A Ballad of Sacrifice

Aurelia couldn't discern the words from his mouth. It was as if they were distorted, filtered through a waterlogged tunnel. Her vision blurred, the edges fading and sharpening intermittently, threatening to plunge her into darkness. She clung onto his voice; it anchored her in the storm of pain that threatened to consume her whole. Half-formed phrases hung limply on her tongue before dissipating into whimpers. "Caed—" she began again and faltered, her speech choked by a spasm that wracked her frame.

The coolness of the cloth against her skin provided some respite from the relentless clenching of her insides that mirrored the convulsing turmoil of her mind. She focused on the sensation, the cold seeping into her fur, grounding her to the present.

“Too… Long,” she managed to gasp out between heavy panting. It was an understatement; the hours had bled into one another, shaping a nightmarish reality where time blurred and faded, reconstructed by agony and despair. Aurelia tried to answer his question more fully but fell silent as another wave of pain pushed through her, stronger than the last. The world tilted precariously on its axis as she succumbed to the relentless torment coursing through her veins. Her surroundings disintegrated into hazy smears of color, all thought expunged by the rawness of her suffering. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the spiraling chaos. “After … after midnight.” A handful of hours short of a day. But there was no use in trying to get that out.

Another contraction overwhelmed her and she let out a guttural cry, her body straining against the invisible chains of the relentless agony. Her cyan eyes flew open, their usual spark diminished by the toll of physical torment. She could vaguely register Caedes' form against the backdrop of her blurred vision, a solid shape amidst the swirling vortex that was her world. A shallow panting followed as she rode out the aftershocks of pain. The analgesic herbs in Caedes' tincture had yet to take effect and she was left raw and exposed, her nerve endings afire. When she could almost catch her breath, she tried to offer more. “Two didn’t … stillborn.” She could barely say the words without breaking. And if she had the life left in herself to grieve them, then she certainly would have.

"Aurelia Veratti"