Bundles of Joy

Bundles of Joy

Postby Guppy » Wed Dec 03, 2014 3:46 pm

The night stole the breath from her lungs.

The wind seeped past the protective barrier of her clothing as she stole through the courtyard of the Rememdium with caution in her step. The threat of Jule Mitchell remained fresh in her memory, so she dared not to enter in daylight hours.

Instead, she lifted her arm and lobbed tiny pebbles at the glass windowpanes. She remained hunkered down in the shadows, waiting to see Gloria's face appear.

Surely the child was here. Surely, there should be far more celebration.

What was happening?
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Rance » Wed Dec 03, 2014 4:08 pm

A candle inside -- one never unlit, always tended by passing hands in the late-night hours -- cast its brightness in wild, waking rays in the room. A tap, a tap against the windowpane, little stones summoning music from the fog-smudged expanse of the blurry window. After several minutes, what Noura saw was the stump of a handless arm struggling in futility with the glowing draperies, trying to shove them aside, away--

With a candle-plate clasped in her only hand's fingers, a sweat-darkened face peered out into the cool night from behind the glass. Seeking out answers, eyes gaping and besotted by a staggering battery of herbs tried to pierce the night. Warm breath blasted the shape of an hourglass onto the rough surface. What secrets and complicity did the night hold, she wondered -- what creature colluded with the shadows, asked its assistance in casting stones against the window? Swaying under the weight of mandrake and poppy, she barely managed to steady herself before, with a gown-sleeve, she wiped smudges from the glass.

Hello? she mouthed.

(Or is it nothing, Gloria, prattled a disembodied voice at the base of her brain. Is it just a branch playing chimes for a new mother?)
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Guppy » Thu Dec 04, 2014 3:00 pm

The flicker of candleflame guided her to the correct window and after the pebbles flew from her fingertips, she awaited the familiar figure. A breath obscured her vision, but the stump - a hand given as payment for Noura's life - was unmistakeable. The panes of glass were, no doubt, cold against the seamstress' cheek; a shock against the warmth of the room.

Like a phantom, the white-clad frame of Noura stepped clear of the treeline and her hand lifted in mute greeting. Abruptly, she darted forward as if exposure were an altogether frightening concept at this juncture. She approached, lifting that same hand to press against the pane of glass between them.

Dancing eyes, peering from behind the shadows of her cloak's hood, spoke of her joy and she opened her mouth to speak. "Gloria! Open up! I've waited far too long to see her," she teased - words muffled, without meaning, behind that barrier that stretched between the two.
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Rance » Thu Dec 04, 2014 3:28 pm

With the candle surrendered to the nightstand, Gloria worked the latch and threw the window open in a wide swing, its hinges complaining in the cold. The thin, smoke-stained curtains fluttered like banners behind her. "You're here," the seamstress proclaimed, her face brightening with mirth.

With the invitation clear, Gloria retreated from the window. The weight of pregnancy, the bend of her spine, and the glow of new life had abandoned her; the girl that stood in the middle of the room was a seamstress Noura had not seen for months: her shoulders and neck, again, were the widest and most sturdy parts of her body. Though her bland nightgown still swelled at the belly, her abdomen was a deflated mass yet suffering expanded skin too stubborn to shrink. The young woman was alive -- for all her fears of death, of trauma, of bleeding out in the wake of delivery, she was hale and hearty.

Her only hand extended to Noura, an offering of assistance. Her gown-sleeve rode up to reveal her arm, its copper skin marked by several sloppy tallies scraped thereupon with coal.

"They've not yet brought her to me," Gloria whispered. "They're cleaning her, and they're giving her to a wet-nurse to feed her, like I am a noble, yes?"

An unbroken smile. Subdued. Lacking sobriety. Her eyes were gray lumps of glass, but they too couldn't stop grinning. They swallowed the whole vision of the wildling, a night-clad apparition in all her bony, spectral finery. As though she'd turned from vapor to being from a dream. As though she'd been wished for, prayed for--

"You came, Noura," Gloria said. "I am relieved. I asked the priestess where you were, but she couldn't say. She didn't know, but here you are."
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Guppy » Thu Dec 04, 2014 11:19 pm

Noura vowed that she would not allow Gloria to cross over, should the birth be a complicated one. She had not been worried, but she could not leave the matter to chance. Her sister would not leave her behind in the grip of death. She and the creature in her head had lingered just outside the sturdy, squat Rememdium building for hours. Of course, Noura recalled her nightmare and had kept just far enough away that the suspiciously silent creature could not be tempted by the vessel of newborn babe.

