Monster Refined: Any Birth in a Storm
It was a dark and stormy night...isn't it always? David Cordenal glanced to the windows as rain pelted at the glass. On the bed his young wife, Marie, wimpered in pain, sweat beading on her forhead. Her normal meticulous hair plastered against her face as she groaned and pushed again. The midwife - a woman younger than Marie - pressed her hand against Marie's swollen stomach and bit her lip uncertainly.
"It's turned, lass. I need to...well, let's see what we can do." David's stomach churned as the midwife - he'd never gotten her name - opened her basket and began to cover her hands with a sheen of oil. The woman was new, but she was all the young couple could find. Marie wasn't due for at least another month, and by the time David had found this one he was at his wit's end. It was the girl's first delivery, and now there was a complication.
Marie let out a weak yell that became a wimper as she looked around, frightened eyes meeting David's. The man clutched at her hand and kissed her, his eyes never leaving hers. As they clutched each other, the midwife began to slowly turn the child inside. Finally she said, 'push', and laid a hand on Marie's stomach. A small golden light flowed into Marie and her pale face regained some of its color. With one final push, a head apeared - followed by the rest of the child.
As the midwife held the child by its ankle and slapped its first breath into it, David was struck by the strangest feeling. On the one hand, the babe was quite possibly the ugliest thing he'd ever seen. David didn't have younger siblings, so never had he seen a babe right after the birth - so purple and wrinkled and covered in fluid. On the other hand - he hadn't seen anything more beautiful.
Then it - she - cried and it was like nothing else he'd ever experienced. A fiercely protective warmth bubbled up in his chest as he looked at the girl, and then to his wife as the midwife began to clean the child off. "She's small, but healthy, Ma'am. Fierce set of lungs." This was punctuated by the babe testing out said lungs at full volume. "She'll make it."
Marie leaned back and closed her eyes, the color beginning to drain from her face. As the midwife brough the child over - clean and swaddled - she looked down at the young woman and handed the babe to David. "She'll be alright. A little bit of tearing, but she'll heal. It was a long time for the babe to be stuck and she's just exhausted. What are you going to name the mite?" She looked down at the infant.
David took the babe as if she were made of glass and looked down at her red face. Warmth washed over him as he smiled. "We agreed on the name Ehlayra. Ehlayra Cordenal."
