Chapter Text
Everyone sits around awkwardly, unsure of what else they’re supposed to do or what they’re supposed to say.
(Nothing can really prepare you for this sort of thing, after all.)
The tieflings whisper amongst themselves while occasionally casting concerned glances at the dirty, battered travelers sitting around licking their wounds while waiting to hear word about their unfortunate companion.
The frantic voices on the other side of the door are muffled enough they can’t quite make out what’s being said, but they already know it’s dire.
Orin’s heart throws itself against her rib cage, trying to burst free and run away from it all.
If only it was helping...
After what feels like an eternity, the door opens, and Jaheira steps out- her face pale, her hands stained with blood.
She doesn’t pay any mind to it, folding her arms and standing in front of them to glare at the men.
“Alright,” she says, looking about ready to murder all three of them. “Which of you is responsible for this?”
They look at each other, then at Jaheira, all looking confused before it dawns on them what she means.
After a bit, Astarion points at Orin.
“She’s the only one the drow’s been sleeping with,” he says. “And I don’t think she’s impregnating anyone-“
He glances over at her with a raised eyebrow.
“-Are you?”
Orin shakes her head, hugging her knees to her chest.
“...it’s not mine,” she mutters.
She feels the others’ eyes boring into her, confusion and dawning dread filling the air.
(Surely they must have already known, considering their short time together, that the child can't possibly be hers. But nobody wants to consider the alternative.)
“Whose then?”
Orin shrugs.
“One of the ones that raped her,” she answers, flatly, figuring there’s no point in hiding anything at this point. “When they had her captive. But as far as I know those bastards are all dead, so there’s no real way to ask them which of them they think it was.”
She doesn’t look up to see Jaheira’s expression, but somehow knows it must be one of shock, mingled with a deep regret for asking.
She feels a hand on her shoulder, shaking her to rouse her from her stupor.
“Come.”
Not having the energy to argue, Orin obeys.
She’s led into the room Minthara had been taken to- the first thing that Orin notices when she enters is the overwhelming smell of blood and infected tissue, like a sanitarium that had been left to decay for a decade.
The shredded remnants of Minthara's beloved spidersilk armor lay strewn across the floor, cut away in their haste to get her taken care of.
Orin gets led behind the privacy screen put up to give Minthara a little dignity, and it’s clear that she’s in bad shape.
Her face bloodless, skin covered in a sheen of sweat, lips grayish, breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps, she looks like someone on the brink of death.
When she sees Orin, she reaches out toward her, the words she tries to speak coming out as a thin wheeze Orin can’t make out.
Naked. Exposed. More helpless than she's been probably since the day she was born.
It’s hard to imagine anything more pitiful.
Dropping to her knees beside the bed, Orin takes her hand, nearly recoiling at how icy, deathly cold it is.
She looks up toward the pretty, white-haired young woman (Isobel, she thinks Jaheira called her) with what she’s sure is a pathetic expression.
“What’s wrong with her?” she asks, biting back sobs. “What’s happening?”
Isobel shakes her head, wiping the sweat off Minthara’s brow with a damp rag even though it doesn’t do much, and offering her water she refuses with a feeble shake of her head.
Shadowheart is mixing up something or other on the little table nearby, looking about ready to faint.
“Alright, this may be a bit uncomfortable,” Isobel warns, laying her hands over Minthara’s abdomen. “Just try to breathe and I’ll be as quick as I can.”
Once she has Minthara’s nod of consent, Isobel starts feeling around, pressing down on her abdomen, looking for...something.
“Do you remember when your last period was?” she asks, trying to keep her voice calm and mostly succeeding.
Minthara shakes her head, eyes still shut tight.
“Sometime before I left for the surface,” she gasps out, her voice raspy and weak. “I do not know how long it has been...”
Isobel frowns deeper still, and she lets out a sigh of what might be frustration.
“Alright...”
She presses one hand right above Minthara’s pubic bone, and the other a few inches below her ribs, like she’s measuring something.
“How far along?” Jaheira asks, seeking out Minthara’s pulse in her neck and counting along in her head.
“A bit hard to tell,” Isobel answers. “Anywhere from fifteenth to seventeenth. But she’s dilated at least five centimeters already, and I can’t stop it at this point- I’ve been trying.”
“I guess it can’t be helped, then.”
“What does that mean? What can’t be helped?” Orin demands, squeezing Minthara’s hand tight.
“It means the little one’s set to make an early appearance.”
“What- but it’s too early, it can’t-”
“Just hang on,” Isobel assures her. “We’ll do everything we can to fix this.”
