How long had it been? Baby Ori lost count. The days and nights in the unconscious went by at their own time scale. Baby Ori had decided to widen her search for more Oris.

It was quite scary, but still less scary than living as a doll in the Rohan estate. This irrefutable fact helped Baby Ori overcome her nervousness. She felt waves of nausea whenever she came upon the younger and younger Oris. She was always careful not to touch them―lest she unwitting experience their pain.

Baby Ori took a moment to think. She had scuttled together a sort of children’s sailing raft and was now sailing down a lush, fern-covered creek. Her bum was wet, but she was proud of herself.

A wave of terror swept over her. She took the large stick she used for this purpose and slammed it into the bottom of the creek. The raft spun a bit in protest, but soon hit the bank and stopped.

She strained to listen over the loud burbling of the creek. When she heard it, she shuddered. There, deep in the ferns and tall oak trees, was the cry of a baby. Baby Ori took a deep breath, tied her raft to a root, and stepped onto the red clay.

The cry of the baby grew louder and louder as Baby Ori went to them. The oak trees trembled in the wind caused by the cry. Soon the landscape morphed into birch trees; the eyes on their bark watching Baby Ori’s every step.

“Stop scaring me!” She yelled, “This is my job!!”

The trees responded by closing their eyes. They bent and unveiled the squalling infant.

Baby Ori took a deep breath.

The baby had light blue hair. Her little body twitched in the way that babies do, and her chubby fists waved in the air. She wore a long white dress embroidered with flowers.

Baby Ori’s hair blew back, caught in a sudden gust. She squinted but continued to move forward. “Ori,” she said, “It’s me, Baby Ori.”

The baby stopped crying in an instant. She looked into Baby Ori’s face, confused.

“Are you in pain?” Asked Baby Ori.

“Yes,” the newborn answered back, unnaturally. “I’m hungry and no one is coming.”

Baby Ori’s eyes filled with tears and she wished to hold the baby. She knew she could not. “I made us a house. There are endless bottles of warm milk there, and cradles where you can sleep.” She pushed a fern side, sniffling. “Doesn’t that sound nice? I’ll show you.”

The baby was quiet.

Baby Ori peered at her, “You don’t believe me?”

The baby turned her little blue eyes towards Baby Ori. “I want to die.”

Baby Ori burst into sobs. She knew the baby meant it. “How can you say that?” She fell to her knees. “How can you say you want to die?”

The infant closed its eyes, “Why won’t I die? I cry and no one comes. The skin on my bottom hurts. I’m so hungry. Why won’t I die?”

Baby Ori put out her hands, the hands of a five-year-old child. She slipped one little hand under the infant’s head, and then another under her little bottom. She cradled the child like a mother and cried and cried.

The newborn turned her head and felt Ori’s hard, gangly little body against her face. Still, she was so warm.

Baby Ori could not help but feel and experience the terror of the baby. She yearned to feel the warm breast of their mother.

Baby Ori screamed to the birch trees, “Why did she breastfeed me if she wanted me to die?” She took a gasping, choking breath, “Why did she keep me alive if she never loved me?”

The birch trees kept their eyes closed. They didn’t know either. No one on the inside knew.

―-

Lady Ori woke up from a nightmare. She had been at a popular theme park, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t find her baby on any of the rides.

Lady Ori put her hand on her lower stomach. She had taken the contraceptive. There was no baby. She sighed in relief.

A week ago, Lady Juju had shared a secret with her. She had wiped away Lady Ori’s tears and told her that Contessa de Rohan had decided on the next heir of the Rohan estate.

“Both of the Rohan brothers tried to court her. She’d already had Sir―I mean that bastard―with someone.” Lady Juju told her. “They took it as proof that she could give birth to boys.”

Lady Ori had drunk the contraceptive with her tea and listened, her heart beating in her ears.

Lady Juju continued, frowning but accepting her decision. “In the end, the late Contessa chose the younger brother, and had you.”

