The next morning, the contractions were heavier but still not consistent enough to call the midwife. Daine walked up and down the stairs again until lunch, then took a nap when Sarra did. Numair worked on something in his study, then came into their bedchamber that evening to see her trying to fit into one of the few formal dresses she had had altered to fit her growing middle.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Getting ready for dinner."
There was, in fact, a state dinner that night, to honor some ambassador that neither of them knew that well. He had assumed they wouldn't attend.
"Daine…" he started, and was met with a glare.
"If this baby doesn't want to ever come out of me, then I am going on with my life! I can't stay cooped up in these rooms another day!" She gestured at her gown. "Come tie this up!"
He hesitated, and the look she gave him made him come to her and start lacing up her dress. Numair had known Daine for fourteen years and had lived with her for a majority of them. He knew when to pick his battles with her stubbornness.
Daine had already arranged for Sarra to stay with Lindhall until after dinner, and had taken her eariler. She finished dressing, pushing large pearls with a spray of sapphires under them into her ears that Numair had gifted her after Sarra was born. Her wedding band wouldn't fit, but she found a ring that she usually wore on her middle finger with a sapphire set into it and wore that instead. The last thing she wanted was people whispering about where her wedding band was before she was about to have another baby.
She only had one pair of shoes she could fit her poor, swollen feet into - a pair of slippers, delicate and only covering her toes and the front of her foot. She slipped them on and prayed she could keep them on her feet the entire night.
When they were both dressed, they headed out the door. Numair looked as handsome as ever in black and dark gold, and she once again thought about how much her body had changed in the past year and a half.
As they arrived at the staircase by their rooms, a contraction hit Daine. She stopped, tightening her hold on her husband's hand to stop him as well. He turned back to look at her pinching her lips together in obvious pain.
"Just false labor," she assured him. He sighed, finally giving in to his worries.
"This is ridiculous, Daine. You can't even make it down a flight of stairs. Please, let's just go back to our rooms and rest."
She shook her head as the pains stopped. "Nope. I already told you - I am not spending another evening penned up in there. Let's go before we are late."
"You cannot be serious," he said, voice dangerously low, not budging from where he stood.
"I am absolutely serious." She untwined her hand from his. "Now you can go with me, or I will just go by myself, which is guaranteed to start off all kinds of rumors." She started down the hall, holding onto wall for support as she tottered. It only took him one stride to catch back up with her, grabbing her hand again.
"One of these days, your stubbornness is going to get you into something I can't get you out of," he said. She laughed.
"You keep saying that, but so far it hasn't happened."
...
The entire room turned to look at them as they entered. Daine leveled most of their gazes with a glare, but could still hear the whispers that followed her as they walked into the room. It was almost taboo to be seen out in public as pregnant as she was; to attend a royal function as large as she was was even more of a scandal.
Thankfully, Daine was saved by the queen. Guests were standing by the tables in conversation, waiting for the dinner to start, as Thayet made her way to Daine, flanked by some of her attendants.
"Trying to go into labor at dinner?" the queen asked, looking her over.
"Tired of being penned in," Daine confessed with a smile. The queen returned it.
"I remember the feeling quite well. How is Sarra doing, after being banned from the nursery?"
Daine blushed. "You heard about that?"
Thayet laughed. "Of course I did. I think it's ridiculous that they won't let you bring her, and I told them so. They have promised me that she will not be banned again."
...
Dinner started, though Daine had no room for the fancy foods in front of her. Numair sat on one side of her, but was in deep conversation with Harailt, and the fine lady on her other side was too snobby to speak to someone so scandalously full of child. Daine suddenly missed being a less important part of court, before she was married. When Numair and her were just lovers, she didn't get invited to any and every court function like he did. When she did get invited, she was always sat at a lower table with less important people, but they were much better dinner partners. Now that she was Numair's wife, she was always sat by him, at a higher table - something Daine found a little bizarre. Didn't a married couple spend all their free time together, anyhow? She had said so to her husband and he had just laughed and told her that wasn't how court politics worked.
Plates were brought and taken away. She continued to feel the stabbing ache of contractions, slowly intensifying as another course came. The pain became sharp enough to take her breath away. She counted the seconds in between them and got only to three minutes before another hit.
Uh oh, she thought. That wasn't good. The pain lessoned and she started counting again, once again making it to three minutes before the next one hit. Numair's comment about her stubbornness came to her, and she realized he may have been right this time.
