The Realm of the Sun

The Birth of an Heir

                  Eirainna's vision went in and out as a foreign, searing pain turned her whole body numb. After hours of labour, she was now beyond screaming or crying out; it was a strange state where she seemed to be shifting in and out of awareness. Vaguely, she could hear Nessie's sweet and encouraging voice saying the same things over and over just to keep her aware and alive. Black and grey spots appeared and then disappeared on the thatched ceiling, rearranging and growing and shrinking. Eirainna's face tingled as though thin, cold shards of metal were emerging from her pores and her fingertips either burned or had turned to ice; she could not quite make out which.

"Almost there, Raina, you're almost there..." Nessie's voice was becoming clearer, but Eirainna wondered to herself whether she was hearing this in her head or whet Nessie was actually saying it, "Hold on, you can do it...just one more push..."

Eirainna cried out in agony, the veins bulging in her forehead and her eyes clenched shut. Suddenly, there was a sound that so astounded her, she nearly forgot about all the hours of suffering she had just endured. A tremendous sigh of relief escaped her as the pain seemed to separate and dissolve like storm clouds surrendering to the sun. Never had she experienced such pain and such joy in her life, each extreme occurrence separated only by a matter of seconds. An infant was crying. A person that did not exist a moment before, now inhabited the same world as its mother.

"Oh, Raina, she's beautiful," Nessie sighed, tired and elated, and handed the small, fragile creature to her mother. Overwhelmed, Eirainna took the wrinkled infant in her arms and tears began to stream from her bewildered eyes uncontrollably. Her heart swelled open with a kind of love that was different than anything she had ever known. She hadn't thought it would be different from how she loved Furbaide, and though she did love him like a son, there was something different about having created this child herself. There was something different and miraculous to her that there could be such a beautiful and pure product of a treasonous and forbidden love. By giving life to this tiny being, she felt she was now a member of something bigger. It was a sense of belonging she had now beyond the royal lineage. It was much deeper and far more abstract than that. The only way she could harness this sense into words was to say that she was now, humbly and blissfully, a mother. And no matter what was written in the stars for she and her daughter, at least nothing and no one could take that identity away from her.

Unable to speak a single word, she stared in awe at her beautiful newborn, whose little face and brow furrowed with perplexity, as if she were astonished already by this strange, new world. Eirainna marveled, trying to remember if she had ever seen anything so small. The baby's crying subsided as extraordinary crystal blue eyes emerged from crinkled, folded eyelids and looked up at their mother for the first time.

"Tara," Eirainna muttered wearily, absolutely enamored with the little miracle she held in her arms. After a pause, she looked up at Nessie, her bloodshot eyes filled with refreshing tears of joy.

"Tara?" Nessie asked, almost surprised, as she blotted beads of sweat from Eirainna's brow and then wiped her own with her sleeve.

"So she will never be without her true home and her family," said Eirainna, hoarsely. A wave of bittersweet realization crossed her face as she remembered that this child she had just brought into the world would not really be hers to keep, "Will you call her Tara?"

"We'll call her Tara," Nessie replied, tearfully, her contradicted heart swelling with pride and yet breaking all at once. She had hoped, for at least this one moment, Eirainna would be able to completely lose herself in her feelings and not worry about the impending future. But even now as Eirainna held the precious infant with tears of joy flooding her eyes, Nessie could see the ache behind them.