"Fuck you, Kal! I hope your fucking dick falls off! You are never, ever touching me again! Get the fuck away from me!" Perra screamed in the mage's face.
Kal was so shocked by the outburst he stood up from his place next to the large tub and turned towards the door, his expression blank as he automatically followed the laboring woman's orders.
"No, no, no, no," Elta said, jumping up and gently steering him by the shoulders back to the water-filled basin Perra was sitting in. "Any other time she tells you to go away, you do it. But not now, your place is here." The cleric put her hands on his shoulders and pushed, directing him to kneel and resume his position by the tub.
"Slow your breathing, girl, before you pass out," said Lulen. "You can't push when you're asleep." The old midwife had a hand on Perra's belly and was pressing in various places to be sure that the baby was aligned properly. "Boy," she commanded holding out a hand towards Kal. Taking it, he channeled some magic into her while she peered intently at the pregnant woman. Nodding at what she saw, she let go. "A few more contractions and she should be ready."
Elta was still amazed at the old woman's ability to see into the bodies of those she touched. It had been a bit of a shock the first time she helped Lulen, the midwife reaching out and demanding magic from her. The cleric didn't have the same kind of control as Kal and it took a few frustrating failures before Elta discovered that attempting to cast a healing spell where the central glyph was disrupted by the old woman's body had roughly the effect they needed. She sent news of her discovery back to the church in the capital not long after she arrived but the luke-warm response they sent back led her to believe that they hadn't taken her seriously.
In return, Lulen had been amazed by the large metal washtub that arrived strapped to the top of the cleric's carriage once Elta explained what it was for. The blacksmith had also taken a keen interest in it since the metal was so thin but quickly lost interest when the cleric explained that she had no idea how it was manufactured other than it was something that stemmed from a recently discovered way of making tough but light armor.
A new method of giving birth cropped up in the last couple of years where deliveries were happening in a pond, stream, or bath instead of a bed. The added buoyancy from the water seemed to make the process much easier on both mother and child and new mothers were quickly singing its praises. Unfortunately, it was discovered that doing this in a tub, where the dirty water couldn't circulate out, could lead to infections. Those that gave birth in a body of water didn't seem to have these issues, given that the water was clean to begin with. Since it was difficult to keep the water both warm and circulating in the average city home, the method was nearly abandoned until a few priests began purifying the water immediately after the woman delivered, even before the child was lifted out of the water. Seeing the clergy's relative success, washing the child and mother after a water birth became required, regardless of how clear the water was once finished. It was still recommended to have a cleric available as the spell purified any dirtied water that may have gotten into the baby's eyes, ears, and nose as well as anything that might have flowed back up into the mother. The purification spell was also far simpler than a healing spell and therefore cost much less than having a cleric come back a few days later to heal any infections that occurred.
All these things combined made the method accessible to the majority of the urban populace and quickly replaced delivering in bed or on a birthing stool.
Elta hated the idea of charging for bringing a child into the world. Unfortunately, the high priests and priestesses disagreed and expected reports of services rendered to the townsfolk and what she charged them. They weren't particularly callous about it in person but were very firm that it took gold to run an organization as large as the church and that they couldn't give away their time and abilities.
On paper, Telsin was filled with hardy folk who rarely got injured. The cleric took payment from the wealthier families for purifying the water in the tub after a delivery, but never made any mention of the extra healing she often supplied. Master Ellis stepped up if the family was unable to pay for her services, saying that Elta's new methods saved him a ton of time and effort washing the linens he continued to supply and claiming that he was just giving her that savings. She saw it for the lie it was but thanked him profusely for not having to explain to her superiors why the town's birth rate seemed unusually low.
With Kal there, Elta didn't need to worry about supplying the old midwife with the magic for her unusual ability, which allowed her to focus on the woman in the tub.
Perra visibly relaxed as the latest contraction began to ease up, but they all knew that it wouldn't be long before the next. She flashed a slightly apologetic smile at Kal as she realized what she had said.
"What's your problem, boy. You've helped me enough times this should be old hat. Yet, you're more nervous than with the barmaid's sister," grumped Lulen
Kal's face was still mostly blank as he gave her a weak smile, "Those ones weren't mine."
The look Perra gave him made her thoughts clear even without the bond: this wasn't his first child so why was he acting so odd?
He really didn't have an answer other than it was his first child with this kind of delivery. Aradelle giving birth to Eludora had been as anticlimactic as he believed bringing a child into the world could be. The alarune just leaned back and a moment later his first daughter's seed slid out of the plant girl, the simplicity of the process made more sense later when he found out she could change the shape of her avatar. Bea hadn't made a big deal of the delivery of her egg, not even informing him until after the fact. She was far more excited later when Adalena hatched.