She reached out to grab his hand, trying to get his attention, but deep in his conversation he only absently laced their fingers together and continued to talk to Harailt. Another contraction hit, this one by far the worst. She gripped his hand hard and muttered, "Numair."
He turned to her, his smile disappearing as he took in her pain skewed face. "What is it, dearest?"
"The…baby!" she hissed through the cramping in her middle.
He paled. "Now?"
She nodded, letting out a puff of air she had been holding. Her husband was momentarily frozen.
"What do we do?" he asked. She let out an exasperated sigh.
"Leave, you dolt!"
She started to stand and he did as well, drawing the attention of the whole room. With his arm around her shoulder to guide her, he all put pushed her out of the room and into the empty hallway. There she clutched her middle as another contraction racked through her, starting to sink towards the floor. He grabbed her under the arms to lift her up.
"I told you this was ridiculous, Daine!" he hissed.
"I remember," she whispered through gritted teeth. "Spare me the lecture, please."
The pain passed. They started their way through the halls, Daine clutching her husband and breathing deeply as the pressure in her pelvis grew to unbearable levels.
"Let me carry you," Numair offered, but she shook her head.
"I am far too big for that. I can—" She cut off suddenly, a contraction taking her breath away. She grunted with the pain, and then felt liquid rush down her legs and onto the floor. Numair's eyes widened as her dress started to stain with it.
At that moment, one of the queen's attendants came up behind them in the hall. "Do you require the midwife? My queen sent me to inquire."
"Yes," Numair said, eyes still wide. "Please, have her meet us in our rooms. Quickly."
The attendant hurried off. Another contraction racked Daine, and Numair swore and scooped her up in his arms. She didn't fight him - she was too concentrated on the awful, shooting pains in her middle. She let out a loud groan.
"Magelet, your tendency to get yourself into impossible situations will never cease to amaze me," her husband told her. She managed a tight laugh. "Also," he said, "I think the canoodling worked."
"Maybe…a little too well," she panted, pushing her face into his fancy tunic in pain.
They made it to their rooms as quickly as he could manage. Numair started towards the bedchamber but Daine effectively stopped him by yelling, "PUT ME DOWN HERE!" He obliged, setting her down on the rug by the couch, holding on to her arms and she lowered into a squat and started to bare down.
"Are you…pushing?" he asked, eyes going wide again.
"Yesss," she hissed. "He…he is…coming."
Numair looked like he was going to be sick. "Oh, Goddess, please let the midwife arrive," he whispered. In a direct answer to his prayer, the door opened and the midwife and two assistants descended upon them.
"Well!" the midwife proclaimed. "Looks like you finally got yourself into labor."
Daine answered with a cry of pain, and the midwife helped her into a sitting position and started pulling back her skirts and pulling off her wet loincloth. She looked over Daine's shuttering belly with a bit of a stare. "He's crowning."
"I…figured," Daine huffed.
"I hope you don't like this dress," the midwife said, waving her assistants into place. "Master Salmalin, in or out?"
Numair faltered for a moment. "Uh…in."
The midwife nodded. "Then make yourself useful and support her shoulders." He moved behind Daine onto the couch, bracing her from behind. "Daine," the midwife instructed, "on the next contraction I need you to push as hard as you can."
She nodded. The assistants came to brace her knees. The next contraction hit her like a hundred knives in the stomach and the back, and she let out an unearthly yell and pushed with all her might. "Breathe!" the midwife reminded her, and she huffed out her air. The contraction passed and she gasped for a breath.
"One more should do it, dear. Don't stop pushing this time."
Daine nodded. When the last contraction took her a few moments later, she pushed with all her might, feeling the attendants and her husband holding her tight, giving her more leverage to get the baby out. She felt like she was walking through fire, and remembered distantly walking through a curtain of flame before the Dragonlands. This was much, much worse.
She reached the end of her push but the midwife yelled for her to keep going. She let out another scream, this one deep from within. Distantly, she registered animals all over the palace grounds erupting in their own cries and calls, feeling her pain with her. Then, in the next moment, all the People called out in celebration, as a new wildmage was born.
...
Daine saw the babe as the midwife freed him. She had caught him in a towel and was rubbing his chest and beating his back to free his lungs of fluid. After a long, terrifying moment, the baby sputtered, then took a lungful of air and cried loudly. Daine found she was crying as well. The midwife started to hand the babe off to an assistant, but Daine shouted, "No!" and held out her arms. The midwife just rolled her eyes and handed the baby over to his mother. After what they had survived with Sarra, she couldn't deny Daine the joy of holding her baby.
