A Brother's Plea (Kala)

[Rune]

1st Glade, 124 (Just past midnight)

White Knight Hall rang with the cries of a mother straining to bring forth life and had done so for long hours already. Servants had been laying the dishes for supper when the Minister of Welfare had felt the first pangs of her second labor, gripping on tightly to her husband's hand even as she insisted she did not need to be carried to the room that had been prepared for the event. Her sister-in-law, equally heavy with child had been on her other side while her brother, Admiral High Sentinel Angevin had brought up the rear calling for the midwife, hot water, and whatever else he could think of. The door had shut behind the clutching threesome with the Admiral High Sentinel on the other side but this wasn't unexpected. Delia loved her brother but did not particularly want him to view her ordeal.

This desire was overridden some hours later when, due to all the birthing hormones, or perhaps simply fate, Luca's own labor began. From then on the doors were open to Eitan, as well as Stephan, as both men attempted to support their wives and each other through the long night. The midwife assured the couples that the labors were each progressing well, the attending doctor concurred and offered the women what assistance with the pains medical science had available. There was a member of the Grymalka Coven waiting elsewhere in the house should complications beyond the doctor and midwife arise, but they were not called for.

As Delia's time drew near and she began to push the figure standing, or hovering, in the corner of the room began to grow agitated. No one noticed this, as no one could see him, but he knew of one who could see him and who might help him with the excruciating memories and fears that now filled him beyond endurance. Closing his ghostly eyes he fled.

There was no movement, he was simply in one place, and then another. The place he arrived was a bedroom, perhaps not as richly appointed as the one he had just left, but still fine and comfortable. On the bed slept a young woman, with skin and hair as pale and shining as the starlight that winked through her window. The ghost hesitated but there was no other way he knew to save the life of his unborn nephew. He did not believe that his brother would ever harm his child, but it had happened to them and there was no reason to believe it would not happen again.

Wordlessly he called out to the sleeper, begging her aid in his wordless, language-less way to come, to save the child, to end the cycle of tearing loss.

[Kala Leukos]

.

Kala slept, belly full, full of joy, and warm in her childhood bed. One might joke that she didn't need more than a child's bed, but that didn't happen anymore, not now that she had wings—not now that everyone in her childhood home knew her to be a goddess, proof that Mother Naori, at least, approved of their efforts in the remote mountains. She still dreamed as a woman dreamed, but so to did she dream a bit as a god dreamed. Perhaps that was why her eyes opened almost immediately and she let herself out from under her coverlet.

She shone in the starlight. She was the starlight. She looked at him with what seemed like an infinite compassion, and then they were no longer there, but riding starlight back from whence he came.

A pale, diminutive figure in layers upon layers of white stood upon the threshold at the lesser Angevin estate. Thankfully, she had pulled her cloak off the hook ere daring her new powers. She swung it around her shoulders, masking her wings lest they be seen before the time was right. From what she was gathering from the shade, that time might be nigh. She knocked upon the door.

A young bloodborn Lysanrin with an intensely worried face opened the door for her. He looked as though his world were falling apart.

"I must see the First Minister," she said, radiating calm. She spoke with quiet certainty. "He isn't expecting me, but he will see me."

Young Bruno Storlock, the wunderkind surgeon and Grymalka necromancer, blinked at her as he passed by the foyer.

"Lady Kala...?" He blinked, confused, then intuited something, perhaps. "Let her in, Devil. Close the door behind her." The Grymalka had taken her measure when her brother had come to slay a dragon. While he was working closely with Dr Stechpalme, she newly recruited to the Order, he was a witch first and foremost and he had seen too much death and destruction to question help from an unexpected quarter. "Please come with me."

The shrouded goddess placed a hand upon Devil's shoulder as she passed, and he blinked once more, star-eyed gaze following her, his mouth dropping open. But she wasn't within his sight for long. Storlock moved quickly, and she, despite short legs, kept up. The youth whose eyes had seen too much rapped his knuckles upon a door, then opened it without waiting to be let in. She followed.

"Minister, you have a guest."

.

[Stefan Dornkirk]

The doctor and the midwife were in agreement; both births were progressing as expected with no complicated to be noted. Yet.

