Pre-"Jak II"
The beeps. The screaming and panting. The cries of the first. As the night progressed, they got more and more urgent, reaching an apex before there was one continuous beep and the woman in labour stopped screaming.
The father in question of the children she had just birthed? Nowhere in sight. King Damas had employed his right-hand man, the father in question, on some insane and life-risking mission. Meanwhile, his wife was giving birth to their first children, identical twin girls, losing her life as she did so. By the time the younger twin spilled into the world, she had drawn her last breath, expelling it as she did the child. The midwife and nurses were very professional about it, almost coldly so, as they bathed and swaddled the girls, covering the mother's body with the sheet, awaiting the father's return.
When he did, he took one glance at his dead wife before heading straight for the twin cradles. Looking upon them for a long time, he screwed up his face and uttered a grunt of disappointment.
"Neither of them are boys?"
He growled his disappointment, whirling around and storming out of the room, leaving the medicals present in the room utterly speechless. They knew of his nature, but they did not imagine that it wouldn't change, or at least soften, upon marriage and the birth of his first children.
~x~
Some months later, that same man flipped open his communicator and opened a channel upon seeing it flash.
"Yes?" he barked.
"Sir...I have seen something,"
He rolled his eyes. "Finally!"
"May I meet you in person in the usual place?"
"I'll be right there," he snapped, closing the communicator and whirling out of the room.
The woman he had spoken to on the other end of the communicator was already there by the time he reached it. Her large black eyes were troubled and she gave a little bow.
"Sir, I...I saw something,"
"Yes, I understood that, else you wouldn't have called me here!" he growled, frustrated. "What did you see?"
"W-w-one of your daughters h-has telepathic powers," the young woman stammered.
The older man tilted his head to one side, eyebrows raised. "Telepathic powers, you say?"
The woman nodded. She was young, barely touching her twenties. She was also easily frightened by this towering presence, her employer; she was his personal clairvoyant.
"Which one? And how dangerous will she be?" The aforementioned presence's eyes narrowed.
The young woman swallowed, unsure in her heart as to whether to venture this information. "The younger. She...is dangerous...she will manipulate and murder...if you don't...get rid of her now, in some way."
The man frowned. "Dangerous, you say? Hurrh..." He folded his arms, mind turning over for a few brief seconds. "Then she must be dispatched of! If I merely displaced her, would she return?"
The black-eyed woman swallowed. "I cannot say – "
"Give me an answer!" the older man roared. "Will she survive if I displace her!"
"Not if you put her in the Wasteland!" the clairvoyant replied. "Nobody can survive the Wasteland. Nobody..."
"Yes," the Commander said reflectively. "I have seen that. Well, I do trust your opinion. If you say this dangerous child will not survive the Wasteland, then she will not be a threat,"
The meek clairvoyant agreed with frantic nodding.
"Thankyou, Nuala Malesh," the older man said. "You may go,"
"Th-thankyou, Baron Praxis," Nuala replied, turning away from the Baron and closing her eyes, knowing that she had just sown the second-generational seeds of Haven's bloodshed; one that would last for almost half a century when combined.
"Roah and Ashelin were separated when they were just three months old, as soon as the Baron discovered Roah's telepathic powers and saw the dangers present within them. Roah was sent away to a foster family in Spargus. Twenty years later, she finds out whom her real father was, why she was sent away – oh, and her twin sister now rules Haven. She's very, very pissed off, spending the next five or ten years working up a coup to overthrow Ashelin and the subsequent twenty years emulating her father's tyranny. Isn't that right, Archduchess?"
– Torn, "Deny Thy Father and Refuse Thy Name