Daine took the crying child, holding him close. Blood and mucus got all over her gown, but she didn't care. She hadn't like the gown that much to begin with. "It's alright, little one. Your Ma has you." The baby heard her voice and his cries lessened. "That's right," she whispered. "It's your Ma. Do you know my voice?"
She felt a kiss on her cheek. "Wonderfully done, my love," Numair told her. She leaned back against him gratefully. "He's perfect."
"He is," she said, and kissed the baby's head.
...
Some time later, the assistant brought Numair the baby, freshly cleaned and wrapped in a blanket. Earlier, Daine had nursed the baby and had been taken by the midwife to get cleaned up in the tub. The assistant went to join them in the other room, leaving father and son alone in the bedchamber.
Numair held the tiny baby close, staring into his sleeping face. He had a smattering of dark hair on his head and perfect, bowed red lips that puckered in his sleep. Numair smiled and kissed his son on his round cheek.
He had found that holding his babies for the first time was a lot like what falling in love with their mother had been like; wondrous, heartbreaking, exciting, and terrifying all at the same time. His heart felt very near to tipping over when Daine was assisted back into the room. The ladies attending her helped her to lay down on the bed and tried to tuck the blankets around them, but she shoved them off.
"I'm burning up," she told them. They moved to open a window instead, and Numair brought her the baby, sliding in on his side of the bed and scooting over to press against her. She took her son, and he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her head onto his chest.
The baby awoke when he smelled his mother and started to root against her chest. She unlaced the front of her nightgown to nurse him.
"He has your eyes," Numair remarked quietly, stroking the baby's forehead.
"They will probably change and be dark like your's and Sarra's."
He shook his head. "I don't think they will." He kissed her temple. "We make pretty babies, don't you think?"
She laughed. "It's just because their Da is so handsome."
He kissed her head again. "And a name?"
"I think the one we talked about will suit just fine."
...
Nearly two months later, Daine was pushing pins into her hair in a rare moment of quiet. She was wearing a new blue gown, embroidered in silver and with little gems sewn into it. It had discreet hooks up the bust for when she had to nurse the baby, and it fit her well and made her feel pretty when she simply hadn't felt pretty in quite some time. She had thought about wearing an older dress for the occasion of her son's naming day, but Numair had insisted she spend the money and order something new, and she was glad he had.
She slipped on her wedding band and the other, larger band with a ring of blue topazes she wore stacked on top of it. In her ears went the pearls she had received on Sarralyn's naming day, and she dug for a necklace to wear beside her badger's claw when the bedchamber door opened and Numair came in holding the squirming toddler.
"The baby?" Daine asked, turning to look at them. He was dressed equally as fine as she was, with dark breeches and shirt and an embroidered velvet tunic in the same shade as her dress.
"Just starting to wake. Is this what you had in mind for Sarralyn?"
Daine smiled at her daughter, who had escaped her father and was climbing onto their bed at top speed. She wore a golden dress with embroidered bears, rabbits, and foxes dancing around the bottom. "It's perfect. Now about her hair…"
"I can do it." Numair took up a brush and a blue ribbon from the dresser. "You go feed the baby."
Daine hesitated. "I want it half up, just out of her eyes, and make sure the ribbon is tied in a bow. I can already hear Ma fussing at me if her granddaughter looks like she's had birds nesting on her head."
Numair smiled. "You act as if you are the only one in this family with unruly hair. I promise, I have it."
She nodded, and went to the small nursery in their apartments. The baby was just stirring as she opened the door and lifted him from his crib. She unhooked her dress and sat in the rocking chair, humming to him as he gladly ate, large blue eyes staring up at her.
So far, he was a much easier baby than his sister had ever been. He was content to sit and watch the world, slept wonderfully, and nursed well. As long as he wasn't hungry, he was happy, and had even started to smile at them in the past few days.
When the babe was fed, burped, and changed into his elaborate naming day gown, she joined her family in the main room. Sarra was playing with her stuffed toys, her hair nicely tied back for the moment. Numair patted the couch for Daine to sit next to him.
"We need to go—"
He shook his head. "One more thing, dearest. We have plenty of time."
She sat, and he presented her two small boxes. She eyed him suspiciously. "This is two things."
He waved a hand in dismissal and traded the baby for the boxes. She opened the larger one first and sucked in a breath. "Numair," she said in wonder. It was a necklace of perfectly round and shiny pearls, with a lovely sapphire clasped in the center.
"You needed something to match the earrings."
