hold still, watch them grow

[nepheliad.livejournal.com]

Pregnancy never seemed like something she needed to care about. It never seemed like it was going to be something she had to do quickly, either – and she always thought that when she got a pregnancy it was time to keep, it would be because it was about her.

This wasn't about her. This had little to do with her. This was about him, and it was funny, really, that that didn't make her want it even less than she already thought sometimes. She didn't detest the situation. She knew there was a chance he wouldn't live another two weeks, and she knew there was a chance that this child would be all anyone would ever have of him as time went by.

There was a chance, of course, that nothing was going to go wrong. That he would be fine. That what she was – what they were bringing into the world would have no purpose and no home, and Lírít realized that part of what the Tauleys always did was give a home to someone who could be useful.

Her child could be useful.

There'd be room for someone else raised by her hand. Someone who was her blood. Leader's blood. It would work, somehow, Søren blood or not, nobility or not, it would work out. Somehow.

Whose optimism this was, she didn't know.

As she rested her hand on her midriff and watched him as he slept, she discovered that the tumor in his brain and the embryo in her body grew at about the same rate.