Calla
Nine Months Later
Finn has been in labor for twelve hours and I was worried.
A half orc pregnancy should not have lasted this long and I was starting to wonder if Finn was indeed a human. Maybe somewhere down his line was an elf, or perhaps an imp given his short stature.
That was another thing that made me worry. Orc kits are larger than human babies. Even half orc kits can be double the size of human babies. Hell, even my own had given me some troubles and I was half elf and much taller than Finn.
The man in question groans on the bed, his face pale and covered in sweat, his eyes glossy. He was struggling to stay awake and I feared that if he fell asleep, he wouldn't ever wake up.
I'd sent Brunk to fetch a healer hours ago and there still wasn't any sign of him. No sound of his footsteps, no scent on the wind, nothing. He should have been to the village and back twice by now.
Unless...
Unless the healer wasn't in the village.
Unless he'd had to go the next one over, or the next, or the next. If that was the case, Finn would be dead long before they got back.
"Calla?" He croaks out. "Something's wrong, isn't it?"
"I.. I don't know," I half lie. There definitely was something wrong but I didn't know what. "But I can find out. I'll have to feel inside you for the kit, see what's happening with it. Can I do that?"
"I trust you."
Going to the bed, I pull up the blankets around his waist, trying not to show the worry at the amount of blood soaking into the sheets.
Trying to be as gentle as I can, I slowly put a hand inside Finn, feeling for the kit. He groans but doesn't move, his hands clenching the blanket tightly.
After a second, my fingers find the kit. In the wrong position.
Shit.
"I need to cut the kit out of you," I tell him as I remove my hand. "You'll both die if I don't, It's sideways, blocking the birth canal." Placing my ear against his stomach, I listen as hard as I can, praying to all the gods that there is still a heart beat. My heart sinks with every second that I don't hear one, but then, very faintly, there's a small thump thump.
Sighing in relief, I pull away and tell him, "there is still hope. Your child still lives but I don't know for how long. I need to do this, Finn. It is now or never."
He breathes shakily before nodding, "save my baby."
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Twenty minutes later and I'm toweling off a very small newborn kit. Blood coats its face and is matted in its hair. It has no tusks, but that wasn't surprising, most half orcs don't. Its skin is a much lighter green than most orcs, even lighter green than my kids. But what did surprise me most, was its eyes.
One blue and one almost black.
One for each of its fathers.
"Nisha!" I yell. The sound of running feet reaches me moments before my daughter does, "take off your shirt. The child needs skin contact." She strips her shirt quickly and I place the kit in her arms, "watch over them while I help Finn. Go." She's gone just as fast she came and I go to Finn, who passed out after the second cut of my knife.
The bed around him is soaked in blood, his skin getting paler by the second. "Goddess please do not let me make that child an orphan."
Grabbing a needle and thread, I get to work trying to sew Finn back together.
After the Wilderbeast, I wish that I could say my sewing had gotten better, but it hasn't. The uneven stitching on my children's clothes were proof of that.
It takes much longer than it should have to sew him up, my stitches uneven but his skin is held together. Grabbing a clean rag, I set about cleaning the blood off of him, and then stripping the bed, rolling him gently to each side until he's on clean sheets.
When I'm done, the room doesn't look like a battle scene, but the unmistakable scent of death is slowly creeping in. "You do not get to die," I tell Finn firmly. "You must live for your child. I'll not tell you what it is until you wake up. So you cannot die, because the child needs a name, needs you. So you cannot die. You can't."
"Mama?"
I turn to find Nisha standing in the doorway, the kit in her arms, "how's the little one?"
"Hungry I think," she says as she looks down at the small infant. "And needs its cloth changed." She looks over at Finn, "is he going to die?"
I follow her gaze, "I don't know. I hope not."
"Papa will be back soon," Nisha says certainly.
"How do you know?"
She shrugs, "just a feeling."
The baby cries softly and I sigh, "I hope you're right. Now, let's go feed that one."
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I'd just gotten the kit to sleep when Brunk comes crashing through the front door, a small woman clinging to his back. I stare in shock at the absurd picture in front of me, watching the woman slide off Brunk's back.
"Where's the patient?"
"Through there," I tell her, snapping out of my stupor. "He had a difficult birth."
"I would imagine considering men are ill equipped for it," she says as she heads to the door. "Nobody bother me."
She disappears into the room, the door closing firmly behind her. "Where did you find her?" I ask Brunk who has sunken to the floor and is breathing heavily.
"Moonrun," he grunts.
"You went to the witches?" I gasp. "Why? That's nearly fifty leagues away!"
"They weren't my first stop," he answers. "The healers.. none would help."
My breath freezes in my lungs, "what do you mean?"
"They wouldn't help," he repeats sadly. "Because of how he is. None would come."
"He could have died!"
"But he isn't," the witch says as she comes out of the room. "I'm going to assume you attempted to stitch him back together?" I nod and she huffs, "maybe stick to monster hunting."
"You know us?" I ask her cautiously. Her face was unfamiliar to me but she looked at me like we were old friends.
She grins, "don't tell me you don't remember. This is the second bit of unethical magic I've done for you Calla Thornshield."
"That isn't my name," I tell her. "I've never seen you before."
She laughs, "it will be." Her face scrunches and suddenly it changes. Changes to the witch who I begged, long ago, to spell my womb to prevent pregnancy. "Recognize me now?"
"Della?" I gasp. "How?"
She shrugs, "right place at the right time I suppose. I recognized this one when he came running into town and I'll admit I was curious as to the life you've made. So here I am. I fixed your man up, fixed all that was wrong and he should live a long life." She pauses, "he has much sadness and anger in his heart. Help him with that before it overtakes him."
And then she's gone.
One second she was there and the next there was nothing. The door hadn't moved and neither had she. Even her scent was gone from the room.
"Nisha," I call softly. "Take the child."
Nisha takes the infant from my arms and Brunk hauls himself up from the floor. Together we go to Finn and when I see him I gasp, "what did she do?"