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“Well, I sent the midwife home, and your husband is still over at his ma’s place with the rest of your brood.” Johanna said, shutting the door behind her as she entered the small bedroom again.
Roxane didn’t even look up, her eyes staring blankly at the bedclothes, still slick, the air still heavy with humidity and the scent of blood and sweat.
“Really, you should count yourself lucky, Rox.” She gestured to the laundry basket in the corner that held the silent, corpse-gray body of Roxane‘s newest child, still swaddled in bloody bedclothes.
“He might have come out looking like that old flame of yours, but at least neither him nor that sweet naïve husband of yours will ever have to know. Besides, you’re healthy as a horse, and just as good at getting right back up after throwing a foal. If this time is anything like what it was for your other three, you’ll be up and tending the inn guests by noon.”
Roxane’s hands balled into weak fists on the damp bed sheets. She knew that this was just her sister’s way of things - practical to the point of brutality… Although her use of livestock terms was no doubt intended to twist the knife just a bit. Even though the little body was still warm and the midwife probably hadn’t even made it out the front door.
“At least he won’t have to live his life paying for the consequences of my selfishness.”
“Neither will you, apparently.” Jo scoffed and wrinkled her nose, turning away from her sister. “Tell me, Rox… Was it worth it?”
Roxane closed her eyes. Jo always had to make sure she had the last word in any conversation. It made her want to scream on the best of days. And today was definitely not the best of days.
“For shite’s sake, Jo. Of course it wasn’t! And at least look me in the eye if you‘re going to rake your claws over me like a godsdamned harpy.” Roxane snapped.
Johanna fell silent, apparently unable to fulfill her sister’s request. Instead, she looked out the garden window as wearily as if she’d been the one who had just spent hours in childbirth. She had always tried to be the level-headed and logical foil to her oft-maudlin and overemotional sister, but it wasn‘t easy.
“He’d been such a godsdamned know-it-all when we were teenagers…” Roxane said. “I hung on his every word and he didn’t even care. And he didn’t change at all after all those years. Just once, I wanted to teach him something. Hear him stop going on about magical theory and all that other bullshit long enough to realize he was alive and so was I.”
“So you, sanguine and well-traveled lady that you are, decided to sleep with him.” Jo said flatly as she sat down at the end of the bed. “We’ve been over this before, Rox… Taking a tumble with everyone you found interesting might have worked in your youth, but you…”
“Shut up, Jo!” Roxane’s voice cracked into a falsetto shriek. She stared venomously at her sister, the fury in her dark eyes only subsiding as she dissolved into tears.
Johanna sighed again and shook her head. Without saying a word, she wrapped her arms around her sister, letting her bury her face in her shoulder. Roxane began to weep even more intensely, her body wracked by the kind of great gasping sobs that could only come when one was truly exhausted. Spasms of grief that were a cold, empty parody of the labor pains she had endured just hours before. Tears began to well up in Johanna’s eyes as well, despite herself, and she held her sister even tighter. She genuinely believed that Roxane deserved to suffer for betraying her family, but the death of a child was never something to endure dry-eyed, no matter the circumstances.
At first there was no other sound in the room save Roxane’s sobs, hanging in the air like oppressive smoke. But, smoldering beneath her weeping was another sound. Just a tiny, whining spark. But as the moments passed, it grew clearer and brighter, rising into a roaring flame of vivid sound.
A baby’s cry.
The sisters seemed to come to the realization at the same moment. Roxane’s breath caught in her throat with a strangled cough as she tried to stifle the sounds of her sobbing. Johanna barely dared to breathe at all. There was no question of what they were hearing. Roxane lurched forward in her sister’s arms towards the corner of the room, nearly pushing her over despite her weakness and exhaustion.
“Jo! Give him to me, Give me my baby!” Roxane yelped, tears still streaming down her face.
Too shocked to question it, Jo leapt up and nearly tripped over her own feet as she rushed to the pile of writhing, wailing sheets. Clutching it to her chest, she practically dove back to the bed, hastily delivering the bundle into her sister’s outstretched arms.
Her hands deft but still trembling, Roxane pulled aside the topmost layer of cloth, and was met with the pinched face and hearty squall of a healthy newborn. She had spared him barely a glance when he was born, as seeing the pallid, lifeless form of a child was more that she could bear. But now she found herself unable to take her eyes off of him, as if even daring to blink would break whatever spell had brought her boy back to life. She began to cry again, but this time with joy and gratitude, roaring into life above the ashes of her sorrow. Roxane wrapped her child in her arms so tightly that Jo thought she might strangle the life back out of him. Her whole body shook as she bent over nearly double to press as much of the little boy to her as possible. Her thick black hair cascaded down her shoulders, enshrouding them both in a lustrous black curtain until the boy was scarcely visible at all. Their two voices danced in the air, fluttering brightly amongst each other in wordless exultation.
“I don’t know how this happened… But thank the Twelve.” Roxane whispered.
Regaining her composure somewhat, Jo wiped the tears from her eyes. Her immediate instinct was to remind her sister that there was no way she could keep the boy, but what she had just witnessed had cowed her into reverent silence. Both she and the midwife had confirmed that the boy was stillborn. It had been nearly a bell since his birth, and during the course of that time, he never drew his first breath, and his heart did not beat. There had been no hope… even a skilled conjurer would not have been able to revive him.