Stefan gave Delia his hand when she wanted to sit or lay, but more often she wanted to be up, walking or standing. Supposedly it helped, though the First Minister did not think he would have wanted to be upright under the circumstances. As the pains worsened she leaned on him, letting him support some of her weight as she paced. He wasn't sure if she needed him or if she did it because it made him feel less helpless, or even simply liked him close.

Nearby Eitan and his wife seemed to move between saying supportive things to each other and mean things that made them laugh. It was normal, for them, something that Stefan had had to grow into accepting.

Eventually, as the time drew near in which Delia would push the babes out there was a knock at the door. Stefan did not want the distraction of his nation but knew better than to ignore what might be an emergency. The midwife was kneeling beneath Delia's sweat-soaked nightgown so he went himself and answered the summons.

It took him a moment to recognize the woman with whom he had exchanged hospitality and now trade.

"Lady Leukos?" He knew it was she but there was something about her that felt both entirely like her and also different. "Forgive my bluntness but this isn't a good time."

His voice was neither harsh nor loud and the sounds coming from within the room he stood guardian over were obvious to anyone who had witnessed them before.

At Kala's shoulder, Stefan's ghost twin stood. Now that he was back near the anchor of his brother his form was fuller, no longer faint. Since Kala had answered his plea something had changed between them, his thoughts, before always vague and weak felt stronger in her mind, clearer. The image of his own birth and quick death came into focus, followed by that of the room beyond, though Kala had never seen it. Inside, the heavily pregnant Mrs. Dornkirk strained but the image the ghost sent moved forward in time to show her two children, one, like the ghost, with tiny damp wings on his back, the other, like Stefan, without.

The implication and the fear associated with it became clear in the instant that Stefan had opened the door.

Will they kill him?

They were the first words the ghost had managed.

[Kala Leukos]

.

Kala's smile was compassionate and understanding despite the terse welcome. While she paid attention to the ghost at her shoulder, young Storlock spoke with more authority than his years. Midwives were queens in the birthing chamber, and he had all of the training.

"Lady Leukos is a skilled healer and surgeon, sir."

Delia moaned, then. Storlock knew her delivery was going well, that such moans weren't abnormal, but Dornkirk himself might not.

"Pardon," he said, pushing past the First Minister without any other deference. Stechpalme and the midwives had things under control, but he had sensed the twinned souls, and felt a sort of anxiety. If his necromantic studies had focused equally upon the soul, he might have recognized the ghost and sussed the generational trauma. Alas, he focused on the flesh.

Storlock worked quietly, deferring to the women, knowing the mothers would likely be more comfortable with women up in their business when they were at their most vulnerable.

Kala's eyes softened even as her resolve hardened.

They will not, she assured him.

"My skills are at your disposal, Minister. I can wait outside if you prefer, but I will remain close. You will need me soon."

She did not explain further. Likely he was in no state to process what was to come, but she was here present. The young woman wanted to believe that Stefan Dornkirk would not murder his own child, but if he tried, she would stop it. She would take the child and fly—until he saw reason and virtue or until the child was grown.

Kala did not want to overrule a person's agency, their self-determination, which might or might not change as she grew into her immortality. But she was learning, too, and could not deny the unnamed ghost, nor the nascent life making its transit into their world.

.

[Stefan Dornkirk]

Stefan was not the First Minister in his current capacity but he did draw himself up tall and stern, examining Lady Leukos with the sort of discernment he reserved for assessing potential threats. This woman was one he would have said, if questioned before that moment, that he trusted. She had shared meals with him and his family, had met his daughter, had gifted Zaichaer aid when the nation had nothing to share and had been the first to offer trade deals once it did.

Yet, the Lady's presence and her words spoke of foreknowledge, which spoke of magic. While his wife would not have survived her first labor without the aetheric aid of the Grymalka, the mages in that situation had been in equal desperation and fear for their lives. It had been an even trade. Lady Leukos was known, within Zaichaer's borders and without as a compassionate person who gave without seeking to enrich herself by it. Even knowing this Stefan's analytical mind questioned why she had come. If she knew of some complication with the birth then would she not be explaining the issue to the midwives and doctors present so they could be preparing for it?

