Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Elowen didn’t expect things to happen so quickly after she found out she was carrying Midas’ child.
One day, she could still curl beside him at night, her knees tucked comfortably beneath her chin.
The next, her dress clung tight across her hips and strained at the seams. Midas had always fed her well, and her body that was once worn thin by starvation already grew the curves of abundance—but now her body grew round and full with a swiftness that startled them both.
It had scarcely been two months and Elowen looked halfway to bursting.
It was not human, this pregnancy. That should have been obvious, given the circumstances, but it was a marvel and a curse at the way her body changed so quickly.
Her ankles and joints complained at every movement.
Her skin was too often flushed. Her stomach was always unsettled and emptied itself before every meal.
Her muscles felt weak and useless. She moved slower and needed more rest.
Midas had become anew—a creature of vigilance and tenderness. No longer did he bring her shiny baubles from his outings. Now he brought softer bedding, finer clothes, and an abundance of offerings for the child. Wood-carved bassinets, toys, blankets, clothes.
He didn’t sleep much anymore. Always too worried, always watching, always needing to provide and support.
When Elowen vomited, he cleaned her face.
When the aches in her joints brought her to tears, he cradled her with his tail.
He only gave her the freshest, cleanest water he had melted from the tip of the mountain, and everything she ate went through a thorough inspection under his nose to ensure it was safe and fresh.
He cared for her like he always had: as something precious, but with a new ferocity built on instinct.
Whenever Elowen tried to do anything for herself, even as simple as stirring soup, Midas would block her path with a frown, rumbling from his chest until she sat back down. Guilt shown in his eyes from confining her to the nest, but he would not risk anything happening to her or the child.
When sleep found her, Midas stayed awake. He watched her, but he also made it a habit to croon against her belly, where their child grew with a strange, relentless speed.
Midas had great worry that this child might see him as a monster, and his hope is that they would recognize the sound when they were born, and understand that there was no creature alive that would keep them safer.
Elowen awoke one night to his crooning, his golden eyes meeting hers and softening. She glanced down at her swollen belly and back up. “They are growing so fast. Too fast, maybe. I’m not sure my body will hold them for much longer. I might give birth before the next full moon.”
He had made the same assumption weeks ago, but did not answer her.
And he certainly did not tell her how much it worried him.
When morning came, Midas had gone to fetch more food.
If Elowen began her labor soon, he was unsure of how long it would be before he was able to hunt again.
She had taught him how to salt and preserve meat, how to seal clay pots to keep fruit fresh, and how to purify water with fire if needed.
All of these things he could now do with practiced ease in his human form, though the stress from Elowen’s discomfort made it hard for him to shift.
He returned to the mouth of the cave quietly. The mountain had grown warm with the rising sun, and Elowen was already awake, peeling an orange in the nest.
He had not meant to hide, but found himself listening to her soft voice echoing faintly against the stone, lilting like birdsong. He paused just beyond a bend in the passage.
Fire lit her face, and her hair was unbound over her shoulder. Her voice was low—a hush meant for no one but the child nestled safely in her womb.
Or so she thought—for Midas crouched in the shadows and listened.
“You know,” she murmured, running her fingers in slow circles over her stomach, “your father is the most remarkable thing I’ve ever known.”
He stilled, breath caught tight in his throat.
“I don’t know how he’s real,” she whispered.
“Sometimes, I wonder if I dreamt him. That I fell asleep in the woods one day and imagined all of this. My people call him a monster. But he’s no such thing.
Not really. Not to me.” She paused, her voice growing softer.
“He loves fiercely. I don’t know if he truly knows what love means in my tongue, but he still shows it.
I see it in everything he does. Every time he feeds me.
Every time he shields me from the world.
Every time he curls around us like he’s daring anything to try and take us from him. ”
Midas’ chest ached. He hadn’t realized how tightly he’d curled his claws into the stone until a tremble passed through them.
Her words pressed into him like a new fire in his chest. She had never spoken these things to his face.
Never told him he was kind. Or brave. Or precious.
He didn’t know how to hold those truths.
“I hope you have his eyes,” Elowen said quietly, voice full of warmth. “They’re gold like sunlight. Like he swallowed the dawn. I want you to look at the world with those eyes one day and know that you’re loved. That even if the world doesn’t understand you, he will. I will.”
Midas moved without thinking. A quiet shuffle of his weight. Elowen turned toward the sound—and there he was, caught in the dim glow of firelight, golden eyes wide, his expression unreadable in the flicker of shadows.
Midas stepped forward, slow and careful.
He didn’t speak. The words would never be enough, even if he found them.
Instead, he lowered his head beside her and pressed his snout ever so gently against her swollen belly, breathing in the scent of her skin and the new life beneath it.
A promise passed between them in that breathless moment—silent, but steady.
He would protect them. He would never stop. Elowen touched his jaw, soft and reverent.
“You heard me?” she asked.
He nodded once, and though she did not know it, he had already committed every word to memory—another precious treasure carved into his heart.