CHAPTER 2

The day began as any other for Lyvia Theandor, albeit a little slow. She didn’t remember what happened last night, yet she still felt the aftereffects. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling for a few moments, trying to remember what happened last night. She and Grey were very excited, as the baby had been growing quickly.

Yet as she tried to sit upright, pain equivalent to a needle being stabbed through your skull shot through her, breaking the quiet and peaceful surroundings with a loud and agitated moan.

‘By Eleanor my head is killing me! What the hell happened last night?’

She pulled back the blankets and stood up, yet she quickly fell back down on the blankets as she failed to properly balance her weight. She felt that something was, different. She couldn’t say what, yet she knew something was different.

She looked down, expecting to find a bloated belly with a baby inside, only to find a flat surface. Her mind raced trying to remember what happened last night, only to be abruptly pulled from her thoughts by the loud snoring of her husband. Surprisingly, it came from the kitchen.

She stormed over, already having forgotten that her stomach wasn’t the bloated pregnant outcropping it should be. She walked as fast as her unsteady feet could carry her, she was ready to scold her husband like the misbehaving teenager he was, yet she stopped halfway.

She stood in front of a wood carved crib, engraved with small insignia’s, intricate woodcarvings and a name. She had always hoped to fill the crib with a child of her own, yet what she found brought up a maelstrom of emotion in her.

In the crib lay a small child, yet it wasn’t hers. The normally brown complexion of a dark elf was missing and instead the baby was pale white, its hair was auburn brown instead of the silver she had, it was clear to her, this wasn’t her son.

She felt anger, confusion, disgust, and deep down, she even felt delight. Her confusion only grew as she felt the pleasure was over her, curving her gaping mouth into a gentle smile for but a moment, before returning to the shocked demeanour she had several moments ago.

‘Why in the hell is there a baby in the crib that isn’t ours?! How in the hell did a dinol get in here?! Why is it in the crib?! And why am I happy!?’

She stormed towards Grey, hoping to find answers and a very, very good explanation.

Yet the morning wasn’t kind to her, as she was met with another surprise. Grey was sitting at one of the five kitchen chairs, with multiple bottles of liquor surrounding him.

‘I thought he quit after settling down? He said he never wanted another drop again.’

 She stood there silently for several moments, contemplating about what could have gone down last night. In the end she reached a conclusion, she didn’t know, and it was pointless to just stand there and do nothing.

‘I better clean up a bit, get a glass of water and try to wake him up. I just hope he doesn’t have a blackout from drinking too much.’

She may have been mad at him for drinking too much and getting a hangover, yet after trying to clean for 5 minutes and only succeeding in throwing the liquor bottles in the trash, the trashcan being the window for a change, she felt quite the hypocrite.

‘Well, this isn’t going to work. Let’s just get another glass of water and sit down, I think we both have a hangover after last night. I don’t even remember what happened, did we hold a drinking contest or something?’

So, she waited for several minutes, hoping that her husband would awoke from his comatose slumber.

During that time, she was becoming increasingly worried as the same questions continued to bug her. She thought about the liquor that her husband had avoided for over a decade, only to end up drinking more than a neamrach one night.

She chuckled.

‘Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he challenged a neamrach to a drinking competition. It was surprisingly easy to earn their respect when your alchemist can drink more than them. Those stubby little legs and sharp eyes really do carry a heart of gold.’

Stray thoughts continued popping up in her groggy mind, cluttering her psyche with pleasant memories, delightful thoughts and a sense of peacefulness. She simply stared at the wall behind her husband, content with wallowing in her past, as she had enjoyed her life more than others.

Yet the present did not escape her, as the emptiness filling her mind birthed thoughts of worry, anxiety and fear. She looked down once again, finding an post-pregnancy stomach, and she cried.

She had seen it, she had seen the bloodied sheets, she still felt the combination of pus, blood and amniotic fluid sticking to her legs. She knew what happened, yet she didn’t want to believe it, she didn’t want to believe that her child had died, the thing they had worked so hard for, the one thing they had given up their freedom for, a quiet family life, had been shattered.

‘Why, why can’t I just give birth to a healthy child?! Why can’t mine live?! What did I do to deserve this fate, what did I do that requires the sacrifice of my children?! What?!’

Her lips began to quiver, her brows furrowed, and her complexion grew pale. She lifted a hand up into the air and slammed it down into the table in rage. The silence was broken by wood being smashed to pieces, accompanied with a cry of anguish.

“What did I do to deserve this fate?! What in Eleanor’s name gives anyone the right to take away my children?! Why must they die!? WHY?!”