The whole situation made little sense to Stefan, his eyes narrowed and he was about to suggest that they find a place for her to stay, away from White Knight Hall when an odd sense of calm came over him. Had not the Hall been warded against emotional manipulation magic he would have strongly suspected that Kala was a Mesmer mage, or had employed one. But it was and the feeling was not one he was unfamiliar with. There had been times in his life when he had been in difficulties and the feeling had come over him, like a guiding hand, showing him the wiser choice. It was a rare sensation, but it had never led him wrong previously, so, reluctantly, after looking to Delia for confirmation, he stepped back and allowed Kala entrance.

There was a little sitting room area with a small table and two chairs that the couple used as a private breakfast nook and he offered it to Kala to sit while he moved back to support his wife however he might.

When obvious suspicion had come over the Minister's face, the ghost had moved to stand behind him, laid its weightless hand on his shoulder and concentrated. From Kala's point of view, it was obvious to see the change that this engendered in Stefan just before he invited her inside.

The labor progressed with everyone seemingly having forgotten the unexpected guest. Delia was eventually moved to the birthing stool and anyone who was not specifically needed was removed from the room, Kala being the exception to this.

Luca was resting on the bed for the moment with Eitan and her midwife in attendance. Delia, with Stefan behind her, sat on the stool, her midwife kneeling low to observe the child coming and give instructions as needed. Things seemed to move quickly after so many hours of anticipation and pain; with a great yell of straining effort, the first of the new twins slid into the world. Delia knew, by how it had felt, that something was different from Amilia's birth. The midwife caught the child in a clean towel and then froze, holding it. Stefan did not realize anything was wrong and continued to speak encouragingly to his wife until the expressions of both women informed him. Stepping around he squatted down beside the midwife and examined his son.

Nothing was said for a long, uncomfortably quiet moment in the previously loud room, then Stefan looked up at his wife and with no hint of accusation, only profound confusion he said,

"What..?"

[Kala Leukos]

.

The little lady of House Leukos accepted all of Stefan's reactions and, once offered a place, she took it and then did her best to remain inconspicuous. The only ones who seemed to remember she was there were the necromancer and the ghost. She supposed that meant she was good at being inconspicuous when the need arose. The ghost seemed caught up with Stefan and the delivery, perhaps slightly less worried with Kala there.

She supposed it was entirely possible that Torin's lover, who spent a good deal of time abroad, had shared her necromantic skills with the witches here. The lad didn't seem to be of the Order; then again, she didn't think their uniforms would be appropriate for a delivery room. He glanced at her, a furtive plea for help, when he saw what he had suspected in plain flesh. But Delia was physically fine all things considered, and Lucrece cried out, so he quickly cleaned his hands so he could see to the other delivering mother.

Kala rose, cleaned her hands, and moved to take Delia's, laying one upon the woman's sweat-slicked brow. She was all warm words and cool, soothing hands. Delia felt some physical tensions relax, which eased some of the pain, but she was still worried. That was too much viscera on the blanket in which Stefan held him. The midwife tucked the second newborn, all swaddled, into Delia's arms. Kala released her hand that she might bond with her son.

"They are both healthy," Kala assured her. "One has wings. The other doesn't."

Then she glanced at Stefan and his ghostly twin, history repeating. Kala exuded a peaceful sort of aura, though peace was not rightly her domain. Unity was, and she hoped that she could keep this family united despite old secrets that might trigger the wrong emotional responses.

She did little things that caused the midwives to nod in approval and begin to focus more on Lucrece.

"What's wrong?" Lucrece cried out, sensing her family's distress even amid her own. Kala didn't answer, though, not until direct questions might be asked of her.

.

[Stefan Dornkirk]

The ghostly copy of Stefan hovered over him, their expressions ones of nearly identical worry until the first child made its way into the world, though the living man's concern was for his wife and the dead man's for his brother.

It was a good thing, Stefan would think later, that the second child came so quickly after the first, leaving him with no time for his mind to process what it was seeing. The midwife had wrapped the first twin in a warmed blanket and handed it to him, leaving the cord connecting baby to mother intact for the time being. It was safer, healthier that way, for both, he knew from his medical studies.