Minthara bites down on her own tongue to keep from crying out, face screwed up in a rictus of agony. She rolls onto her side and curls up into a tight ball of misery, breath coming in short, quick bursts until, after thirty or so seconds that feel more like thirty years, it finally passes.
“Here.”
Shadowheart brings over a tin mug full of something that smells sharply herbal and deeply earthy, strange silvery steam rising off it.
“This should help the pain a bit,” she urges, helping prop Minthara up just enough to drink without choking. “And keep things moving along.”
Minthara barely manages to avoid throwing it all back up the moment she’s drank it.
“I know it’s not palatable but please try to keep it down,” she urges.
There’s a strange look on Isobel’s face as she watches on.
“Do you have a problem?” Shadowheart asks her, with a scowl.
“No problem, no,” Isobel answers. “I’m just a bit impressed- I figured a Sharran would know more about killing babies rather than saving them.”
Shadowheart glares at the other woman.
“Lady Shar’s church takes in unwanted children all the time,” she snarks, in an icily calm tone. “I have delivered more than a few in my time.”
“Those poor souls must have been desperate to trust her, then. Or delusional.”
There’s a weird, bitter note in Isobel’s voice- an unspoken anger despite keeping her tone soft.
“I never saw any of your goddess’ followers stepping in to help-“
“-Is this really the time?” Minthara manages to gasp out, still somehow managing to sound annoyed even with more important matters on her mind.
That’s enough to have Isobel and Shadowheart both looking rather sheepish.
“Right...”
Isobel busies herself between Minthara’s legs; Minthara doesn’t even have the energy to be embarrassed about how exposed she is, though she flinches when she’s poked and prodded in uncomfortable places.
Even though she tries to be as gentle and reassuring as possible, all of Isobel’s efforts ring resoundingly hollow.
Orin grabs a chair and pulls it up to the bedside, determined to be here no matter what happens.
Despite that determination though, the terror gnaws at her like a living thing as she watches the other three women fuss over her lover, doing their best to keep her stable and lucid.
“...Is the baby- I mean, it’s so soon, how can-”
Despite everything, Isobel smiles, giving her shoulder a quick squeeze to try to comfort her.
“I’ve been told I was early, too,” she says. “Far too early. My father said nobody expected me to live. But I’m still here, aren’t I?”
She takes a deep breath to steady herself.
“You underestimate how stubborn drow are,” Jaheira says, with a hint of mirth in her tone. “I have seen one survive the sorts of things you would never expect a living being to live through. I do not expect their young to be any different.”
Isobel nods, bit grimaces as she does, like she’s willingly accepting a lie.
“Don’t lose hope.”
Orin wants to believe it, and decides to hold onto that feeling, however faint.
After all, hope is all they have right now...
All the muscles in Minthara’s abdomen contract at once, stealing her breath and draining what little color is left in her face. She nearly breaks Orin’s hand from crushing it so tightly, but Orin endures it, knowing that no matter how much it hurts, her lover is hurting far worse.
Everything starts to blur together as the minutes drag into hours, the wearing down of the candles on the dresser and the ever-growing mountain of bloodied towels and bedding marking the passage of time.
Orin can do nothing but stay at Minthara’s side, offering empty words that give no comfort with each and every wave of pain that strikes her, each one coming faster than the last.
Each contraction is more vicious than the last, stealing her breath and causing her body to contort in unnatural ways as she thrashes about from the agony of it all.
Pleas for mercy warp into pleas for death that turn into her babbling in her native tongue, her voice growing weak.
All the healing potions and incantations between everyone in the room seem to do nothing to alleviate her suffering- clearly something far beyond labor pains are tormenting her.
Shadowheart murmurs a frantic prayer under her breath, hands hovering over Minthara’s head as she does, begging for any sort of favor that might help the situation. As she does, Jaheira coaches Minthara on how to breathe through the pain, doing what she can to help her bear it.
Mingled with Minthara’s babbling, Orin makes out a word that keeps coming through more than the others.
Ilhar.
Though Orin usually can’t tell what any of the words in Minthara’s native language mean, this is one she understands, because Minthara has told her what it means before.
Mother.
She supposes it’s normal to want your mother in this situation- even though she can’t really imagine her mother to be the sort of woman to rush to comfort her child, no matter how miserable they are.
Surely, though, it must still be better to have that cold comfort rather than none, right?
“I think it’s ready.”
Isobel gives Jaheira a worried look, but then steels herself.
“Stay with me,” she says. “I need you to push for me when the next contraction comes, alright?”
