The Drow Queen of Glaley [Very NSFW]

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Amphretite was complaining of never being able to take a day off, so I hired another girl. Some slip of a thing. Why?"

[Varisia Primfana]

"Just-- just a surprise," Varisia assures her quickly, her smile returning. She kisses her wife yet again, then sighs happily. "Another daughter, and so soon. Oh you wonderful, wonderful woman," she murmurs, thrilled despite the gnawing worm of concern and paranoia the existence of this new girl invokes in her. Most drow families struggle to have more than one daughter a decade. Two is far more common, and many have as much as five or more between daughters. Oh this is-- "Verdlauna." Another kiss, a sappy, bestottled smile. "Ask a boon of me, my Verdlauna. I wish to show my love and thanks for our family. A slew of new dresses? A puppy, perhaps a mabari? The tulip gardens completely done this very season? Ask."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"A mabari would chase my cats," she laughs, "and I have all the dresses I need. No, let me think. What would make me happy? Happier than being with you, than bearing your daughter? It seems absurd. No, but, this pregnancy is like to be rough. What would make it easier for me... Perhaps, might I be allowed to keep a cupboard of sweets for when the day is too hard to bear? I have always liked sweets." 

[Varisia Primfana]

"Sweets?" Varisia scoffs, not even looking as Bull walks the healer out of the room. "Pish and posh, I think is the Glalian phrase. You can have that for the price of asking with that gay laugh still echoing in my ears. No. No, think on it if you must, but I will be granting you a boon, a true boon." She kisses Coquette yet again, then hums softly as she pulls back. Looking at her thoughtfully, she asks carefully, "how are you feeling? Your stomach?"

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Still awful," she admits, making a face. "I suppose I should try to sleep off the nausea."

[Varisia Primfana]

A brief pout graces Varisia's plush lips but she doesn't look at that put out really. "Might I join you?" Asking? That's... unusual.

[Coquette Blacquin]

But it has the hoped-for effect: Coquette beams, scooting over in the bed. "Of course. Please do."

[Varisia Primfana]

With only a few swift movements, Varisia strips off her clothing and slips into the bed next to her wife. "Do you wish... Hrrm. I guess- Can you massage an upset stomach? Massage and bandages are very much the extent of my medical knowledge..."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"No, but if I roll up to your side like this, can you rub my back? It helps me get to sleep." And so she snuggles up to Varisia, the older drow helping her drift off soon enough.

It doesn't last. As it will throughout much of the pregnancy, her sleep is soon disturbed by nightmares -- another symptom she didn't have with Primera, though she did with the unnamed child that passed before her birth. She wakes up, tense and sweating, shivering and too afraid to make a sound as she struggles to rid herself of the dream. 

[Varisia Primfana]

"You are safe, my love," a soft voice whispers in her ear. "Safe in bed, at home, with me. You are safe, my word on it."

[Coquette Blacquin]

At first, her wife's voice makes her tense further, but she relaxes a moment later, probably as she recognizes who it is. Probably she's unused to waking up with someone beside her from a nightmare. Or at least with a woman beside her, as Bull has woken her from nightmares often enough before. 

"Ribbons," she murmurs. "I dreamed of deadly ribbons. Why--?" She shakes her head, trying to throw off the image of Jessi, screaming as ribbons pour from her mouth and eyes and ears and fingernails, bright red ribbons binding her and cutting into her skin as she screams and screams... 

"This child will be a handful," she proclaims. 

[Varisia Primfana]

Ribbons? Deadly ones? Have I ever..? I don't think so, no. "Tell me about your nightmare?" Varisia coaxes her softly, running her hands through Coquette's hair in an attempt to soothe.

[Coquette Blacquin]

"It was the new girl, Jessi. I don't know why, but she was strangling in ribbons, ribbons pouring out of every orifice and doubling back to strangle her. Especially around her midsection and her throat, I think. I was trying to pull them off her but they kept coming back, thicker and thicker. Her screams... I couldn't..."

She wipes fat tears from her eyes. "It must be the pregnancy. I had such nightmares the first time. Always women or babes dying. I think it must be... she's so young, she might as well be a child, like my child. I must be afraid for the babe."

[Varisia Primfana]

"She's that young?" Varisia blurts out, startled. You said she was underage, she recalls, not dwelling on how much that had helped her disquiet with the newcomer, but I had not thought she was that young. "She is safe as well. And so shall the babe be. Tom--" She squints at the window. "Later today, I'll start the search for a dedicated healer for the household. You and our daughters will be fine. Alright?"

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Alright," she says quietly, still privately worried that it wasn't Varisia's spell that cost her the first daughter. That something was wrong with her, inside her. That...

No sense worrying about it now. These are midnight fears only. Tomorrow, they shall be gone, and I will know I am safe. 

Belatedly, she adds, "And yes, she's quite young. Perhaps fourteen? I remember being that age and thinking I was full grown and ready to be wed, and yet... looking back, and looking at her... she is but a child. Old enough to help with diapers and such, but I am glad  I was able to hire her before she was sent to the mines or made to work the streets or some other terrible fate for one so young."