[The Sanctuary] Snowfall & Starlight

[Kavala]

Timestamp: 10th of Winter, 513 AV - Just After Midnight

Kavala woke with a fever. At least she thought it was a fever because she was overly warm and there was a fresh sheen of sweat all over her body. The Konti lifted her head and found her hair tangled in a body beside her. She didn't look to see who it was. Riaris? Tasi? Even Larik sometimes all piled on the bed together, sharing the traditions of the Drykas they practiced in her home. There was no candle burning and the Konti had no means to distinguish who was who without reaching out to touching them. And Kavala certainly didn't want to wake anyone up.

Konti's were blind in the dark, and that was one ability she did envy the Akalak who had no troubles at all.

Carefully she gave the mass of silky white a gentle tug, freeing herself from the warmth it was captured beneath. Carefully she untangled her legs from a sleeping cat at her feet - her kelvic niece - and scooted over to the edge of the bed, trying to awkwardly maneuver her body out of bed and onto the chilled floor of stone. Barefoot, finding the stone oddly comforting, Kavala made her way slowly past the bed and across her chambers to the hallway. She slipped out, heading for the kitchen, not really awake yet and not really knowing what was wrong other than that she was hot and that she wanted a drink badly. The Konti went to the icebox, opened it, and pulled the pitcher of cool water from its place sitting on the bock of ice slowly melting within. Kavala poured herself a mug of the icy water, and downed it completely. She refilled and took more drinks.

The baby inside of her had dropped and was being strangely quiet in the darkness, hanging contentedly upside down in her womb ready for putting in his appearance. She wondered if tonight would be the night, or if perhaps by the time the new moon came, which was when Tasival was born. Tonight was a full moon, one that expanded Leth's light all over the outer edges of the waves crashing up on the shore. Kavala knew that because now she was standing at the Sea Gates having no conscious thought of how she'd gotten there. The mug of water was still in her hand, now empty. Leth was shining down through a break in the huge white clouds that rolled in off the coast, dropping glittering snow as they came ashore. By the wind and the waves, Kavala knew the moon wouldn't be visible long.

And even more beautiful than the moonlight was the snow that covered the beach softly falling. It was a gorgeous scene, one that took Kavala's breath away. Still overly warm, she moved out onto the snow covered sand, still only lightly dressed in her pale silk nightshirt. Barefooted, the cold didn't bother her as much as she thought as her restlessness drew her forward.

The sea was a siren seducing the Konti and she knelt in the snow on the edge of the waves, listening to its song. The water would be warmer than the air, the Konti knew instinctively, and it would welcome her into its folds. And suddenly she wanted that welcome, needed it, and rose to her feet. Striding forward, the Konti suddenly desired the sea with all her heart. She didn't notice the slight contractions that were very infrequently gripping her body nor the surge of moisture that traveled down her legs as she rose. Her water broke spilling out onto the clean snow, but she gave it no thought. The child of the sea was being called back to it, and that was that. She heard no other voice and answered to no other song.

Her nature was stoic and without suffering as instinct gripped her tightly. Kavala took to the waves, pale and graceful as a ghost, to deliver another life into the world.

[Kavala]

The sea closed around her in warm starlit comfort. Her father’s voice was a strong call for a shore bound Konti; one that burned at her nerves like an allover body ache that was so familiar as to be forgotten if one wasn’t actively and consciously thinking about it. But once it was gone, the relief was tangible. This was as it should be. This was right. The sea drew its daughter home, disconnecting her rational from her instinctual and luring her into its dark depths.

Once the awkward Konti hit the water, it supported her, buoyed her up so that her back no longer ached and the additional weight in her middle was lessoned. In the back of her mind, Kavala knew she should have told someone or even stayed at The Sanctuary. But that was dampened by the sea’s call and her own internal need. She felt scared and vulnerable on the land. The Healer had been more afraid than she’d cared to admit. But it was better now, all but gone, as she left the shore far behind. The Konti had no conscious thought of how far nor how deep she swam. She simply let the waves close over her and embrace her. And she went with them, down deep, where the energy of the world felt more like blood than water.

