AN: Things get darker in this chapter. You have been warned.
Gourry found Min tucked into a corner of the town hall. The room was filled with women waiting to see a midwife to be tested, and the noise from their conversations was so loud that figuring out what they were saying was difficult. Still, Gourry managed to catch enough snippets to decipher a general theme to their reaction to the news that most of the women in the town were likely pregnant.
He sat next to Min and put a hand on her shoulder. "Looks like you still have your job." He said.
Min nodded, "Overall people seem to be taking it well. I guess compared to the rampaging golem that Xilef unleashed, or that year that Beol tried to increase the grape production in the vineyards and ended up killing three quarters of them, well, a rash of unexpected pregnancies certainly is less devastating than that."
Gourry nodded, "Yeah, when you live so close to a sorcerer's guild you tend to get used to finding yourself at the wrong end of some experiment gone amok."
Min smiled as she punched him gently on the shoulder, "What would you know about it?"
He patted her on the head, "Well, I'm kind of surrounded by sorceresses. After a while you just accept that the furniture is going to get singed."
"Well, maybe this next one will be a swordsman."
"Well, that would be fine," he said, a note of surprise in his voice, "But when you're surrounded by sorceresses things are never boring."
Gourry noticed as Min relaxed noticeably, "So you're not mad?"
"You know, back where I came from we didn't have sterility spells. These things just happened. You sorceresses take controlling the elements for granted in a way I never did." He shrugged, "Besides, it just means another person I'm going to love is on the way. It will be okay."
"How mad is Mom?" she asked.
Gourry shrugged, "She's coming to terms with it. Though, you might want to lay low until the morning sickness passes."
Min grabbed her own stomach, "Somehow I don't think that will be a problem. Wow, I still can't fathom being pregnant with Mom!"
A young woman went running from the booths, calling the name of her husband as she did. Min spotted Dianna coming to the front of the queue to get her next patient and watched as the woman cried, "We did it! After all this time!"
As her husband hugged her Gourry pointed them out, "And for some people, this is a pleasant surprise."
Min smiled a bit, and then stopped when she noticed her father stiffen. "What is…"
Suddenly Dianna screamed as she keeled forward. Min's heart sank as gooseflesh erupted on her skin as Dianna started begging, "Please let me keep this one!"
"Oh no." Min groaned as she and Gourry stood up and started making their way through the crowds.
"It's happening." He said quietly as the other midwifes came out to bring Dianna back behind the curtains. Considering Dianna's red robes it was hard to be sure, but Min could detect a horrible glistening to them that indicated the presence of blood seeping through them, and as they got to where she was standing, they had to be careful not to slip on the blood on the tiles.
By the time Min went back to the town hall after helping her parents get Dianna home after her seventh miscarriage, the crowd of people waiting to be tested was gone and the midwives were starting to pack up. Min was glad that the crowd had dispersed. She was still shaking with fear. But her parents were with Dianna. Surely they would keep things under control.
Min did her best to steady herself as she walked to the midwives, wanting to get some numbers on how many women had been affected when she stopped dead in her tracks as she saw Attie emerge from behind a curtain. For her part, Attie looked just as blindsided to see her there. "Don't tell me you're…"
Attie raised her hands and shook her head frantically, "Looks like I dodged that spell."
Min exhaled in relief, "But then what are you doing here?"
Attie looked around, and then walked with Min to a private corner on the room, "Had a fling when I got home that night. Just someone I met at the pub. Nothing to write home about. I wondered if the statue had anything to do with it."
Min's eyebrows hit her hairline, "You had a fling? Was that the first one?"
Attie blushed, "It doesn't happen often, but occasionally. I just can't resist a tenor."
Min laughed, "And you had all of us sold on that virgin line."
Attie grabbed her arm, "Please don't tell anyone."
Min patted her hand, "We've got more important things to worry about."
"I heard." Attie said. "I was afraid of that. That's why I didn't say anything this morning, just in case I was."
"Well, it's not like you would have hidden it from Di forever if you were." Min pointed out, and then her eyes widened, "Or would you have…?"
Attie put a hand on her arm, "I'm not, so it's no use worrying about what I would have done."
Something clicked within Min, "Di's the reason you don't settle down, isn't she?"
"What, a woman can't be happy on the road?" Attie asked.
"It's not that, but it's just you're so like Dad. So family oriented."
"Well, I'm helping the family." Attie said, "I'm continuing the family business. Besides, Di still sees me as the baby of the family. It would crush her if I had a child before she did, so if it helps keep her steady it's no big deal. I get to sleep in as late as I want, and stay up as late at the pub singing songs for as long as I want and go wherever I want. I don't mind."
"You say that now, but what about when you're older?" Min asked.
"I might change my mind." Attie said with a shrug, "But for now, it's fine. Besides, both you and Di keep such big secrets from your husbands keeping this under wraps. I don't think I could carry that burden into a relationship."
"Everyone has secrets." Min replied, but she did know what Attie meant. Early in their relationship Drake had often asked probing questions. He seemed to know that there was more to the standard "spells" explanation to explain why Dianna was the way she was, but after all these years seemed to have figured that if was so bad no one in the family talked about then he didn't want to know. Still, there were times when Min just wanted to tell him and get it off her chest.
Attie patted her knee, "Goodness, you look exhausted. Go home and get some rest and don't worry so much about me. I'm happy."
