EPILOGUE
Ten months later…
NAMAK?GA
The house is tense and quiet. Joktepitha is doing her best to keep Crushosh, Opkug, and Snabazkur occupied in their playpen.
Stephanie is rocking her brats, watching with worried eyes.
Almost certainly replaying her own recent struggle—she safely delivered a set of twins nearly two months ago, Grunka and Yrso.
For a time, she had us all very concerned.
Most of all herself. She knew there was a possibility of a deuce birth.
The trait carries in some of her family, and the bigger her stomach grew, the more she desperately missed her home’s doctoring.
It upset her that she wouldn’t have the advantage of her people’s knowledge and medicine, especially facing the complications of delivering doubled brats.
All I can say is everyone’s relieved it’s over, and safely. It ended up being a blessing for our Stephanie to have twins, because while they were downright small for Orc brats, competing for womb space and food as they were—they were sized at a human’s limit.
Roarg was beside himself during her delivery.
Stephanie cried like she was dying and Roarg doesn’t handle tears well.
He’s a man. It upset him to be helpless to fix what was making her hurt.
He never would have voiced his worries aloud, yet you could see every horror that was playing through his mind as it flashed across his face.
He thought he was about to watch his kwa?ara die and two little angel brats with her.
He won’t be seeding Stephanie’s womb again if he can help it. Too dangerous. She’ll be on Elven herbs the moment she has him in her bed again for anything more than sleeping.
I’m between Ulda’s knees, mopping my brow on my rolled-up sleeve, urging her to push. As is her way, Ulda doesn’t make a sound.
It’s the quietest she’s been in nine months.
She’s been on bedrest. I’d say unwilling bedrest, but she agreed to it. She knows this pregnancy will be her last, and she’s taken no chances.
Before, she’d try bedrest for a while, but she could never force herself to remain inactive. A few days of it would drive her mean and crazy.
This time, she’s been on bedrest for nearly all of nine months.
She’s been an absolute badger.
Every one of us has been fervently praying that it’s not been for naught.
But this morning, she woke me, saying her contractions were on her, and close. And I didn’t have to say it: her labor is here earlier than it should be.
Not so early that there’s no hope, but the betiming of it has everyone even more on edge.
“That’s a good one,” I tell her, my hand giving her knee a squeeze. “Rest a moment, then one more like that.”
We’re in the great room, on a bed set up for her to live out her pregnancy days on, and now it serves for the delivery.
She’s propped up on a pile of pillows, as comfortable as she can be made.
Roarg offers her more ice that he’s chipped off of the block in the ice box, but she declines, already focused and ready to bear down on the next wave.
“You can do it, Ulda,” Stephanie encourages, squeezing her brats, her eyes wider than a long-tailed cat at a stomp dance.
Ulda doesn’t respond. She just closes her eyes, breathes, and pushes.
Swallowing, I reach under her. “Here’s the head.”
One of the smaller tools in a blacksmith’s shop is a bore bit.
Tiny but ever so useful, a bore bit does exactly as you’d imagine, boring holes through metal, and Roarg is forever losing them to his floor.
Once they fall, the only way to find them again is by sweeping the shop from corner to corner.
Smaller than a nail, they make almost no sound when they hit the ground.
And yet, as Ulda struggles to deliver her last brat, you could hear a bit drop.
“A boy,” I announce.
No one makes a sound. No one.
Except for Ulda’s son. He opens up his mouth and splits the air with a furious cry.
Every sooty-faced feline lurking in the room, already uneasy at our tension, scrambles to flee at the shocking sound.
Ulda bursts into sobs. But even this doesn’t drown her boy out.
Roarg slowly lowers his head to hers and hugs the hellfire out of her, his grateful eyes falling closed for a long moment before he’s staring with naked elation at his healthy brat, and then he’s cradling an equally overcome Ulda. He kisses her deeply, his body shuddering over her.
Joktepitha’s on her knees beside the playpen, head bent, her hands folded reverently, giving quiet thanks to the Eternal from the corner while Opkug, her freshly budded tusks jutting, watches her.
And then she looks for Ulda. Her eyes skip to her new screaming sibling, her gaze curious and a bit anxious at the uproar and activity.
“Mama?” she calls, too softly to be heard.
Last year, her first word was mama. And it was for Ulda.
Ulda had bitten her lip, eyelids flushing darker than bay leaves, and she’d given the brat a tender squeeze before pulling away and answering, “Yes, my beloved daughter?”
Stephanie is a mess, bawling happily, in danger of popping her brats if she hugs them any harder.
