I See Myself in Your Eyes

Author’s Note: I’m hoping I can get through this with less difficulty than my current stories. I’ve got a huge block, less time due to school starting for my family, stressful work during the day, an out of work husband who kicks me off the PC at night and fights me for it during wakeful hours, and too many open documents to pick just one.

This will be loaded with slash. I can tell you that right now. I’m talking random, here. This story is going to put the “adult” in “adult fairy tale.” Warnings ahead of time for heavy citrus, slash, bits of het here and there, mature themes and language, nudity, some violence and a hint of casual furry. Rated 17 and up. Don’t drink coffee while you’re reading this; it will likely come squirting out your left nostril.

Additional Note: I posted this to Gambit_Wolverine on Yahoogroups in a more vanilla, less adult version, even though it was still too mature to put out on the likes of FF.net. This incarnation is the one that I originally planned out, but my muses were feeling restrained and wanted to play it safe.

*

Queen Natalie startled slightly at the sound of a knock at her chamber door, then hissed in pain as she pricked her finger with her embroidery needle.

“Milady, are you all right?” inquired Clodagh, her lady’s maid. She set down the gown that she was folding and laid it across the clothing press before hurrying over to the queen’s side. She tutted under her breath. “That’s a nasty scratch, milady.” She pulled out a small lawn handkerchief from her pocket and daubed her finger with it. Emily, the scullery girl, looked concerned as she saw Clodagh leaning over her majesty.

“What is the matter, Highness?”

“Pricked her finger, our lady did,” Clodagh informed her. She nodded for her to take the used, empty dishes from the table in the corner.

“Let me fetch the ointment, milady. I won’t be two shakes,” Emily promised. Her tray of dishes rattled slightly as she backed out of the room and gently closed the door. Clodagh sighed.

“You’ve been more on edge tonight, milady. Would you like some hot milk?”

“Nay,” she murmured absently as she removed her finger from the cloth and examined it. The droplet of blood beading up from the prick seemed to fascinate her. “Crimson,” she mused, almost too low for Clodagh to hear.

“Let me finish cleaning it, Highness! You don’t want it to grow infected.” Clodagh poured some water from the pitcher into a basin and daubed the edge of the handkerchief in it. While she fussed, the young queen examined her embroidery, admiring her work on the kingdom’s crest. Every knot was perfect, every stitch even where they gleamed in the firelight.

Outside, a light snow fell, nourishing the mounds of it that already frosted the ground. Natalie got up from her seat and stretched, ignoring the sounds of her two maids fussing back and forth once Emily returned. Her back ached and her tender feet were swollen, making her slippers snug and uncomfortable. This baby-making business was more complicated than she thought; Jean-Luc’s heir was being a stubborn little thing, pushing his tiny feet up under her ribs. Clearly he approved of the evening’s dinner of oxtail stew and green peas; Natalie chuckled at the thought and patted her lofty belly. She cracked open the window without asking either of her servants to perform the task, earning herself a polite, well-meaning scolding.

“Majesty, you’ll catch your death, or tempt the evil eye! I pray you, come away!” Clodagh urged, gently curling her hand around the queen’s forearm. Natalie just as gently removed it.

“I’d like a draft of fresh air. Just for a moment.”

“Yes, milady,” she murmured reluctantly, chastened. Clodagh backed away and returned with a blanket and draped it around her shoulders. Natalie leaned out and enjoyed the crisp air on her cheeks. She stared down into the courtyard and admired the trees, tall and majestic despite their bare, spindly branches that speared the night sky. A strange restlessness plagued her spirit, and something in the darkness called to her hauntingly.

She toyed with a mound of snow on the windowsill, patting it into a ball. She tucked a few errant leaves and twigs into it, then noticed that her fingertip bled again, this time numbed from the cold.

