The Last Journey Home (Warning! GRAPHIC!!)

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Mick
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The Last Journey Home (Warning! GRAPHIC!!)

Post by Mick »

The Last Journey Home

This used to be her favorite part of the day.

Dawn sat huddled on the pew. She had her knees drawn up close, like she had held Thoron close before she left the Marches. She wished he were there now. Wished anyone were there. She leaned her cheek against the hard wood and glanced briefly up the aisle. A shiver found her shoulders and took hold of her spine. She closed her eyes and wondered how she could ever hope to feel normal again. So much had happened. So much she hoped the morning would erase with its coming. Perhaps today she would find that blessing.

“Lass, ye be a’right?”

Dawn winced and offered a strained smile to Heric, first mate of the Spirit Vixen. “Yes, friend. Thank you.” She followed it with a firm nod, meant to assure her more than him, and then looked out over the railing.

A few minutes later, she surrendered her smile as the next wave of pain washed through her belly and into her back. She reflexively clutched her abdomen and hunched over, exhaling sharply. Two deep breaths helped shore her upright again. She cast a panicked glance toward Heric, who was yelling at a deckhand about where he had chosen to coil a rigging rope. As if sensing her gaze, he turned back to her and cocked his head. It took only a moment of regard for him to realize something was amiss with this ray of sunshine. “Lass?”

Dawn could only muster a rueful grin in response to his question. She reached out for the ratline to steady herself, then shuffled past him to the steps leading up to the forecastle deck. She steadied herself again briefly, turned and eased herself down onto the third step. Two more deep breaths and a soothing hand to her belly allowed her to smile again as Heric came to a stop near her. He stood there with a soft, sympathetic look in his eyes. After a moment he spoke with a brief nod. “Seen ‘at look afore. Missus ‘ad it with all four o’ ours.” He widened his grin before continuing. “Think ‘s your time, lass.”

Dawn looked out over the starboard railing and her shoulders slumped, weighed down by a weary sigh. She sat rubbing her baby absently in pace with the gentle rise and fall of the ship. Her brief reflection was broken by another cramp in her lower abdomen. She pressed hard against her womb and bit her lip. Heric smiled a knowing smile and nodded. “No doubt ‘bout it, child. Ye be ‘avin’ ‘at baby, ready or no.” He loosed a rough laugh that was cut short by Dawn’s obvious distress. Suddenly he took on a very fatherly tone. “Come on, lass. Let’s get ye inside.” Dawn managed a nod of agreement and accepted his helping hand.

-----------------------


“Here girl, drink this.” The excuse for a man that was captain Cvos urged a cup of water toward her. She took the cup, sipped, and then gulped it down. Why was she so thirsty? She offered the warmest smile of thanks she could bring to bear on the captain. She was thankful he had only been drinking a little since this started. She had been suffering for a night the progressing spasms that started just below her belly button and finished in the small of her back. She could not deny that her time had come. Morning was marked by her water breaking. Then the pains, which apparently had only been warming up during the night, began in earnest. She barely had time to catch her breath between the overwhelming contractions now. The first mate Heric had stayed nearby nearly the entire night and was doing his best to help her along. She felt a tremendous urge to empty her bowel and bladder, but neither were taking commands from her anymore. If she could have sensed much of anything through the pain, she imagined the stench would be unbearable. She took comfort, however, only in that she would soon be holding her son in her arms. Despite the agony, that thought brought a smile to her face and her heart.

“Lass,” Heric mused as he felt of her belly,”I think it’s time ye push.” He offered what he hoped would be a reassuring smile and patted her belly. He looked her in the eye. “Ready?” Dawn took a deep breath, exhaled through pursed lips and nodded. She took another deep breath, pulled up her knees and pushed. “Nay, lass…not yet.” She stopped, puzzled, as he put his hand on her abdomen again. He hesitated before continuing. “Now!” She again took a deep breath and bore down.

