Tales of Alavern 03 (Non-Canon)

The woman screamed wildly as she swung away, showing none of the grace or skill he had seen from either Naomi during his battle with her or Brianna during the few times he had watched her train. This wasn't a warrior he faced, merely a panicking woman with a sword. He weaved through and around her strikes, frustrating the woman further until she finally reeled her arms back for a large downward swing. Cyrus took the easy opening presented to him and smashed the woman's jaw with a fierce uppercut, knocking her off her feet and sending her blade flying out of her hand.

"What the hell is your problem?!" Cyrus shouted, unable to wait for an answer as two other armed women came in and stalked towards him with knives. With the shorter range on their weapons compared to the first woman's blade, he took an out-boxer's stance to stay on the defensive.

The two women rushed towards him quickly, forcing him to step back towards the room with the pool. He didn't want to trap himself in there, but it wasn't like there was more than one exit to this building in the first place. He chuckled to himself as he thought of an OSHA inspector writing this place up for fire safety violations.

"You dare to laugh at us, you animal?" one of the women fumed at him, making him realize he had let his thoughts wander at a very poor time. "Give us back our peaceful lives!"

She charged him with the knife recklessly, setting him up perfectly to counter her with a powerful straight but leaving himself open to the other woman who had gotten in close while he was focused on her co-assassin as slashed his arm viciously, causing his blood to drip onto the floor. He backed up again, running into the room that held the Mother's Pool itself.

The soft blue glow lit up everyone's faces and made the formerly serene room feel ominous as he resumed his stance and steadied his breathing. He wasn't entirely sure why they were attacking him, and especially here of all places but he wasn't going to go down so easily. There was just too much fight in him to lay down and die.

"I didn't disrupt your lives, lady. You did that on your own just because I exist, you sexist waste of air." Cyrus growled at her, steadying his breathing as the two women stalked closer and closer to him. He heard the door to the front of the building creak open again and grit his teeth. He wasn't prepared to fight a small group, let alone the possibility of an entire mob but he didn't really see any other choice but to go for it.

The women both rushed him again with their blades pointed towards him and he managed to sway out of the way but they kept pushing him deeper and deeper into the room and towards the Mother's Pool. With less and less room to maneuver it was becoming harder and harder to dodge the blades trying to end his life. It was only a matter of time until he wouldn't be able to dodge so he started throwing out some light jabs at their heads. These two clearly weren't warriors and the blows caught them head on, snapping their heads back enough that Cyrus could make out that it was no longer just the three of them in the room.

He tried to focus on the fight in front of him, but instinctual reflex forced his attention to turn to the newcomers. He barely had enough time to notice that they were wearing guard armor before a sharp pain drew his attention back to his would be assailants. One of the women had managed to slash a pretty deep cut into his chest and it was bleeding profusely on top of knocking him back. He fell into the sacred pool with a large splash, and the sounds of outrage drowned all the words into unintelligible noise.

He moved to get out of the pool and the room fell completely silent as the light from the Mother's Pool started to intensify. Cyrus turned back towards it and saw that the blood that was pouring from his chest had gone into the pool and was being sucked towards the middle of the pool like it was going to go down a drain that wasn't there. He stood there awestruck as all of the blood started to clot up in the middle of the pool, changing from its red color to a blue light that seemed to coalesce slowly into an abstract shape.

He felt a hand gently grab him and pull him out of the pool entirely and saw Megara holding onto him silently, her eyes glued upon the event taking place like everyone else was. The light seemed to finish morphing and the bright glow in the pool dimmed down to what it was when he first saw it with the exception of the very center of the pool still holding that bright light. Megara stepped slowly into the pool, motioning for Cyrus to stay put.

The entire room had their eyes on her as she got closer and closer to the light, scooping her arms into the water and cradling the light into them gently. Cyrus watched as the light seemed to almost melt away as Megara began stepping back towards them, revealing the squirming form of a baby. Several of the women watching the scene started to cry at the sight of it, one of Cyrus's assailants even falling to her knees as her emotions seemed to overwhelm her.