The wildling reached up, lifted up onto the tips of her booted toes to claim the extended hand. She only used a fraction of the help that had been offered, not wanting to unseat the seamstress from her obviously drug-addled stance. The sill of the window received her hand and she hefted herself up and over the frame. She lingered, seated on that same window sill, and opened her arms to her dearest friend.

Gloria was ever-changing, while she remained just the same, she noted silently. She did not allow the thought to steal the grin splashed across her pretty features.

"Of course I came. I was always nearby in case you needed me, but I had to wait until they left you be to approach. I am unwelcome here," she remarked, with a sudden solemn expression.

Her head cocked to the side, canted with puzzled concern spreading across her brow. "Why do they not allow you to feed her yourself? Surely you are able?"
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Rance » Fri Dec 05, 2014 1:15 am

"You're always welcome in my room," Gloria countered. "This is my room. I'm to rest for -- for a fortnight, they said; a mother oughtn't be too active so early, they said; it's customary to be prescribed so much rest, they said. How silly is that," she asks of the girl perched on the sill, her lopsided smile cutting slantways across her face. And then: "Why are you unwelcome?

"I could speak to Menna Mercy. Yes? She'll fix it; she's made sure they're taking good care of my child. I trust her."

The embrace that Noura offered was accepted without hesitation. Gloria dissolved into those extended arms and returned the sentiment. Her forearms were sturdy beams, wrapping around the other girl with little concern for what lived below the surface of the wildling's skin--

Why do they not allow you to feed her yourself?

Gloria shook her head.

"They're still washing her. Cleaning the -- the blood and refuse from her skin. But it's taking so long, isn't it? It's taking forever; I'm liable to grow to be a hundred by the time they bring her to see me. You see?"

She separated from Noura and displayed her forearm with its marks of coal. A record. A measurement of time.

"It's been well over a week." The blissful oblivion on the seamstress' face began to fade. Features contorted. Unsure eyes sought some kind of logic in her wildling-sister's thinner, gaunter visage.

"What -- what if she's crying? What if she's starving?"
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Guppy » Fri Dec 05, 2014 3:59 am

The question was an innocent one and it earned a soft smile. "Physician Mitchell and Mercy have made it abundantly clear. I am unwelcome," she said, before her head gave a shake that unseated her hood from her crown. It tumbled down to her shoulders unapologetic. "Or, rather, the creature is unwelcome. Since I house her, I am not to step foot into the Rememdium. Last I tried, Healer Mitchell drugged and banished me. It was ... distressing," she remarked, without the expected vitriol. She understood his actions, but did not enjoy the vulnerability that came with them. Jule Mitchell was the boogeyman, as far as she was concerned. As fearsome as they got. If only he knew. "I do not think they would think me welcome in your room, either."

The two embraced, Noura electing to be gentle with the woman who had just given birth some days past. "Well, it must take some time to clean children," she remarked, with furrowed brow and soft words intended to bring comfort. Inwardly, her heart dropped into her stomach. A sense of wrong assailed her.

The distress written upon Gloria's features was met with a wide grin as they parted. "Silly thing. You'd be able to hear her," she assured, before slipping free of the sill.

"I will go and check on her for you so you can stop worrying," she offered, already making for the door. She cast a smile behind her and attempted to close the door quietly.

Jule Mitchell may be her own personal monster, but she was well used to those. Her love for Gloria was far, far stronger than her fear.

The wildling turned once her vision met with closed door, her expression thunderous. She stalked down the hall towards where she knew his room to be, magic glowing as it raced down her arms, barely contained. She would go right to the source.

Heaven save him.
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Rance » Sat Dec 06, 2014 5:46 pm

The creature is unwelcome.