She pushed twice more after that first effort and could tell something was definitely changing within her. She took heart that that meant something good for her and her baby, but that encouragement was short lived. Her fourth push was met with the most severe pain she had ever experienced. A dagger of unimaginable intensity shot through her pelvis and into her left hip. The contraction to which she had timed her push subsided, but the piercing paroxysm did not relent. Something was wrong. She screamed out something that sounded like language, but which none there could understand. Heric jerked his gaze to hers and saw the panic in the young girl’s eyes. It spread to his and he immediately looked down below, where he saw the first hint of the baby’s head. A splinter of time passed before the next contraction. “Nay, lass…don’t ye push!” She was ahead of his instruction though. Her last push had brought torment she did not wish to aggravate. Unfortunately, her participation no longer had bearing on the path her body would take. The new pain was as far beyond her spasms as the spasms were beyond her feeling nothing at all.

Then, a new worry. Heric, again looking to her vagina, saw the most concerning thing yet. A small trickle of blood was finding its way around the baby’s head, which did not seem to be making progress. The sanguine stream filled him with dread and made him yell to a nearby sailor. “Get tha cap’n, boy! Bring ‘im ‘ere!” He returned his eyes to Dawn, who, even in her agony, perceived his fear for her. She could only manage two words to him.

“Help me.”

-----------------------

“’Tis bad luck fer us should she die on here, Heric. Need to get her to shore. The b*tch’ll have us marked should a baby die too. Might as well all jump overboard.”

“Yer a fool, cap’n. That girl’l not make it to shore.” The first mate had been trying to convince Cvos not to send Dawn off the ship to avoid the wrath of whatever latest superstition had poisoned his mind. All the while, Dawn was writhing in pain and losing blood. Heric really did believe she wouldn’t make it safely ashore.

“She needs help we can’t give ‘er, Heric. You know that. We’re coming up on Ulgoth’s place in a few miles, they likely have a priest. That’s what she needs. You know that!” He nodded once firmly to reinforce his opinion. Heric groaned inwardly. He did know that. He had helped a midwife deliver a baby once, but this was something else entirely. Her only chance was being ashore. Even faced with reason, he felt guilty for trying to move the girl as the captain wanted. That the captain cared only for the future fortune of his ship dug an even deeper hole into his conscience. He acquiesced and barked at the nearest sailor to get the rowboat ready.

-----------------------

Barely coherent, Dawn’s body followed her head’s lead in rolling against the tiny rowboat’s portside gunwale. The short time spent bobbing in the rough waters had added the proverbial straw to the back that was the queasiness brought on by bloodloss. She heaved over the side. She offered up breakfast, then bile, then nothing to the murky chop. Between retches, she could barely make out the muttered curses of the two men tasked with ferrying her to the shore. One swore thickly, even for a sailor. The other, the first mate Heric, spilled his prayers after her stomach contents, asking mercy from Umberlee.

“Hold on, lass…goin’ ta be a’right,” he finally directed to her. She fell back onto what passed for a seat in this latest torture. With all the warmth she could muster, she shared a rueful smile with him. The moment of kind lucidity was shattered, however, by another brutal contraction. She grabbed her belly and the rowlock, her entire body crunching forward in response to the pain. Heric, pulling at the oar with all the strength he had to spare, could not hide even a corner of the storm of emotions he felt in seeing the ray of sunshine brought to this. He tried to look away, but could not pull his eyes from the marriage of beauty and pain before him. He tried to mask his horror at seeing the spot of blood between her legs freshen and grow, but when Dawn’s eyes met his, he knew he had only made things worse. As if slapped by her sky-blue gaze, he turned to the other, younger man and yelled. “Beshaba ‘ave ye left ball, boy, if’n you don’t pull ‘arder!”

Dawn took in a moment of Heric’s efforts and was appreciative a moment more before her head started to float and she passed out.

-----------------------

“Need some ‘elp ‘ere!” Heric barked as his arms, weak from the sprint ashore, finally gave way. He collapsed to his knees to keep Dawn’s head from hitting the top of the stone steps that had brought them up from the water’s edge. Easing his hands out from under her shoulders, he opened her left eye and looked into it. Not nearly so blue as it had been only a bit before. Nothing about her was nearly so much as it had been before. Her skin was ashen and cool. She was breathing, but not in a way that was reassuring. She was dying. They needed help. He looked up toward the small collection of buildings. “’ells find ye all a devil’s dick if’n we don’t get some ‘elp! NOW!!” He looked to his shipmate at Dawn’s feet. “Boy, Beshaba ‘ave both of ‘em you don’t find some ‘elp! Go!” He pointed toward the nearest structure, a solid, two-story place with stone first and wood second floors. The sailor’s eyes widened and, after glancing down at their limp cargo, jumped up and ran around to the front of the building. A few seconds of pounding and hurried explanation later, he returned and was followed by a middle-aged woman in a simple dress and apron.

