Vesija Aamkena, an esteemed chirurgeon

The autonomous harp plucked imperious airs out of its opulent alloy strings to the rhythm of a sluggish heartbeat. The slowed dance music filled the salon with the decadent majesty of a bygone era. Those melodies must have accompanied generations of patricians dancing their dizzying solar dances during breaks from fabulous violence both overt and furtive.

An agonised moan carried from the long hallway that led to an inner sanctum of a boudoir, yet the rigid guardian at the doorway might as well been a barred gate of steel. The matriarch stood arms crossed, in an ancient Jaan gown of her own. The sheer blackness of the martial apparition ate the scarce light. I didn't understand the intended symbolism.

"Are you bereft of your wits––" I stopped my impudent tirade to retain a modicum of civility with my in-laws.

"You shan't violate our traditions", Zoviheena declaimed with the icy authority of a mystagogue to a goddess of murderers.

"I happen to be a chirurgeon, if you had forgotten, madame."

"How many deliveries have you then attended, chirurgeon?"

"Two."

"And I have twelve, with eight of them being my own. As I see the matter, I am perfectly qualified to know when the attention of a physician is actually required. Besides, she hasn't called for you."

A bang of disappointment cut through the rage and terror bubbling below the brittle surface of my composure. Nevertheless, that Neru followed the customs of her kin was nothing surprising. An umber thought that she was kept from me by her family did arise to my mind, but I dismissed the dark conjecture; I could well hear her 'communicate' with her sister.

The matriarch sighed out of portion to the tension in her form. Dying stars flickered across the night sky of her gown. "Our home keeps its kin, Vesija, but it is prickly about outsiders. Better not interrupt the work of the ancients while they administer on my daughter."

A hand came to rest on my shoulder, and I turned to face the mellow smirk of the patriarch. "Let's leave Zovi to her work", he said. "Come, I'll pour us a drink."

"The physician on call shouldn't get intoxicated", I retorted.

"A bit of 'intoxication' can be good, when your hands are shaking."

Mine in fact did shook, which shocked me to an extent. Enough to surrender in a petty contest of wills against a pair of Jaan patricians. "Alright. Madame, call for me, if I am needed."

"Yes, yes." She pulled the door shut, muffling the possibly theatrically emphasised voice of my wife.

I followed Rytna into a corner in the salon and slumped on a decadently cushioned chair. Either he was deft at mixing drinks, or I had completely submerged into my thoughts, because as soon as I sat, a crystal tumbler appeared in my hand. While the colour was poisonously verdant, the drink amounted to fizzy juice with barely a whiff of hard alcohol. Just the type of a cocktail to let my brain think I was boozing without any true inebriation.

"It's not exceptionable to feel afraid in your position." The patriarch sat cross-legged on a large pillow and nurtured in his hand a much stiffer drink than mine. "In your position, I certainly felt myself smaller than ever in the Palm War, each and every time. In fact, I'd be offended on the behalf of my daughter if you weren't scared."

"Don't worry, I am terrified enough. But this fear is different than..." I fell silent and took a long gulp.

The man smiled at me and managed to appear old for the first time. We enjoyed our drinks, which he refilled for only himself, without a word. The pompous music managed to grow on me, if only a modicum.

"So..." Rytna let the syllable linger in the air, while he stood and poured us new drinks. "Which side do you think the child shall take more to?"

The question left me staggered into an uneasy silence. Rytna collapsed on another huge pillow with a force that sent the liquid in his cup flying, though not a splash spilled over. "Make an educated guess. Humour me."

With a sigh, I said: "Based on the size, I'd reckon the child will take on the Iwunian side."

The man grunted his assent. "That doesn't preclude inheriting the inclinations of our kin. In raw physical potential alone, your offspring might surpass those Conglo ant-soldiers."

A bit of my fizzy drink went into the wrong throat. I coughed, as I struggled to absorb the irreverent remark. "Now... We Iwunians are nowhere near as large as myrmidons."

"That is why I said 'surpass'. I'm talking about ability to sustain field operations. The conglos breed their elite infantry for the parade grounds." From the way he smiled, I had to assume he was being glib. "Did you know that no record exists of a battle in which those ant-soldier defeated our light infantry?"

"I don't think there has been any battle in record involving them both."

"Beside the point, son." Rytna's gaze unfocused, but only for the briefest of moments."Better for all of us, if they are never tested against each other."

"I can toast to that."

We lifted our tumblers and quaffed ceremonially to the grand ideal of peace.

The grin melted from the man's face, and he frowned at a thought deep in his mind. "I shouldn't have assaulted your person."

"It is forgiven and forgotten." At least I desperately wished it was.

"Even then, I'm terribly sorry."

"Now, now... In truth, I'm gratified to have been offered the opportunity to demonstrate my fidelity. Just don't tell Neru I said so."

He guffawed. "The fierce little thing takes plenty to her mother." Rytna leaned forward with a smirk. "You, sir, have a fine taste in women."

Even the arrogance of the music faltered, as I failed to form a response.

The slayer-patrician slouched back and sighed. "You must forgive me again. It's not easy to pretend this situation isn't mighty peculiar."

I allowed him the time to reform his thoughts and continue. He swallowed with difficulty and spoke in the dryly soft voice of rustling leaves: "I'm just glad we didn't lose our Lu... Thank you for bringing her back to us."

"I––"

He shook his head. "Sorry. I am jabbering. Stress and drink don't combine well within old men."

"It's alright, really."

His mouth opened, but so did the door. I was on my feet with the intensity of a racing hound escaping its starting pit. Neru's sister Lytta strode out. The crimson viscera blatant on her apron would have startled me even with my medical experience, would it not been for the excited smile on the woman's face. I hurried to her, my heart raging in mad anxiety.

