Re: The Birth (Persy and Panda)
Despite the earlier onset of the labor, it lasted a long time. Luckily, her urge to prowl and roam had been somewhat encouraged by Persy and the Healers, who told her it was good to move. But it seemingly took forever, and she knew how much Ewan worried. She rarely yielded to her anxiety, usually when she was away from him for a few moments, before she asserted her iron will over herself again.
She hated hospitals.
It would have been easy enough to allow that disconnect that she often felt when in pain, for there was a good deal of pain especially as the labor progressed. But she refused to let it take hold, for she wanted to be... to have that emotion available to her when they were born, not all cut off from all feeling. It was all or nothing, that switch of hers, and she refused to have the first sight of her children done under the flatness of her coping mechanism.
It was late into the night when she finally got to push, and she was already exhausted. Luckily for her, exhaustion was a dear, familiar friend, and though parts of her health suffered, she'd taken good care of herself through the pregnancy.
At 11:05pm, August 2nd, Ainsley Selene slipped into the world, a hair over four pounds and screaming her displeasure at her abrupt departure from warmth and familiarity, proving to everyone in the room that her lungs were quite well formed, thank you very much. She even had a shock of dark hair, which some people had guessed at from the heart burn she had suffered along with her nausea.
The Healers whisked her away for a little while, and Dora finally lay back for a few minutes, panting softly with the effort she'd just expended. But they brought her back, and for a moment her world narrowed to just the tiny creature on her chest. The woman who cheerfully called herself heartless stroked the tiny body, so perfect looking despite her tininess, and cooed at her even as she protested and then settled as a hand curved over her protectively.
She slipped into Scots instinctively and greeted her daughter in that lilting tone. She held her until she felt the beginnings of another contraction building, reminding her she wasn't done yet, and one of the healers whisked her up to swaddle her and present her to Ewan, who had held her hand despite her sometimes crushing grip on it.
Then her world perforce had to narrow again, to the rhythmic pains. Persy's voice coached her, and sometimes Ewan's, but it became evident that she was having some trouble when nearly an hour passed and her boy hadn't yet come. Something felt off to her, and she could read some medical diagnostic charms even if she couldn't cast them. She thought they indicated the first flutters of distress in it.
She hoped Ewan had no idea what they meant.
"If something's da matter, I want ye to get Ewan out of here, make some excuse," she whispered to Persy, pale eyes bright with pain and exhaustion. "Oh, Persy, have I cursed my boy by wantin' to call him Perseus?" she asked even more softly, just to her sister, obviously distressed. She'd asked Hyperion about it, briefly, only a couple weeks prior. But she'd not managed to broach it in all this time with the other two. She thought she'd have more time. She'd probably only as him because it had been late and she'd slipped out for a walk and run into him, and she'd been exhausted and trying to clear her head enough to sleep.