The crimson against the pristine white crystals mesmerized her again. “Crimson as rubies. White as snow.” She tracked the snowflakes that hit the window and slowly drizzled down the pane as they melted. “On a night black as pitch,” she whispered. Her own words chilled her. Queen Natalie felt a strange longing that she couldn’t describe, a wistfulness that wouldn’t leave her.

Annoyed with her distraction and at being ignored, the baby kicked her more insistently. She sighed.

“All right. Clodagh, the baby decided we’ll have that hot milk, after all.” Emily finished treating her finger and gratefully closed the window while Clodagh headed to the kitchen, grateful that the queen had begun making sense again.

She dreamt of a babe as beautiful as she’d described, and at first the visions filled her with indescribable joy. But suddenly, the child was ripped from her embrace, and she felt herself plunging into darkness, torn apart by hungry, gnashing teeth. Natalie awoke with her heart thumping. She felt her abdomen tighten and bunch, seeming to roll slightly. She reached down and probed her son’s tiny foot, poking him back into his place.

A crow screeched outside, thumping against the sill briefly as a strong gust of wind blew it off its course. Despite the roaring fire in her chamber, it chilled her.


*

Queen Natalie awoke two hours later with the sensation of a small troll bringing its foot down on her spine in a pair of iron boots. She gasped as she rolled up in bed, and a low cry escaped her lips. “Lord help me, it burns,” she hissed. She attempted to climb out of bed, but the room seemed to tilt. She managed to push her feet back into the hated slippers and she dragged the heavy blanket around her. Her husband grunted from beneath the remaining covers, then rolled to face her.

“Blast it, woman,” he muttered, “’tisn’t…morning yet…”

“Nay,” she whispered, trying not to alarm him. “It’s the baby.”

“Tell the mite t’go back t’sleep,” he complained as he rolled over. Natalie broke out in a sweat and wished her servants hadn’t stoked up such a heavy fire.

“My love, if it pleases you, perhaps you’d like to tell our son that yourself. He’s coming.”

Jean-Luc’s eyes snapped open with that pronouncement. He flipped over onto his back and stared, taking in her condition fully, the way she grasped her lower back in pain.

“Shit,” he hissed. It was a very un-royal thing to say.

“Aye,” she nodded.

“Shit, shit, shit!” He was up in a flash, covers thrown aside, and Jean-Luc flung open the door.

“Summon the midwife!” he roared into the corridor. “NOW! AT ONCE! My son is on his way!” Natalie gratefully watched him tear out of the chamber, glad he didn’t stay to see the droplets of blood that ran all the way down to her foot, staining the floor boards.

*

The hours dragged on like days, fraught with tearing pain and worry. Jean-Luc paced in his private chamber while Natalie’s maids and the village midwife toiled in the master suite. Once the lanterns were lit, Jean-Luc nearly fainted at the sight of the large bloodstain on the sheets. The women crowding into the room shooed him out, urging him to give her one last kiss before they began their work. They brought in various instruments, cord, basins, rags, blankets and boiling water, all of which made him pale. His wife’s skin was pale but her cheeks were florid.

“When the sun has risen, our son will be born,” he whispered to her by way of encouragement. She smiled weakly before another contraction wracked her frame. She smothered a cry, unwilling to alarm him any further.

“Jean-Luc…” she pulled him close. “I love you,” she whispered. “Always.” He took her hand in his, and it felt more fragile to him. He kissed it tenderly and stroked back her deep chestnut hair from her brow where it was plastered down with sweat.

“I’ll see you with our son in your arms,” he told her. “I love you, my queen.”

He found himself shooed out and the door was kicked shut behind him. Not the way he expected to be treated as lord of his castle, obviously, but Clodagh looked menacing as she boiled a pair of silver tongs over the fire. He cringed.

That found him here, pacing his chamber while his manservant, Wilfred, stood sentinel by the door.

“Tis a brisk night, sire.”

“The moon is full,” the king mused. He shared his wife’s fascination with the night sky. “There’s a halo around it.”

