GREAT EXPECTATIONS
With so much sadness in our previous Gen1 chapters and all the drama of the siege of Iziz it's about time we had something a little lighter for you to enjoy. How about a birthday sea voyage? Dalla is turning 6 and the Blackwell Clan has plenty to celebrate. ~ DK
"Lana," Niamh poked her head out the door of the exam room with a smile brightening her features. "Come on in." She looked back and then amended, "My Lord, you're welcome as well."
"It's good news then?" Lana squeezed her husband's hand.
"Come and see for yourself." The midwife backed out of the doorway so they could enter.
Shara still lay on the exam table covered modestly with a sheet with Jamos beside her, both of them staring raptly at the black and white screen. She noticed the newcomers first. "Look!" she cried happily. "Look at that heartbeat!"
Marlon looked but he couldn't make stem nor stern of the image. Still he smiled and said, "Congratulations."
Lana who knew more what to look for pointed. "That's the baby there, aye?" She asked Niamh.
"Aye." The midwife nodded, "and that tiny little flash is a strong, healthy heartbeat. Measuring perfectly for the dates. Should make his or her appearance about a month and a half after the new year dawns."
"And you're sure Shara and the baby are safe to travel?" Jamos asked for what must not have been the first time.
"Aye." Niamh tried to reassure the captain. "No beastmastering duties but this time of year with the fresh sea air. I see no problem with a sailing trip. When you return we'll have our regular monthly prenatal exam."
"Prenatal." Shara repeated the word. She reached out and touched the image of the tiny baby on the screen.
"It's wonderful, Shara! I'm so happy for you!" Lana gushed.
Marlon laughed and teased. "Well then if you don't mind, I believe it's our turn. Have to make sure Lana's got the same clearance for the voyage."
Both Shara and Jamos looked disappointed at having to take their eyes off their long awaited miracle.
"I got a recording. You can watch it anytime you please." Niamh popped a disk out of the sonogram machine and handed it to Jamos. You'd think she'd just given a kid a pet cog for salt and light. "Now you two get going so I can see to my next patient."
"Aye, Niamh! And thank you!" Jamos pocketed the disk carefully and helped Shara down from the table.
…
Lana and Marlon's appointment was just as successful. Their little bean was measuring about a month ahead of Jamos and Shara's, as expected, and was more distinguishable in the black and white image on the screen. It was still too early to find out the gender, but Lana said, since they already had one of each, she would be happy being surprised again.
She was also given leave to sail and together the entire Blackwell family began packing for the celebratory voyage.
…
"So what would you like me to make for your birthday supper?" Shara asked her niece, the newly appointed Cabin girl, who was having a snack during her off-duty watch in the small galley aboard her father's ship, Alon's Hand .
Dalla's eyes brightened. "Noodles and your special sauce!"
Shara grinned. "I thought you might. I brought everything aboard that we'll need to make it. You'll help me chop the veggies since you're so expert at using your knife now, won't you?"
"Aye, Aunt Shara." Dalla giggled. The six year old was settled with a cutting board, and a couple of roots and all the regular safety instructions, while Shara turned to start a few other ingredients simmering on the stove.
Instead of the expected, gentle thud of the knife against the cutting board, Shara heard an almighty stab and turned around to see the whole root impaled through the middle on Dalla's knife.
"What are you doing?" She asked, smiling because she already knew.
"Sticking holes in him," Dalla announced proudly. "He didn't have any soft spots though."
"With people, aye, that's how you do it." Shara pantomimed a knife to show her niece the proper technique. "With vegetables, it's more like this."
A delicious smell began to waft from the pan on the stove. Only it didn't smell as delicious to Shara as it normally should have. In fact it smelled down right awful.
Shara gagged, pressed her hand over her nose and mouth and attempted to tell Dalla not to do anything without her as she ran for the deck. She managed to get to the rail before her breakfast reappeared.
Jamos left Kason with Lana and Thias where the boys had been playing with sail lines and ran to his wife. He held back her hair and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He produced a handkerchief when she was finished and held her. "I am so sorry you have to go through this again."
"I'm not." She smiled. "It's reassuring, actually. Though I brought all that mint gum thinking the fishing would bother me again like it did with Kase. I never expected it to be cooking my favorite dish that triggered it." She pouted disappointedly and he understood. Cooking was her creative outlet.
"Surely it'll pass after a few weeks. With Kase you felt almost back to normal when you hit your second trimester."
Shara nodded and then remembered. "I didn't feel anything like this with Jamie. Maybe that should have been a sign that something was wrong."
"Might have been." He said softly. "This one's healthy though." He kissed her forehead. "And we need something to call him or her. What do you think?"
She opened her mouth to speak, stopped, and then begun again. "We can't use your first name. That's been taken."
"Aye."
Shara hurried on. "I thought maybe Emoth for a boy."
Jamos smiled. "I like that. And how about Emma for a girl?" He put his hand on her still flat belly and she put her hand over his.
"We love you, Em." She whispered and laughed. "Even if you do make me sick of my favorite meal."
"Are you feeling a little better now?" He asked, still concerned.
"Aye. The fresh sea air helps. I'll go down to our cabin and get some of that gum before I head back to the galley but the smell isn't so bad now," she said, and indeed it wasn't. But there was something else in the air besides the fresh sea breeze: "Jamos, do you smell smoke?"
She wasn't the only one. While Jamos sniffed the air Ness speed walked down to the galley and emerged a moment later laughing hysterically, Dalla hanging behind him.
"Dalla Niamh Blackwell! Are you alright?" Lana shoved the boys toward Shara and Jamos in her hurry to cross the deck and get to her daughter. She alternately hugged and scolded Dalla, thankful that she wasn't hurt.