"A child has finally been born of the Mother's Pool again, at long last." Megara said with an air of authority he'd never heard in her voice before. "There will be no more violence in this sacred place. Guards, take the criminals away." She was met with silent compliance and soon the only people left in the building were her, Cyrus, Brianna and Naomi.

Cyrus stared at Megara, his eyes transfixed on the baby in her arms while he tried to get a better look but his vision betrayed him. His eyes started getting blurry and he felt himself getting woozy, but nobody else seemed to notice anything wrong with him. Megara stepped before him with the largest smile he'd ever seen on her face.

"My king, you're a parent." she said tenderly to him. It was the last thing he heard before his world went dark and he felt himself hit the floor.

Chapter 6

Naomi watched with panic on her face as Cyrus's eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed onto the floor, right in front of the Mother's Pool. There was a moment of infinitely heavy silence as the three of them stared at the fallen King of the Verni, horror at the realization that such a glorious moment had been both preceded by and potentially now followed by events of supreme violence. She didn't even notice Megara's look changed to one of determination.

"Naomi, hold the child." she said sternly, shoving the baby into the former queen's waiting arms. "Brianna, you're the most well-versed person I know in field first aid so you'll be assisting me. Come on."

"R-right." Brianna answered, quickly snapping out of her daze as she received orders. The two of them rushed down to Cyrus's body and Naomi just stood there absently as she considered the possibility that he had been murdered. If he had, there would be so many things to take care of. An emergency meeting to quickly crown a new ruler, the chaos of the stories that would spread as her people took their sides on the actions taken, the first execution of Verni citizens since the time of their foremothers after their war of independence was finally won...

She was broken out of her thoughts by the baby in her arms suddenly squirming and fussing. She looked down and truly saw the baby for the first time. It was clearly male, with hair so blonde that it almost seemed white. A male child. The first male child ever born on the Alavern Isles and the first baby ever born in her generation. She held newly-forged history in her arms and shuddered as it made noises she was unfamiliar with.

Had she made such noises when she was freshly born from the pool? Had her mother had to calm her, or was she already calm since she was not born from violence like this poor child had been? Would he have to grow up on an island surrounded by those who had killed his father, simply for what he was born as? Would this child even get to grow up if women like those who attacked Cyrus came for him?

Her string of thoughts were broken when the baby boy she held in her arms started to cry softly. She stared at him with worry on her face while she tried to think of what to do. It had been so long since any of her people had even thought about what to do if a child was ever successfully born of the pool again but try as she might, she couldn't calm down enough to recall anything she had read about it.

Her heart clenched at the sight of the crying child and something snapped awake inside her. Without even thinking about it, she began to rock the little boy in her arms. While his crying didn't cease, it did lessen considerably as she gently rocked him to and fro. His little arms flailed slowly as his cries slowed and quieted, ending quickly as he grabbed a small bit of her garment in his tiny hand.

She marvelled at the tiny boy as he gently tugged at her clothes and nuzzled into her in an act of pure instinct, calming himself until he gently fell into a peaceful sleep. Where her heart had clenched, now it seemed that the floodgates within it she never knew existed opened wide. The former queen's entire body filled quickly with a sense of awe and warmth as she stared down at the naked child in her arms in a daze.

"Naomi!" she heard Brianna softly cry, shaking her body gently and snapping Naomi back to the situation at hand. "Did you hear a word I said?"

"I..I'm sorry, no." Naomi replied, shaking her head. "I just..." She paused, completely unsure of how exactly to explain how she was feeling. She wasn't even sure why she was feeling so strongly. What had this child done to her?

"We need your help." Brianna said softly, "Megara says that Cyrus's been poisoned, so we need to bring him back to the palace so she can treat him. I can't keep him off the ground on my own and it probably won't help his condition if I drag him along the ground...much as I'm tempted to do so."

