Two Eyes Cenote Sending out an SOS

Oh, fuck she did not feel good. How else to describe the pain today except… some Godsforsaken hellbeast ripping at her sides? Who did one pray for for that? 

Medusa couldn’t walk straight. She groaned each and every step to… to somewhere, but she didn’t quite know where. Time was an illusion. Was it minutes later or hours later that Medusa at last relented and bellowed out, HELP ME! 

A flurry of fellahin came to her side at once, escorting her to somewhere. Medusa couldn’t see them, couldn’t feel them. She knew nothing but for this unbearable feeling that seemed to increase as time went on. It’s getting worse, she breathed raggedly, miserably.

A singular coherent thought: KEEP MY FATHER AWAY!!!! he’d be so scared—and she couldn’t bear it!

medusa's cries broke tavina from where she had been standing, completely still; she stared at the bluegilt wall and thought of eset, of how the man had pressed his kiss to her head —

"bring her here," tavina directed, indicating the pelt-draped bed in the examination space. 

surely she knew what it was. "how long have the pains been happening?" asked the sesh instead, laying her paws on the agonized abdomen.

The pain both slowed things down and sped them up. Suddenly she was looking upwards at Tavina. How long had the pains been…? I don’t know, she managed to grit out, today? All of today, that sounded right. A boarish sound came from her as more pains came. 

Medusa could be a sickly looking girl, but all things considered she had always been healthy. This was her first brush with any sort of ailment and Medusa wished she knew it’s source so she could put it all to a stop. But Tavina would know.

Another yell, and Medusa squirmed uncomfortably in place. Now she was panting, and she looked to Tavina for an answer.

it sounded —

"i'll get you something for the pain, dear girl. but i need to ask two things before i know what to administer. first, do you recall eating anything new or perhaps soured? and secondly," ordering wine and water brought, pulling dried poppyseeds from a larder, pressing her paw on their dessicated forms; drawing willow from another containing unit and then turning her eyes back on medusa; 

"secondly i need to know if you've been intimate with a man at any point in the last three months. and don't lie. i'm not here to judge you."

wet strip of lambskin pressed now to the ailing forehead, tavina bending over this wild daughter of gucci's own.

I’ve been eating everything in sight lately, she groaned out, and that was the truth. Medusa felt like a bottomless pit. It all went nowhere, which made Medusa even hungrier. So… maybe? it was an option. 

The next question caused Medusa to squint at Tavina. Intimate??? another pain split through her, and Medusa let out another holler. On my way back, I— 

No time to answer. Water spilled from between her thighs in a rushing gush that made Medusa sputter—I… didn’t know I had to go?!

rushing forth onto the floor of the examination room was the answer tavina needed. the girl's body certainly had not reflected its truth, but she spared not a moment for this. "you're in labor, medusa. pups are coming. roll onto your side, sit up a little."

tavina set willow to steep in the sunwarmed water, attempting to turn the young woman's attention back to her. "you're going to feel the urge to bear down. do what your body says." 

good lord, what would her father think? amusement whirled in spite of the situation, followed by a small trickle of discomfort. senmut and nazli had one another. there was no father present in this room for medusa's impromptu trials. their origins might be held as suspect.

she covered medusa's paw with her own, encouraging, present, hiding her worry and devoting instead to the primordial scene close to its unfolding.

 

She asked, blinking owlishly. Robotically, she listened—Medusa didn’t know what else to do. Pups? No, nonono, Medusa laughed, paw lifted and splayed out in flat rejection her body actively disproved. 

I don’t want them, she said, voice even flatter, I can’t. I’m a Hemet. And, and she didn’t want them! Medusa felt her body want to push, but now, she rioted against instinct. Tell me someone else can take them! Tell me, she crowed. Her father would kill her. Who knew who else would look at her strangely for this? What kind of implications could be made? 

None—none! She hadn’t even been here long enough, thank the Gods for that. It was getting harder to fight her own body. Medusa breathed heavier, still doing just that.

"yes! yes, medusa, you don't have to raise them if you don't want to do that," tavina assured with all the firmness she could muster. there was no reason they ever had to know her as mother once. "but you do have to birth them," the sesh added sympathetically.

the girl's side felt like stone. she saw the trembling strain as medusa fought; tavina nodded into those anguished, frightened eyes. "push!"

Medusa felt that this was probably the worst pain in all of the world. How could she get out of it? Tavina told her she couldn’t. Medusa made bear noises of rage in response as the pain increased, but at last she could refuse her instincts no more.