Lady Ori’s eyes narrowed. “And I was a girl.”

Lady Juju nodded. “Mother says that’s when she and the Contessa ended their sisterhood.” She placed her teacup in its saucer. “Mother found it suspicious; the elder brother died of sickness, and then your father, too.”

Lady Ori spat a humorless laugh. “She suspects my mother murdered both men?” She smiled in anger, “That sounds like her.”

Lady Juju looked away from her cousin’s piercing eyes. “I think both men mistreated her.” Lady Juju fiddled with the front of her dress. “It doesn’t change anything.” She said finally, “But I thought you should know.”

Lady Ori looked into her tea cup. The remaining tea leaves had sorted themselves into a wheel. It pissed her off.

Lady Juju took her fan into her hand. “Your situation is different because you already like Lord Vellim. Plus his brother is already married. I hope you don’t think I tried to put you in the same position.”

“No,” Lady Ori said, shaking her head. “It was a good idea. You can always come to me when you have plans like this. I like this side of you, too.”

The late Contessa had played with fire and gotten burned. What did her mother expect? That she had a magical womb that only gave birth to boys? What a dumbass. In her entire life, she’d never made one intelligent decision. Delusional bitch.

Lady Juju felt touched. “We’re pretty similar, Lady Ori.” she giggled.

Lady Ori smiled. She doubted it.

―-

Vellim de Broglie looked into his mirror, checking his hair again. He had visited his Ori many times since they’d made love two weeks ago. Still, the thought of visiting her made his heart flutter in his chest.

He was learning more and more about her―a new Ori that seemed to bloom outside of the Rohan estate. He learned her laugh could sound like a crack of lightning; she liked meals with lots of vinegar. He would catch her swishing her skirts, as if she was moving to music he could not hear. He would dance with her and she would laugh.

She would take her shoes off whenever possible and plunk them into the grass. When a lizard jumped into a bush, she’d watch it, look away, and smile at him as if they’d seen a shooting star.

She loved to kiss him, and he loved to be kissed.

Now when he was alone in the privacy of his rooms, he’d lick his fingers, and imagine it was her taste coating his tongue. He wondered when she’d beg into his ear again.

Her bruises were healing, and she promised that when they did, she’d be his partner at all upcoming dances. Soon he’d be able to show off his fiancée to high society and beyond.

It was still true that he preferred the quiet of home. It was only that recently he’d been assuaged by the idea that everyone should know that Ori loved him. He worried his fearless, free-spirited Ori would leave him for a man of better standing.

The very idea had made its way into his nightmares. He’d wake up with tears in his eyes, the image of his Ori laughing with another man still fresh in his mind.

He was going insane; he knew it. At least, it seems, he wasn’t the only one. As a scholar, he took a new interest in poetry. He wrote it too but burned it afterward, afraid someone might read it.

He thought of Ori before bed, dreamed of her, and then woke up with the desire to hold her in the morning. By lunch he was at the Foix estate, looking at her. His novels lay forgotten somewhere.

He watched his elder brother treat his new wife, Lady Layla, with gentle hands. He could not help but feel bad for the both of them. Lady Layla would look at her husband with hopeful eyes. Meanwhile his brother was completely oblivious. They slept in separate rooms and kept their distance from one another. To his eyes, they looked like strangers.

Vellim shook his head. To think that he had almost made the same mistake. What if he had rejected his Ori’s needs back then? He’d never know how precious love was to a man’s whole being. He wished he had felt this a year ago, so he could have had more time being ruined by his lovely Ori.

He wondered if all the men in his family were this hopeless. He clicked his tongue. At this rate, his Ori would be pregnant before Lady Layla was.

The thought grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. He saw his dumbfounded reaction reflected in the mirror, hand still in his hair. A foreign feeling welled up in his chest.

A man of higher standing could never take her from him if he was the man of higher standing.

—-