Epilogue
Thirty Years Later…
It was 3 a.m. before Karina returned home, exhausted but happy. Erynne had given birth to her second child, a daughter, with a minimum of fuss and was now sleeping peacefully. Anduin had greeted his new daughter with a combination of joy and relief.
Erynne's first pregnancy had gone well, up until the birth. Complications arose, necessitating the Healing magic of her attending ladies. Karina wasn't there for that birth, herself not a mother at the time, but from what she'd heard, there was some doubt that Erynne would be able to conceive another. She wasn't sure what had gone wrong, and Erynne didn't want to talk about it. The fact that she had conceived again then led to concerns that this second birth would be as eventful as the first one was.
It wasn't. If anything, this birth was faster and easier. Perhaps the Healing magic used the first time around had Healed whatever the condition was that led to the complications. In any case, mother and child were doing just fine. As she kicked off her shoes and stowed her wraps in the closet by the door, Karina thought back to her own pregnancy, twenty-five years ago.
Generally, a couple would only conceive after the first year of bonding. It was said that Danu wanted to give a newly bonded couple at least a year to themselves without adding a child to the mix. After she and Randel had passed the one-year mark since their bonding, Karina began to feel a bit apprehensive. She knew it was going to happen eventually, but lingering worry over how Randel would feel about a pregnancy made her dread every time her moon days were scheduled to appear. She wasn't sure whether she was relieved or saddened when they arrived as usual. As Randel could count like anybody else, she'd always seen that anxiety in his eyes when it got closer, only to disappear when her moonblood was upon her.
They'd never discussed children, not after that brief mention of them the night they'd life-bonded. While Randel had accepted that they were a natural consequence of marriage, he was by no means comfortable with it. Karina tried to keep his dread to a minimum by avoiding the topic altogether. Her parents understood this, her father in particular, and never gave them arch looks, hints, or jests about producing grandchildren, for which Karina was grateful.
Helena also followed the same precepts as their parents did and never prodded her about pregnancy, probably because Helena herself had no intention of marrying or having children for at least the next two centuries. She was intent on establishing a Healing college in Caladh, a place where women from all over the Kingdom could go to get training in Healing magic and human medicine. This dovetailed neatly with Tremane's dream of founding a type of university, a place where scholars could congregate and exchange their knowledge and ideas and share them with students. Toby and Aurelet were intensely interested in this idea, as well. The four of them were making plans to attend University in the Aboveground as their first real step forward. Helena's plan went even further, to follow in Healer Melina's footsteps and serve in an actual hospital in order to acquire hands-on knowledge.
They were aided in this by (of all people) Randel, who had kicked around with Anduin the idea of a military school, where officers could be trained in tactics, history, and battle theory. Both he and Anduin would teach at the military wing of the school and Randel devoted much of his time to working with Helena and Tremane to make this Collegium (as they called it) a reality. Helena had told Karina that their plans for the Collegium kept her very busy, too busy to be worried about expanding the family just yet.
For Karina though, marriage with Randel was… not how she'd thought it was going to be. At least, not at first. It was unfair of her, to be sure, but she'd thought he would settle into domestic life easily and that their dramatic courtship was the apex of the difficulties between them. She was wrong. While loving, affectionate, and certainly passionate, Randel literally had no idea how to be a good husband, having been alone for so very long. While he'd never purposefully hurt her feelings, he could at times be unintentionally inconsiderate. Their first three years were a bit rocky, to say the least.
And to be fair, she still needed to grow up and stop acting like the petulant Princess she'd been her whole life. If Randel needed to learn how to be a husband… well, she could have used a lesson or two in how to be a wife.
It was a tough road, in some ways tougher than their courtship (if you could even call it that) had been. She shouldn't have been surprised that she'd failed to get pregnant during that time. If she had been Danu, she wouldn't have blessed them with a child either. But things evened out between her and Randel over time. Randel began to think of them as a unit and not make his decisions based on just himself. She in turn began to compromise and not expect to get her way in all things. In a way, they learned together.
