Days passed with no baby still. Numair was locked in his study from dawn until late at night, wards up to keep anyone from disturbing him. Daine took Sarralyn to the nursery most days, using the free time to see to any last minute animal healings or things she needed to do before the baby arrived. She had contractions off and on, but they always seemed to lessen right when she thought she should call for the midwife.
When the midwife returned at the end of the week to check her, she mentioned them.
"Probably just false labor," the midwife said, pushing back Daine's skirt and completely invading her privacy with no qualms. Daine grunted at the pain. Numair, who had decided to start his work later that morning so he could hear about the baby, grabbed her hand.
"I doesn't feel very false," she muttered.
"How will she know the difference in false labor and real labor?" Numair asked diplomatically. He tried to be as kind as possible to the midwife after they had come to blows over many things when Daine had been bedridden with Sarra. Namely, him being able to attend the birth. The midwife had not wanted him in the room at all, as she had firmly thought it was no place for a man. Numair had argued that Daine's circumstances were different than most births and he should be able to support to his wife. Daine could see both sides and had let them sort it out without her input. In the end, Numair had been relegated to the other room until it was almost too late. In a way, they had both won their arguments.
"False labor goes away once you rest. The contractions aren't regular. Also, if it is true labor, it won't stop until the babe is born."
"That clears it up," Numair mumbled, raising an eyebrow to Daine. She grinned at him.
"Sorry, Daine. Still no progress." The midwife removed her fingers - or what felt to Daine like her whole hand - and washed up. Daine groaned loudly and covered her face with her hand.
"There are some things you can try to get labor going." The midwife started to make her weekly notes as Numair helped his wife sit up. "Walking helps, especially up and down stairs - it opens the pelvis. Drinking a few spoonfuls of oil a day. Eating some dates or figs works for some women. And of course, there's sex."
Daine narrowed her eyes and felt her husband tense beside her. "Sex?"
"Yes." The midwife closed her notebook and handed it off to her assistant. "Nine times out of ten, it gets labor started."
Daine crossed her arms. "You're telling me that what got me into this predicament is what is going to get me out of it?"
The midwife smiled as Numair flushed crimson. "Exactly." She patted Daine's leg. "You remember the rules - contractions close together, water breaking, or no movement, call me immediately." With that, and another ration of tea, she left.
"Well," Numair remarked beside her, once they were alone. "Sarra is at the nursery, and I have some time before I need to start working…"
She leveled her glare to him. "I'm not that desperate yet."
"It's not torture, Daine. We do it all the time. It may actually work."
"When you have someone's head trying to come out from between your legs, Numair, I will let you decide what is torture and what isn't."
"I'm just trying to be helpful," he murmured with a hint of teasing innocence.
"What would be helpful is if you would finish whatever it is you are working on."
"I told you, I am trying to quantify the size of—"
She pinched him, and he let out a small yelp. "I remember what you told me. You also told me it would take two days, and it's been four."
He rubbed his arm. "Alright, alright, I can take a hint. No sex for me."
With that, he left, shutting himself in his study and putting up wards once more.
...
No more than half an hour after the midwife left, another knock came to their door. Daine, who had actually decided to take a nap, grumbled and shuffled to answer it. A palace runner boy awaited on the other side, a note in hand. "From the nursery," he told her. Daine's stomach dropped as she took it. She dug a coin out of the bowl they kept by the door for just that reason and the boy nodded his thanks and left.
Your presence is needed in at the nursery immediately in regards to Sarralyn.
Daine's mind raced as she started down the palace hallways, walking as quickly as she could muster. Her bladder screamed in protest; she tried to ignore it.
Was Sarra sick? She had acted normal that morning, eating most of her breakfast (and throwing half of it onto the floor). She hadn't felt feverish or been fussy. Perhaps it was a stomach flu - the last thing they needed before the baby came. Sarra had given them all a stomach flu the past summer, and her parents still had nightmares about it.
Was she injured? She was a very rambunctious child, always running and falling and usually bruising herself in the process. Or, even worse, had she injured another child? She had been known to bite both her parents and Kitten before.
Daine was sweating and very close to losing control of her bladder by the time she made it to the nursery. She knocked, and the head nurse came to the door.
"Sarra—" Daine started. The woman held up a hand.
"Is fine. Not injured or sick. I have called you here to speak to you about her very…colorful…vocabulary."
"What?" Daine whispered, confused. The nurse walked into the hall and shut the door behind her.
"Sarralyn has been saying an obscenity all day, Mistress Salmalin. Shouting it, really. We cannot get her to stop."
Daine felt the color run from her face. "She's been…saying foul words? I don't know where—" Something dawned on her. "What word has she been saying?"
The nurse told her, spitting the word out like it was bad bread. Daine closed her eyes slowly. "I am going to kill him," she muttered.
"I believe you have figured out where she has picked it up, then," the nurse said smugly. She opened the nursery door and waved to an attendant, who brought Sarra and held her out to her mother.
