[OOM] Eiattu - Palace Infirmary

[fighting_mad]

"This is painless, Princess," says the little doctor, hand on her hip. "I don't even need to touch you. Quit your complaining and roll up your tunic."

Half-reclining in the examination room, Plourr scowls up at the white-haired, ageless woman. "It's Empress," she complains, but she pushes her tunic up above her belly and leans back on her elbows.

"I delivered you twenty-two years ago," says Doctor Wilen matter-of-factly, flicking a switch on the machine beside the table. "You will always be a princess to me, Princess."

Plourr rolls her eyes but she falls silent and lets the doctor get to work, checking her blood pressure and her heart rate, among other things. She ignores the bustling woman and glances at Rial.

Comments

[eiattu_pride]

"Of course, my princess." He keeps up the grinning, though, lifting her hand and dropping a kiss to her fingers.

To Doctor Wilen, "And you're sure this'll show the gender?"

[sw-npc.livejournal.com]

"Gender is a cultural construct, Count Pernon," says Dr. Wilen, glancing at him over the rim of her spectacles. "Sex, however, is a different story. It should be discernable -- Princess, stop wriggling -- at sixteen weeks of pregnancy, and as the Princess is at nineteen weeks at the moment, we should be in business, as they say."

[fighting_mad]

"Sith, I'm not wriggling," says Plourr, frowning, but she subjects herself to the doctor's poking and prodding. "Would you just do the scan already?"

[eiattu_pride]

"Sex, then," says Rial, properly abashed. "And good. Good. Excellent."

Beat.

Fidget fidget.

[sw-npc.livejournal.com]

"I will perform the scan when I am good and ready," says Dr. Wilen.

"However, it just so happens that I am ready now." She leans over and flicks on the holo unit (it begins broadcasting three-dimensional static), and picks up the small scanning wand.

[fighting_mad]

Plourr glances from the doctor to Rial, and she closes her teeth on her lower lip.

They have holos already, it's true, but those were taken several weeks ago, when the fetus still looked -- well, it didn't look quite humanoid. This will be different.

[eiattu_pride]

Rial's hand tightens on Plourr's own, maybe, and then he turns his eyes to the holo unit and waits.

They've been in this for a while now, after all.

[fighting_mad]

Dr. Wilen leaves them alone for now and she waves the scanner back and forth, slowly--with an ease born of long practice with many princesses and a handful of empresses--over the empress's stomach.

Plourr smiles, quick and sudden and startled, as the moving three-dimensional image--unmistakably a baby, small as it is; their baby--fades into place, and it's a moment before she can tear her eyes away to look at Rial.

[eiattu_pride]

She may be looking at him, but Rial's still got his eyes fixed on the image. Their baby. Their baby. Their baby. Their baby.

It's a very long moment before he finally glances at Plourr, and that smile, the soft one that always seems to come out when he thinks no one's watching and he settles down with wedding holos of him and Plourr - well, it's there.

[fighting_mad]

Plourr could lean over and kiss that smile, but she's done this once before. She knows she needs to hold her torso still, and she does, though she squeezes Rial's hand.

No matter how she feels about all this -- best thing she ever did, kissing this man.

[sw-npc.livejournal.com]

Husband and wife are in their own world, and Dr. Wilen lets them remain that way for a few moments. She turns the scanner off and transfers a copy of the holo to her personal datapad, and she studies it.

Finally, though, she does break the silence. "You two are certain that you want to know what you're expecting?"

[eiattu_pride]

"I do," says Rial, reluctantly looking away from Plourr's dark eyes.

"Plourr, are you sure?"

[fighting_mad]

She looks to Wilen, movement quick and nervous, but she nods immediately, certain. "Yes. We want to know."

[sw-npc.livejournal.com]

"Congratulations, your majesties," says Dr. Wilen, and she gives a rare smile as she flicks the holo off her datapad. "You're having a girl."

[eiattu_pride]

A girl.

The first thought in Rial's head is that they've been calling it - her - the wrong gender all along. The second is that he hopes she doesn't take after her mother too much, he's not sure he could deal with two Plourrs.

The third...well, he's always been practical. "Fiala?"

[fighting_mad]

A girl.

A daughter.

Dr. Wilen looks confused at Rial's response, but Plourr understands.

Once it registers that Rial has said something, anyway, which takes a minute because she's busy staring at the holo, her mouth half-open.

An uncharacteristic stutter: "Uh-- Put it on the list."

A daughter.

[eiattu_pride]

"Okay."

He doesn't move his hand from where it's wrapped around Plourr's own, though, and he hasn't yet stopped looking at the holo.

"So - our daughter."

[fighting_mad]

Not just a daughter -- her daughter. Their daughter.

"Damned if I know what to say," she says quietly, and she tugs his hand, leaning toward him.

[eiattu_pride]

Rial leans in as well, and kisses her soft and sweet.





"Could say 'I love you'."

[fighting_mad]

Plourr kisses him back, and when they break and he speaks, she smoothes her knuckles across his cheek, and then her thumb.

"Be awfully predictable, don't you think?"

(In the background, Dr. Wilen is kindly puttering with some equipment and doing an excellent job of pretending she isn't present.)

[eiattu_pride]

"I wouldn't mind."

He leans and kisses her again, longer, then turns to look at the holo of their daughter.

"She'll be beautiful."

[fighting_mad]

She tightens her grip on his hand, just a little, then releases.

"Yeah, she will." This is probably where she's supposed to say 'she already is,' she thinks, but -- it's hard to look at a collection of dots on holo (moving or not) and think of beauty.

A pause, while she stares at the holo.


"...Is that an arm or a leg?" She points at a slowly twitching limb.

[eiattu_pride]

Rial cocks his head to one side, first slightly, and then slowly twisting his neck until his head is pretty much horizontal.

"I'm not sure," he says finally. "A leg? Or an arm with a really strange looking hand?"

[sw-npc.livejournal.com]

Dr. Wilen snorts. "That, Your Majesties, is the umbilical cord. If you please...?"

[fighting_mad]

Plourr makes a 'by your leave' sort of gesture, a bit sarcastically.

"I knew that."

(Still, despite the sarcasm, when she hops off the table in a while and Rial grabs her in a hug, she laughs and grabs back.)