The tranquillity that had ruled over the home was shattered, the despair in her voice travelled on for kilometres, breaking the peacefulness of the forest and replacing it with an anxiety that filled its inhabitants. Even the trees themselves seemed to fear her as they stopped their rustling leaves, leaving the woman alone in a silence that was only broken by the sound of her own breath.

Yet her scream wasn’t unheard, as another sound contested her loud breathing.

She turned towards the source of her high-pitched contestant, seething with rage, only to have it be quelled by the sight of the small babe in distress.

She stood over the wailing baby with conflicted emotions. She felt delight looking at the small thing, she felt worry at its squirming, she felt the need to calm him, to wipe away his tears, to hold him close, yet she didn’t.

‘Why, why do I care for him? I don’t know where he came from, whose child he is, nor why he is here. So, why do I care?’

Questions haunted her mind as she tried to come to a conclusion, yet she quickly found herself between two opposites; disposing of the boy and trying to bear her own child or giving him away to another family.

The baby had calmed down several minutes ago, yet she hadn’t stopped staring at him. She followed the curves of his face, the point of his nose, and the beginning hairline to the crown jewels of the pudgy thing’s face; his eyes.

They sprung out from behind his eyelashes, revealing a dark brown ring blending over into the blackness of the pupil. The edges were a lighter brown, creating a clear contrast between the white sclera.

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She couldn’t avert her gaze as she was swept up into the blackness of his pupil, drowning in the black that slowly receded into a dark brown.

She stood there for several minutes, silently. Her psyche had calmed as the maelstrom of emotions had been sucked away by the vacuum hiding behind those eyes, causing her to stare absentmindedly at the young child in front of her.

It was only when she noticed that he was staring back that she stopped. Startled, she took a step back, only to receive a grievous expression from the small boy. Her heart melted as she saw his lips quiver, his eyes ready to let the blockades recede and let the flow drown out his sorrows.

And with that, she realised that there was a third option.

‘We could adopt him.’

Her mind raced as the four simple words conjured up countless of questions, yet those thoughts were outshined by one emotion which radiated like a sun, delight.

‘Maybe I can’t get a child myself, but he can be ours! He can be the son Grey always wanted, the little piglet which we could pass everything on to, he could be our son! He could be mine!’

Scenes of herself playing with the small boy raced through her mind, she imagined cuddling with him, calming him when he had been scared away by the ‘monsters’, teaching him everything she knew, yet most of all, scenes of happiness sprung to life. She was delighted by all of this, relishing in the ecstasy of finally having her own child.

‘Oh, we need a name! What would be appropriate? A name for a human with dark elf parents, this could pose a problem.’

In her enthusiasm, she picked the little boy up, and cradled him close to herself. She slowly walked over to the kitchen, trying not to disturb his sleep.

‘I do hope he got enough sleep, I don’t really know what dinol need. I do know that they’re weaker than dark elves, and that they breed like rabbits, but I don’t really know much else. Well, let’s focus on the important things, giving him a name!’

She sat down, immersed in thought as she struggled to find a fitting name for her little piglet.

The room had returned to its former tranquillity, returning from being filled with anguish, uncertainty and tears, to being filled with silence.

She sat there with a large smile on her face, not minding the silver hair that cascaded down her shoulders, the stained nightwear, nor the dried-up amniotic fluid that still stuck to her legs.

Her head wasn’t filled with the anguish of never birthing a healthy child, not with the shattering of the picture of creating her own family, not filled with apprehension towards the foreign child she had only discovered this morning, it was only filled with what to name her son.

So, with that silence, that serenity, her husband woke up.

Groaning like a neamrach steam engine, he tried to sit up, only to slump back down as a needle ran through his skull, ravaging his attempt at coherent thought.

“Aww, now I remember why I hate drinking, this hangover is killing me!”

He put his hands to his temples, trying to quell the demon poking the insides of his skull with a rusted dagger. He finally managed to sit up, groaning as the late morning light burned his retinas and encouraged the demon to begin poking harder.

“Rough night sweetheart?”

The soothing voice of his wife had been always being like a balm to an irritated wound, as even the little demon had stopped poking his dagger wherever he went. He looked up from his comfortable arm pillow, only to be greeted by the demon re-engaging in his favourite activity, and the blessed smile of his wife.

Her high cheekbones accented her dark brown lips, her purple eyes penetrated through the blinding light and gazed into his own with a gentle yet concerned look.

He groaned again, putting his head back on the table and waiting for his throbbing headache to wear off. He sat there for several minutes, quietly listening to the whispers of the wind, the rustling of the leaves outside their window, and the noise of synchronized breathing in front of him.