Swimming lazily, the Konti stretched, and felt powerful deep in the water. It was a dim dark world, but one she didn’t fear. Her sense stretched out, and she took deep beautiful gillfulls of water, breathing perfectly. She spun, letting her eyes trace back up to the surface so far above. There was something nagging there, something important, but the deep violet color of the form trying to take shape in her mind was so unimportant in that moment.

Her child was coming.

Laviku’s newest grandchild was putting in an appearance. This life would be the next generation for The Sanctuary and The Cytali. Kavala rolled her head and let her neck stretch out groaning slightly as she slipped through the water. The Konti swam with ease, as fluid as the water itself. The buoyancy of the water minimized the contraction that hit her suddenly. It left her arched and rigid in the water for a moment. The healer in her knew the baby wasn’t coming yet, not really, since this wasn’t her first birth nor was she unversed in childbirth. She knew the contractions was just repositioning the child getting Kavala ready to gently birth the baby out into the world. It was time, as far as the healer was concerned. Tasival’s birth had been rough on the healer’s body, but this baby had taken a worse toll. She was thin to the point of gaunt, unable to sleep, unable to eat much, and trying desperately to get the life inside of her to make it to term and not fail. She hadn’t told Riaris or anyone else at The Sanctuary just how much trouble she was having this time around or how worried she’d been. There had been no point. They would have just fussed over her more so than they already were, and Kavala couldn’t have stood that. Luckily, not a one of them was well versed in midwifery or birth. If they had been, they would have seen the signs of a problem pregnancy that the Konti fought to conceal.

As healthy as she could have been, Kavala didn’t understand it. She had been dropping weight like crazy, even though she consumed food enough for two or three Konti and good food at that. Her diet was fresh raw items from the sea. It should have been a strong solid nutritious diet. But there was always a nagging fear in her that if Riaris or Recoomas knew how much of a struggle this was, they would have somehow rejected her in favor of someone else. Gods knew she had told them she loved them as much as she could, whenever she could, and never once had they uttered the words back. The pair had told her they cared deeply for her, but having no empathy towards the sentient; Kavala didn’t know exactly what that meant. And in retrospect the lack of him saying those words made this move easier. Live or die, she’d birth her son alone and spare everyone the trouble she’d cause. And not to mention she’d get time alone with her son first… get to meet him first… get to bond with him before the family started their family thing. And Kavala didn’t want them to know if there was anything wrong with him. She’d had so much trouble with the pregnancy that she had begun to wonder if he was healthy. From a healer’s perspective, she couldn’t rightfully tell while he was still deep inside her. But once he was born, that was a whole different story.

Kavala swam further offshore. The longer out she went and the deeper she let the water carry her, the safer she felt. When she wove her way into a deep kelp garden, the strands felt safe and she circled within until she found a sort of stone alcove with a sheltered overhang and a long low stone bench of sorts. Kavala stretched out in it, the seawater flickering with a million tiny micro lives as the Konti settled in to give birth.

[Kavala]

Kavala lost herself in the Sea. It was always that way with Konti, especially those with a deep connection to the ocean or those that lived within its reach. Here was security to bring forth their daughters into the world. Normally she'd be attended by her sisters, a circle of them singing and praying and doing what was necessary to make her comfortable and secure in what all Konti considered the first womb of Mizahar.

Laviku might be male, but his waters definitely birthed life and teamed with it, which put the seas in a category of mother. Beneath the waves, the rejoicing that a new sister was about to come into the world would get started and women would gather in their sacred rite to witness the efforts of one another to perpetuate the beauty of what they really were. A daughter of the sea would not be happy confined in a bed or a birthing chair, straining unnaturally and gasping for air when water was so much more soothing. Above ground gravity took a cruel grip on a laboring mother's form, but here within the sea, she was supported and held up.

