Chapter 8 Lurielle
Lurielle
The smell of the waiting room was neutral.
Lurielle knew that she was likely alone in her preference for the waiting room.
She would stay out here as long as it took.
The vinyl-covered seats were designed for species much larger than her own, plenty of room, plenty of padding.
The television in the corner played in a never-ending loop of inoffensive music from two decades prior.
No polarizing talk shows. No news, no politics. Not even an infomercial.
Just her, a relatively comfortable seat, a band that was popular when she was in school, and air that smelled like nothing at all.
She never seemed to get her wish. She would be called in by the nurse, led to an exam room that smelled of bandages and antiseptics, and left there to rot.
She had begun to associate the smell with a held breath.
She would be nearly blue in the face by the time the doctor or the technician finally rolled in, wheezing and gasping as they smeared her distended belly in a cold gel, her lungs screaming by the time she was able to wheeze in a breath, the news that everything looked fine, that there was nothing to worry over, that she could exhale at last. And then she sucked in that smell, trapping it there in her lungs, a tension she brought home with her as a result.
Khash sat beside her, as he did every appointment, one knee bouncing. He wore the expression he always did when they were here — cheerful and determined, as if his syrupy charm was a weapon he could wield effectively enough to keep any potential bad outcomes at bay.
“You ready, mama?” he asked, squeezing her hand.
Lurielle gave him a weak smile, knitting her short fingers with his huge ones. “As I’ll ever be.”
It was a high-risk pregnancy. That's what they had told her from the beginning.
“You're perfectly healthy, Lurielle. I have no doubt you'll be able to carry to term without issue,” her doctor told her, right from the beginning.
That hadn't prevented the high-risk classification, one that was denoted purely because of her species.
“It's just something we must stay on top of, that's all. Ensure the baby is growing enough. We need to make sure they’re getting enough nutrients without leaving you depleted, and that you're taking good enough care of yourself, most importantly.
You're petite as it is. But there's nothing to panic over. We'll just see you a lot more often.”
The doctor had laughed, as had the nurse in the room at the time. Lurielle had laughed weakly along with them, but there was nothing that felt good about being labeled high risk out of the gate.
So far, everything had been fine. She tracked her meals meticulously.
Every meal was notated in a journal, adding up her calories, protein, fiber, folic acid, which supplements were added and when, focusing on nutrient-dense foods.
Her nutritionist regularly emailed her menu plans, following up weekly to ensure she was eating enough for them both.
She had a set amount of water she needed to drink each day, staying up to finish every drop if she had to.
Her weight was recorded weekly, and measurements taken of her rapidly expanding middle.
After a lifetime of unhealthy relationships with food, diet culture, and borderline disordered eating, the sudden focus on eating enough was, Lurielle thought, a complete mind fuck.
“I’m telling you, Bluebell, it’s a girl. I can feel it.”
“You’ve been saying that since day one,” she scoffed, tightening her grip on his hand, as if it were the only thing keeping her in the building. They were there for her check-in, but this appointment was the big day. At least, that’s what she’d been told.
Learning the sex of one’s child wasn’t a milestone worthy of celebration in Elvish culture.
Lurielle supposed that was part of the reason why these appointments felt so fraught to her.
Theirs was not a culture of celebration during pregnancy.
Every month was too steeped in worry, the rate of miscarriage too dizzyingly high to pin one's hopes on trivialities. The celebration didn’t come until there was a healthy bundle in the new mother’s arms, and by then, no one cared about anything other than the successful completion of gestation.
One more elf on the books, beating back the unspoken reality of their population decline.
Orcs were different.
Everything was a celebration. From the point she’d peed all over her hand, getting just enough on the stick to cause a reaction, reminding Khash that the test was designed for humans and that she wouldn’t know anything concrete until she’d visited her doctor, his family had been ready with balloons, threatening to fly up at a moment’s notice.
“We have big families, darlin’,” he’d reminded her unnecessarily. “Of course, we celebrate when someone gets a boy after a clutch of girls. Or a girl after nothin’ but troublemakin’ boys. You know we don't need some big excuse to bake a cake.”
“Well, what if that little orc girl changes her mind?" she had challenged. “What if she decides she doesn’t want to be called a girl anymore? What then? After you all made such a big to-do?”
Khash had only rolled his eyes, clucking his tongue. “Bluebell, do you think that would make a lick a’ difference? All I'm hearing is another excuse to throw a party, celebrate their new name with the whole clan. Be serious.”
She had laughed, knowing she was beat. Lurielle already knew the weekly video call with his family would be one of celebration at the end of this week, once they had these results. Whether it was a party she wanted or not, it was a party they would throw.
“Well, I can tell. Southern intuition. We all got it. I already know this is gonna be a little princess, and she's gonna come out finer than frog hair split four ways. Mark my words, Bluebell!”
“Princess intuition,” she echoed, another weak laugh.
Princess. He made it sound so soft, so easy.
He had been using it for months now, half joking, half dreaming, she was sure.
His princess. Their little girl, a perfect Elvish/Orcish specimen.
Princess. The word landed like a stone for her, making her guts twist. Lurielle glanced around, ensuring she had a restroom in sight, just in case.
She had tried to envision it. She’d stood in front of the mirror in that third bedroom, imagining herself holding her little girl.
Asleep, a little button nose, tiny tusks.
Fair green skin like a new leaf, with light colored hair curling around her miniature face.
A mix of them both. Her tears would rise, fast and hot.
More love than she'd ever thought possible, filling her up in a gush, protective and unconditional .