A conflict flashed across Gloria's face. She too understood, matters of precaution and concern, but did not know if she could abide it, that someone for whom she cared so greatly was denied a service meted regularly to the other commoners and farmers and--

"The chamber is mine until they dimiss me. In my room you are welcome, Noura. They needn't even know."

All of Noura's false comforts were enough to quell the cold, frozen trickle of fears in her spine. I will go and check on her for you, Noura said, but even as the wildling fled through the front entryway to the private chamber, discomfort gripped the seamstress' ribs, stole the breath from her, forced her to measure her inhalations -- no, no, if the child had not yet been delivered to her (What is taking so long? Does it require so many hours to feed a babe, and days more to bathe it?) then perhaps the infant wasn't yet meant to be looked upon (Why? Has ever there been born a child who's been kept so long from its mother?) And by eyes other than her own? (Is the mere act of observing her poisonous or dangerous? Do they think I'm so caustic or incapable?) Drug-blinded jealousy burned in her cheeks and across her breast.

When will they let me see her? Haven't I the right, the privilege?

A blunt stump caught the door. She thrust herself out and into the dimness of the Rememdium's common room. Noura, a shadow illuminated by the burning runes written into her flesh, was not hard to find. From behind her--

"No."

In the doorway of the birthing-chamber, with her voluminous dressing-gown hanging loosely from her shoulders, Gloria Wynsee was a black-faced specter, her oily hair a an unkempt bramble around her cheeks. "If -- if they've not yet brought her," she said through the halls, "then they shall soon enough, Noura. Thank you, truly, but they'll run you out as quick as look at you. And beside that?

"My eyes deserve to see her first, and my arms to hold her."
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Guppy » Sun Dec 07, 2014 3:31 am

The smile she sent her friend at her invitation was soft, but she made no comment otherwise. Lack of welcome was becoming something that she entirely expected. She had become something of a hermit. Her own company, and on rare occasion that of the Dagger's inhabitants, was far better than the accusing, suspicious stares of the townsfolk.

Noura whirled as Gloria ceased her pace with a single word. The runes flickered and died as she turned to cast her confused stare towards the seamstress. "No?," she parroted, with an incredulous shake of her head.

She had tried to spare her feelings, but certainly she was not falling for these falsehoods they leveled at her? "Gloria, it has been a week's time since you birthed the child. Surely they do not need seven days to clean a newborn? Why was she taken from you? You must find out!," she insisted, worry knotting her brows together.

She hesitated, uncertain if she should proceed.
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Rance » Sun Dec 07, 2014 10:01 am

Taken.

Gloria relied upon the doorjamb for her balance. Her bare feet were turned inward, as though the ankles had been hobbled or suffered some listless palsy. Her mouth worked open, closed, open again, gumming on words and explanations hidden behind the mud of mandrake and poppy.

"They have to -- to feed her. They have to bathe her," she told Noura, a complacent and hollow excuse. Then: "Is something wrong with her, Noura? She's beautiful, isn't she? She'll be beautiful, won't she?"

Unblinking eyes gazed at her friend for some kind of logic, a reason. Her sweat-dampened palm clutched at her gown-skirt and kneaded it, wringing it so tightly, so compactly in her shuddering fist that the fabric rode up across the coarse, black hairs on her legs and danced across her shaking knees. Her spine scraped against the door's hinges; like an infant herself, having forgotten in that moment how to balance or walk, she relied on the wall for support.

Why was she taken from you?

"I don't know, I don't know."

Aimlessly, she turned. She stumbled back into the candlelit chamber. Gloria fond the clay wash-basin that, with almost religious dedication, she'd used to anoint and clean her lone hand every hour of every day since the baby was born. Now, her breasts ached for a need to be used; she'd washed, washed, washed over and over again, hadn't she, hadn't she, turned the water black with her Jernoan perspiration and filth--

Taken.

(In the night, she'd been listening -- she heard coughs, wheezes, wet, hacking eruptions of illness beyond her walls, sneezing, moaning, whispers of comfort to other patients. But a cry? An infant's peal? Never a one.)

