Post by Willow on May 17, 2013 19:25:46 GMT -6
It was the middle of the night. The air was cool and damp with the promise of heavy rain.
Good. The land needed it. She could feel its thirst, its ache for life almost as vividly as she could feel the unborn children stirring in her belly. The land was restless, hungry - and so were the little demons inside of her. As Asina stood on her balcony, leaning gently against the rail, she placed a hand on her round and swollen abdomen and willed her children to settle. "Hush, my babies," she cooed softly to them. "Not yet, don't get ahead of yourselves." There was an angry kick to her spleen and she sucked in a quick gasp of pain.
"Little monster," she grumbled affectionately, rubbing the now inflamed area as if that would ease the pain. It gradually faded on her own and she let out a slow breath, standing up straighter as she returned her gaze to the dark horizon.
The moon was full and bright, which was a comfort to the Demon Queen as she lifted her face to the sky, bathing in the light from her goddess mother. It was cool light, absent of the warmth one might feel from the cheerful face of moon's more bubbly counterpart, but Asina could feel the embrace of that light anyway. It was a calming thing for the expecting mother, but her restless children seemed to take their mother's relaxation as a sign to start moving again.
Sucking in another gasp, Asina leaned more heavily against the rail, one hand on the small of her back and the other tightly cradling her belly. "Come now, Silus, don't be like that." She tried for commanding but it didn't quite work out well. It was hard to be commanding when a little foot was jabbing at your insides with all the power a baby demon could muster.
Asina let out a heavy sigh and shook her head. Less than two months. She still had to make it another month and a half - and that last six weeks seemed to stretch impossibly before her. Since Ryell and Mikael had arrived a couple of weeks ago Asina had gone into false labor three times. Iera had warned her that if it happened again it would probably be the real thing - her body just wouldn't be able to handle it. Like the babies inside of her, Asina was also a twin. Baby dragonborne are greedy things in the womb and twins were rare because of it. If there are two fetuses, one will almost always suck away more of the nutrients than the other and be the stronger baby. It might even consume its twin in the early stages. In the event that both make it to term, one is almost always significantly smaller.
In this case, although Asina had ended up coming into her power as a zephyr - the race more notably aggressive - rather than as an aeon like her sister Lilani, Asina had ended up the smaller one. She was slight in height and build, but had made up for it by rigorous training throughout her entire two thousand years of life. She was still a petite thing, but she had a hidden strength to her.
However, that hidden strength wasn't going to help her in this case. She was six inches shorter than the short side of average for a woman of her race, and her figure was narrow and petite. Carrying and delivering one child would have been difficult - two was potentially disastrous for both her and the children.
Because of this, Nakiera, the Avian healer that Asina was quite close with, had moved into the palace for the time being. These last two months were the most precarious and she needed to be on call for anything.
"My little monsters," she cooed lovingly as they finally stilled and she returned her attention to the dark horizon just as a light sheen of rain began to fall.
Good. The land needed it. She could feel its thirst, its ache for life almost as vividly as she could feel the unborn children stirring in her belly. The land was restless, hungry - and so were the little demons inside of her. As Asina stood on her balcony, leaning gently against the rail, she placed a hand on her round and swollen abdomen and willed her children to settle. "Hush, my babies," she cooed softly to them. "Not yet, don't get ahead of yourselves." There was an angry kick to her spleen and she sucked in a quick gasp of pain.
"Little monster," she grumbled affectionately, rubbing the now inflamed area as if that would ease the pain. It gradually faded on her own and she let out a slow breath, standing up straighter as she returned her gaze to the dark horizon.
The moon was full and bright, which was a comfort to the Demon Queen as she lifted her face to the sky, bathing in the light from her goddess mother. It was cool light, absent of the warmth one might feel from the cheerful face of moon's more bubbly counterpart, but Asina could feel the embrace of that light anyway. It was a calming thing for the expecting mother, but her restless children seemed to take their mother's relaxation as a sign to start moving again.
Sucking in another gasp, Asina leaned more heavily against the rail, one hand on the small of her back and the other tightly cradling her belly. "Come now, Silus, don't be like that." She tried for commanding but it didn't quite work out well. It was hard to be commanding when a little foot was jabbing at your insides with all the power a baby demon could muster.
Asina let out a heavy sigh and shook her head. Less than two months. She still had to make it another month and a half - and that last six weeks seemed to stretch impossibly before her. Since Ryell and Mikael had arrived a couple of weeks ago Asina had gone into false labor three times. Iera had warned her that if it happened again it would probably be the real thing - her body just wouldn't be able to handle it. Like the babies inside of her, Asina was also a twin. Baby dragonborne are greedy things in the womb and twins were rare because of it. If there are two fetuses, one will almost always suck away more of the nutrients than the other and be the stronger baby. It might even consume its twin in the early stages. In the event that both make it to term, one is almost always significantly smaller.
In this case, although Asina had ended up coming into her power as a zephyr - the race more notably aggressive - rather than as an aeon like her sister Lilani, Asina had ended up the smaller one. She was slight in height and build, but had made up for it by rigorous training throughout her entire two thousand years of life. She was still a petite thing, but she had a hidden strength to her.
However, that hidden strength wasn't going to help her in this case. She was six inches shorter than the short side of average for a woman of her race, and her figure was narrow and petite. Carrying and delivering one child would have been difficult - two was potentially disastrous for both her and the children.
Because of this, Nakiera, the Avian healer that Asina was quite close with, had moved into the palace for the time being. These last two months were the most precarious and she needed to be on call for anything.
"My little monsters," she cooed lovingly as they finally stilled and she returned her attention to the dark horizon just as a light sheen of rain began to fall.