Baby Boru!

[Jezerai]

Boudeccai rested one hand on her slightly rounded abdomen and used her druidic training to ease her slight nausea.  A soft smile lit her normally stern features and she murmured something to the life that fluttered there.  She turned back to her packing, boxing up items that she was allowed to lift and leaving the heavier items for her husband who had left strict instructions to that effect, instructions which for once she would follow.  Nothing must harm the precious life that even now intertwined itself with hers.

She could not tell for certain why she believed so utterly in the soon to appear barbarian homeland.  Murmurs were spreading throughout Qeynos and likely even into the darkest corners of Neriak, breathing the name "New Halas" like a sigh.  Boudeccai had always been a practical woman and she disdained talk of visions, convincing herself that her own experience had been naught but a dream.  It was hard to believe that her dream of Mithaniel Marr and his talk of New Halas had been just five months ago.  Harder still to credit the growing numbers of people who also spoke of having met the god in a vision.  Boudeccai would not question why she packed for her move to this city, this city which did not even exist.  She just knew, and acted on that knowledge.

Whatever else happened, her baby must be born in that new homeland.  Boudeccai was determined that this would be the case and nothing could shake her obstinate will, least of all the fact that there was no homeland to be born in.  She had long ago given up hope that she could bear a child of her own body, happy to raise Missa as hers.  Indeed, nothing could ever change the love she bore for her daughter of the heart.  Still, when she had seen a couple with an infant, she had yearned for the impossible.  When she had felt the first stirring of new life, she had overlooked it despite her druidic senses, so convinced she had been that such a thing would never come to her.  Over the weeks, as the stirring became undeniable, she had been at first disbelieving and then afraid to say anything, lest the spoken word break the strange spell she must surely be under. 

Bahladar had been equally astounded when she broke the news to him.  But it had taken little time for him to start strutting with the pride of a new father.  He spoke of the brave deeds his son would do when grown, when the babe was hardly more than a dancing light of life.  She hoped for Bahladar's sake that the baby was a lad, a brave boy to follow in his father's footsteps.  Yet in her heart of hearts, Boudeccai yearned for a daughter.  A daughter to fuss over and care for, to give the life she had never had.  But most of all, Boudeccai prayed to the Tribunal that the baby would be healthy and happy, whatever its gender. "And..." she thought with grim determination that her husband would recognize all too well ... "be born in New Halas!"

[Jezerai]

Several weeks later ...

Boudeccai stood in front of her large picture window overlooking the icy vista outside and sighed with contentment.  She gently stroked her protruding belly.  "Ye made it, baby Boru.  We be here."

New Halas!  It was exactly as Marr had promised.  Although the Borus had decided to keep a small apartment in Qeynos for visits to the city and to conduct guild work, they had happily exchanged their city life for a new home in this far outpost.  The baby would be born in New Halas as a barbarian should.  Boudeccai smiled, thinking of Bahladar's increasing protectiveness during the course of her pregnancy.  He would be a fine father to their lass or lad.  The Borus had decided to name the baby Andof, after Bahladar's father, if it were to be a lad or Lisbet, after Boudeccai's mother, if the baby were to be a girl.

Boudeccai thought of her mother, a lovely human priestess of the Tribunal.  Serene and feminine.  Her daughter would be like that, she thought.  Perhaps she would grow to be a priestess too, Boudeccai thought.  But she imagined a small girl, with blonde hair curled and caught up in cascades at her neck, as her mother had worn her hair.  The thought made her smile.  Her mother had been such a lady-like woman.  It was hard to imagine how she had ever been able to adapt to life with a barbarian husband, but she had.  She had always been gracious and loving.  Boudeccai sighed, missing her mother and wishing she could somehow tell her where she was and what she was doing now. 

Thoughts of her mother led Boudeccai to wonder, as she had with increasing frequency during the course of her pregnancy, what had ever become of her father.  If he was alive, he should know that he was to be a grandfather soon.  She had not seen him for eighteen years.  Indeed, she had lived as many years away from him as she had lived with him at this point in her life.  It was a time for new beginnings and a burying of old grudges.  She was married now, and soon to be a mother.  She nodded, deciding that she would write ... as soon as her writing desk was unpacked.

[Jezerai]

Missa sat with Bahladar in the Boru home's newly decorated parlor.  The big man was pacing and Missa was fairly sure he was as anxious as she was.  She had been visiting her foster mother, lending her the aid of Sweetpea, her colossal earthen elemental, to move the heavier pieces of furniture about.  When a sudden cry from the new nursery caused her to drop everything and run to Boudeccai's side.  Boudeccai's face was ashen pale and her expression was one that Missa could only describe as fear.  For a heartstopping moment, Missa thought that some harm had come to Boudeccai or the baby.  Boudeccai gripped her arm in a grip that could crush coconuts.