Kavala's only watchers were long strands of kelp, but they danced for her in shimmering green undulations much like her sisters would have had any been in attendance. The motions in the alcove ringed by green growing fire licking upwards calmed the Konti who herself did not lay still. Instead she undulated with the kelp, twisting and rolling, an occasional bloody burst tinting the water around her. There was no screams of agony, no sweat smeared face straining. The Konti was peacefully involved, focused, but far more relaxed than she had been bringing Tasival into the world.

When the contractions gave her pause, the Konti hung - resting in the water column - in a fetal position most likely a great deal like the one her child had held for months before his attempt to come into the world. Long white strands of hair hung about her, and even in the pain she felt, there was peacefulness in the act.

A day passed as she labored.

Then, in the darkness again, with only the moon's light penetrating towards the dancing kelp, the baby crowned between her legs. The Konti rolled on her back, then her side, not resting on anything in particular, just hanging in the water column, fighting to bring forth her son. It took time, for he was large, expelling his shoulders through her pelvic girdle. Kavala could not see him, not yet, locked in the struggle she was attempting to. White hair drifted in the water, tinted pink by the clouds of blood that came with him.

When he finally slipped free, tethered only by his umbilical cord, his mother snatched him, bringing him to her chest, not knowing if he'd drown in the water or if he could breath on his own. It took her moments to register the shock of white hair against the almost black skin. Membranes at his neck flared and he opened his mouth to wail but beneath the water the sound was muted into a siren call of protest. The Konti quickly checked him over, admiring the webbing between his toes and fingers, and patterning of almost black scales across his body. She swirled him closer, tucking him into her chest. And even though he was still feeding from her through his cord, he latched onto a breast and suckled greedily. Strong fists reached to grip her skin but caught only her hair, yanking it firmly to anchor himself to her.

Kavala whimpered, the pleasure of his nursing and the pain of his birth mingling in her uniformly. He would survive. He could breath. She sighed and arched her back, flipping in the water column as another contraction hit her. She would have to clear her womb of his placenta and the aftermath of that would be messy. She needed to cut the cord, but there was nothing for her to do so with other than her teeth. The pale form twisted in the column, caught the babies cord that swept across her and vanished between her legs. She bent almost double, gasped as pain shot through her, and bit the cord through. She tore it with her teeth, releasing another cloud of blood. Exhausted she lay back in the column, drifting in the space not touching stone or walls and letting the newborn life feed.

But his birth didn't seem to progress like it should. Labor pains continued. Contractions seized her even as she slowly expelled the messy bundle of afterbirth. Small fish, hungry and knowing what to expect, crowded in, making quick work of the unexpected feast. Kavala did not care. She had her son in her arms and was busy stroking his back and welcoming him as he feasted, not the least of all bothered by the sea. But still she labored, long past where her body should have calmed itself and relaxed.

It was, however, a shock when the last of the afterbirth was expelled and her contractions continued. Now that the boy was with her and not in her, the Konti was more coherent than before... less held in the grip of instinct. Kavala was a trained healer, and a very good one. And even as exhausted as she was, she knew this wasn't right. The pains came harder, now going into thirty bells of labor for the sun had sank and rose again above them. More blood came, also highly unusual, and the Konti clutched her son as she bent double as pain licked up and down her body. Kavala didn't know if her son had torn her within and she was bleeding out or if there was something else completely different wrong.

Healers should never attend their own healing. Never.

[Kavala]

Having lost so much blood and having been in labor so long, Kavala knew she was in trouble. She slipped her hand down her body, invoking her gnosis, trying to repair damage to herself without disturbing her son or interrupting his feeding. The first milk he got was the most vital and would keep him disease free for a season or more just on the strength of his mother's body. But despite her touch, the pain kept coming and she grew desperate. Clutching at the infant, she twisted in the water column, straying from the sheltered alcove to entwine among the kelp that swayed all around her.