‘Wait, why are there two? And why in the hell are they so in tune?’

His curiosity won out over his throbbing headache, and he slowly lifted his head up, trying to see more of his wife than her face. He followed the wooden ringed patterns in the table, reaching his wife’s figure.

He winced at the sight of blood on her white nightgown, remembering what transpired last night, and with a final heave of his neck, he looked at his wife.

His eyes widened from surprise and his mouth fell wide open as he looked upon the little baby cradled in her arms. His thoughts were jumbled as he couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

‘Why is he in her arms? Why is she cradling him like he is our child? WHAT is going on?!’

His expression turned increasingly worried and confused, yet before he could voice his concerns, they were broken by the oasis of peace sitting opposite of him.

The peaceful image of a mother with her child washed over him, as Lyvia gently whispered to him.

“Dear, I know it’s a bit confusing, but please don’t shout. It might wake him.”

She looked down upon the little babe with worried eyes, causing the opposition even more surprise, yet his mouth slammed shut. He didn’t know what was going on, but his wife had rarely been wrong with her instincts, so he trusted her.

He sat there for several minutes, trying to process the situation while simultaneously trying to appease the little demon in his head enough that it will stop. His eyes were closed, yet he couldn’t help but look up from his contemplation to steal a glance at his wife and the child in her arms.

And every time he did, he was stupefied. It was a scene wholesome in nature and peaceful in demeanour, it sapped away every negative thought, and replaced it with the will to protect, the urge to care, and the desire for him to grow.

He looked upon the peaceful pair again and again, his quick glances quickly turning into a stare. His previously shocked expression turned calm, as his mind was emptied of all thoughts but the two in front of him.

His stare didn’t go unnoticed, as Lyvia’s smiled once again, yet it wasn’t filled with the gentleness it formerly held, nor with the care for the child in her arms. Instead, it was filled with masked grief and guilt.

“I know this is sudden Grey, and I’m sorry. I don’t remember last night, but I can figure out what happened, and the little guy just lay there, staring up at me when I was crying, consoling me when I thought I wasn’t going to ever have a family. I know this is wrong, and I do realise you might not like it, but please Grey, don’t take him away.

It’s messed up, but I want to keep him, I want to care for him, I want to be his mother.”

Her solemn voice resounded through the silence that had flooded the living room, it echoed throughout the chamber and banished the little devil from Grey’s head.

Sober, he stood up and walked around the table towards the two.

The alcohol hadn’t left his system, as he walked with clumsy steps, taking close to a minute before he was finally around the table. His face hidden by hair that hung from his head

Yet Lyvia didn’t see this, she was too scared to even look up. She knew her husband was easy going, he had always endured het tirades and loved her regardless, yet she also knew that he took matters very seriously, especially matters pertaining to family.

She continued looking down at the boy, imprinting his face in her mind, and listening to the heavy steps of her husband while flinching with each impact on the floorboards.

‘No. No! I will not let him take him from me! I may have failed to provide him a child, but I will not fail as a mother to this child! I can’t, no, I won’t let him go!’

She gathered up her courage, building up a will of iron to stand against the tide of emotions that were about to wash up against it. Bolstered by her motherly instincts, she looked up from her little piglet, glaring at the man she thought wished to hurt her child.

Her iron will melted in front of her husband, it was prepared for anger, hate, anything except what she was seeing. Her eyes bulged as he looked upon the calm and elated expression of her husband.

His previously furrowed brows had unwound, his bloodshot eyes had started watering, and his formerly stoic lips had formed into a smile. He reached out his hand towards them, putting his hand on the little boy’s back.

“Can I hold our son?”

The soft words were almost inaudible, yet they resounded through Lyvia’s mind like war drums, echoing through every part of her psyche, and evoking every positive emotion they could. They roused the deepest parts of her soul, invoking a cascade of tears to stream down her cheeks while she abruptly shut up from the chair, and hugged her husband.

Their entanglement seemed to last an eternity as tears flowed down two pairs of cheeks, banishing their grief and reaffirming their happiness together.

                Their trance of happiness was broken as suddenly as it had had come, as the little boy started crying in the couple’s hands.

                Together, they calmed him and bore witness to his delighted expression once again. His dark brown eyes demanded their attention and his endearing smile seemed to encompass everything they felt for him and each other.

                “What do you think we should name him?”

                Grey’s words were barely audible, yet to the overjoyed Lyvia, they were like an orchestra giving their final notes before the climax.

                The question had been on her mind since the start of all of this, yet she only now found an answer. The words that flowed were as natural as breathing, creating a name that came straight from the heart.

                “Daelyn, his name is Daelyn.”