15th of fall, 516 a.v.late morning
“Help!” It wasn’t a complicated word, nor a particularly lengthy one; the little brown-haired boy didn’t do anything to tangle up his meaning. One word, the only word to him that mattered to him more than the world.
It was a word that no one responded to.
“Help!” he said to the people of the Solar Wind Apartments, running frantically to anyone he could find and shouting it in their faces. “Help me!”
All he got were concerned looks, shaking heads and shrugging shoulders, along with the occasional annoyed grunt as someone tried to brush him aside; the Sea of Grass could have been a different world, for all his culture did to help him, because he was calling out in the only language he knew: Pavi, language of the Drykas. And the people of Lhavit were no Drykas.
“Help!” the boy cried to anyone who would listen, voice growing louder with each repeat. He needed someone, anyone who knew even the first thing about the city; he and his family might have been content to keep to themselves and let the rumor mill run free, but today was one day where they had to ask for help. Ask for help, or risk one of their own dying.
“Help me!” the boy screamed to the whole of the Apartments. “Please!”
He was ready to break down and give up all hope of finding anyone, when suddenly, like a god-given miracle, someone understood what he was saying. Someone understood Pavi.
“Please, help me!” he said to the first person who could understand. “It’s my mother, she’s having a baby! We need a healer!”
Without waiting for a reply, he attempted to grab whatever hand or cloth he could find and drag the stranger towards his family’s room.*I left it open for who the mysterious Pavi-speaking person was, so feel free say it’s Tsari if you’d like, or someone else if not.
* * *
“Breathe, Kyla,” Colt said. “Keep focused on me.” He did his best to remember what had happened to his sister, what she had needed right before the birth of her children. He knew that they were completely different situations; Seirei had given birth with a home waiting for her children and a family ready to help, while Kyla Snowhunt was trapped in a city of glass that spoke a language she did not know.
Snow crouched timidly in a corner, ears back and tail between her legs. She let out periodic whines at each of Kyla’s cries of pain, but didn’t dare come any closer; Colt had long since made it clear that she was not to interfere.
“It won’t survive!” Kyla choked in terror. “We won’t make it! We won’t make it home; this child will never see the grass!”
“Kyla, stop.” He grabbed her face and forced her to look at him. “Look at me. Do not look anywhere else; as your ankal, I command you to breathe!”
Her fear didn’t go anywhere, but the authority he held was enough for her to obey. In. Out. Colt breathed with her, taking long, deep breaths and bidding Kyla to do the same. She followed his lead, and her frantic movements stopped and left her stone-stiff.
Until another contraction took over, and it broke.
“Petch everything!” Kyla snarled. “We weren’t supposed to escape! This is our punishment! The spirits are punishing us!”
“Did I say you could stop breathing?” Colt barked. “Again!”
Teary-eyed and in agony, Kyla forced herself to breathe again. Colt did everything in his power to keep command of the entirety of her attention, with the sole hope of keeping her thoughts off of the grim reality of their situation. A baby was coming, there was no surprise about that; another mouth to feed and body to keep warm, while supposed to bring joy, was instead settling over them as a weighty burden. If the baby was born smoothly, then their struggle would be doubled.
And if the baby was born poorly, the three travelers would become only two.
