“The welcoming committee, of course! All of them. Faranth, love are all present and accounted for?”
We are here, Faranth said, where we should be. You are amused.
“I am very amused,” Sorka said, but then another contraction caught her, and she clutched at Sean. “But that was not at all amusing. You’d better call Greta.”
“Jays, we don’t need her. I’m as good a midwife as she is,” Sean muttered, shoving feet into the shoes under their bed.
“For horses, cows, and nanny goats, yes, Sean, but it is expected for humans to assist humans . . . oooooh, Sean, these are very close together.”
He rose to his feet, pausing to throw the top blanket across his bare shoulders against the early morning’s chill, when there was a discrete knock at the door. He cursed.
‘’Who is it?” he roared, not at all pleased at the idea that someone might have come to summon him for a veterinary emergency right then.
“Greta!”
Sorka started to laugh again, but that became very difficult to do all of a sudden, and she switched to the breathing she had been taught, clutching at her great belly.
“How under the suns did you know, Greta?” she heard Sean ask his voice reflecting his astonishment.
“I was called,” Greta said with great dignity, gently pushing him to one side.
“By whom? Sorka only just woke up,” Sean replied, following Greta back to their room. “She’s the one who’s having the baby.”
“Not always the first to know when labor commences,” Greta said in a very calm, almost detached manner. “Not in Landing. And certainly not with a queen dragon listening in on your mind.” She flicked on the lights as she entered the room and deposited her midwifery bag on the dresser. She had been a gangly girl who had turned into a rangy woman with hair and skin the same coffee color and a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her eyes, very brown in her kindly face, missed few details.
“Faranth told you?” Sorka was astonished. A dragon speaking to someone outside of their group was unheard of.
“Not exactly,” Greta replied with a chuckle. “A fair of fire-dragonets flew in my window and made it remarkably plain that I was needed. Once I got outside, it wasn’t hard to figure out whose baby was coming. Now, let me see what’s going on here.”
I told them to get her, Faranth told Sorka in a smugly complacent tone of voice. You like her.
As Sorka lay back for Greta’s examination, she tried to figure that out. She liked her doctor, too, and had no qualms about him attending her delivery. How had Faranth sensed that she really had wanted Greta in attendance? Could Faranth possibly have sensed that she had always been friendly with Greta? Or was it some connection the golden dragon had made because Sorka had assisted Greta in the birth of Mairi Hanrahan’s latest, Sorka’s newest baby brother? But for Faranth to recognize an unconscious preference . . .
Sean slid cautiously onto the other side of the bed and reached for her hand. Sorka gave him a squeeze, laughter still bubbling up in her. She had so hated the last few weeks when her body had not seemed to be her own, when all its controls seemed to have been assumed by the bouncing, kicking, impertinent, restless fetus that gave her no rest at all. Her laughter was sheer elation that all of that was nearly over.
“Now let me have a look . . . another contraction?”
Sorka concentrated on her breathing, but the spasm was far more painful than she had anticipated. Then it was gone, pain and all. She felt sweat on her forehead. Sean blotted it gently.
You are hurting? Faranth’s voice became shrill.
“No, no, Faranth. I’m fine. Don’t worry!” Sorka cried.
“Faranth’s upset?” Keeping her hand tight in his, Sean crouched to see out the window to the dragons waiting there. “Yes, she is! Her eyes are gaining speed and orange.”
“I was afraid of that!” Mutely Sorka appealed to Sean. Expressions flitted across his face. If she read them correctly, he was annoyed with Faranth, indecisive – for once – about what to do, and anxious for her. Then tender concern dominated his face as he looked down at her, and she felt that she had never loved him more than at that moment.
“A pity we can’t have your dragon heat a kettle of water to keep her out of mischief,” Greta remarked, her strong capable hands finishing the examination. She gave Sorka’s distended belly a gentle pat. “We’ll take care of her fussing you right now. Can you turn on one side? Sean, help her.”
“I feel like an immense flounder,” Sorka complained as she struggled to turn. Then Sean, deftly and with hands gentler than she had ever known, helped her complete the maneuver. She had just reached the new position when another mighty spasm caught her, and she exhaled in astonishment. Outside Faranth trumpeted a challenge. “Don’t you dare wake everyone up, Faranth. I’m only having a baby.
You hurt! You are in distress! Faranth was indignant.
Sorka felt a slight push against the base of her spine, the coolness of the air gun, and then a blessed numbness that spread rapidly over her nether region.
“Oh, blessed Greta, how marvelous!”
You don‘t hurt. That is better. Faranth’s alarm subsided back into that curious thrumming of dragons, and Sorka could identify her voice in the hum as clearly as she heard the noise intensify. Oddly enough, the humming was soothing – or was it simply that she no longer had to anticipate that painful clutching of uterine muscles?
“Now, let’s get you to your feet for a little walking, Sorka,” Greta said. “You’re already fairly well dilated. I don’t think you’re going to be any time delivering this baby, even if you are a primipara.’
“I’m numb,” Sorka said by way of apology as Greta got her to her feet. Then Sean was on her other side.
He had gotten dressed, but Sorka, trying to watch where her nerveless feet were going, noticed that he did not have his socks on. She thought that endearing of him. Odd the difference between his hands and Greta’s – both caring, both gentle, but Sean’s loving and worried.
“That’s a girl,” Greta said encouragingly. “You’re doing just fine, three fingers dilated already. No wonder the fairs were alerted. And you’re not the only one exciting them tonight.” Greta chuckled as they began to retrace their steps across the lounge, up the short hall and into the bedroom. “It’s the walking that’s important . . . ah, good another contraction. Very good. Your breathing’s fine.”
“Who else is delivering?” Sorka asked because it helped to concentrate on things other than what her muscles were doing to her.
“Fortunately, Elizabeth Jepson. A new baby will help her get over the loss of the twins.”
Sorka felt a pang of grief. She remembered the two boys as mischievous youngsters on the Yoko, and recalled how she had envied her brother, Brian, for having friends his own age.
“It’s funny that, isn’t it?” Sorka said, speaking quickly. “People having two complete families, almost two separate generations. I mean, this baby will have an uncle only six months older. And be part of an entirely different generation . . . really.”
“One reason why we have to keep very careful birth records,” Greta said.
Scan grunted. “We’re all Pernese, that’s what matters!”
Sorka’s water burst then, and outside the humming went up a few notes and deepened in intensity.
“I think I’d better check you, Sorka,” Greta said.
Sean stared at her. “Do you deliver to dragonsong?”
Greta gave a low chuckle. “They’ve an instinct for birth, Sean, and I know you vets have been aware of it, too. Let’s get her back to the bed.”
Sorka, involved in the second phase of childbirth, found the dragonsong both comforting and soothing: it was like a blanket of sound shimmering about her, enfolding and uplifting and comforting. The sound suddenly increased in tempo, rising to a climax. Sean’s hands grasped hers, giving her his strength and encouragement. Every time she felt the contractions, painless because of the drug, he helped her push down. The spasms were becoming more rapid, almost constant, as if matters had been taken entirely out of her control. She let the instinctive movements take over, relaxing when she could, assisting because she had no other option.