta's hands were shaking with the swaddling linens watching Eda concentrate at her work with her teeth buried into her lower lip.
Eda jerked her head up and looked Meisar in the eye. "The worst is over. The head and shoulders are out, but you must push hard now, with all your strength!"
"Is it a boy? A girl?" Meisar breathed hard in anticipation. The pain was a flame, but ebbing down to embers.
"Won't know until you finish this, my love, but it's got a lovely little beard," Eda beamed.
Dis took her hand in both of hers. "You're almost there, Meisar, almost there.
"Itrik! Another good one, come on," Bira gave cheer. "How brave my wee runt with such a hardy dwarfling! And it's a hardy one!"
"Aye, this babe is big," agreed Eda. "Durin's sons always were longer and fatter than the rest. Royals."
"Where is Thorin?!" Meisar wailed.
"He is almost here… almost here," Dis was chanting gently.
"Thorin?! Or the baby?!"
"The latter, at least," joshed Eda.
"I need my husband! I need... where is Thorin? I need him to see... to be... his child..." The concerned blue orbs of Dis's eyes melted into a puddle above her.
"He will," Dis exhaled in relief as Meisar's grip eased.
"One more push, Meisar! One more and…"
Virta's words melted in her head. Meisar drew a hearty breath and bore down with all her might once more (only once more, she promised, just one more time). Her body fell in on itself, released, unburdened except for the throbbing of her womanhood. There was suddenly no more pain, and Meisar's gravelly, labored sobs gave way to a baby's cry.
.
Nê lutur rathukh khuzd- Never idle are the hands of a dwarf
Iynêd- Act of Giving Birth
Katbâna- Female Knowledge (midwifery perhaps?)
Shaf- Alleviation
Aznâg- Courage
Mahikyil- be Born!
Itrik- Push!
Ibrêkh- Breaching
Innik- Return/come Back!