"Oh." She breathes out. Labor had turned her voice into nothing but worn-out syllables. She blinks- once, twice- as she tries to focus on the newborn.
A girl, that was what the midwife had said. She tries her hardest to stay awake now as she examines the child's face- she did not know what children were supposed to look like when they had been born. She had been the only child in her family and her parents had been older than the norm when they had decided to have her.
The girl looked nothing like either one of her parents as of the moment-instead, she looked quite like a red wrinkly fruit, all scrunched up like a walnut left in water. The child's squalling was beginning to grate on her ears but...she was her child all the same.
She shifts her gaze to her husband, notes the disappointment in his face- he prided himself on having excellent composure, but at the moment he was not at all unreadable. His feelings were blatantly clear.
He had wanted a son. He had gotten a daughter.
She felt... cheated. It was a great exertion on her part and she had carried the child to term safely and without much incident. Couldn't he take comfort in that?
"... Your daughter, my lord." She reminded him softly. He blinked- much like waking from a dream- and stared down at the child being cleaned by the nurses. He reaches out with a hand and entwines it about hers- he had not been permitted to stay in the room for the entirety of the labor, and only now could he feel her grip and sense how weak it was.
"... She needs a name." She probed at him again sleepily.
"... A name, of course." He repeated dumbly.
The babe needed a name, but they had never talked of a daughter- only a son. He didn't know what to do with a baby girl. He had been so sure it was a son- after all, his brother had gotten a son. Why did he have to have a daughter, of all the...
"... A name... I..." He stammered.
"Perhaps after your great-aunt." She closed her fingers and gave him a squeeze.
He blinks again. "... Cassandra?" He says slowly. He connects the words in his mind- Cassandra Spiritmight. It was not at all unbecoming, but...
Light, he had wanted a son.
"Not Cassandra?" She murmurs up at him.
"No, no, it... hardly fits... her." He mumbles back as he stares at the child, listens to her cries and tries to avoid thoughts of infanticide. No, no, no, no, he was not such a man, he would not, even if it were such a disappointment, even if-
"My grandmother?" She gives him a squeeze.
"Serafina?" He stares at her. He had never met the woman but then again, it was good a name as any. Light knew he had absolutely no idea what to do anymore.
He wanted a son, damn it all.
"Serafina." He repeated as she gave a drowsy nod.
"T'would do, my dear. T'would do." He mumbled as he hesitantly swept her hair to one side and stroked at her forehead, however wet with sweat it was.
"... May I hold her?" She whispered up at him. He looked at her, at the still crying babe, and then at the wet nurse waiting by the door.
Infants with wet nurses, and children with governesses, that was how it had to be. He couldn't break propriety so.
"No, my dear." He said at once. "I'm afraid not."
His wife made a disappointed noise in her throat, and for a brief moment he thought she was crying- but surely those trails were simply the sweat rolling down her forehead?
"... Elaine?" He broached. What if she was dying? "... Are you well? Do you wish for me to get the surgeon?"
She shuddered underneath his touch but he took it to be a shiver of sorts- after all, she had lost a lot of blood.
"No, my lord." She murmured. "I am well."