There was more blood and hard hard contractions that had the Konti screaming underwater and the baby on her chest wide-eyed and watchful. He didn't cry though... not once. His fascination seemed to be with his mother, even as dim sighted as he was this early on. The child was expectant, wise like all of his kind, watching his mother fret with a knowing pull to her breast. Soon enough she'd find out. Soon enough she'd know what the tiny boy already knew.

The second child came all at once, a great deal smaller than the first. She was born in a pale cloud of fluid that glittered in the afternoon sun and looked for all the world like a sheet of stars enfolding her. And unlike the silent sibling that was stoically witnessing his mother's toll in strength and purpose... this second offspring was grey and silent and unbelievably frail. And it seemed to take the Konti an eternity to understand what she was witnessing. Sweeping up the second bundle just as that child's afterbirth followed, the healer looked over the small form in disbelief. She wasn't even close to the size of the child already in her arms, tucked against her in the crook of her right elbow. This one was delicate, eyes closed, complexion ashen. Kavala tore away the cord, knowing the child had been long without blood and nourishment because the first boy's birth had likely dislodged this child's birth sack and thus cut off her food and air.

All this flowed through Kavala's mind, sparking her full consciousness. She brought the girl up close, tucking her into her chest against the boy who reached out and touched his sister, his almost black skin a drastic contrast to the infant konti's pallor. Kavala kept them both close to her and began to rub the non-responsive one vigorously. She ran her lips over the baby's gills, and forced a mouth full of water across them.

It was hard to hold one child and try to bring life back to another. If she had clothing or anything, she could have tucked the boy into garments, even wet. But she was nude and had nothing... so it was a struggle. Even as tired as she was, her Rak'keli mark kicked into full gear and she covered the tiny girl with her hands, sending glowing power into the child. As she did so, she forced water across the girls gills again and on the forth try the little girl opened her mouth and started breathing. Kavala all but sobbed in relief. Tangling her little fists in her mother's hair and in her brother's pale locks, the tiny konti yawned and instantly drifted to sleep tucked up against her brother in her mother's arms.

Kavala woke the baby almost instantly not wanting her to sleep and put the child to her breast. At first she wouldn't feed, but given time she eventually took milk, leaving Kavala a quiet moment to process the mess she was in and what needed to happen. And while she let the children feed, she bowed her head and dozed over them, clutching them gently to her, letting her mind work out a plan while her body gathered another burst of energy to get them all someplace safe. The feeling of euphoria put the Konti into a doze colored with exhaustion. She had to move, find shelter, but first, before any of that, she had to rest.

[Kavala]

When the Konti woke, she was curled around the two infants that were clutched in her arms. One was sleeping peacefully, barely noticble breaths were flaring her gill flaps slightly. Her color was a bit better, but only slightly, and she seemed weak beyond what was safe. The other child, so black and so strong was busy looking around, watching his mother and his sister while taking occasional pulls at her breast. He looked all the world as if he was assessing the situation and plotting his own future. In Kavala's mind, she also wondered if he saw his mother and the condition she was in and was indeed finding her lacking and wondering how to trade up.

The Konti glanced down at herself. She was flat out gaunt. For all that she'd been hugely pregnant, and for good reason she now realized, the bones of her arms were clearly visible beneath her skin. Kavala had lost muscle tone and mass, and her ribs were clearly visible above where the excess skin hung that had stretched out across her belly. She still looked a little pregnant, though she knew hard work and time would fix the water retention and stretched organs. What she was more worried about was how thin her legs were and how protruding her joints seemed.

Living in a home full of healers, no one had seen it. Kavala herself had been in denial. She lost too many meals to nausea. She lost too much sleep to the pregnancy. Tasival was extremely hard on her, but this one... this one made her first seem like a cake walk. Kavala had lost blood, and was weak from the birth. She had two infants to care for and feed, which meant she had to get food into herself, and hopefully that food would stay down. She had to protect all three of them from any predators that wandered by and hopefully get them to some sort of shelter if she could.

