It was early on a Thursday morning in September. Callida was observing her commanding officers’ training like she always did on Thursday mornings when the contractions started coming close together and required concentration to breathe through. She’d learned her lesson from the first time, and so had her commanders. Callida halted their exercises and had to do little more than wince to get their attention. She was swarmed immediately.

“I’ll go get Rogue,” Arum declared and took off before Callida could either acknowledge or protest.

Callida wasted little time giving instructions. “Vir, Rapax, could you fill in for me in the morning council meeting today? Inform His Majesty that I’m now on maternity leave?”

“Yes, sir,” Rapax acknowledged, obviously grateful that she wasn’t fighting their concerns this round.

“Baca, Gravis, I’m putting you in charge to finish the morning training.”

“Yes, General,” the pair agreed in unison as Callida entered another contraction.

Gravis caught her elbow, giving her something to brace against as she worked through the pain, and Callida took full advantage, leaning heavily against one of the few humans she might describe as a brick wall. “Thanks, Gravis. Moro, Adjutus, could you help me get home?” Without a word, the two commanders each picked a side and offered Callida an escorting arm. “Back to training,” she ordered everyone else. “Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.” She took a certain satisfaction from the collective chuckles she left behind her as Moro and Adjutus guided her toward the exit. There was only one exit. The training arena was an enormous amphitheater with a single tunnel running under the stands that led into the central area. It effectively limited access to the restricted space reserved for senior officers to train in, but it also made it less efficient to get out.

Callida had had three major contractions by the time they made it out of the arena — the kind of contractions that forced her to stop walking and talking for a full minute or two in favor of simply breathing through them. Things were moving quickly. Either that, or she’d been in labor for a while already and just hadn’t noticed. Thinking back on it, she’d had a rough night tossing and turning, but in labor or not, being this pregnant with “at least two” babies was miserably uncomfortable. A rough night was to be expected.

“General,” Adjutus probed after her fourth contraction, his tone gentle and almost reverent. “General, it’s going to take us forever to get you home if we have to keep stopping like this, and it doesn’t seem like you have that much time before….”

“What do you suggest?” Callida panted, not in a position to come up with solutions herself. Adjutus glanced over her head at Moro who nodded in her peripheral vision. Both of them took a knee, arranging their arms to interlock with each other into a square seat behind her. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“Arms around our shoulders, General. Take a seat, and we’ll get you home,” Moro said with a crooked grin that straddled the gap between assurance and a tease.

She accepted the assistance, took a seat, and immediately entered another contraction. “Wait, wait, wait,” she grunted, her fingers automatically fisting their collars as she struggled through the discomfort. They were patient with her, waiting for her to relax again before standing up. But it didn’t take long before another wave hit, and Callida felt a disquieting gush. “Oh, Primordials! Put me down.”

They obeyed with protest. “What’s wrong?” Moro asked.

“I am so sorry.” Callida got up flushing pink. “I think my water just broke.”

Adjutus just laughed. “Is that all?”

Another contraction. Another gush of fluid. “Yup,” she confirmed through the strain. “Water broke.”

“Take a seat, General,” Adjutus coaxed.

“But–”

“I assure you, our uniforms have seen much worse fluids than your water. Sit down.”

She surrendered, gingerly returning to the seat formed from their arms. “You know, this was the reason I picked the two of you in my first batch of lieutenants,” she mused openly, thinking back to a similar moment when the pair of them had helped a young soldier to the infirmary without being asked nor expectation of recognition.

“What? Our willingness to put up with body fluids?” Moro teased.

“It was more….” Contraction. “It was more that you were always looking out for your comrades. Team players make good leaders.”

“You hear that, Moro?” Adjustus ribbed.

“Sure did! She’s getting soft in her old age.”

“Nah, man, it’s her motherhood leaking through. All sentimental and whatnot.”

“It’s her motherhood leaking, alright. Next thing you know, it’ll be leaking from her eyes too.”

Callida listened to her commanders riff back and forth, the pair going respectfully quiet when the next wave of pain hit. She hissed in through her teeth and groaned, sweat starting to bead on her forehead. “Primordials, that sucks.”