"Noura," the girl whispered in the room--

When she looked down to her own reflection in the vessel of water, Gloria Wynsee gritted her befouled teeth. She gripped the basin around its lip, lifted it to a pinnacle, then brought it crashing down, down upon the nightstand, with the intent to fracture, shatter, destroy the too-familiar pottery.
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Guppy » Thu Dec 11, 2014 3:17 pm

The look on Gloria's features made her brows furrow with distress. Immediately, she felt a keen stab of guilt for her harsh words. Certainly, they were no less correct, but she might have sheltered the blow a little. "I am sure that she is beautiful, Gloria. We will see her soon," she assured, the worry unable to be banished from her features.

She attempted to catch the seamstress' hand to gently guide her back to her room. She would seek to lead her towards the bed quietly so that the soft bedding could lend her what support it could grant. But Gloria had other ideas and went by her own power to the washbasin. There was a sharp crack and it shattered in a million pieces. Noura, startled, could only stare at her friend.

Eventually, she found her strength and moved cautiously towards her friend. "Well, whatever their reasons, we will find out together. When you are ready," she added, pointedly.
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Rance » Thu Dec 11, 2014 3:49 pm

Noura's touch had been a distant memory on her skin. Breaking away from it had not been intentional, but rather, essential; the basin needed breaking, breaking, breaking, had to be broken, had to be rendered incapable of its only purpose. Somewhere, sometime ago, someone had drummed their heels on a wooden pedal and spun, spun, spun the wet clay on a grooved cylinder. Two keen hands had molded a glob of mud into a beautiful vessel. One angry fist had undone it.

...we will find out together. When you are ready.

Gloria looked into Noura's face, her jaw working a rhythm underneath her cheeks. She chewed on the inner flesh until copper and iron sang on her tongue.

"What am I, Noura, if they don't give me my girl? What am I?"

Desperate fingers crawled up the sleeve of Noura's dress. She gripped at the wildling's garments and tried to drag her closer so that, like a teetering statue, she could thrust her face forward and into the protective warmth of the crook that separated Noura's chin from her collar. Gloria's whole body was a heavy, restless weight, a cumbersome lump of skin and bone that had been fired into hardness under a Sun and left to languish here in a Rememdium--

"I need help. I -- I always need help. I'll always need your help."

A bare foot crunched down onto a shattered tongue of pottery, crushing it to powder under her heel. Her fingers twisted knots in the wildling's dress, clinging for balance and companionship. Then, she begged, "Take me out of here. Take me somewhere. If I can't hear her here, then -- then I want to be somewhere else where I can't hear anything at all."
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Guppy » Thu Dec 11, 2014 4:28 pm

"Take care," the wildling protested, nodding towards the shards of pottery littered around the girl's feet. Her mouth slanted down with worry and she reached out to press a cool palm on Gloria's cheek in attempt to cease the grind of tooth upon flesh. "Please. Stop," she cried, softly - the pain of empathy too much to bear.

In the end, they clung to one another, desperate for the companionship. Tears for her friend gathered and fell on cold-numbed cheeks. She struggled to support the other girl with her comparatively lean frame. "You are still you, even without her, but you needn't worry. We will find her, whatever it takes. We will make them give her back to you. Because you," she attempted to lay a hand upon the other's crown as she nuzzled into Noura's sweet-smelling neck, " are going to make a wonderful mother."

"I will help. I will always help," she repeated, like a mantra, as she wrapped her arms tightly around her friend and held her close.

The request was an unexpected one, but the wildling nodded, regardless. "Come, let us leave this cold place." The Rememdium felt like illness to her, never-ending suffering. The poultices burned her nose and the thought of Jule and her own vulnerability made her feel physically ill. "We will come back in for answers later. The stables are warm and quiet and they will keep us safe," she assured, leading her towards the door.
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Re: Bundles of Joy

Postby Rance » Thu Dec 11, 2014 5:01 pm

In the morning--

An unmade bed. Linens wrinkled from sleep, stained by rings of tarsweat, blotted at the center with a few telltale smears of old, brown blood. The shattered remnants of the washing-basin still lay scattered like a thousand fallen soldiers on the wooden floor. A note was tucked on the downy-filled pillow for any eyes that might find it.

I exspect my babbey will be very well fed and cleant as has been promissed,

I have gonn with a dear friend nurturing familey for the time,

- Glour'eya Wynsee
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