[OOM] Eiattu - Royal Palace

[fighting_mad]

Dinner over with, the sky outside dark and filled with stars, Plourr is sprawled across the sofa, her feet in Rial's lap. "I don't know how the idiot ever thought it was a good idea."

She shakes her head, but here's a rare thing, amid all this misery and restlessness and rampant boredom and discomfort and fucking helpless waiting: there's a thoroughly obnoxious grin threatening.

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[fighting_mad]

The doctor gives a tiny shrug of one shoulder.

[fighting_mad]

Plourr, meanwhile, is panting hard, sweaty strands of hair plastered to her face, and she finally relaxes -- but only long enough for one gasped breath, two breaths, three -- and then it's ripping through her again, almost immediately, like nothing she's ever felt; she's dying, she's sure she is goddamn it she can't do this--

She doesn't say anything, and probably couldn't if she tried, but she's rigid again, with a choked gasp for breath, and she's back to blowing, wild-eyed, back to warring not to give in to the tremendous pressure, and shaking with the strain.

[eiattu_pride]

"It's okay," he says, soft and low and gentle and maybe gripping her hand just as tightly as she's gripping his. "It's okay, it's going to be okay, you're going to be just fine, my princess."

[fighting_mad]

The princess is in something of a world of her own by now, the doctor knows, but she speaks anyway. "Easy, Princess. That's it, keep breathing, deep breaths; good." She pats Isplourrdacartha's knee once, lightly, as she rises from where she was sitting on the edge of the bed. "I'll be back momentarily to check on you again, and we can see how far you've dilated."

Dr. Wilen looks to Rial, knowing perfectly well that she isn't going to receive a response (apart from remarkably blue cursing) from the female half of the monarchy. "Call for me if you need me, but I should be right back." With that, she slips out of the room.

[eiattu_pride]

Rial nods in her direction, then returns his glace to Plourr. His free hand brushes a stray strand of hair out of her face, face creased in worry. "Plourr. It's not too late to ask for painkillers."

[fighting_mad]

He catches her on the tail end of a contraction; she slumps, panting unsteadily and shifting her weight -- and then it registers that he said something, and then what he said registers, and she shakes her head, tight and stubborn despite the pain that her face is lined with, the exhaustion in the way she's drooping. It's been nineteen hours now, since this started; twenty-six since she slept.

She wants it over with eighteen kriffing hours ago.

She just wants it over with.

[eiattu_pride]

"Okay. Well. Your choice." He smiles anxiously, moving to sit farther up the bed, hands migrating down to her lower back and rubbing soothingly. "Let me know if you want them."

[fighting_mad]

She's in pain. She's in pain everywhere that she can possibly imagine, she feels like she's going to be sick, like she's been sucked into vacuum; chewed up and spit out by a rancor and then chewed again and it's not stopping; it only gets worse and worse and it's all beyond her control now, far beyond it. Her body is on an inexorable path that she can't stop or slow and--

The interjection starts its life as "Fuck!" but somehow becomes a choked sob for breath somewhere along the way.

This needs to end now; it's inevitable and uncontrollable and she can't do a damn thing to stop it but it needs to end right now and she's madder than fucking hell about it.

[eiattu_pride]

"You can do this," he says, soft and quiet into her hair, holding onto her like he can somehow keep her anchored through the waves of pain. "You can, Plourr, you're strong and you're my warrior princess and I know you can, okay? You're going to get through this."

She's strong and she's his warrior princess and he know she can but deep in his belly, somewhere, there's that gnawing, growing feeling like he's going to lose her.

[fighting_mad]

"Of course I'm going to get through this!" In the first full sentence she's managed in an hour or more, she tries to snap, but it comes out as an angry gasp, all in one breath, and the waver in her voice betrays her.

There is a pillow sitting on the bed beside her hip, a casualty of fruitless attempts to get comfortable, and she punches it, hard, as the next contraction follows the last.

It's not just sweat that's damp on her face, anymore.

[eiattu_pride]

"Of course you are." He doesn't know what to say anymore, though, has used up his allotment of 'shhh's and 'it's okay's and 'not long now's. He's not sure what to say and he's not sure he can stand looking at her right now, looking at that pain and fear that she's trying so hard to hide and the tears streaking her cheeks.

He looks at the wall, and he rubs her back and he holds onto her but he doesn't say anything, not this time, just bites his lip and bides his time.

[fighting_mad]

Plourr barely has the chance to slump against his side for a few seconds before another contraction is rolling through, then another and another and the pressure is like nothing she knew existed in this world or any others, and Plourr isn't yelling anymore, or cursing Rial's ancestry (her ancestry) back to the dark days before history. She's just trying to breathe, and she can't not push, she can't--

(At the longest break between contractions--ten seconds at the outside--Plourr gets her hand on the pillow and furiously rifles it at the wall.

It's hurled with high velocity, for a pillow. A quietly bustling nurse barely ducks the shot just before it would have caught her right in the face.)

[eiattu_pride]

"Plourr," he says, holding onto her just a little too tightly although right now he doubts that she knows it. She's not responding to him, at all, and he swallows hard before just forging ahead.

"Remember, uh, remember when we were painting the nursery? And I got paint all over myself and then, naturally, all over you and you were so mad that you reached out and painted a mustache onto me?" He laughs, soft and almost surprised that he can. "I was just thinking of that the other day. Uh, mosy 'cause of that time I painted my mustache for you, on the night of that dinner? Remember how horrified everyone was? And my dad...gods, I've never seen him that mad at me in my life."

He's rambling, voice soft and low, one hand rubbing her back and the other lightly stroking the tears and sweat from her cheek. At this point, he isn't talking for himself, or even for her. He's talking so she'll have something to grab onto and focus on and maybe then this will just be over and they'll have their daughter with them.

[fighting_mad]

Gradually, she becomes aware of the familiar low voice talking, a constant buzz in the back of her mind.

A few seconds after that, she starts hearing what he's actually saying.

"Rial," she says, and she makes a grab for the big hand touching her cheek. She turns to him, face pinched and eyes dark. "This kriffing sucks, Rial, I can't-- I can't do this, Rial, Sithspit I can't--"

[eiattu_pride]

"You can," he says, and means it with every part of him. "You can, Plourr, I know you can, you're not just going to give up now." Holding her tightly and close to him he feels her skin, sweaty under his hands, feels her pulse pounding through her body. Life.

"You can do it, my princess," he says, and he knows she can. He just knows.

[fighting_mad]

She grips his hand like the lifeline it is.

'You can,' he said fiercely, his eyes square on hers. 'You're not just going to give up now.'

Easy for him to say, she opens her mouth to say, but that's pain slamming through her like a physical thing, and what comes out instead is a low cry.

You're not just going to give up now.

She pants through the strong contraction--and it's not stopping and it's not stopping and she holds his hand tight--her jaw clenched, and if another, louder outcry or two escapes her (and it does) -- she doesn't have the time or the inclination to regret it.

This had better be worth it. Goddamn but this had better be worth it.