“Can’t be worse than that time you got stabbed,” Moro reminded her.

“Which time?” Adjutus raised an eyebrow.

“Uh… I was thinking about that time on the north border, but, I guess both?”

“You’re right. This isn’t as bad as that time on the north border,” Callida confirmed despite still grimacing.

“What about when you got your brands?” Adjutus asked.

“The brands were worse.”

“How does it compare to broken ribs?” Moro continued the bit.

“Single broken rib is better. More than one is arguably about the same.”

“Ooo, what about waste serpent venom?”

“Venom’s worse.” Contraction. Callida groaned and found herself doubling over. “This is a different kind of pain though,” she explained when she could breathe again. “It comes from the inside, and it feels more desperate — all consuming. Somehow that makes it worse than just the pain alone.”

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“Callida!” Rogue was jogging behind Arum with a medkit in hand, meeting her at the front gate of the Lion General estate grounds. “Callida, hey, what’s your status?”

“Give it a minute and you can see for yourself. Things seem to be moving quickly,” she informed.

The commanders continued to carry her home at a steady pace, and Rogue skipped backwards in front of them, trying to assess Callida on the move through each miserable wave. Arum trailed behind, unsure of how to help but also feeling duty-bound to be available until dismissed. They reached the house, and Callida thanked and released all three of the commanders to their regular duties. Rogue and Celarus became her crutches for the remaining hike up the stairs and down the hallway to the bedroom.

“Is it time?!” One of the triplets’ nurses poked her head out of the nursery to ask as they passed.

“Yup,” Rogue confirmed.

***

Callida just felt dazed and disoriented. She’d lost too much blood again, but less than the last time. At least this time she’d remained conscious. “Seems you’re a bleeder,” Rogue had said as his fist kneaded her guts.

There were only two of them this time, but they were bigger than the triplets had been — chubbier, longer, and broader, especially in their chests and shoulders. Two more boys: that was actually a relief. Callida knew what to do with boys; despite being female herself, the same couldn’t be said of girls. She hadn’t the foggiest idea how to deal with girls, much less raise one.

They both had brown hair, though one was a light brown and the other a very dark brown, and she wasn’t sure which of the two had been born first. But they were healthy with all their fingers and toes, and now they were peacefully sleeping after screaming their lungs open. She watched them sleep. Sometimes their faces twitched from the dreams they were dreaming. What do babies dream about?

The one with darker hair frowned and squirmed, fighting his swaddle, his tiny face bunching up in a single, shrill cry. “Hey,” Callida soothed, setting a hand against his tummy to add a gentle pressure. “Hey, it’s ok.” She rolled to her side and tugged him closer, tucking him against her chest. She started humming a made-up tune in a rich alto range — something in a minor key with a simple melody. The baby at her chest settled, listening to her lullaby, his murky, slate-colored baby eyes opening to look up at the source of that tune. “Hello, little one.” Callida shifted his sleeping twin closer, the pair fitting comfortably beneath her arm, and she resumed her song, humming sleepily, her own eyes closing with a profound exhaustion.

She blinked awake to find Rogue gently extracting the pair of crying infants from beneath her wing. “Sorry to wake you,” he whispered. “They’re hungry.”

“Oh.” She rolled onto her back, making it easier for Rogue to collect the twins and pass them to the waiting nurses.

With the boys tended to, Rogue turned his attention to Callida. “How are you feeling?”

“Sleepy.”

“Are you up to talking for a minute?”

“Sure. What’s going on?”

He sighed, glancing at the suckling babies before stretching out on the bed next to her. “Their essences are black but they’re not wolves. Both of them.” Panic lanced through her chest all at once, and Callida jolted upright, hyperventilating and crying through the immediate head rush. She was only peripherally aware of the concern and sadness in his eyes as she began spluttering incoherently. The weight of his hand fell against her sternum; she became too sleepy to continue rambling. “Be still” echoed in her right ear where his warm breath tossed a loose ribbon of wavy gold. She resisted sleep, but her head slumped against his shoulder, and an arm fell across her back a moment later to draw her into his lap. “Callida, I only told you that to preface a conversation about planning a trip to a temple. That’s what we discussed, right? That was the plan?”