"Mama!" Sarra said happily. Daine collected her child.
"She will need to take a three day hiatus from the nursery, as punishment," the nurse informed her.
"Punishment! She isn't even two! How is she supposed to know whether a word is bad or not?"
The nurse shrugged. "That is not for me to figure out, Mistress Salmalin. That is the job of her parents." And with that, the nurse slammed the door shut and left Daine, who still had to use the privy, holding her squirming child.
...
Daine didn't make it to the privy. By the time she got back to her rooms, Sarra on her hip, she had to change her loincloth. Thankfully she had not seen anyone in the halls as she has awkwardly carried a squirming toddler and also lost control of her bladder.
She let Sarra down on the rug to play and went to the door of Numair's study. She could feel the wards up as well as see them - the walls were covered in a sheet of shining black fire, and the air around them felt heavy. Usually, he left a small hole in them in case she desperately needed him. It was usually a small circle cut out of his magic in the middle of the door, just enough for her to reach through and knock. He called it a "peephole," like the tiny holes some people had in their doors to see who was coming and going. This time, however, there was no peephole. He must have forgotten, which Daine chalked up to sheer dumb luck, because she had decided she was going to hit him - hard - as soon as she could get her hands on him.
Resigned, she went into the hall and found a runner to bring them some lunch. She got Sarra to eat a little melon and rice, and found she could only get down an equal amount before she felt full. There was simply no more room inside her for meals.
She desperately tried to get Sarra to nap afterwards, rocking her awkwardly in her small room. Sarra stared up at her wide-eyed the entire time and babbled happily. She laid her in her crib with her favorite stuffed toy, a badger made from velvet, but Sarra stood up and bounced on the mattress.
"Please, please sleep," her mother begged, but Sarra just smiled at her and said the very word that had gotten her banned from the nursery. Daine rubbed a temple, very close to tears.
Making up her mind quickly, she pulled Sarra from the crib and took her out into the hall. Their rooms were at the end of it, close to a short staircase. "If walking stairs is what is going to get this baby to come, then walk stairs we will," she told Sarra. She carried her child to the bottom of them and sat her down. Sarra, who loved to crawl up the stairs, eagerly started up them on her hands and knees.
That was how Lindhall found them, nearly half an hour later. Daine had just turned around to ascend the stairs again, Sarra happily scooting down the last three steps.
"Well, hello dear," he said, stopping at the top of the landing. "Have you forgotten something from your rooms?"
Daine stared at him a moment, confused, and then laughed. "No, no. We have been out here for a while. Just trying to have this baby."
He cocked his head a bit. "Not presently, I hope."
Daine shook her head. "No. Apparently walking up and down stairs can start labor. And since Sarra here was banned from the nursery for using her Da's foul language, then decided to not take a nap, and Numair is locked away in his study with no way in, we are walking the stairs."
Lindhall looked pained. "I see." He came down the steps as Sarra called out happily to him. He bent to lift her, rearranging the papers he held in his hands to under his arm. "Perhaps I can take Sarralyn for a bit. We could visit the birds in my rooms."
Daine thought longingly of a nap. "You're busy, I know."
The mage shook his head. "Nothing that cannot be put off. I would like very much to spend my afternoon with this dear one." Daine smiled her relief. "Come, my darling," Lindhall told Sarra. "Let's go see our friends."
"Birds!" Sarra exclaimed happily.
...
Daine got her nap, and went to collect Sarra before dinner. Lindhall had already had food brought up for them, and she was thankful to get to eat with another adult for the first time in a few days. Sarra hardly ate at all, running around to the animals in Lindhall's rooms and babbling away to them. From what the animals told Daine, they could understand her babbling just about as well as two leggers. It made Daine giggle.
After dinner, Daine wanted to see the birds in the small aviary. Sarra beat her to it, running awkwardly into the room ahead. She fell onto her bottom at the center of the room, flung her hands up wide, and shouted, "BIRDS!"
The birds all came swooping down in a single motion, flocking to her and settling wherever they could. The ones that could not fit landed on the floor around her, cocking their colorful heads in awe to the little wildmage. Daine stood stock-still at the door, Lindhall coming to stand behind her.
"We are in trouble with that one, aren't we?" she muttered, wondering if this is what people saw when she did things like this. If so, she understood why some many people could be wary of her.
"I had a student, once," Lindhall mused, watching Sarra. "He was very powerful, so much that the Gift nearly leaked out of him at any turn. It took some time, but he figured it out." He smiled at her. "I think he is doing fairly well for himself, these days."
Daine grinned back. "Me and Numair's children have no chance of being normal, do they?"
He laughed. "Why on earth would they want to be normal?"
...
Daine put Sarra to bed early (which, thankfully, was easier than her nap had been) and changed into the huge, oversized nightgown which she was forced to sleep in these days. She much preferred sleeping in Numair's old shirts, but had to put them away months ago, when she could no longer get them over her breasts and belly.
