The Magician's Witch

Unexpected

Eilis could tell she was waking up. The last remnants of her dream evaporated like mist burned away by the sun. She was warm, snuggled up by Erik's side, his arm draped over her. She burrowed closer, not wanting to wake yet.

Almost in the same moment, utterly unbidden, nausea rolled through her like a freight train.

Bolting upright, she scrambled to untangle herself from the sheets as her stomach signaled its desire to reject its contents. She hit the floor running, dashing into the bathroom and, reaching the toilet in the nick of time, threw open the lid, leaned over it and vomited.

Cool, patient hands pulled her hair back from her clammy neck. Eilis drooped over the commode, wishing to die in that moment. She coughed and sputtered, waiting as her stomach finally relaxed. She spat out the bile lingering in her mouth, and then cautiously stood up and closed the lid, pulling the chain to send the offensive mass away.

She turned towards Erik. His eyes were full of concern.

"You look dreadful," he remarked quietly as his hand went to her forehead.

"I feel dreadful," she croaked.

His fingers felt her pulse. "You do not have a fever. Your heart rate is normal." He peered at her eyes. "You do not appear to have been poisoned."

"Can I brush my teeth while you assess my current and abrupt illness," Eilis inquired grumpily.

Erik let her slide over to the vanity where her toothbrush sat waiting. She scowled at her reflection, looking pale even in the dim light. She felt normal again, despite the pallor, as she dipped her toothbrush into her toothpaste powder.

It was curious. It had come on so quickly and violently. She had never experienced anything like it before.

She pondered it over as she vigorously scrubbed away the remnants of stomach acid from her mouth. It wasn't food poisoning; her stomach had rarely ever been the victim of poorly cooked food. She hadn't drunk anything besides water and tea and sometimes coffee for months, so too much alcohol was an impossibility. She had felt perfectly fine last night before she went to bed.

You have been dizzy lately, her sub conscious reminded her.

Oh yeah, that.

Either you are developing some sort of vertigo go, or...

As she spat out the toothpaste into the basin, she froze.

Oh.

She stood erect again and stared at herself in the mirror.

"Eilis?"

Erik came up behind her, noticing her hard look.

No. That's not possible. Dawn's rune prevents me from getting pregnant.

Thinking this, she looked down at her naked abdomen, at the spot where Dawn's rune...should be.

"How the..."

She twisted her belly this way and then that, making sure it wasn't a trick of the light. But no. The rune had vanished.

Her paleness deepened, not from nausea this time.

A snippet of an interrupted conversation surfaced to the forefront of Eilis' mind. Back in mid to late October, Dawn had been able to break through a barrier to finally make contact with Eilis a hundred and fifty years in the past. Towards the end of the conversation, Dawn had begun to warn her about something regarding the rune, but had been cut off.

Maybe she meant to tell me that it faded on its own, she considered, her hand pressing the spot just below her bellybutton.

A light hand touched her arm. She turned towards Erik, her face an amalgam of emotions.