She could only sob into his chest in reply, the post-traumatic response giving way to temporary relief and an unexpected bitterness. Why did this keep happening? What was she doing wrong? What if they went to the temple and were told something that Rogue didn’t want to hear? What if this time he left and didn’t come back?!

Rogue was helping her back into her pillow, filling the space next to her, draping an arm around her waist. The kiss against her forehead helped her calm down. It was grounding somehow. Her eyes closed. She shuddered. Muscles in her back and shoulders methodically released their tension. “Hey, look at me.”

She met his eyes, closing hers again as he leaned in to kiss her.

“There has to be a reason this keeps happening.”

She nodded, feeling tentative — unconvinced but hopeful.

His hand against her chest again — she felt the initiated connection, met his eyes, prepared to assure him yet again that he was her only lover. The question didn’t come. Instead, Qiangde searched her tear-stained face, searching… and finding. “M’lady, I know they’re mine.”

Overwhelmed, exhausted, and all cried out, Callida released a single sob and nuzzled into him to better enable the gentle hand between her shoulder blades to soothe her back to sleep.

***

“What are their names?” Rogue asked Callida nearly the instant she’d woken up again.

“Let me gather my bearings, Rogue,” she protested sleepily, eyes fluttering open to rest upon the two little bundles next to her. “What did you ask me?”

Rogue grinned and kissed his sleepy wife. “I asked you what their names are.”

“Well, we haven’t decided yet,” she croaked, confusion knitting her eyebrows together.

“Callida, you need to do that thing again…. You know. You put your hand on their chests and just feel the right name? Or something like that.”

“You do it! You’re the spiritualist. Shouldn’t you be able to feel for the right name?”

Rogue shook his head, a smirk quirking one half of his lips. “Callida, I think you have a gift for this. Just try it. I want to see what happens.”

She frowned, her eyes turning back to the sleeping babies next to her. “Which one was born first?”

“This one,” Rogue said, indicating the baby with lighter brown hair. “They were born in order from light to dark hair color again.”

“That’s convenient,” she muttered. “I’ll try.” Rogue watched her set a hand on the first baby’s chest and close her eyes in concentration. He listened to the string of disjointed sounds she muttered, waiting for them to come together into something cohesive. “Ja… t-ta… Tajam. Tajam?”

“Tajam,” he repeated, looking at the baby beneath her palm. Somehow, it was perfect. He couldn’t explain why or how he knew that it was perfect for him, but it was. “I’ve never heard that name before.”

“Me neither. Is it actually a name?”

He chuckled and leaned down to peck her cheek. “It is now. What about the other one?”

Her hand shifted, the process repeating, the baby squirming slightly in his sleep. This time there was no hesitancy in finding the right sounds; they came all at once. “Ddalu.”

Rogue grinned. She was five for five fitting the perfect name to each child — names he’d never heard before, names she probably made up on the spot. “You know, sometimes I wonder if you might be a spiritualist yourself, Callida. Have you got any owl blood in you?”

“I do,” she said quietly.

“You do?!”

“I’ve told you that before. Several generations back on my mom’s side: a brown wolf. His mother was an owl.”

“Primordials, that’s right! I’d forgotten.”

“But I’m not a spiritualist, Rogue. I can’t do any of the things spiritualists do.”

“Well, by the standard definition of what a spiritualist should be able to do, I’m not a spiritualist either,” he laughed. “I tend to think of spiritualists as being anybody with a gift that can’t be explained logically. You have a gift, Callida. Maybe you should look into developing it.”

“Maybe,” she conceded, and Rogue got the distinct impression that she was surrendering because she was tired and not because she agreed with him. He rolled his eyes and dropped the subject.

“So Tajam and Ddalu?”

“Mn.”

Rogue rumpled their fluffy baby hair and kissed his wife again. “They’re perfect.”