She picked up a book and situated herself under the covers, the baby taking advantage of her stillness to kick with gusto. She watched as his limbs rolled under her gown, making her fell a bit queasy.
The door to the bedchamber opened, revealing her husband.
"I am fair vexed with you, Numair Salmalin," she said, tossing her book aside. He froze.
"Oh, dear. What have I done now?"
He looked disheveled, his loose hair sticking up in places, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. He hadn't bothered to shave in a few days, making him look even more tired. At first she thought there was a bruise under his left eye, then realized it was a smug of ink.
"What haven't you done?" she said, her voice steely. She motioned for him to come to the bed. He sighed, not unlike his own daughter during a scolding, and came to lay down beside her. "For beginners, you did not leave me a peephole in the ward."
He paled. "I forgot."
"I figured. What would have happened if I had gone into labor and we had no way to get to you? You could have stumbled in here to find me with a babe in my arms and Sarra climbing the walls!"
He took her hand. "I am so very sorry, dearest, and very thankful that did not happen." He looked at her skeptically. "I didn't right? You're not in labor?"
"Do I look like I am in labor?" she said through her teeth, and he shook his head quickly. "Second thing is that I asked you months ago to stop using foul words in front of Sarra and you didn't listen to me." She poked him hard in the chest. "And now Sarra is banned from the nursery for three days because she was screaming your favorite foul word at every other baby and nurse in there."
He winced. "Which one?" She told him. He covered his grin with a hand.
"It is not funny, Numair!" she yelled, smacking his arm. He got control of himself and shook his head.
"You are right. I'm sorry. It's not funny at all."
"What is even more not funny is the fact that she wouldn't take a nap after I had to go get her, and then she started saying the word to me."
Numair had to bite his lip. She smacked him again.
"You had better thank your gods that Lindhall came and took her for a while or I would have found someone to come and take down your wards so I could strangle you."
"No one can take down my wards, as I am sure you—" She hit him again, this time in the stomach, and he rolled on his injury with a groan. "That hurt," he rasped.
"Serves you right," she muttered.
He pushed himself up and put a hand on the other side of her, trapping her between his arms. His dark eyes locking hers, he said, "I am so very sorry, my darling. I wish I could make it up to you in usual fashion, but I don't think you would enjoy it very much at the moment." She rolled her eyes at that. "You may punish me in any way you see fit."
She grinned a tiny bit. "Oh, I'll think of something bad. Just please tell me you are done with your silly tests."
He nodded. "I am. I only need to write up a report and deliver it to Harailt—" He stopped when he saw the look in her eye. "Not delivered - I will have it sent." She nodded her approval. Whenever he delivered anything to Harailt he ended up spending the entire day at the university.
"Good. Then you can spend the day with Sarra."
"Yes." He kissed her gently, then looked thoughtful. "Was she using the obscenity in context? If she was, that would really show an advanced vocabulary—"
Daine smacked him again.
...
Another day passed with no baby still. Good to his word, Numair wrote up his report early the next morning and then took Sarra for the day, leaving Daine to her own devices. She couldn't walk the length of their rooms without her bladder leaking, so a trip to the stables was out of the question. No one seemed to want to visit her, all assuming she was "resting," which was absurd with how terribly uncomfortable she was. She would sit a few moments in a chair, then shift to the bed, then to the couch, never able to stay still long enough to actually rest.
Thankfully, her many animal friends came to keep her company. A group of palace cats and dogs came to lay beside her, gladly moving whenever she felt the need to. A few song birds came to her cracked window and chatted with her about their flock gossip. They took her mind off her discomfort, and for that she was thankful.
Her discomfort was much the same that night. She woke with a sharp punch to her bladder and sighed, pushing herself off the bed awkwardly to take care of that need. When she returned, she lay on her side and watched Numair sleeping peacefully through narrowed eyes. She rolled to her other side with a loud groan (which didn't disturb her husband in the slightest, much to her vexation) and tried to relax. The baby kicked her ribs. It felt as if his tiny toes were pushing through each individual bone. She pushed back, and felt the baby squirm away.
She was hot. She flicked the covers off and rolled to her back. She was only able to be comfortable for a few moments before it felt like all her organs were being squashed inside her. She rolled back over to face her husband with a sigh.
"Numair," she whispered. The moon was three quarters full and shone through their windows, enough for her to see that she hadn't woken him. She poked him hard in the chest. "Numair."
He opened his eyes with a start, taking a moment to focus on her.
"I'm desperate," she said quietly.
It took him a moment to process this, but when he did, he pushed himself up on his elbow and scooted closer. "You're sure?"
"Yes. You had best get on with it before I change my mind." He moved to take her into his arms, and she stalled his kiss with a finger on his lips. "My breasts are off limits."
"Of course," he said gravely.
"And you better not enjoy it."
"I will loathe every moment, my sweet."