Kavala pondered calling res and just securing where they were better. But when she partially released the boy to free her hand she couldn't even get res to pool into her palm. The effort was enormous and the payoff was totally lacking. And the boy fussed with her releasing him slightly. He wanted to be held close, gripped tightly, and securely. He wanted to feel like he was still in her womb without actually being there.

And the knowing look in his eyes told her he'd settle for nothing else.

The girl didn't even seem to wake as Kavala shifted around. The healer bent over them trying to decide what to do and even how this had happened. They couldn't even remotely be related because both children were two different species. And if Kavala had seen the Konti girl apart from her brother, she would have said the birth was premature by several tendays if not a good quarter season. She wasn't acting like a child that had been ready to be born. Instead she was having trouble breathing, her heartbeat was thready, and Kavala knew she was in real danger of loosing the girl either to exposure or predators or just because her mother couldn't protect her if someone wanted to take a snack.

The boy was strong, well developed, and overall Kavala judged he was late making an appearance. That meant one thing. She'd had a rare double pregnancy called Superfetation. It simply meant the boy was conceived and well progressing in his growth before the girl was conceived. The Konti had carried two pregnancies to term at once, which was something that was rare but not unheard of. The children were twins only from the womb, not even from their blood. Kavala recalled her studies on Superfetiation and tried to recapture the details of it in her mind. It meant the formation of a fetus while another fetus is already present in the uterus. It occured when eggs from two separate fertility cycles were released, as opposed to normal twins where multiple ova are expelled in a single cycle. Although common in animals, it was rare in humans and even rarer in Konti, but could result in a twin or multiple pregnancy where the fetuses display a marked difference in gestational development.

The little girl was likely to die unless she was brought to shelter. And Kavala was too weak to get her to anywhere safe besides...

The thought hit her like a brick. The Isle had supplies, a warm bed, and shelter from predators. It even had food and baby stuff stored there just in case. Kavala didn't know if she could make it, but staying here would result in nothing good happening. The Konti shook her head to clear her negative thoughts, and set about pulling fronds from the kelp around her to quickly tie together forming a makeshift net sling. She shimmied into it giving the babies something to rest in against her. It was crude but functional and something Kavala hoped would hold together until she made it to the island.

Looking around, she got her bearings. Spending more than a little time off shore building the island - a year to be exact - the Konti knew where she was and what direction she had to start swimming to make it. Luckily it wasn't far.

[Kavala]

Kavala swam with the rest of her strength. Luckily the Konti were of the sea, so sliding through its crystalline winter waters was far easier than trudging upon the lands. The two infants with her and their three souls were no burden in the buoyant water. She was a pale iridescent arrow fired from a bow born of need flying true to the one place she could find shelter and perhaps save the life of the smallest life barely into the world. Kavala feared it would not be enough. Because as she traveled she bled, still hurt from the ordeal and still weak from the silvery blood in her veins being thinner than it should be. Konti were ethereally beautiful, but they were as frail as fleeting thoughts. They liked to classify themselves as touch as silken spiderwebs that were said to be stronger than steel, but the spirit could not make up for the fragility of form. So Kavala swam, not because her life depended upon it, but rather because the lives of her children did.

And she passed through the kelp beds out into open water until she hit an offshore reef that paralleled the beach below and to the north of Riverfall. Her beloved Sanctuary was to the west where the land rose up and towered over the sea creating its massive cliffs and formidable sentinel forest. Kavala was glad she was not there. Here, she could survive and find peace. Here she could bond with her children if the sea saw fit to let her keep them. And though she often felt unworthy to be who she was and to have gifted to her what she was gifted, in this moment she was going to do her best to be found worthy of the lives clutched to her chest. And even though she was still young, barely into her thirties, the body she wore bore the signs of the harshness of her life. Bones were rail thin. Muscles were gone. Softenss corded her body where muscle used to grip her. There were hollows beneath her eyes and well into her cheekbones. She looked Dira Touched already though the Konti herself couldn’t see it.