Sercia ran as fast as her chubby legs would carry her to the shape on the ground. She turned to look Dawn in the face and knelt quickly at her side, her own face rife with concern.

“She’s with child. ‘er time came on tha ship and the baby wouldna come. We needed ‘elp for ‘er. She be bleedin’” Heric’s fear for Dawn and his burning lack of breath smothered the guilt he would have normally felt in such a lie.

She put a hand to Dawn’s mouth, then her neck. Without looking up, she fired a volley of questions at Heric. “How far along is she? When did she start having pains? Has she pushed at all?” Heric, all of a sudden in waters far above his head, heard but could not bring himself to answer. Sercia looked up to him with a stern brow and shook his shoulder. “Man, the gods are watching. Lest you want to join this girl, answer me!” Her threat seemed to shake his senses loose and he told her what he knew. When he had finished, she bit her lips in contemplation as she again surveyed Dawn’s motionless form. She put her hands on the swell in Dawn’s abdomen and held them there a long moment. A frown and sympathetic furrowing told Heric what he and his captain had feared. Bad luck was coming to the Spirit Vixen.

“The baby is lost.” Sercia offered in a grim but determined tone. “Lest we want this girl to follow, we need to get it out of her.” She muttered something unintelligible under her breath before continuing. “We don’t have much time.” She jumped up and pointed a crooked finger at both Heric and his accomplice. “You two have almost finished your part, but it takes you a bit further. Pick her up and bring her into the house. Move!”

“Aye, ma’am.” Heric nodded and responded as if his own captain had ordered him. “Come on, boy. Ye might save ye balls from ‘at b*tch yet.” The two men heaved against Toril’s pull on Dawn’s almost lifeless body. When they were sure of their grip, they shuffled behind Sercia’s lead to the house and through the front door.

The men, now a single four-legged ferry for their pale passenger, all but trampled a small boy just into the dimly-lit kitchen of what could be seen now to be a small boarding house. The smell of baking bread was a welcome contrast to the wrenching scents of sea salt and seasick. It almost distracted him entirely from his duty, such was its power. He was refocused by the crash of cookware onto the floor, shoved aside by Sercia’s short but obviously powerful arms. She slapped the table just as Dawn groaned and her head pitched against his arm.

“Put her here, man! Come…we’ve only a short time before she dies!” She watched them only briefly as they maneuvered Dawn onto the table, then turned and began rummaging through a small box next to her wood stove. The sailor dropped her legs too soon and she started to slide off the end of the table. Heric reflexively leaned backward and pulled hard under Dawn’s arms, which flopped together across her face as he struggled to keep hold of her.

“Forget the b*tch, boy. ‘ll ‘ave yer balls m’self! ‘elp me!” The young sailor scooped under Dawn’s knees and heaved upward, finally giving her a square perch on the rough wood of the kitchen table. Doing so forced the hem of Dawn’s robe high on her hips and brought him face to face with the blood that caked her thighs and drenched Dawn’s privates. He stumbled backward, eyes wide, at the sight of the carnage. Heric held on to Dawn’s shoulders a moment to ensure she was firmly planted.

Sercia turned back to the table with a dirk-sized paring knife in one hand and a pitcher of water in the other. She navigated down to Dawn’s feet to have a look at the work at hand. Her eyes widened and her mouth gaped at on seeing a mess of hair, blood and skin. She blinked once. Twice. “By the gods,” she barely whispered. She then snapped out of her brief daze and barked again at the men. “You’ve done well to get her this far, fellows. A bit more, she’s asking though. Grab her legs and keep them out of my way.” She looked past Heric as he moved down to Dawn’s right leg and shouted to the open doorway. “Roric! RORIC! Hells, boy, get in here!”

The small boy who had nearly been a casualty himself straightened up and replied. “Yes’m?” He was trying so hard to look at his mother, but the lure of the dying damsel was too great. He stood with his gaze fixed on the grotesque scene that had unfolded just where he’d had his breakfast that morn. A louder yell grabbed him just long enough for him to take instruction.

