Welcome back - this is the third and final part of this little drama. I hope you have all enjoyed it, and I would treasure any comments you might have.

Read on!

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Othello paced back and forth in the room for what had to be the hundred-and-eleventh time. At least. This was unbearable. Unbearable, unthinkable and horrid. He never wanted to go through it again. When he said so out loud, all his comrades who were with him laughed and said that he would soon forget, that he had said so!

As Othello started to mutter incomprehensible things for himself, the door finally - finally - opened, and Iorik stepped out, holding a tiny little bundle swept into an embroidered, white blanket, which looked divinely soft. Othello would soon find out for himself, just how true that was.

"Othello," Iorik announced cheerfully, giving his husband a wink as he passed him, "let me introduce you to your daughter: Sarah. Desdemona is resting, but she is doing very well. Congratulations - you're a father!"

There was a chorus of other well-wishes, but Othello did not properly hear them as he accepted the delicate bundle of someone he already felt, deep in his heart, he loved above anybody else. No one and nothing would ever be allowed to harm her, and anyone who tired would have to go through him!

Silently, perhaps noticing how the new father needed a moment alone with his little treasure, but mostly because Iorik shooed them, the soldiers trotted off to wait for their friend at the pub, where they'd have a celebratory drink.

Smiling silently at one another, exchanging looks which spoke more than most words, husband and husband went out together, hand in hand, to go home to their own daughters, and leave Othello to his. It should all be fine - ever since Iago had been so spectacularly decloaked and banished almost a year ago, things had really been very quiet - for a war, anyway. All was well.

And they all lived happily, ever, after.

All except Emily, who was feeling really rather foolish, and Iago, who would never be pleased, wherever he finally went, because he always desired what someone else possessed, instead of his own lot: and thus would never have enough.

But all who deserved to so feel - the brave Othello and the kind Desdemona, the spirited Casssio and his loving ladylove, the wise general and his gentle husband, every one of them, got the love and the happiness they all deserved. It was, as they say, nothing more than they deserved.

Note One: If anyone wonders if a man would be allowed to assist at childbirth, that depends a lot on very specific times and customs, and in this case since Iorik always ends up with the wives, being the husband of a soldier, it has just developed that way, as he is a very soothing presence. He is probably not doing actual midwifeing (presumably there's a midwife) but he is on all accounts an excellent choise to go tell the men about the successful birth and show off the baby to the nervous father.

Note Two: Sarah sounds like a modern name, but it is actually thousands of years old. In Hebrew, it meens Princess. I thought it was appropriate.

Note Three: I am not in any way critising Shakespeare with this piece. It is a splendid tragedy, a play worth watching for sure, but it is a tragedy and "fluffing up" endings is what I do! This is why Shakespeare is the Master of Tragedy, and I, the deity of Fluff! I am, after all, the Fix-It-Fairy (or so they say...).

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