"How does this keep happening?" Kenneth, Dianna's husband, said as he buried his face in his hands.
"I guess there's still just so much we don't know about this." Lina said as she stared out of the window of Kenneth and Dianna's cottage. "Di just can't carry to term it seems."
"Enough of that!" Kenneth spat, "You know more than you've ever told me!"
Lina stared him down. But the truth was, Kenneth was right. Lina and Gourry had been against Dianna marrying him. They couldn't risk telling him that she held part of Shabranigdu in her soul. Dianna at least agreed to that. In her mind he was marrying her, not Shabranigdu, and at the headstrong age of eighteen she truly believed that she had had her passenger cowed and that he wouldn't affect their relationship. But then the miscarriages started happening.
"I told you it would be a mistake to marry her." Lina pointed out. "You knew she was unsteady. I don't see how this is a surprise to you."
"Shut up!" he spat. Lina shook her head and was about to go into the bedroom to see how Dianna was doing when he said, "Wait. She won't stop. But I can't keep going through this. You know a spell, right?"
Lina felt shaky with relief. She had wanted one of them to perform one after the first miscarriage. She and Gourry had never been comfortable with the idea of Dianna having a child. While Dianna swore she would keep Shabranigdu's rage from it, Lina knew just how rage producing raising children could be! That, and she couldn't stop thinking of Zelgadis and the horrors that Rezo had put him through. While she would have liked to have believed that she and Gourry had raised Dianna better than that, she was too horrified of finding she was wrong.
"Why don't you go and talk to the midwives and have it done." Lina said, realizing that she could knock two birds out with one stone. She needed to see how close Dianna was to letting Shabranigdu take over, but she couldn't do that with Kenneth hanging around. If he went to get a spell done he would be out of the way. "We'll stay with Di until you get back."
Kenneth nodded, and left the cottage. Lina sighed and walked into Dianna's bedroom. Gourry was sitting beside the bed, a hand on her arm, talking quietly to her as tears leaked from her eyes. Beside her was the remains of her daughter, born dead. Lina looked at him inquiringly and he shook his head, "I can't get her to let her go." He explained.
"She's just so beautiful." Dianna whispered as she caressed her face before dissolving into tears.
Lina felt her stomach twist. Much as she believed it was a good thing that Dianna couldn't have kids, she still hated seeing her go through this! She wished she could find a way to tear Shabranigdu's soul from hers so she should could be free to pursue her dreams. But it was impossible.
And now they had to worry about Shabranigdu using this opportunity to take over. Jealousy set Dianna off. And with the whole city now pregnant, he couldn't have timed it better.
Before Lina could say anything she heard the door open and wondered if Kenneth was back so soon, but Luna walked in, straight up to Dianna, pulled her up by her nightgown and slapped her across the face.
"What the hell are you doing?" Gourry flared as Dianna rose from the bed.
Luna glared at her, "Did you really think there would be any other outcome?"
Dianna stared at her dead baby. Luna raised her hand again and Gourry grabbed it. Lina raced to get in between them both, "Is this really the time?" Lina asked.
"Your idiot daughter keeps giving him gift wrapped opportunities to seize control!" Luna shouted, "Twice should have been more than enough for her to learn her lesson, but she kept getting pregnant. The Dark Lord is not going to let her carry to term! I tried to tell her as much before she got married, but no, she wanted those things…"
"Things that everyone else wants and everyone else has!" Dianna screeched, "It's not a bad thing to want them!"
"When you're cursed you have to accept certain sacrifices." Luna said. "And I've lived just fine without them!"
"You made that decision! I didn't! I didn't ask for this! Ceifeed specifically cursed me with it!" Dianna insisted, and Lina felt the guilt surge through her. Ceifeed wouldn't have marked their daughter if Lina and Gourry hadn't been so efficient at killing Shabranigdu in the past.
"Tough, you have to make do with what you're dealt in life." Luna snapped, "First, he's not going to let you have a child and bond with it, because then you'll have a vested interest in the continuance of this world. Second, Shabranigdu gets people to revive him by targeting the thing they want most but can't have. If you're ever going to defeat him you have to let go of having children!"
Dianna looked down at her baby, and Lina chewed the inside of her lip. With pretty much every woman in Zephyr City pregnant, that was going to be difficult. "Perhaps you can travel with Attie for a bit. At least, until this baby boom is over." Lina suggested.
Silence hung ominously in the air for a moment, but then Dianna said firmly, "No. Aunt Luna is right. I just need to give this up."
Lina looked at Dianna quizzically and couldn't escape the feeling that this was too easy. Dianna sighed, "Look, he just killed my daughter. I'm not going to give him what he wants by destroying the world."
Lina shared a look with Gourry, who looked just as nervous as she did. Nevertheless Dianna continued, "And I can't leave Zephyr City right now. I'm the best midwife this town has ever had, and as we are in the midst of a population boom, well, I'm just going to have to pull myself together and see it through."
"But Di…" Gourry started.
Dianna shook her head and cut him off, "Look, Min has long, difficult labors. And Mom, your pregnancy is more at risk because of your age. I need to be here. No matter how much it hurts. And finally, Aunt Luna, were you afflicted by the statue?"
Luna was silent for a moment as the air became chilly. Lina looked at her sister, who was always so duty bound that she couldn't possibly imagine her becoming intimate with someone. Finally she said, "Well, I am only human, too." And walked out of the room.
"Oh boy." Lina said as she shook her head.