Vili Chaffe was the pinkest, plumpest child Em had ever seen. And Cel had said the exact same when he picked up his son, commenting especially on how much the boy resembled his mother - all the way down to his tiny, shining purple eyes. Except, of course

, that he had two, and she only the one. And that hers were blinded with tears, as Charlotte snatched him away from her husband first.

[Image: three drawings of disabled characters from my story, with the characters’ names written above them in bubbled writing. The first is of a woman with a disinterested expression, holding her right arm at the elbow, with hair falling down over her shoulder. The second is of another young woman, with hair that falls down over her left eye. She is smiling and flapping her hands, one of which has a wedding ring on it. The third is again, a young woman, also smiling, but with her hair in a plait, also flapping her hands and wearing a dress with an overcoat and multiple skirts.]

Embrystical: ‘Ex’ as in the twenty fourth letter of the alphabet, or the most common symbol used to represent an unknown integer in an algebraic equation, where you are solving the equation in order to find the value represented by said symbol. Also, ‘ex’ as in something that is no longer true. For instance, an ex-Nordic is someone who was born into the Nordic faith, but renounced it in place of another, or none.