All of her usual strength and confidence evaporated like an over-boiled kettle, Minthara can only whimper in reply.
“No more,” she pleads, to nobody in particular. “I cannot...take any more...”
“Please bear with it,” Isobel urges her, trying to be as comforting as she can. “Just a bit further.”
Orin feels her grip go slack, and she’s never felt more helpless in her life.
She shuts her eyes and presses her lips to the back of Minthara’s hand, wishing she could take the warmth from her own body and give it to her.
Jaheira sighs, leaning over the bed with a stern look.
“I have never known drow to give up easily,” she tells her. “Rally yourself, woman. You are not finished yet.”
Her words seem to spark a second wind within Minthara, perhaps out of spite; her grip grows stronger, and her eyes focus themselves, becoming closer to her normal self just for a few moments.
She grits her teeth and braces herself, leaning into Orin for strength.
When the next wave of pain hits her, she musters up a deep breath and pushes as she’s been told to do. Her breath catches in her throat, her nails bite into Orin’s skin, eyes squeezed firmly shut like that could help her bear it.
Her body goes limp once the worst is past, stealing whatever respite she can get before the next contraction.
Orin feels useless, but she stays at the bedside, trying to offer her water between each round of pushing and offering whatever empty words of encouragement she can.
Even though she keeps her voice steady, she can’t stymie the pool of dread growing in her stomach.
She tries to reach out to the baby again, but no matter how she searches, no matter how her parasite tries, there is nothing within Minthara to reach.
Her heart sinks, realizing what must have happened. But she can’t bring herself to say a word.
“Just a bit more- push on three, alright?”
Hardly having any energy left, Minthara musters up enough strength to follow Isobel’s instructions.
There’s a terrible crunching sound when she clenches her jaw hard enough that her teeth must be cracking. She leaves bloody claw marks on Orin’s wrist from her grip, then lets loose with the sort of guttural, bone-chilling scream of one mortally wounded.
Through that scream, a second cry joins in, shrill and ear-piercing.
At first, Orin is relieved, thinking that, maybe, in spite of everything, there’s a chance everything might be okay.
But then she sees the way Isobel’s face turns green, and smells the putrid smell of death.
Shadowheart sprints toward the nearest empty bowl and gags, unable to keep her meager stomach contents down.
“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
Isobel holds the bloody, squirming mass of blankets in her hands, staring down with the sort of wide-eyed horror of the deepest sort of revulsion.
Orin manages to stand, though the world spins around her as she does so. She holds her hands out, not sure what she should be doing.
“Let me-“
With stiff, mechanical motions, Isobel hands the bundle over to her.
It continues to cry- a harsh, discordant sound that does not sound like an infant should.
Holding her breath, Orin shuts her eyes and allows her parasite to reach out.
Surely, if the child is moving, if it’s breathing, there must be something there, right...?
Sure enough, there is- but not what Orin had expected.
Swirling darkness, deep and impenetrable.
Rot and ruin, crumbling to nothingness all around the edges of its meager consciousness.
At the center of the maelstrom of nothing, there is but a single, overpowering thought.
Hunger.
Hunger, not for mother’s milk, but for life.
To consume life. Destroy it.
The tiny hand that reaches out from the blankets is warped, deformed, wrong, covered in necrotic flesh and putrefying tumors.
Orin dares to peel back the blankets, needing to see for herself so she can accept the reality.
The baby’s skin is paper-thin and translucent, covered in a spiderweb of black veins that pulsate with thickened, congealed blood.
Its heart is a shriveled, rotten thing that beats weakly, quivering as it struggles to pump the viscous fluid.
(The heart she had so happily listened to, just the night before...)
Its face is contorted, misshapen, nearly unrecognizable as an infant at all. It thrashes and tries in vain to bite her, to claw at her, despite being far too small and far too weak to do anything.
She looks to Isobel, then to Jaheira, and finally to Shadowheart, chewing on her own tongue and trying to keep from bursting into tears.
“...What do I do?” she whimpers, while the baby continues to try and attack her with all its feeble might, still crying all the while.
The helpless look on the other women’s faces tells her everything she needs to know.
She thinks back to Yonas, the unfortunate Harper the shadow curse claimed.
“There’s no saving him anymore...”
With trembling hands, Isobel takes the squirming thing away from her, intending to put it out of its misery.
It’s the only humane thing to do at this point.
She wraps it back up as best she can, trying to make it look presentable.
With a forlorn expression, she pulls a chair up and sits beside Minthara, holding the bundle up to her.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, choking back tears.
Minthara looks up at her blearily, as if confused.