In spite of my eager approach, I could only stand dumb in front of the woman. Her smile crept ever more into a smirk, as she watched me squirm in my skin.

"Will you tell me?" I snapped. "Are they alright?"

"Might I smile like this, if my sister or niece wasn't well? Fret not, they certainly are, save that my sister is terribly exhausted."

"I need to see them."

The woman didn't budge from my way. "Let the new mother rest for a while." She swiped sweat-soaked hair from her face and leaned closer. "And we should leave them be for a moment. Mother and Neru are... having a filial moment, one might say. Understandably, that is a major milestone for both of them."

"Yes... understandably."

The woman pushed past me, yet her willpower kept me from rushing through the presently unguarded door. She headed to a cabinet and filled a long cup to the brim with fortified nectar. After a sigh she took a hasty quaff only to start coughing. I rushed to her, yet Lytta merely grinned at me, her face flared crimson.

"Come, Vesija", Rytna called. "Do sit down. Or at least get yourself another drink to celebrate."

I nodded at the old man and asked Lytta: "Are you alright?"

"Oh, of course I am. It's just..." She chuckled with unbridled glee. "It's just been awfully long since I tried to alcohol to settle my excitement." Her hand snapped like a serpent to clutch mine. Her eyebrows lifted, as if she was already intoxicated to tolerance, and opened her mouth to speak. Yet she only shook her head and returned to her cup.

"Did she..." I took a cup and filled it with plain water. "Was it bad?"

"Not any worse than it ought to be."

My hands trembled enough to make the cup seem precarious. I drank the contents and leaned on the counter.

The patter of footsteps from the hallway caught my attention and dragged it to the door. The sight there sent my consciousness reeling. The matriarch stood at the door. Her battle gown wavered with unrestrained emotion, and a hint of a smile curved her lips. Behind her, an arthopodic chair clambered to us, carrying my wife. The long fingers of the Jaan grandmother brushed off wet hair clinging to Neru's face, revealing an odd expression carved full of exhausted contentment. In her arms, my wife held a flared crimson bundle. Our daughter.

Nerutaara lifted her tired eyes, and a small grin conquered her well-deserved lassitude. I knelt next to her, my thoughts overwhelmed by the need to embrace them both yet finding it logistically untenable. My wife saved me from the dilemma by taking my hand and bringing it to our child. Beyond the fact that newborn's skin was suitably warm, my faculties failed to conjure up a further diagnosis.

At no point did I truly faint, yet when my attention returned to reality, I found myself on a divan with the infant in my arms. The Ekkus argued among themselves close-by, but my ears filtered the exact words. Neru cut the quarrel short by trying to stand up. This alarmed the others, but she brushed them off with the surprising ease of her movements. Only then did I notice that she too wore her ancestral biomechanical gown; the exhausted sepia hue had camouflaged its singularity.

I wanted to stand up and help her, but the weight in my arms kept me in place. Nerutaara smiled at me as she lumbered to the divan, the suit doing most of the work of keeping her upright. With a deep sigh, Neru slouched next to me.

"We should leave the newfangled family to some peace and quiet", Lytta said.

The matriarch muttered a curt phrase in a language too esoteric for me, but followed her husband and eldest daughter out of the room. Neru breathed in deep, stretched her back and nuzzled against me.

"Don't you want a blanket?" I asked.

She turned her head to smirk at me, but her tiredness took the worst bite off the smug impression. "Vesija dear, I'm in a thermally regulated bodysuit."

In spite of her heavy-duty attire, she accepted the tight hold of my arm. Our daughter remained asleep, only her amaranth face visible from the swaddling cocoon. A little nose and a mouth and a pair of tightly closed eyes were they belonged. The breath and pulse rhythm indicated by the cocoon's flashing bioluminescence kept regular. Underneath the already faded stench involved in birth, the girl smelled of her mother and my tribe both; in other words, of family.

Nothing awry caught the physician's attention during a cursory diagnosis, and little seemed wrong in my wife save the utter exhaustion apparent in her wilted demeanour. Even her suit appeared depleted like foliage at the end of a long autumn. However, both the gown and its mistress would recover before the snows began to melt.

Slowly, the mad thumping inside my ribcage eased into a beat I could somewhat ignore. Even if I could never fall asleep in such a situation, the tranquillity dissipated the adamant core of anxiety that lingered in my heart.

Though her eyes stayed closed, Neru's breath revealed she was awake.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

The woman murmured with contentment. "My gown must have blocked most of the pain. However, a certain numb ache makes me feel as if I have been cracked open." Her spindly fingers brushed the forehead of our daughter. "She's so... sturdy for a newborn. But that must be an Iwunian trait, no?"

A certain shade in Nerutaara's intonation veered towards reproachful, if I didn't entirely imagined it. Sensing my conjecture, the woman stretched her neck to smile at me.

"Looking back..." she muttered drowsily. "I've suffered through a year-long fit of sweet delirium; dreams that I'd never have dared to dream have come true. As far as dreams come, becoming the woman of a modest household isn't all that fantastical. Except to a forlorn and despondent..." Neru breathed in deep to collect her wavering voice. "Well... Whatever I was."

The woman's skin shivered under my caress. "Our encounter was the most fortuitous event in my life", I said. Her delicate face, with its drowsy yet content expression, built raw emotion in my throat. "You are primed for rest. Wouldn't you want to sleep on a bed instead of my shoulder?"

"It's a nice shoulder though... Alright. Better to get used to this new reality of sleeping only when the baby is fine with it."