By their fourth year, married life was rather blissful. She couldn't remember ever being so happy and, although he never said it out loud, she knew that Randel felt the same way. She could see it in his aura, from the sparkle in his eyes, the way he'd whistle merrily as he moved about the manor, in the tenderness of his touch. It was therefore all the more traumatic when she realized that she was pregnant.
For three weeks after the confirmation, she'd kept the news from Randel. Eventually, she couldn't hide it any longer (him coming upon her in the toilet compartment while her stomach turned itself inside out was perhaps his first clue as to what was happening). When she'd finally stammered out her condition, he'd gone white… a haunted look sweeping his countenance. To his credit, he'd taken care of her and saw to her comfort, but she could see it in his face… he was terrified.
That night, he'd gone out and drank himself into oblivion. Their household staff had to carry him in and lay him out on the bed, where he proceeded to vomit all over their sheets. Karina said nothing, simply took care of him and tried not to act out in hurt at his reaction.
As her pregnancy progressed, he was considerate of her, to be sure. He practically waited on her hand and foot, and treated her with much love and affection, but that undercurrent of fear was still there, still in the back of his eyes. She'd always heard stories about how husbands couldn't keep their hands off their pregnant wives, that she should expect him to become even more lustful than he usually was. That didn't happen. If anything, he avoided making love during her pregnancy, and what encounters they'd had were all initiated by her.
The first time he'd felt the baby move within her, she was treated to a repeat of his reaction to the news of her pregnancy. The day their son was born, while she was laboring to bring him into the world, Randel was swimming at the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniels that he had acquired for the occasion. He was so drunk that he couldn't even come and see his son when the birth was over and had to dry out in the solar. The next day, he came to their chamber, looking much the worse for wear, self-loathing coming off him in waves.
Tempting as it was to have castigated him for this little stunt, Karina tried to look at things from his perspective. As he stood before her in shame and contrition, her heart went out to him; and she elected instead to greet him with a forgiveness which shined through to him in her aura. It was perhaps this that allowed him to pick up his son for the first time with more confidence than he might have had otherwise.
And… that was that. Little Zander won his father over completely. During the first few weeks after the birth, she'd actually had to fight her husband just to hold her own son. This too eased up (it had to… Randel wasn't capable of feeding the baby, as Karina had laughingly pointed out). Now an adorable toddler, Zander and Randel were partners in crime, always getting into some kind of mischief together the moment her back was turned.
With the birth of their son, Randel was able to let most of the fear go, although Karina knew it would never disappear entirely. Their romantic activities, which had seen such a drastic drop in frequency while she was pregnant, had returned in abundance. He no longer counted the days between her moonblood with rising anxiety and even grinned at her when someone mentioned giving Zander a little sister.
As she entered the nursery to check on her son, she stopped, puzzled for all of five seconds. Zander wasn't there. Shaking her head in loving exasperation, she knew exactly where she'd find him. She padded silently into their bedchamber, smiling at the sight of Randel sprawled out on their bed, one arm wrapped around their son, who was curled up on his chest. She quickly changed into a nightgown, slipping into the bed without disturbing her boys.
As if sensing her presence, Randel stretched out his other arm and wrapped it around her, pulling her close. She cuddled into the two of them and lay there in the darkness, completely content.
Yes, she and Randel had come far. She could barely wait until tomorrow. She was actually looking forward to telling him about their daughter, who even now was growing within her.
Author's Notes:
The chapter before this one was the original ending, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that we needed an epilogue. Randel had a lot of issues, and there was no way that he and Karina were going to just sail into married life smoothly. In a way, they both had to do a little growing up.
While it would be easy to dunk on Randel for how he behaved during Karina's pregnancy, it needs to be remembered that he has an absolute terror of becoming a father... it's a full-blown phobia. Yes, he acted badly, but even in spite of his crushing fear, he tried to get through it as best he could. That he even married Karina knowing this was going to happen... should at least spark a bit of admiration that he fought down his fear to a point where he was willing to at least try. Phobias are no joke, and it's rather extraordinary that he was able to eventually conquer it. Karina understood this, which is why she didn't rip him a new one when she had every right to.
Anyway, that's the end of Randel's tale of finding love. I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did. Next up… a grimmer tale, one that takes us back to the Great War and how Jareth became King of the Goblins.