“...Would you like to say goodbye?”
Reaching to touch the bundle of cold, bloodied blankets, Minthara regards it with a look of forlorn longing.
She grits her teeth, taking great, rattling gasps of air.
“Take it away,” she pleads, screwing her eyes shut as if pretending hard enough would mean none of this is real.
Isobel obliges her plea, taking the child to the opposite side of the room, head bowed as she starts to murmur a prayer.
“Fairest Moonmaiden, Lady of Silver,” she begins, her soft voice barely cutting through the incessant wailing. “Have mercy on this innocent soul. Take them in your embrace and end their suffering. And let their heart rest easy from your arms.”
A flash of bluish-white light bursts forth from her hands. There’s one final terrible, ear-piercing shriek as the thing in the blankets is consumed by it, reduced to nothing but ash in an instant.
Jaheira shuts her eyes, rubbing the bridge of her nose and leaning against the rickety wall for support.
Orin finally succumbs to the tears she’s been biting back, stroking Minthara’s face and mumbling all the apologies she can think up.
(She promised everything would be alright. She promised, but there’s nothing, nothing she can do...)
Minthara reaches for her with a trembling hand, grabbing Orin’s wrist and speaking in a broken, raspy whisper.
“...I am sorry.”
Her body is so deathly cold, the same sickly blackish veins that had infested the child blooming across her ashen, sweat-slicked skin, radiating outward from her belly.
“You don’t need to apologize,” Orin reassures her. “This isn’t your fault...”
It’s mine, she wants to say, but doesn’t have the nerve.
Laying her head across her lover’s chest, she can hear her heart beating weaker by the second, each breath more difficult than the last.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s happening.
That she’s dying.
“Hey-"
She waves her hand in front of Minthara’s face, gives her a little shake, trying to rouse her.
“Hey, come on, don’t do this,” she begs.
Minthara manages to half-open her eyes, but can’t get them to focus, and it doesn’t last before her head rolls to the side, too heavy to hold up. She mouths something, maybe another apology, but can’t muster the breath to speak.
The other three women rush into action, doing everything they can possibly think of to salvage the situation, while Orin stays frozen, like her blood has all been replaced by ice.
“You said we were going to stay together,” she reminds Minthara, who can’t possibly hear her at this point. “You can’t just go-“
She grabs her frigid, limp hand in both of hers and squeezes it, anger mingling with her fear and despair.
“What about your mother? What about Menzoberranzan? You were supposed to show me the Glimmersea, remember? There was so much you wanted to show me...”
Nothing in response, of course.
We were supposed to stay together. You promised...
Helpless, terrified, Orin squeezes her eyes shut and presses Minthara’s icy hand (the hand that had always been so warm before) to her lips.
As stupid as the thought is, the imagines if she could will her own life into her. Will her breath into her lungs, do something-
-With that thought, suddenly the world starts to spin, the corners of her vision going dark.
She hears Minthara cough and splutter, jolting back into consciousness as if yanked out of deep water.
...Has the ringing in her ears always been so loud..?
“The hells just happened?” Jaheira demands, sounding amazed but also a little scared.
“I don’t know. She just-“
Shadowheart throws her hands up in confusion.
“-Whatever it was, I won’t question a miracle.” Isobel says, barely loud enough to be audible as she grabs Minthara to steady her as she vomits up congealed blood and bilious remnants of the various concoctions that had been forced down her throat, leaving a reeking puddle on the old wooden floors.
Orin stands up to get out of the way, though her legs wobble dangerously, like her muscles are made of soggy bread.
Minthara tries to get up, gaze wandering to her though her eyes can't entirely focus. Isobel forces her back down again, shaking her head.
“You shouldn’t move too much. Here-”
Isobel uncorks a small glass bottle full of a pearlescent, milky fluid.
“Potion of angelic slumber,” she explains, when Minthara gives her a skeptical look.
Minthara glares at her, not trusting after everything she’s just endured.
“You need to rest. Please.”
Still wary, but too exhausted to argue,Minthara relents, and swallows the entire bottle at once.
It goes to work right away, slumping down onto the stained mattress again.
“There we go. That’ll give us some time.”
“...That was sudden,” Jaheira remarks, the lines in her brow deepening in puzzlement.
“What now, then?” Shadowheart asks, her voice weak.
“We let her sleep,” Isobel answers. “And keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn’t get worse again.”
"I don't suppose there's anything else we can do," Shadowheart agrees, sounding exhausted.
The other three women are so busy seeing to Minthara that they don’t notice Orin’s state until she hits the floor, the world finally, blessedly going black.