Naomi couldn't help but chuckle as Brianna added that last part with a smirk and looked back down at the sleeping child in her arms. Part of her didn't want to ever let him go, but that part was being heavily outweighed by her desire to see Cyrus healed. Silently, she approached Megara and held out the baby. The little one squirmed and started to fuss as he was pulled away from his resting place against Naomi's chest but thankfully did not wake. She watched as Megara went over to one of the alcoves in the wall and pulled out a long strip of soft cloth.

She watched Megara carefully and tenderly wrap the newborn up in the cloth until he was completely covered up in a swaddle, then managed to bring her attention back to the unconscious king. Brianna was already grabbing his arms under his shoulders, so she grabbed his legs and they easily hoisted him off the ground. Thankfully, none of his wounds were deep so they wouldn't have to worry about injuring him further carrying him like this. They just needed to get him back to the palace so Megara could use her medicines to treat him.

Chapter 7

Megara followed silently behind Naomi and Brianna as they carried Cyrus's unconscious body through the city streets. They were both strong women, so the journey was thankfully not taking too much time. Not that she was exceptionally worried for the king's health. She easily recognized the scent of the poison used on him as a paralyzing agent, made to incapacitate large animals during hunts. Far from anything lethal, even on a human. The only real danger was the possibility of the wound getting infected, but the quick patch job she and Brianna had done had all but guaranteed that wouldn't be an issue.

Instead, her attentions were focused on the child swaddled in her arms. Cyrus's child. Despite being a man, with no blessing from the Great Mother, he had managed to draw blood and forge a child with her pool. It all but proved the theory he had proposed earlier, that the reason the pool wouldn't bear children had nothing to do with whether or not the Great Mother approved or disapproved of the Verni mothers-to-be. It was merely overuse over a score of generations, leading to diluted blood running through their veins.

Equally as important was the revelation that Cyrus could actually use the pool, despite their beliefs saying that should be impossible. Everything her people had known for generations came into question, and curiosity burned through her. What does one even refer to a male child as, or a male parent for that matter? Was he still a mother, or was there some other word that had become lost to them in their efforts to erase all presence of men from their history? After all, the only reason he was king and not queen was because all Verni knew the old warnings about how a man would try to become king if he managed to find the isles.

Megara resolved to ask Cyrus these questions later after he'd been properly treated and given some time to rest. She glanced down at the swaddled child in her arms, still asleep like most children who freshly emerged from the pool tended to be. His face seemed so gentle while he slept, and old feelings of her desire for motherhood sprang forth once again. She wanted to place a kiss on the child's forehead and hum songs her mother had taught to her as a little girl, back when her mother had still been sure that she would one day get to hold her granddaughter. Perhaps Cyrus would allow her to keep...

She pushed the terrible thought from her mind nearly the moment it had started to creep in. How dare she even begin to think of entertaining the notion of taking someone else's child? Especially when she knew all too well about how precious such a gift was when it had been denied for so long. No, she would find another way. Either by fixing the pool, or...

She stared back at the unconscious form of the king as Naomi and Brianna dragged him back home, pondering on their earlier conversation about sex between a man and a woman being a means of conceiving children. She recalled seeing his new cut after she and Brianna had gotten his slashed up shirt off of him. It added to the warrior's patchwork of scars that seemed to adorn his body and, she admittedly far more readily than most Verni would, made him seem very attractive. This wasn't someone who merely trained for battle, this was someone who lived battle. Not the true, terrible battle of war but, from what he had explained to her about his 'boxing' fighting style, a battle of contest between mighty combatants who put everything they were behind every punch. They had clearly molded him into the honorable, if silly, person that she had come to know.