. . floating on a sea of terror. Mothers and daughters, fraught relationships with too much potential for damage and hurt.
She felt paralyzed by the fear that she would fail without ever meaning to, repeating generational harm simply by existing.
No. That’s not going to happen. You won’t let it.
“Lurielle.”
The nurse who called her name was familiar, the troll grinning when she spotted her.
“Here we go, darlin'. Moment of truth.”
She let him help her to her feet, a hand on her belly, resting there automatically these days.
As soon as they were through the doorway, the smell hit her.
Sterile and antiseptic. Crinkling paper and tongue depressors, bandages and hand sanitizer.
Lurielle sucked in a deep breath, wondering how long she could hold it this time.
The technician who met them in the room was also a familiar face. The amphibious woman grinned as she entered, chattering amiably with Khash, spreading the cold gel on Lurielle's stomach, making a sympathetic noise when she flinched, as she always did.
“It doesn't make a difference whether you're expecting it or not, does it? It's always too cold.”
The screen flickered to life, the grainy gray landscape of her innards, her breath catching as always did when the technician moved the wand.
In the beginning, she hadn't been able to see anything.
She had cried, her face splotched with red, embarrassed tears that she was that mother, unable to pick out the blob of static that was meant to be her baby without help from the tech.
Now, though, no such help was required. There was the curve of the skull, the little spine like a string of pearls.
"Heartbeat looks great," the tech confirmed, the confirmation she waited for every single appointment, her tears forcing their way to the surface. "Nice and strong. I think we have a pretty clear view. We want to know today, right?"
"Yes," she and Khash answered in unison, his hand tightening around hers. All that matters is that they're healthy. All that matters is that you can carry long enough for them to be okay. You'll get through whatever's next when it happens.
“Okay, just wanted to check. Well, say hello to your little boy!”
For a moment, they said nothing. The only sound in the room was the whirring of the sonography machine.
“A boy.” Lurielle tasted the word seemingly for the first time. A boy.
“A boy,” Khash echoed, his hand around hers tightening in a death grip.
“From what I can see, it’s definitely a boy,” the tech laughed.
The sob that broke from her throat might have embarrassed her if she hadn’t felt so fucking relieved.
“Oh, thank gods!” She choked on her laughter, tears blurring the room.
She was going to resemble a snotty, drooling woods witch again by the time she left, but Lurielle didn't care.
A boy! She didn't know anything about boys, and that made her statistically less likely to screw one up.
No mirrors, no grapefruit diets, no inherited trauma.
The long shadow of the mother she didn't want to emulate vanished, and she laughed again. “A boy!”
She remembered, a beat too late, that she wasn't alone. Twisting back, her eyes widened, finding Khash's. Chocolate brown pits, brimming with tears. “Are you upset?”
The noise he made sounded like a sputtering donkey, and then the technician did laugh.
“Bluebell, what do I have to be upset over? I told you I was gonna pump a strong son into you.” His mouth met hers, hot and familiar.
“That's our little boy.” His voice was a breath against her temple; all she needed to start crying again.
The guilt didn't find her until they were back in the car. She shouldn't have been that happy. She shouldn't have felt so elated not to be having a girl. I'm sorry, little one, she thought, sending the sentiment to the unrealized notion of the daughter her body hadn't created.
Khash blew out a hard breath, shaking his head as she buckled her seatbelt. “I can't believe it's a boy.”
There was something in his voice, and Lurielle's eyes snapped up. There was love in his eyes, without question, but a flicker there of something else, she thought. A tiny bit of mourning for that unrealized reality he'd had in his head.
“You know what this means, darlin’.” They were more than halfway home by then, his hand on her knee at the red light, tapping her thoughtfully.
“It means your sisters are going to lose their ever-loving minds, doesn't it?”
He waved a hand. “That's implied. I hope you’re ready for the mob to descend as soon as he’s big enough to fly. There’ll be no livin’ with any of them until they get to meet him.”
Lurielle laughed as he turned at the light, just a few blocks from home. The home she would be bringing her son to in just a few short months. A boy. Him.
For the first time since the day she peed on her hand, her pregnancy began to feel real, beyond the attention to her diet and the detachment from her body.
Real that transcended her lack of current clothing options.
She was going to have a baby. A little boy.
They would need to start thinking of names, buying clothes, planning for his future in a way that felt concrete and certain.
She understood then why orcs celebrated so much.
It was impossible not to want to scream her good news from Jack Hemming’s shining golden tower on Main Street, alerting all of her neighbors.
“This means we're going to have to have another one,” Khash went on. “We're going to need to keep goin’ until I get my princess. Don't go looking at me that way. Those are the rules, I didn't make 'em up.”
“Well, great news, Big Daddy. You're the one in charge of that. So why don’t you have a private conversation with your boys below the belt and explain the assignment next time. Because until then, that just sounds like an excuse for you to get that big dragon of yours all hot and bothered.”
“Darlin’, I don't need an excuse to be hot and bothered. You make this dragon hard every day that ends in Y. I'm just letting you know. Don't go gettin’ rid of those stretchy pants.”
She was still laughing when they stretched out on the sofa.
She had the official printout from the doctor's office, something to put into her book.
And you're going to write down everything that happened today.
How you felt, that look in his eye, how tightly he held your hand.
And who knows? Maybe by the time this one is out of diapers, you'll have this motherhood thing down pat.
She exhaled deeply, expelling the stale hospital air from her lungs.
Maybe she’d be ready for a girl by then, Lurielle thought, and for the first time, she believed it without reservation.