Kal still occasionally had a difficult time wrapping his head around his first two daughters sprouting and hatching instead of being born. It made the fact that he was a father seem very surreal at times. In contrast, there was no strangeness in Perra's labor. Her ordeal was starkly human, which seemed appropriate as it would result in his first human child.
It frustrated him that this was his third time becoming a father, fourth if he believed what Ikuno said about Silma. Yet, in many ways, it felt like his first. He didn't like the idea that this child was somehow more important than the others.
'It is,' came the thought from Aradelle with a faint affirming echo from Bea. 'This is your first human baby, Kal. The first that will grow up to look just like you do and the first where there's the chance of having a son. You love Eludora and Adalena, we know you do. But Perra's baby is special and it's okay to see it that way.'
'It feels like I'm cheating my daughters,' he replied.
'Attention is divisible, love is not. Now focus on Perra,' sent back the alarune.
'You're sounding like Ikuno.'
He only received a laugh in response,
"Yeah, focus," Perra grumbled out loud, having 'heard' Kal and Aradelle's conversation. He had forgotten that she didn't need her necklace to hear them, though her ability to form a bond with him had been dependent on it.
The young woman had decided after her first contraction this morning that having the pendant on during labor might be a very bad idea.
"I'll be fine, just leave me alone," she told Kal earlier through clenched teeth during that initial period of pain and pressure. Refia's proclamation that her labor had started prompted them to move to the living room where the large basin was nearby, just in case. It may have been overly cautious, but no one was going to argue with the woman about to have a baby.
When it finally passed, she looked up and saw Kal, Refia and Kuto standing next to the far wall. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Leaving you alone," all three answered in eerie unison. Disturbed but immediately realizing what happened, Perra removed the necklace and asked Kal to take it into the bedroom. She'd heard stories from the women in town and didn't want to send Kal running for the hills, or worse, trying to cut off a particular body part of his that she was rather fond of.
Back in the present, Kal's reaction to Perra's tirade a few seconds ago made Elta check to be sure that she wasn't still wearing the bauble. But the area between the young woman's breasts, much like the rest of her, was naked.
When Perra's contractions got close enough together, Lulen instructed her to go put on the birthing gown Elta had brought and get into the warmed tub. The gown was little more than a sheet with holes for the arms that closed in the front and gave a woman in labor some semblance of modesty.
Perra looked around in annoyance. "I've bathed with you. You've seen half the pussies in town already. And you are the reason I'm like this," she said to Elta, Lulen, and Kal in turn. Moving over next to the metal bath, she mumbled, "Fuck it," before pulling her nightgown off and stepping in. She was in no mood to be dealing with shitty clothes that other women had worn.
Besides the contractions and all-around discomfort of labor, her bad mood was in part to Kuto not being there. After the last couple of weeks spending so much time with the harpy, she really felt the bird-girl deserved a place beside her for the birth of her child. Every time she spoke to Lulen, Perra had to consciously keep the resentment out of her voice, since the old midwife was the only reason Kuto or any of the others couldn't be there.
She had asked Elta yesterday if having the midwife was really necessary now that Kal was back. The cleric gave her a quick rundown of how the old woman's sight worked and reminded Perra that without her there was only one alternative for checking to be sure she was ready to safely push the baby out, complete with making a circle with the thumb and forefinger of one hand and pushing the other hand through up to the knuckles. Though Perra was becoming more fond of the woman, repeatedly having Elta shove her hand inside her while going through labor wasn't appealing at all.
Now, as her baby's birth was imminent, she was regretting taking the convenient way out. She tried not to be upset about it. Having Lulen there meant a lot to Kal even if it annoyed her at the moment.
"Kal," said Elta, getting everyone's attention, "we probably only have a few more minutes. Strip and get in behind her." Kal stared back at her in surprise, this hadn't been discussed beforehand.
Lulen chuckled. "Sneaky girl, I was curious why the water was so low, it was to have room for two." She ran a hand over Perra's belly but continued speaking to the cleric, "Don't make a habit of this until you are doing it without me. In my experience, men too often turn into fools during this time. Look at what just happened with this one," she said, tilting her head in Kal's direction. "Good man, grounded, loves his woman; turned into a complete idiot for a second." She turned her head enough to look at him out of the corner of her eye, "Good thing I like you or I would have run you off as well. Get in, but keep your cock out of her reach. Bad things might happen if she gets a hand on it."
Kal gave her a weak smile. He was finally starting to lose the blank look on his face as his mind got over the shock of Perra entering this last stage of labor.
