TOPWL 266

“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts so much.”

Yudit cried in the darkness. He couldn’t bear the pain. It was too much. He held Khalid’s hand so hard it hurt, but the latter couldn’t feel a thing.

“How much longer?”

Khalid’s voice sounded like a distant shout. Yudit’s ears rang.

Khalid yelled something else, but he went silent when Yudit frowned.

“Yudit, is it very hard? What can I do? I’ll do anything, just tell me.”

“Qu…iet.”

“What was that? Tell me anything.”

“Be… quiet… please.”

“He’s telling you to be quiet. Please leave now. You’re in the way.”

The midwife yelled at Khalid irritably after she heard Yudit’s words.

“It’s because of me that he’s hurting, so it’s only natural that I stay with him!”

“Then keep your voice down. The parent’s nerves shouldn’t be scattered. This is his first birth, so it’s already hard enough. He’ll suffer more if his mind wanders.”

Khalid couldn’t say a word and shut his mouth because of the experienced midwife’s lecture.

“Don’t clench your teeth so hard. They’ll crack, and you’ll suffer for it later!”

Yudit couldn’t stop himself from gritting his teeth despite the midwife’s warning. He couldn’t endure this excruciating pain otherwise.

“You have to push. Keep your breathing stable. Exhale slowly!”

It was hard to listen to the shouting while he was in so much pain. He thought Read onhe’d be able to endure it since he was used to suffering, but he couldn’t keep his head straight against such an unfamiliar agony.

“Stay with me. You can’t lose consciousness now!”

“Yudit, stay awake. Yudit!”

His consciousness gradually faded even with the midwife’s voice. He saw the physician say something to Khalid through his blurred vision.

“…make… a choice. The child… the parent… during…”

“…doesn’t matter. Save Yudit. You must.”

His mind cut in and out even though his eyes were open. Khalid’s face was distorted.

The war ended with Yudit’s victory. A wet sensation ran down his legs the moment he stepped off his horse. It was his amniotic fluid.

They set up a tent in the middle of the battlefield in a hurry and began the delivery. One military doctor’s mother, who was a midwife, arrived to help. She kicked out five military doctors who were just standing there because they’d never delivered a baby. She told them to go treat the wounded instead. She helped Yudit’s labor along with her son and two other doctors. Hot water constantly moved into the tent. They even boiled more water over a couple of braziers inside. Steam filled the dark tent.

The midwife said the child was filial. She said it was lucky that the water broke right after the war ended. Yudit thought so too, at least until unauthorized copy the labor pains lasted for over ten hours.

He felt as if his waist and pelvis were breaking, but the child didn’t want to come out. He was prepared for a long labor since it was his first, but he never dreamed it’d hurt like this.

He wondered if the child was taking revenge because Yudit had been so troublesome when the child was in the womb. He knew that wasn’t true, but the pain was so bad that he couldn’t help thinking about it.

“Focus! You have to see your baby! Don’t you want to see the child? You carried them for ten months!”

The midwife leaned close to Yudit and shouted.

“I want… I want to see… I want to see.”

“You can. Yes, just a little more strength and you’ll see your child. That’s it. You’re doing great! Scream if you want. You don’t have to hold it back.”

The child had been nothing but kind during the pregnancy. She had held her breath and waited for the right time. She chose to enter the world only after everything was over. Khalid’s and his child. My child. Rudbeckia. Ru. I want to see you. I want to meet you.

“Aaaaaagh!”

Yudit took a deep breath and pushed. Tears fell over his cheeks.

“I see the baby’s head. Just a little more. That’s it. You’re doing well! You’re almost there. Almost there!”

The midwife’s voice was full of excitement. Yudit pushed one more time. Finally, he felt a sensation something big slip out.

“You did it. She’s here. It’s a beautiful princess!”

The midwife shouted with a joyful voice. The baby began to cry at the same time.

“Baby’s father, come here. You have to cut the umbilical cord.”

“Ah…”

Khalid exclaimed in a dazed, almost foolish manner.