And so it was she followed the natural subtle curve of the land coming up on the island from the south. She found it without issue, relief pouring through her, because Kavala was grateful beyond belief at herself for having the forethought to have the steps leading up to the various Reverie Isle landings drop well into the sea. All she had to do was swim up upon them and slip her feet down and carefully begin to climb up and out of the water. When her feet began to take her weight and her head and shoulders came free of the sea, Kavala knew she was weak. The weight of the black-skinned boy in her arms felt like ten children, not one small newborn infant. The girl, on the other hand, was all but weightless. Kavala clutched them tightly and kept climbing the steps.

She was almost home… almost.

[Kavala]

Kavala took an eternity to climb to the forefront of the island and stand before the stone door that lead to the chamber beyond and shelter from the waves.

When she was at the door, all she could do was stop and gently set the almost black infant down on the ground. The girl she dare not pull from the warmth of her naked chest. The woman then reached out, worked the door, and opened it wide enough to admit the trio. Kavala then bent, scooped up the boy, and staggered into the confines of the room. It was ice cold, but there was a way to fix that. She laid the children on the bed, then carefully got a fire started. Kavala only turned her back on the smallest for a moment, just enough time to light the fire, and the little girl stopped breathing.

So when Kavala returned to the bed to gather them back to her and bring them nearer the fire until its hearth could warm the whole room, she cried out in denial when she saw the stillness of the little girl. Falling to her knees on the bed, Kavala scooped up the girl, plugged her nose, and gently puffed the tiniest of breaths into her lungs. Then she compressed her chest, puffed again, and watched as the little girl took another breath. Kavala laid her hands on the girls chest, flooded her with healing gnosis, but could sense the problem immediately. Her lungs hadn't finished developing. Kavala could feel the incompleteness of the little girls chest. The Konti carefully checked the infant's gills and found them more progressed. That spurred her to action.

While Ia'del was breathing she quickly fed Ralac and changed him, then tucked him deep into the blankets she piled up by the fire. She added Ia'del beside him and then got to work. Summoning Res, she pulled stone up from the floor, and while the fireplace was heating the room, Kavala drew the angles of a huge submersion tub up and worked into the decor so she could have a place to sleep with the babies where Ia'del could breath easier and her lungs could rest.

Kavala completed the tub and then used the last of her energy to fill its confines with res that she then converted to water. It would have been easier to haul buckets, but she didn't have the strength for the trips it would take. When she was done, she checked Ia'del, found her still breathing, and then dug into the stores to take out some journeybred she had saved on the island for emergencies. Kavala dug into it famished, having had nothing to eat in the two days she'd labored and the third day it had taken her to get here. It must have been around the thirteenth then, she decided, as she stuffed all the bread she could into her mouth, drank down fresh water she filled a bowl with using her res, and then grabbed both infants and slipped into the submersion tank.

She'd stay there a while with them, only bringing them out as long as Ia'del's lungs could handle the fresh air. In a day or two, maybe sooner, she'd bet better or she'd be dead. Kavala knew she'd work all the angles and do all she could to make sure the infant survived. But it was hard alone, and even harder still with Ralac to care for as well. The little boy, defying his racial standards, was strong and healthy, nothing like his frail little sister. He could make the trip home now. But Kavala knew Ia'del wouldn't make it. And honestly, with the shape she was in, Kavala didn't think she'd make it either.

If no one thought to look there, then she'd have to gather strength for a few days before she swam back to shore. Regardless, she knew here they had a better chance of survival, all three of them, rather than in the open waters or the coastal shallows of Cyphrus.

[Translucent]

Congratulations On Your Hard Work!

Kavala:
XP:+1 deduction, +1 intelligence, +1 reimancy
Lores: Answering the Call of her Father, Fear of Rejection, Contractions to reposition the baby, Healers should never attend to their own births,Deduction/Intelligence: Superfetation: Two children born at once in the sea,

Notes: Gave you the deduction point and a mirroring intelligence point because Kavala took the evidence of the two babies and deduced intelligently that it was a superfetation.

As always PM me if you have issues.