“Then the angels are among us tonight,” Wilfred promised hopefully.

Their musings were interrupted by horrible, shrill screams.

*

“JEAN-LUC!” Natalie cried. Her fingers bit into Clodagh’s hand as another labor pain swelled and reached its crest. She felt as though large, clawlike hands were reaching inside her and pulling her pelvic cradle apart. “JEAN…LUUUUCC!” The women in the room alternately prayed and cursed as they worked.

“She’s bleeding something awful, Emily!” Clodagh snapped.

“I’ve more rags!” she replied as they knelt at the foot of the bed between the queen’s open knees. The midwife reached down and checked her. She probed the queen’s swollen, elongated cleft, slipping her fingers inside gently and finding the solid presence of the baby’s head.

“The head’s crowning,” she informed them. “MOVE!” She was an ample, formidable woman with a deep voice that struck fear into the hearts of her own babes and her milk toast husband who owned the local wheat mill.

The women moved. She cleansed her hands and went to work. Natalie found her legs manipulated this way and that.

“Grasp onto something, Highness,” she ordered, “and then push! Get ready to greet your son!”

*

After a torturous hour of deafening screams and frantic knocking on the chamber door that left Wilfred’s knuckles sore, a shrill, lusty squall broke through and was met by a low cheer.

Jean-Luc stopped in his tracks and swallowed around a lump in his throat. Wilfred hurried inside and was knocked aside as Jean-Luc barreled out the door. “Sire…OOF!”

“Out of the way,” he snapped. “Natalie…!” He sprinted down the hall, again, not in the most royal fashion, nightclothes flapping out behind him and still in his stocking cap. He was panting as he banged on the chamber door. Wilfred huffed his way after him, rubbing his shoulder where his king had clouted him.

The midwife greeted him, face flushed and her dark hair in lank disarray, tendrils escaping her kerchief. Her black eyes were despondent, not full of the radiant pride that should accompany a birth.

“Highness,” she greeted, curtseying. “It is done. Your son is born.” Her somber voice chilled him. A rash of unease made his heart thump unevenly.

“My queen…”

“Her Highness is…resting,” she said hesitantly. “I’ve settled her more comfortably and given her a draft for the pain.”

“Pain?” he demanded. “Why is my wife still in pain?”

“Sire…please. Please, come in, but lower your voice. It’s best if you do not upset her. She’s…delicate.” He nodded, and Wilfred motioned for the midwife to step aside. She backed away and Jean-Luc strode inside, removing his stocking cap and setting it on the vanity. He combed it back from his face with his fingers impatiently and accepted the greetings from the group of women, all of whom looked too anxious for his taste; some even appeared mournful.

Who would mourn the birth of the future king?

As they parted, his eyes fell on his wife.

No, she wasn’t resting, nor settled, nor comfortable.

Her breathing was ragged and shallow, and Natalie’s skin was wan and clammy when he stroked back her hair. The babe struggled to nurse at her plump breast, squirming in her weak embrace. She was propped on several pillows. Jean-Luc saw his son’s small round head, crowned with fine curls of his mother’s chestnut brown hair, downy looking in the firelight. His eyes were squinched shut and his skin was wrinkly and pink. Natalie smiled up at him, but it lacked her customary humor and twinkle.

He knew at once that she was dying. Jean-Luc’s feet carried him to her side, where he sat on the edge of the bed. He merely stroked her hair while tears pricked his eyes, blurring his vision.

“Jean-Luc,” she crooned, “look at your handsome son. Do not weep, husband. This is a happy time.”

“Aye,” he agreed. His finger trembled as he reached out to count his son’s, lightly touching each one. The babe reflexively grasped for more of the contact, squeezing him in his grip, and then Jean-Luc did let the tears roll down his cheeks, salting the crease of his lips. “This…is a happy time, wife.”

He waited for her to console him further, but her wan smile lingered on her face as the light died from her eyes.