She gave him a sly grin and lifted it out. Together, one of his hands still holding the baby, they clasped it around her neck and straightened it.
"Beautiful," he said, and smiled into her eyes.
"And this one?" She asked, fingering the smaller box.
"Open it and see."
She did. It was a small ruby stone on a long silver chain, not unlike one she had owned in the past. She laughed. "Did you charm it yourself?"
He nodded. "I did. The strongest charm I could put on it."
She giggled, slipped it on and tucked it into her dress. "No more babies."
"Not for a little while, at least." He kissed his son. "This one will make you want to have ten babies."
She rolled her eyes. "You carry them and nurse them, and then we will talk."
...
They walked through the Royal Forest an hour later, a large group of their closest friends behind them. It was Midwinter, but the sun was shining brightly and warmed everyone throughly.
Most babies had a naming day well before two months, but when they had received word through the badger god that Daine's parents would be able to attend a naming day on the solstice, they had decided to wait. Danie was glad for the wait, actually. It had given her time to rest, recover, and not feel quite so much like she was half-dead. Her son may have been a good baby, but he was a baby all the same.
They had arranged a meeting place not too deep in the woods, a small clearing where, Daine could see, her parents already awaited her. Her mother was radiant as the Green Lady, and her father was trying to look intimidating as always. Their group came to the clearing, and Daine and Numair stopped with their children in front of the gods.
Sarra stepped up and kissed them all, then took the babe and admired him. Sarralyn, in her father's arms, pouted that her namesake was giving attention to another baby. Weiryn bent to kiss Daine's cheek and then nodded to Numair.
"Mage," he said.
"Always a pleasure to see you, Lord Weiryn," Numair replied with a small grin as his wife exclaimed, "Da! He is your son-in-law, you could call him by his name!"
Weiryn just looked at her gravely, and Daine shook her head in frustration. Numair had long ago stopped worrying about pleasing her father, though he still harbored resentment for Weiryn's complete abandonment of his daughter and mate when Daine was a child, even if he was a god.
The priestess of the Great Goddess stepped forwards. "Perhaps we might begin?" It was Midwinter after all; people had other festivities to attend to.
Sarralyn went to her grandmother's arms as Daine took the baby and Numair came to put his hand on his wife's shoulder.
"Who are the parents of this child?"
"We are," the said together.
"And do you swear to raise this child to the highest of their ability, sacrificing yourself and your comfort to provide for them at all costs?"
"I swear," they both answered.
"And who are the godparents of this child?"
Harailt, Lindhall, and Lady Maura of Dunlath all stepped forwards.
"Do you swear to hold the parents accountable to this vow, and to take in this child as your own should the need arise?"
They all vowed to do so.
The priestess turned back the Daine and Numair.
"And what will the child be named?"
Daine grinned at her husband, who smiled down at her, before answering, "Rikash Salmalin."
...
Later that evening, as balls were held and parties attended, Daine and Numair returned early to their rooms and put their children to bed. Daine took a long bath and then dried off came out into the bedchamber, her towel left behind. Numair was on the bed, still in most of his fancy clothes, reading a book that had been gifted to him from Lindhall. He glanced at her, back to his book, then fully registering what he had seen, lifted his head and raised an eyebrow in amusement.
She came over and straddled him, taking the book and gently pacing a marker in it before tossing it aside. "I am more interesting, I promise," she said.
He took his hands over her hips and belly. "Yes, you are."
"Not there," she said, pushing his hands away from the pooch left behind from the babies. He looked gravely upset at her statement.
"Yes, here. In fact, I think this is where you are the most interesting. This is where you grew our children, where you gave them life."
She looked down at her belly, with scars old and new and a dark pregnancy line still visible up the middle. If he could see beauty there, she would have to believe him.
"And here?" she asked, cupping her very large, milk filled breasts. He moved her hands away and cupped them himself.
"These," he said, holding her eyes, "are my joy in life."
She laughed, and shook her head. "They currently don't belong to you."
"I know," he said sadly, and kissed both of them. "I envy Rikash every feeding."
She giggled, slowly unbuttoning his shirt.
"The midwife said this was alright?" he asked, moving his hands to her hips again. She nodded.
"She said it was alright weeks ago, but I needed some more time."
"Understandable," he said. "And you have your charm on?" He slid a finger over it even as he asked.
"I do." She smiled. "You seem a little hesitant."
"Me? Hesitant?" He laughed. "You should know that I am always willing, my sweet."
She lowered her lips to his, and kissed him gently. "I do know that," she said, and deepened the kiss.