“Upstairs. Table next to bed. Two vials. One glass. One clay. Get ‘em. NOW!” Sercia rarely had patience for her youngest son and this certainly was not the time to learn it. When Roric hesitated, she launched against him again. “By the hells, boy, you better go NOW, else you’ll find yourself on the sea when these men leave!” Roric recoiled and bolted from the room.

Turning back to Dawn’s dark state, she hurled half of the pitcher of water at her privates. She poured a bit more following that. Setting the pitcher down, she tried to rub away as much of the caked and clotted blood as she could. The men watched her face drain of color as she worked. More water allowed her to find what she sought. The baby’s head was just crowning. She knew with Dawn unable to push, the dread fate that had found the baby would find the mother as well.

Sercia moved quickly with the knife. She sliced the edge of Dawn’s opening next to the baby’s head. Relative to the deluge that Dawn had already offered up, the slice was bloodless. She dropped the knife and pushed her fingers hard around the side of the baby’s head, trying to gain any amount of purchase on the child. Dark, clotted blood would occasionally find its way out when she pushed in deeper. She offered a quick glance to Heric and his friend as she worked her hands deeper into Dawn’s pelvis. “Stay with me men, we’ve only got one…ouch!” The men startled at her sudden shriek. She pulled her hand back and rubbed old blood away to find new blood beneath. Her blood. “What in the hells?” she said, rubbing a cut on her finger. Shaking off the injury, she dove back in to try to free the tiny, lifeless body.

She winced again, then looked down at the baby. Her face grew even more pale as she realized what she was seeing. She met the men’s puzzled gazes with only a whispered prayer. “Ilmater have mercy.”

She looked back down to her work and hesitated, only a moment. She grabbed the tie from her apron and with one deft move took up the paring knife and slashed it off. She again worked her fingers into the maw of Dawn’s pelvis and tried to work the tie around the baby’s neck. An eternity of fumbling later, she tugged on it a bit and seemed satisfied that it would hold. She took a deep breath and looked to her two unwilling assistants. “May every god with a name have mercy on us.” The two grown men had just enough time to be filled with every type of terror before she pulled on the strip of cloth as hard as she could.

Sercia struggled, teeth gritted, for a long few seconds before suddenly jerking back, tie still in hand. The baby slid down the table and tumbled onto the floor. It was followed by a gelatinous mass of purple flesh, kept in tow by a twisted, whitish cord. The lifeless child stopped just short of Sercia’s own open legs.

All three of them could not help but have their eyes fixed on the dusky-skinned form on the floor before them. To their eyes, it was the stuff of nightmares and cursed peoples. The boy’s skin was pale and grey and likely would have been so even if his heart were beating. His forehead sloped sharply back to a somewhat oblong head. This did not startle Sercia, as she had seen many babies born with their heads similarly shaped. What did strike fear in her, though, was what protruded from the forehead-two small spikes of bone. A brief review of what she knew told her these were likely the trouble with the birth and that one had likely been what had cut her finger. Overcome with revulsion, she first recoiled, then tried to skitter away from the child. In her panic, she inadvertently kicked the child toward the young sailor, who in turn jumped clear of this harbinger of who-knew-what ills.

Sercia’s attention was pulled back to the table by Heric’s voice. “Lady, quickly! Fresh blood there!” He had managed to tear his eyes from the abomination on her kitchen floor to focus on the dying girl. Good that he had, too. There was fresh blood and she wondered how much the girl had left. She already looked drained. Sercia had to do something right now.

Pulling herself up by the table edge, she quickly pulled her apron off and wadded it up. She looked to the girl’s ruined treasure and saw a bright red trickle of blood flowing out and down the table, as if chasing after what had been surrendered to the floor. She shoved the apron into the opening and pushed as hard as she could, trying to hold firm pressure to stem the tide. She looked about for anything that might help her. She again made silent supplication to Ilmater for help, not just for herself, but for the girl and to speed Roric as well. “Where is that boy?” she muttered as her eyes found the wood stove. Her brow furrowed as she looked to the apron and then back to the stove. She looked back to the doorway through which Roric had run and muttered again. “Hurry, son.” He wasn’t going to make it in time.

