Lottie smiled gently and rearranged the sheet Harmonia had draped over herself. She wasn't the sort that liked to be on display, unlike some of her siblings, and while she wasn't obscene in any way, she was showing a bit more skin than Friendship knew she liked to show. Plus, it was the sort of thing that would give Harm something else to focus on for a second, and she needed to break the tension that had grown with every word out of her friend's mouth. She was wound up, like a spring, and if she kept spiraling and winding, she'd go off. So Lottie fussed over the way she looked for a moment, something, anything, other than the fears tearing up Harmonia's heart.
Once she had the sheet tucked up and around her friend, Lottie said very calmly, “There is no way you will not be a good mother. None. It's already in you, Harm. You look after your friends and your siblings, and a baby has got to be a little bit easier than a fully grown god with wings bent on causing trouble.” She smiled. “For the first handful of years, anyway, you're going to be bigger and faster, so you've got the advantage there.”
She moved to sit beside Harmonia on the couch, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. “You will have a beautiful baby, because you are beautiful. But if for some stupid reason they think it's got to go, well, you do what everybody else has done: you toss the baby over the cliff into the sea, where I will be waiting to catch your child and keep it safe for you. Apollo does it all the time, you know. We won't let anything happen to your baby.
“Because I know you're going to love it. You have too much love in you not to, Harm. You're just scared, and there's probably all kinds of changes going on inside you because you're making a whole new little life, and that's got to affect the way you're thinking. Because you're Ares' daughter. You're tough. You can handle something as routine as having a baby.” Lottie tried to keep her voice boy reassuring and casual. It was a weird balance; she didn't want Harmonia to think she wasn't giving her concerns the attention they were due, but at the same time, she wanted to minimize the idea that this was going to be some huge and overwhelming thing.
Even though it was a huge and overwhelming thing. Truthfully, Lottie was a little freaked out herself, and she wasn't even the one that was pregnant. But it was both amazing and terrifying to think that there was a whole new person that was going to come out of her best friend, somebody that would be totally dependent on Harmony, somebody that would be taught and molded and protected and loved. It was the very definition of awesome: inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear. Lottie did her best not to shake as she held onto Harmonia.
“And there is no way you're doing this alone. None.” Now her voice was firmer, because she was on surer ground. “You have me. And we'll call your mom. And your grandmother, I know she'll want to look in on you. Your Aunt Lithy will be there when you have it. And that's just a handful of us on the godly side. You're also a queen here, Harm. A queen. You have a whole household full of people that you can call on for anything you need help with. So it's not going to be any problem at all having this baby. You are not alone.”
Very softly she added, “And you never will be again.”