"Lass, tha babe be on his way inta this world.  I'm gonna need ye ta fetch tha doctor in a bit.  But first, ye gotta promise me somethin'" Boudeccai's grim expression left Missa in no doubt that she would agree to anything Boudeccai demanded.  "Me mam, she died tryin' ta bring me baby brother inta this world. ..."  Boudeccai cut off Missa' protests with a wave of her hand.  "Dinna deny it.  Many women die in tha child bed."  At Missa's stricken expression, Boudeccai softened her tone and patted her ward's arm.  "I ain't sayin' it's gonna be so, but I been thinkin' on thin's.  Bahladar be a good man an' I know he's gonna be a good daddy to our babe.  But he ain't a man ta live withou' a woman.  If I die an' tha babe lives, ye gotta promise me ta watch o'er tha babe. Me da' married a woman tha could nay stand tha sight o' me an' it drove me away from me home.  If Bahladar ... if he takes a woman ta wife tha ain't good ta tha babe, ye gotta promise me ye'll take tha babe an' care fer it as yer own." 

Missa looked at Boudeccai in horror.  "You can't ask such a thing of me!"

"I kin, an' I did.  I wrote this letta ta Bahladar.  Ye dinna have ta give it to him 'less ye think his new wife ain't doin' right by our babe.  I 'splained it all to 'em in tha letter."  Boudeccai handed Missa a thick envelope, an uncharacteristically large amount of writing for Boudeccai who was not known to relish paperwork. 

"Bou ..."  Missa's voice choked.  "You can't die.  Promise me you won't!"

"I canna promise tha, child.  An' ye knows it.  But I'll be doin' me best.  Now.  Fetch tha doctor an' send word ta Bahladar."

That conversation had taken place several hours previously.  Dagobaz was tending to Boudeccai now, together with the local midwife.  There were few sounds from the bedchamber, save for grunts and occasionally some loud cursing.  Boudeccai was not given to screaming, though Missa tried not think about such things.  Suddenly, the sound of loud wails came from the room above.  Bahladar stopped his pacing and stared at Missa, dawning awareness in his eyes.  A few seconds later, another pair of lungs joined the first and Missa shook her head in wonder.  "Why is Bou crying? ..."  Bahladar started up the stairs, only to be met by Dagobaz coming down. 

"Sir," the handsome desert man stated ..." you are the proud father of a son ... and a daughter.  There were twins!"

Missa gasped.  "Twins?  And Boudeccai, she is well?"

Dagobaz grinned.  "Aye, lass.  Mother and children are fine, though the Commander is understandably tired.  You may go up an ..."

Dagobaz caught himself against the rail as Bahladar thundered up the stairs past him in his haste to reach his wife.  Missa smiled, content to wait and let the two bask in the moment together for a bit before she went to meet her new siblings.  "Twins," she stated, a hint of wonder in her voice.  With a happy smile, Missa fed the thick envelope into the fire, watching the edges curl and burn, the smoke carrying away her fear and leaving only joy in her heart.

[Jezerai]

Boudeccai watched over her sleeping children with a tired smile.  Their tousled red hair clung damply to their foreheads despite the New Halas chill that even the large fireplace in their room could not dispell.  They were growing so fast that it seemed sometimes you could see them add height as you watched.  The twins had brought so many changes to her life that Boudeccai could hardly recall what life had been like before they came.  Lisbet, named for her gentle grandmother, was a feisty child - forever charging about knocking over items and fighting with her quiet, introspective brother, Andof, named for Bahaldar's warrior father.  The two fought constantly but when either of them was in trouble, their first defender was their sibling.  They had been that way from infancy.  It was lucky, Boudeccai thought, that Missa was a conjuror.  Her earth elemental was a perfect, if unlikely, babysitter, impervious to childish tantrums and enthusiastic piggy-back rides alike.

One change in Boudeccai's life that had come with the twins was being reunited with her father.  Not too long after their birth she had answered a knock at her door to discover her father, hat in hand, at her doorstep.  In her shock and disbelief at seeing this ghost from her past, she had forgotten to invite him in, no doubt worrying him greatly as to his reception.  But when the ice broke, the dam broke as well, as Boudeccai and her father wept and held each other in their joy.  Bahladar had been quite dumbfounded upon entering this scene and at a loss to understand his wife's uncharacteristically emotional display.  Father and son-in-law sized each other up in minutes and found mutual ground almost immediately as Bahladar poured them both a sizeable mug of ale, ignoring for the moment Boudeccai's stern admonishments.  Since then they had had frequent visits, thankfully without Boudeccai's step-mother or step-brother in tow.  There were limits, after all, to her temper.  Limits which none of the participants involved mentioned, but which governed such decisions as who to bring to dinner.

Her father looked old and sad when she had first seen him after their long separation and Boudeccai was thankful that she had found the grace to write to him and invite him back into her life.  She would never have forgiven herself if he had died without knowing what had become of her and without meeting his grandchildren.  Watching him holding the twins to rock them to sleep, or singing booming Halasian songs which made them giggle, or playing giddy-up in a romp that endangered the furniture and his knees was well worth the cost in swallowed pride that Boudeccai had paid.  This mending of fences was one of the gifts the twins had bestowed on her, though not the greatest.  Boudeccai kissed the children tenderly, grateful as she was every day of their lives, to be blessed with their existence.