Snip, snip. The sound of a thick, wet cord being cut reached Yudit’s ears. The midwife placed the baby in Yudit’s arms while he was still gasping from the pain. The child was so small and red that he wondered if she was really a living creature. Yudit tilted his head as he looked at the child wrapped in a cotton cloth.

“She isn’t that pretty…”

“Shh. The baby will hear you. It’s only because she was stuck in the birth canal for too long. She’ll get beautiful with each passing day.”

Yudit held the baby in his arms. She was much smaller, lighter, and more fragile than he expected. He couldn’t believe he’d suffered for over ten hours to give birth to such a tiny thing.

“She’s so… small.”

“I wonder if such a small baby should be out in the world yet…”

He’d heard that there was an animal with a pouch on an island in the south that raised its young inside it. This child seemed to need a pouch like that. The midwife smiled as she gave orders to clean up.

“An Omega’s child tends to be born smaller than a Beta’s child, but she’s strong because she’s an omega and alpha’s union. She’ll grow up fast once she starts nursing and sleeping. The newborn stage is very short, so make sure you look at her as much as you can.”

Khalid stared at the baby and tapped her nose’s tip. The baby’s face crumpled into a frown.

“She’s so small, yet she already has a personality.”

Khalid tapped her nose again as if it was the most amazing thing. The baby’s lip puckered unauthorized copy until she finally began to cry.

“Khalid…!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ru, it’s okay. Your dad was just playing. Apologize to her quickly.”

“I’m sorry, Ru.”

Surprisingly, the child stopped crying the moment he finished speaking. Then, she slowly… opened her eyes.

Her eyes were a mysterious color that looked like deep navy at one glance and purple at another. The baby’s eyes looked exactly like their eye colors combined. The baby looked at the two of them with clear, brilliant eyes that seemed to reflect everything. In that moment, they felt as if their souls were being drawn into the baby. Yudit and Khalid watched the child with bated breath. The pain vanished before they knew it, and only overwhelming emotions surged up. It was the first time they realized that an ecstatic sensation could make a person cry.

“Uuu…”

The baby was also exhausted from passing through Yudit’s birth canal. She blinked a couple of times and fell back asleep.

“The baby… the baby looked at us.”

“She can’t see. She didn’t look at you,” the midwife said in a flat tone.

“No. She definitely saw us.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Did you see it too, Khalid?”

“I saw it. I definitely saw it.”

“Our child… must be a genius.”

“It certainly seems so.”

The two of them were completely smitten by a single, unfocused gaze. They didn’t care about her squashed head or her swollen face from the birth canal. They sat together and whispered about how her hair was pretty or how her nails looked like theirs. The midwife laughed as she heard the lovers’ conversation. They would soon reach the highest positions in the empire, but she chased everyone else out and left the room so the three could be alone.

***

The burning bodies’ smell lasted for two days. It didn’t feel great to watch birth and death happen in succession. Ru’s birth became an opportunity for Yudit to think about human life and death again. He realized that everyone burning there was once a child that someone risked their life to give birth to decades ago. Their lives didn’t feel unrelated to his own. He wondered if he felt this way because he was sensitive due to the changes in his body and mind after the birth.

“You’re here again.”

“…Khalid.”

“The nights are still cold. Wear your clothes properly.”

Khalid took off his outer coat without hesitation and draped it over Yudit’s shoulders.

“I told you that you should rest in the room.”

“It’s too boring. It’s hot, too… and there’s a lot to do.”

“So you came here to watch the bodies burn?”

“I just… felt like I had to see it.”

“If they hadn’t died, we and those who took our side would’ve died instead. We won because we were lucky, not because we were especially cruel or lacked guilt.”

Yudit knew that as well, since he had also been at the crossroads of life and death. He knew this was Khalid’s way of comforting him.

“But after Ru was born… I feel like their lives and mine aren’t unrelated. Is that strange?”

“It’s not strange. I feel something similar. However, I don’t want to see you so heartbroken.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“I don’t mean be careful… damn it. Right, I had something to tell you.”

Khalid ruffled his hair and then stopped.

“What is it?”

“They say the emperor won’t last the night.”