She shouted some expletive. Why did only women have to endure this? I FUCKING HATE MEN! she roared, since it seemed that a man was responsible for this. BASTARDS!! 

And out one popped, no pun intended! Medusa had no maternal instinct to speak of that guided her, so as she went to look at it she wrinkled her muzzle and said, oh my Gods, gross—is that… that’s blo— and she promptly vomited, graciously away from Tavina and the baby. Tawaret, Medusa breathed, but she was too exhausted to sing a hymn or do anything else but think, do Your thing.

"quite right," tavina muttered, thinking of the man in eset's room — oh! the man, the man, certainly he had a name! — tavina took the squalling infant, toweled the babe briskly with her tongue, and set them down in the clutch of another sheepskin.

poor mites, the sesh thought bitterly to herself. who could nurse them? would it not be better if —

she wiped vomit from medusa's chin. "it's all right. it's all right. drink this," directing the young woman to the strong willowdrink and its pain-dulling properties.

Out they popped, one by one, in a slow dirt of hell. She figured the Gods knew that she deserved it. Medusa drank what was offered and sagged against the earth. You can have them, she monotonously said, and the truth was Medusa didn’t care what happened to them after that. 

Tell no one about… me, her voice was flat. Not once did she look at them, care for them. She couldn’t. How could she be a mother? She’d never had one. And they’d have no Gucci to save them. To make life okay. 

He’d be a great grandpa, but Medusa was selfish. She wanted him to still be just her dad, and have nothing to do with these… things. 

She sniffled. 

puppy players being pm’d today!

have them. "i'm hardly fit to raise children," tavina retorted, though to look at the wriggling mites was to warm her heart again. but first and foremost, she had no milk for them. sustenance and warmth; they would need both. "your secret is mine, medusa."

reluctantly pulling away from the bundle of babes, tavina rummaged for leaves of fresh cabbage. "you'll need to keep these on your nipples," the sesh explained directly. "your milk will come in whether or not you nurse, and it will hurt if it is not dried up. two weeks of cabbage leaves and as much bedrest as you can manage."

her purple eyes found the tiny newborns again. a clock ticked over their small heads.

Expunged into the dirt, no doting father, and no mother's embrace to cradle his entry into the world, Nokht was born quiet.

Worringly so, or perhaps, ideally so—until his silence was broken by his first, gasping breath. Biology demanded he seek out someplace to latch, a scent to committ to his memory forevermore. Instead, the children wriggled sightlessly in the dirt with no such luxuries afforded. His ears were sealed, and that was certainly a blessing. He would not hear the desperate cries that prayed for him to never have existed in the first place- nor of how easily they would be given up- sung from the one mouth from which it would hurt the most. 

Blind, deaf, slicked in afterbirth and the dirt that clung to it, Nokht could do few things aside from wail out for someone to fill the absent space. Wail out, twice as loud as his siblings, the advocating voice that pleaded not to let them be forgotten, even if he did not know it.

he had been something before he became nothing again. so it goes, forevermore.

tick

darkness reigned supreme over the ancient, bubbling mass. cells gathered and divided in their predetermined, unconscious dance. time marched on, unflinching.

tock

one unlinked spirit seared through the miasma. like a bright, wicked spear it pierced down through the heavens where it had come to mingle with the eyes of god. 

the boy's mouth parted in silence as the ancient spirit claimed his unborn form, feeble limbs extended meaninglessly against the membrane that contained him. he was atom. he was adam. he was ancestor. he was the life cycle. he was life itself.

tremors so great they shook his whole being forced him into the darkness of the open world.

he was everything, he was nothing.

tick

then soon, he was breath.

They were afforded life, but it seemed like that was all the universe cared to grant them for now. Their birth was rather straightforward despite being wholly unexpected, and one after another, the newborns exited their safe, warm haven and were introduced to the cold and complicated world. Thankfully they were saved from writhing about in the dirt, dutifully extracted and cleaned by an unknown entity before being placed on far softer bedding. Still, there were needs that were not being met.

The dark pup was mostly quiet despite this, loosing only a single cry as she took her first breath. The sole sounds she made after were hushed whimpers as she attempted to navigate with uncooperative limbs; a feeble kick at a sibling, a subdued swipe of a paw, everything about her movements was as if her soul itself was uncertain about this new life it had come to inhibit.

Children unwanted by their own mother, borne from an insincere coupling. Perhaps they were even a curse from the Gods?

History sure did have a funny way of repeating itself.