Winter's Babe

[ncarr 2235]

Winter’s Babe

Twenty-first day of Wzuvar and Byvca, 518 E.S.

 

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A babe had been born, two royal children now born to the Barbanov Household and still the womb of the palace’s Grand Lady remained barren. Had her spirit been so unsettled that there was no place for a child to take root within her? Had she kept herself from pregnancy? Was she so far from God now that she could no longer foster life - what she was meant to do. 

 

Marjoreya prayed for a child, she petitioned the Patriarch to bless her womb and sought to pray alongside her small retinue of handmaidens at the break of dawn each morning and once more beneath the cloak of night. Though it was all for naught. Still she was without the thing she had wished for more than all else. 

 

She dreamt of her children; first a daughter who had hair similar to her own and eyes as verdant and bright as she - Marjoreya - and her siblings all bore. Second, a son, with tresses like his father’s and what she could only assume were strong Scyfling genes. She heard their jovial shouts and smelled the grass stains on their clothes. She could see them from the windows of Malkovya playing in the castle’s courtyard, the honey-yellow beams of light bouncing from their skin and reflecting from the puddles between which they jumped. This brought a smile to her face, one rarely featured upon her gaunt countenance. A warm and soft smile, one she pictured would have been present upon her mother’s face. Though, as a feeling so unfamiliar to her rushes down from her head and out to her fingertips. A feeling akin to the soothing warmth of a hearth from afar and yet as shocking as the cold of winter’s first day on one’s unready skin.

 

Nonetheless she wakes. 

 

Her eyes rise to the dank walls of her suite at the Esrova Palace. The feeling she had dreamt of fell from her body and she sought to feel it once more, her eyes closed slowly shut as she formed her hands into fists as if to conjure the feeling up from where it rushed away, though her efforts were to no avail. 

 

She had been at court for many years now and seldom made trips to Malkovya in the country, however, after months of dreaming she was with child. It was as if she called forth the child from heaven and brought him here through sheer will. After a few short months of an arduous pregnancy, during which most of her time was spent locked away from the public eye, she wrote to the Lord Colborn of such news. Detailing the difficult few months she had been away from him and conveying her excitement for the impending birth of their heir. 

 

–

Marjoreya sat, stony-faced, within the palace gardens, considering the perfectly-curated bed of roses that stood before her. Silence enveloped her for the first time in what felt like months, and she was left with only her sorrows for company. She reached toward a stem of roses – so beautiful and yet so embroiled in malice – as the grating sound of leather against gravel assaulted her senses. In the panic of the messenger’s approach, the Countess’s finger pricked a thorn in passing, and she cried out in anger. She thought to scold the approaching courier, with his haggard frame and frantic, breathless movement, but he soon pounded his fist to his chest and bowed before her. 

 

Mikhaila had fallen desperately ill, the courier informed Marjoreya. The physics were afraid she would not make it, and that the stress of childbirth might accelerate her descent. No sooner had the news been delivered than Marjoreya, in a fit of rage, ordered the courier to be gone from the palace. Pitifully, Marjoreya thought first of herself. Why had she been so forsaken by God? Why had He given Mikhaila a house full of smiling children - she who deserved none of them? And why had He given Marjoreya nothing? Crimson droplets of blood continued to drip onto the untainted snow, and all she could do was stand there idly, lamenting her misfortunes.

 

–

The labor was a harrowing ordeal, and it seemed God - despite her prayers - had been indifferent to her suffering. In the end, Marjoreya brought forth a pair of twins. An air of death hung over them, eerily familiar to the Count and Countess, though within her, however feeble she had become, pride lingered. She had made fools of all that thought her barren, all that doubted her. 

 

Her features were illuminated with the flickering light of a candle as her eyes languidly drifted across the otherwise silent room toward the screams of her children, her true pride was within them now. A faint smile crossed her pale lips as her eyes traced over the babies that cried across the room from her, their black tresses that resembled her own, but she felt unlike she imagined. The feeling was not as she had dreamt it to be, there was no warmth that swelled from within as if a hearth had been lit at her center. She felt cold. 

 

As she watched her children be prodded and examined by nuns, she felt herself begin to slip. Her eyes flickered shut and her breaths began to feel labored. Her chest rose and fell shakily as uneasy breaths dried her lips further and her shoulders began to sink inward. A hand shakily rose to press against her sweat-soaked face, and the room seemed to fall silent for only a second before it was pierced once more by the wails of the pair of newborn babes. Her eyes flickered shut and it felt as if her very life force was waning. She had brought two lives into this world, but at what cost? Was it her own life that she must pay in return? 

 

Finally her eyes remained shut and her breaths slowed, her hands fell to her sides and her head rested back into the pillows… 

 

 

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To the citizens of Hanseti-Ruska, 

 

It is with great jubilation that the Comital House Colborn announces the beginning of its next generation.The first Colborn lord of his generation has been brought unto us by blessing of God after an arduous tenure of pregnancy. With immense delight we declare him Casper Colborn, born 21st of Wzuvar and Byvca to the Count and Countess Malkovya. Alongside the Colborn Lordling we celebrate the birth of a girl, born only minutes after her elder brother, Margarethe Colborn born 21st of Wzuvar and Byvca. 

 

 With these letters we declare them our son and daughter as witnessed by Mother Vivienne. We pray to God for good health, safekeeping, prosperity, and preservation of them. 

 

Given under our Seal at Vitraval, Witnessed by us and Mother Vivienne on the 21st of Wzuvar and Byvca in the year of our Godan, 518 E.S.. 

 

Under the watchful eye of God, 

THE RIGHT HONORABLE, Cassian Colborn,

Count of Malkovya, Viscount of Venzia, Baron of Bethlenen, Lord of Vitraval, the Protector of Scyflings

 

HER EXCELLENCY, Marjoreya of Vidaus,

Countess consort of Malkovya, Viscountess consort of Venzia, Baroness consort of Bethlenen, Lady of Vitraval, and Grand Lady of Hanseti-Ruska

 

As witnessed by,

Mother Vivienne of the West,

Priestess of the Holy Church

 

Spoiler

a little rp post + birth announcement!! tysm @liz for helping me write :]

 

[Cheese 2307]

Liridona coos and adores her new grandchildren!! Oh, how she adored being a hauchmamej! Gifts of jewels were prepared for her son and daughter and law, as well as the babes.