Without hesitating, Sercia grabbed Heric’s hand and put it in place over the makeshift bandage in Dawn’s groin. “Hold this!” she ordered, urging him to greater pressure by pushing down on his hand. Certain he was doing all he could, she stepped over the broken dream on the floor to the wood stove and flung open the door. A wave of heat burst forth that she easily could have done without just then, but it did not deter her. She had decided. Dawn would die if she did not do something drastic. She took up the short poker at the end of the stove and set in the coals. The disturbance was enough to renew the flames, which set about engaging the instrument in their terrible seductions. Sercia waited, each second seeming a lifetime. How long would be long enough? Would it be enough to save her? Where the hells was that boy? She looked to the young sailor, who still seemed to have an interest in the child on the floor. “You there! Go find out what happened to that son of mine! Upstairs, second door on the left! Go!” The fellow only nodded, then disappeared through the door.

Deciding it had been long enough, Sercia snapped up the poker and moved back to the table. Heric’s eyes were wide at the sight of the barely glowing shard of metal. “’at’s gotten into ye, woman? ‘at ye gonna do with that?”

Sercia took a deep breath and fixed her eyes on where Heric held the ineffective apron in place. “What must be done. And may she forgive me.” She hesitated a moment longer before reaching forward and pulling his hand and the apron away. The trickle of blood resumed almost immediately, trying to reclaim its place on the table. Sercia held the poker, now with only the slightest hue of orange to it, near the opening. After a short, unspoken prayer she thrust the hot metal into the bleeding opening. Within a breath of that final act, Roric appeared through the door with a vial in each hand.

Just as hope was about to arrive, the promise of Dawn’s future found searing ruin.



Dawn heaved a sigh, trying to force interest in breathing. She stared absently onto the floor of the temple, undistracted by the preparations being made for matins. She could not push the shadows behind her. Lathander had blessed her with unconsciousness through the worst of it, but her father had cursed her with the account when she was well enough.

With the magical draughts, she had managed to stabilize. But after the smoke of her ultimate loss had cleared, neither the young sailor nor the body of her son could be found. Heric was incensed and sprayed curses at the sea, vowing he would find that boy and separate him from his balls. He had gone back to his boat and none had seen either of them or the Spirit Vixen since. They were likely in Calimport by now. Save for Sercia, the villagers in Ulgoth’s refused to tend to her, fearful of her, the devil’s consort. Sercia took care of her and sent word to her father, who, with her brother Sturm, came to fetch her. She did not wake up until in Beregost. Apparently her father had been promoted.

Last night, after two weeks of fever and prayer, Dawn was well enough to leave bed. Padren, who never even knew he was to be a grandfather before he’d lost a grandson, took care to wait until she was strong enough to hear the horrific news he must share with her. She knew Xuthune, her son, was gone. She reasoned as much when no one would bring him at her request, when her pleas were met with only sad eyes and sympathetic lips. He confirmed that fact among the other details of the disaster that had befallen her. She had been brought to shore by men from the Spirit Vixen. A woman named Sercia from Ulgoth had done her best to help her, but only Dawn could be saved and her only barely. Her son had disappeared along with one of the sailors that had spirited her ashore.

She would never be able to bear children again.

She heard nothing that followed. That one statement reverberated in her head and what used to be her heart.

After a night as dark as any she could remember, she now sat quietly. Waiting. Soon he would come. She straightened up on the pew as worshippers began filling the pews in ones and twos. She tried so hard to not begrudge them their happiness, their hope in coming to morning services. She looked up to the eastern windows. Waiting. Her father was to offer matins this day. He started to speak just before his arrival, a voice that had always brought her comfort and encouragement. She chanced a glance at him and saw his eyes were fixed on the windows that would soon justify his faith. His voice grew louder as the horizon lightened. She looked back to when she felt that kind of fire. She looked forward to the coming day.

But for the first time in her life, the sun did not rise for Dawn Shiningeye.
Talk less. Listen more.

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johnlewismcleod
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Re: The Last Journey Home (Warning! GRAPHIC!!)

Post by johnlewismcleod »

Incredible! :shock: :D
I seek plunder....and succulent greens


[Wynna] Chula Lysander: [Talk] *Shakes head* I've been in worse situations. He was just....unjoyful! *stomps foot*


Retired PC's: Torquil, Gwenevere
Former PC's: Rugo, Flora, Rory Mor
rorax
Otyugh
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Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:59 am

Re: The Last Journey Home (Warning! GRAPHIC!!)

Post by rorax »

johnlewismcleod wrote:Incredible! :shock: :D
X2

Wish i could write like that, it's beautiful.
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