I swipe Ulda’s boy’s mouth clean and begin to rub him briskly, grinning like a fool. And he howls at me, just enraged. “Listen to that!” I laugh. “Oh, that’s beautiful.”
Ulda opens her tired arms. “I need to hold him.”
The look on her face as I pass her son to her. Her live son. For as long as I live, I’ll never forget her eyes, so full of wonder, as she takes up her offspring. She grips her squawling brat, at once thankful, disbelieving, and fully gratified at long, long last.
Birthing cord stretching, his head and neck and butt supported in her trembling hands, her boy flings his arms out, fingers outstretched, even his toes taut.
Ulda pounces on the chance to count them.
Three angry toes nearly bent back, one little big toe stuck out like he’d love to kick someone in the eye, and then his tiny toe is there too, whole and normal, pointed off to the middle of nowhere in his pique.
She repeats the inspection for his other foot with just as much wonder.
When she gets to his hands, his fingers are clenched—on her. He curls his toes and pulls his legs in and grips at her dress and neckline, scowling fiercely.
Beard dripping a silent tear, Roarg passes the lightest touch over his son, his hand practically bigger than his boy’s whole body.
Ulda’s thumb runs over her brat’s tiny pointed ears, and she looks into his unhappy, slightly unfocused little eyes. “He’s perfect,” she cries, and she kisses his indignant little face, crying softly. And then she turns, eyes searching for Opkug.
“Bring her over,” I say to Joktepitha. But I needn’t have. Joktepitha is already scooping her up and walking her over, all teary smiles.
Ulda shifts her son onto her chest and Roarg raises a gentle hand, placing it over his brat’s back, keeping him over his mother’s heart as she holds out her arm for Opkug. “Come here.”
Opkug clings to her, burrowing against her free side.
Ulda smiles, tired and elated—triumphant—and kisses her darling’s forehead. “I love you, girl. You will always be my brat.” She tightens her arm around her, giving her a hug. Sucking in a shaky breath, she tips her head. “Look here. Meet your brother,” she says.
As Opkug does, Ulda looks over at Stephanie and warns, “You’re going to drown your brats if you don’t stop crying.”
“You’re one to talk!” Stephanie laughs, trying to wipe her face on her shoulders, her arms too full of babies to do more.
“Would you like some help?” Joktepitha offers, grinning. “I can bring you a handkerchief or take one.”
Stephanie offers her children up for selection, and Joktepitha coos and chooses Grunka, the only other girl in the bunch besides Opkug.
“You poor brats will be outnumbered,” Joktepitha observes to her, petting back her hair. “Your father should have been a little fairer throwing you girls.”
Roarg is watching Ulda and Opkug and his newborn brat, face glowing with contentment. And relief. “Apparently, I heavily sire boys.”
“Sire?” Stephanie parrots, nose wrinkling. “‘Sire?’”
“Yes,” Roarg agrees, mouth curved, brow raised. “Sire. Why?”
“That’s such a…” Stephanie starts. She looks around at us. “It’s so weird for a man to say…” she tries.
Roarg gives her a look that flusters her, making her roll her eyes and burrow her nose against their son with a smile.
Roarg’s nostrils flare, a male on the hunt.
It’s been more than six weeks since Stephanie gave birth, but she hasn’t been under Roarg again yet. She’s been completely taken with her brats, so involved with them that even if her body had been ready for him, she wouldn’t have been interested.
From the looks the two are giving each other, I think Joktepitha and I will be bratsitting some twins in our future. Although I can’t imagine Stephanie will be able to bear leaving them for long.
...But Roarg is persuasive. I bet it’ll be long enough.
I smile as I prepare to help Ulda pass the bag of waters. I don’t have to tell her to get her brat nursing; she’s already doing it. The spent membranes will follow soon.
Roarg takes Opkug, nuzzling her, pointing to her brother, and asking her what they should name him. She’s too young to have a helpful suggestion, but it’s clear she appreciates that he’s including her. She pets his beard and smiles toothily at him, then points to the newborn.
“That’s your brother,” Roarg tells her, grinning. “Can you say ‘brother?’”
She doesn’t; she’s not much for talking yet. No one knows if this is an inherited trait or not, and it really doesn’t matter. She was slow to get her tusks in, but they came in perfect. She’s slow to start speaking, but she’ll talk when she talks, and when she does, it will be the right time.
Until then, Roarg likes to practice with her. He kisses Ulda’s forehead and asks Opkug, “Who is this?”
“Mama,” Opkug answers. She is so proud to say this word.