After many moments spent embracing her now-thriving new baby, Roxane unfolded against the pillows behind her, brushing her hair from her eyes and finally allowing her tired body the rest it was due. Her arms, however, never loosened their hold on her boy. Part of her was still afraid that he was only attached to this world by the thinnest of threads, or that he wasn’t real at all … But the longer she looked at her child, the more she began to realize that he was real. This was real.
Unfortunately, so was the fact that this joy couldn’t possibly last. Though his face was round and rubicund as that of any newborn, Roxane could see by the point of his tiny nose and the warm sepia cast to his skin that no one would believe that he had the same father as her other children. There was no way she could keep him without her husband and other children knowing of her betrayal. And if she raised him, he might grow up believing he was responsible for it all. Perhaps even hating her for bringing him into the world, placed awkwardly and painfully between her and the rest of her family. Or was she just being selfish? Trying to pawn her shame off on someone else for the sake of her own comfort?
“You know you can’t hold onto him forever, even if he is a little miracle.” Johanna said, as if reading her sister’s thoughts.
“I know. I just need a little bit longer.“ Roxane sighed and closed her eyes.
Obliging her, Johanna furtively wiped the tears from her eyes and realized that she was smiling, apparently not immune to the joy of bearing witness to the beginning of a new life.
However, neither she nor her sister knew that another new life had gone unnoticed nearby, hidden from sight in the laundry basket. Red as blood and translucent, it was scarcely visible against the gore-stained sheets, only given away by its trembling and the ever-so-faint red glow that seemed to emanate from it. The same size and shape as a honeybee, it stirred on six tiny legs, tentatively flexing its crinkled, lacy wings for the first time. Whether it trembled out of fear or anticipation, no observer could say. The creature didn’t even know itself. The one thing it did know was that this world was where it needed to be.
((Hoo boy. Childbirth is a bit of a squick for me, mostly because I’m biologically capable of bearing children, the whole world seems to be shaming me for not doing so (or even wanting to do so,) and I’m just tired of hearing about it. That said, I’ve been intermittently batting this one around since day 1 of FFXIVwrite2021. Fal being the product of an affair and all, I feel like going over his birth and how his mother felt about it was important. No female character should ever be reduced to a conveniently functioning uterus. I think it also helps to show that while Fal might have his father‘s looks, at heart he is 100% his mother‘s son; made of love and bad decisions.))
***
“I think he needs a name.”
“Are you sure…? They say you shouldn’t name something if you don’t want to get attached.” Johanna said. Though she had tried to curb the scolding tone in her voice, it was quite clear that whatever magic spell was keeping her reverent and respectful before was no longer working.
“I think it’s a bit late for that, Jo.” Roxane said sarcastically. “We’ve been attached for nine moons now, and a name might be the only thing I can give him…” Roxane said.
Finally taking her eyes from her boy, Roxane looked out the window and was momentarily blinded by a flood of bright sunlight. As her eyes adjusted to its sudden brilliance, she noticed her garden was positively bathed in it. Most of the plants had begun to shed their bright flowers and lush leaves in preparation for autumn, and had taken on various tawny and brown shades. All except for the valerian. It persisted as it always did in its weedy tenacity, as thick and lush as it had been in spring. The morning sun shone through its many clumps of immaculate white flowers, its light haloing them in gold.
“Valerian?”
Johanna sighed and shook her head. “Oh Rox… You should be ashamed of yourself for getting into this mess, but do you really want to be reminded of it every time you look out your garden window?”
“How could I not be?” Roxane said, looking her sister in the eye with an expression gone deadly serious.
“But don’t you think naming a boy after a flower is…“ Johanna trailed off mid-sentence, her expression souring in sudden realization. “Oh, no… Don’t, Rox. Just don’t…
Roxane spoke firmly, not breaking her gaze. “If not for the excuse of bringing him that valerian root tea for his insomnia, I might never have even talked to him all those years ago, let alone ended up bearing his child in the here and now.”
A constant reminder of her transgression was the kind of suffering she believed she deserved, but she didn‘t dare say it. Her sister would have chastised her if she‘d voiced such an opinion out loud, even though she would happily have said it herself if she’d thought of it first.
“You know you’re never going to see either of them again after today, don‘t you?” Johanna said.
And there was her sister’s cold practicality, right on cue. Ignoring her for the moment, Roxane looked down at her new boy, feeling another small twinge of worry that he had never been alive at all, or that he would suddenly disappear. However, he remained, cuddled tightly against her breast and breathing comfortably, having fallen asleep after having endured the harrowing ordeal of enduring both birth and death in less than a bell. Roxane smiled, though the cool gravity in her eyes remained.
“You know what, Jo? I’m not going to try to justify myself to you anymore.” she said. “But you know… The ‘rian part is too close to Rian’s name… And I already have a child with a V name.”
Jo rolled her eyes as Roxane kept talking to herself, poring over the names of her legitimate family members as if her new bastard would ever get to meet them. Her ability to jump from one extreme emotion to another almost enviable… A few summers shy of 40 and still as flighty and mercurial as a teenage girl. Jo sighed quietly and again gathered the dirty laundry.
“I’ve got it.”
“His name is Falerin.”
“Whatever you say, Rox.”