"I'm sorry, Lana. I shouldn't have left her." Shara scooped up Kason and kept a hand on Thias.
"It's not your fault, Shara," Lana said. "Dalla, I thought we'd learned not to turn up the burners to full blast when you're using the stove."
Dalla looked genuinely perplexed. "Won't that make the food cook faster?"
Lana laughed a bit and then something dawned on her that made her eyes go wide.
Shara saw her friend's face and took charge of the situation. She handed Kason over to Jamos and then reached for Lana's two kids.
"Why don't you two help me make the noodles for supper tonight?" she asked, praying that plain noodles wouldn't set her stomach rolling again.
The children nodded and followed Shara to the galley. Lana, unspeakably grateful for her sister-in-law's quick thinking, rushed off in the opposite direction in search of her husband.
Marlon saw his wife's approach from the other side of the ship and politely dismissed the officers he'd been talking to. That walk was the mission walk. The Marlon-Aloysius-Blackwell-you-stop-whatever-you're-doing-and-listen-to-me walk. He'd only seen it a few times in his life and salt gods help him, he'd taken it seriously every time.
Lana's mission walk reached him in a few seconds. "Marlon."
There was only one safe response. "Lana."
"Marlon, we are raising a queen."
He wasn't expecting that. Discreetly as he could he led his wife to a quieter space. "Dalla's a sweet kid Lana, but I wouldn't say she's a …"
"Not like that. I mean we are literally raising the future queen." Lana took a deep breath. "I hadn't realized until now, and I'm questioning every parenting decision we've ever made."
Marlon stared shocked at his wife until it hit him as well: no other girls had been born to the Great Houses. Only his daughter.
"I knew we were raising the Lady of the North, but we aren't," Lana whispered. "Whoever the next king is going to be, she's the best possible match for him. Our daughter … Marlon, she and her husband are going to rule the planet. How do we raise someone to do that?"
Marlon was more worried about the husband part of the equation. His and Lana's arranged marriage had worked out beautifully, but that wasn't true for every such match. Since his daughter had been born he swore to himself that the man she married would love and treasure her. He would never barter her away to a man whose only qualification was a crown. But the prospect of such men coming to call suddenly seemed closer than ever.
Who even was there? House Kira's heir had died in the awful crash that took Shara's friend as well. King Dendup didn't have any heirs. House Rash … that was just ridiculous. That left House Bonteri, and their little boy who was just a few months older than Dalla. Marlon hadn't seen Lux Bonteri since he was a baby.
"I don't know how we're going to it," Marlon admitted. "But I think she'll do just fine. She's taken to the crew right away, I can only imagine her running a ship of her own or the Hold or her court. She'll be a natural, just like her mother."
Lana smirked and elbowed him gently before returning to seriousness. "Do you remember when we were down in Iziz, staying with the Bonteris?"
"Aye, I do." He didn't like the way he thought this was going. "What of it?"
"Shara joked about a marriage alliance between Dalla and their Lux. It was only a joke, but maybe it shouldn't be. Dane and Mina are our bannermen and they're good, honorable people. They're going to raise Lux to be good and honorable as well. Maybe, in a few years, we should give them a comm."
"Maybe," Marlon hedged. "But that's still a long way off."
Lana didn't seem convinced but she nodded.
"And until then, we keep Dalla alive," He cracked a smile. "And we raise her like any other child. We raise her with kindness and bravery and honor, so when she becomes the Lady of the North and maybe something more, she'll leave Onderon better than she found it."
…
"What is this, a pleasure cruise? Lounge chairs on the lido deck?" Marlon found his wife, brother, and sister-in-law enjoying the quiet under the stars after the children had been put to bed (or hammock) and his own Captain's duties had been performed for the night.
Lana gestured to a chair beside her and smiled. "Well, it has been a rather pleasurable journey so far, wouldn't you say so, my love?"
The birthday dinner had been fun once they'd agreed to drop the subject of betrothals until that was absolutely necessary. Instead Dalla informed them all that she was halfway to 12 years old now and since Uncle Jamos got his first ship when he was that age she was halfway to ship ownership as well.
"It has." Marlon sat, took his wife's hand and kissed it. "Except when our oh so grown up daughter tried to burn my ship to the water."
Lana laughed. "We just won't tell the Bonteris about her lack of cooking skills."
"So you're considering my idea of a Bonteri/Blackwell match? I said it when they were babies." Shara smiled.
"That won't be for quite some time," Marlon asserted.
Jamos reached over and patted his wife's belly. "Well maybe this one will be a girl and we'll snatch Lux right out from under your nose before you get the chance."
Marlon teased them right back. "You're already sucking up to them by naming your son after the Lieutenant."
They all laughed, but Jamos shrugged. "He's not really named after Dane. We just liked the name. And I heard he's a captain now."
"Do you have a name picked out for this little one?" Lana asked.
Shara gave Jamos a little nod for him to do the honors.
"Emoth if it's a boy." He squeezed her hand. "or Emma."
Shara added, "Emma Quay after your mother."
Jamos grinned. "Then the boy would have to be Emoth Alon."
Shara nodded.
"Oh no." Marlon protested. "We've got first dibs on the name Alon."
"How come you get first dibs on the name Alon, chirn head?" Jamos complained.
"Because I'm the oldest, chirn head." His brother countered. "And the oldest always gets the best stuff."
"Well, not this time!" The younger brother argued.
Lana broke in laughing. "First one to have her baby gets to use the name?"
Shara extended her hand. "It's a deal! If they're both boys that is. And may the best woman win!"
…
Send out the official announcements! Two new Blackwells are on the way!