Well, those battles and whatever trauma he refused to speak to her about. He tried to play it off whenever she would broach the subject, claiming that there was nothing to speak about but she knew better. Verni healing teachings didn't only include healing of the body. There was an extensive education on the healing and proper maintenance of the mind as well, and she saw every tell tale sign of a deeply-rooted trauma in the way he acted and held himself. He did not yield to his trauma by any means, but it still weighed him down greatly. She would need to start working on his mental well-being as much, if not more so, than his physical health. Especially now that he was a man-mother.

"Man-mother..." Megara quietly chuckled to herself as she gazed down at the sleeping babe in her arms. "That certainly cannot be correct. I'll have to ask Cyrus when he awakes what precisely one calls a man with a child. Won't I, little one?" She gently rubbed her finger along the child's chin and felt her very soul flutter when he reacted by nuzzling ever so slightly into her touch.

This child was making it exceedingly difficult to let Megara have the strength of spirit and character to ever return it to the king, being so precious like that. Megara chuckled softly as they continued their journey, making it to the castle after a lot of grunting and readjusting of the body between the two warriors walking in front of her. Between their imposing figure and the obviously serious nature of the matter, the other castle guards quickly made themselves useful opening doors and keeping the servants out of the way until Cyrus's body was finally deposited on the treatment bed in Megara's working quarters.

"How did somebody that light ever manage to defeat you?" Brianna asked Naomi as she stretched her arms.

"By putting all of that weight into a single point with his fists...at least that's how he explained it to me." Megara said, gently depositing the baby into Brianna's arms. The captain looked completely baffled as to what to do and just stood there blinking at the babe, causing Naomi to laugh softly at her lover's expense. "Why don't you two find a crib for the king's child to rest in while I try to get him back on his feet? I'm sure there has to be one or two left over around here somewhere."

"Er...of course." Brianna replied, gazing upon the child with a confused look on her face. Megara chuckled softly as she watched Brianna inspect the male child's body as she left the room with Naomi. "Now, where did I leave those smelling salts...?"

Chapter 8

Cyrus awoke with a sudden start, bolting upright and gagging on what had to be the most awful thing that had ever violated his nose. There was a slight pain on his chest but it was hard to notice over the absolute disgust that filled his nose and mouth. His eyes stung as they attempted to readjust from the light, going from the dim lanterns of the Mother's Pool to wherever he was now.

He heard the telltale sound of Megara chuckling in a desperate attempt to hide much deeper laughter and turned to see her looking at him with the familiar glint of mischief in her eyes. He was a bit torn between being annoyed at her laughing at him and the hope that he'll still be that full of humor if he ever lives long enough to reach her age. Though that second one was admittedly looking less and less likely considering the island he now spent his days on.

"How are you feeling, my king?" she asked, still smiling at him.

"I have a small headache and a terrible taste in my mouth." he replied, holding his head gently as he threw his legs over the side of the patient bed. "I don't understand why I passed out though. I shouldn't have lost nearly enough blood to cause that from that one knife."

"The knife was coated in a paralyzing poison that we used for hunting larger game. Frankly, the fact it took as long to work on you as it did is a testament to your durability. Most of the guards would have gone done in seconds, yet you held out for minutes. Quite impressive." Megara said, coming over and helping him back onto his slightly shaky feet. "The poison isn't meant for humans though, so I'm keeping an eye on you just to be on the safe side. Are you feeling anything else, anything we could consider a side effect?"

"I don't know." Cyrus said, taking a deep breath as he steadied himself. "I guess I'm a bit thirsty, and I don't really remember hitting the ground. Maybe the light show I was seeing in the Mother's Pool was the product of that poison? I could have sworn that the blood I dripped into the pool started...shining."

"The pool was shining, my king." she said, her face going a bit more serious. "That is what's supposed to happen when blood is dropped into the pool, remember?" Cyrus's face scrunched up as he tried to push past the memory of the attack and think back on the peaceful conversation he'd had that same morning. It was hard to believe that both of those events had taken place on the same day, but they had and apparently he had activated the pool with his own blood. The thought festered in his head for a moment before the full meaning of what it meant finally hit him.