Cradling the tiny being in one of his wide arms he returned his other hand to his wife until she was delivered a second time. Off and on as she pushed he would glance down at the tiny, red-streaked face. Wrapped as he was, with nothing showing but his face it was easy to imagine that what he'd seen was a trick of the process, blood and other biological substances mixing together in a way that his anxious mind had interpreted strangely.

He knew this was a lie he was telling himself to keep calm and dutiful for Delia, not to frighten or worry her, for Eitan and Lucrece, fighting their own battle nearby. When his second son slid free, pink and red and, after a moment, began wailing, Stefan realized that the child he held had not yet cried.

Terror gripped his heart in a vice and he pulled his hand free of Delia's grip to lift the child closer to his own face. When he saw that it was taking tiny snuffling breaths he too was able to breathe and in that moment all the horror-fueled confusion coursing through him was stabbed through the heart by the purity of absolute determination to protect his son.

Several things happened then, in his logical mind and his human heart, but he chose to let all of them happen without pulling himself out of the moment in any way that mattered. The midwife was laying the second twin, wrapped in his own blanket into Delia's shaking arms and he knelt so they were of a height and moved so the babies could be touching each other, or, at least their wrappings could.

He kissed his wife on her sweat-soaked brow and for a little while, they both cried. Even as he let the emotion of the moment pull him in he recognized that Lady Leukos was there, with them, soothing away what pain she could. But Delia had seen Stefan's reaction to the first twin and only a few moments passed before she looked to him, and then, when he did not speak, to Kala for an explanation. Dazed and exhausted as she was, Delia immediately, though carefully, peeled back enough of the swaddling to give truth to Kala's words. Her eyes found Stefan's, both of them searching the other and finding nothing but honest confusion.

When Luca's voice rang out, anguished still in her own labor pains Stefan cleared his throat of its tears and answered, as calmly and soothingly as he could manage,

"We're safe and healthy, all four of us. It's just... a lot." It certainly wasn't a lie.

The nurse came to take the baby from Delia so she could be moved somewhere comfortable but before she returned for the one Stefan held he passed it to Kala instead. Delia looked at him and then at Kala before nodding. Once she had Stefan lifted her as carefully as he could and moved her to their bed, covered in clean thick towels and began gently sponging her clean so she could rest.

Hours later Luca was delivered of a healthy boy of her own and though Delia had slept it had been very briefly, not even an hour before she insisted on being arrayed in her voluminous dressing gown and having her children, and Lady Kala, brought to her. Stefan had not left her side but for a few minutes to congratulate Eitan and check with the nurse and Kala that his sons were as well as could be expected. The nurse did not understand why a foreigner was being entrusted with the heir of Dornkirk, but she also wasn't about to argue with her master that night.

There was a tension to the room when the Lady was shown inside, but it wasn't specifically hostile. Delia lay in bed with one son on her lap and the other in his arms, Stefan stood to her left, on the opposite side of the bed as the door, a united front. It was the mother who spoke, once the door had closed, her voice not unkind, but very intent on an answer.

"You would not have come if you hadn't known. Please, explain this."

[Kala Leukos]

.

Kala was quite like a ghost. When eyes were upon her, she was where she ought to be, whether that was helping or standing aside. When no eyes were upon her, she faded into the background, staying out of people's paths. Her sense of propriety warred with her compassion; she had been invited here by a ghost, after all. These were strange circumstances.

Later, when they bade her attend the Ministers Dornkirk, she had cleaned her hands and patiently awaited the call. Idly, she wondered how all this would work. The ghost's prayer had been powerful enough to pull her along strands of starlight. This wasn't Traversion; she didn't control it. She smiled at Dornkirk's valet, smoothed the front of her white robe—thankfully still pristine as she hadn't been doing the bloody work—and followed him into what appeared to be their bedroom.

She nodded soberly to Stefan's wife.

"Minister Dornkirk," she addressed the woman, "my studies included time in Kalzasi's foremost hospital. What began as a sort of educational charity effort became a secondary passion. In that hospital, when one reaches enough skill at medicine and surgery, the option to study necromancy opens up." She made a face of mild disgust. "Animancy, they should call it, but I shan't digress here and now. One learns new techniques to heal, to preserve life when possible. One also develops a sense for departing spirits.

"Minister Dornkirk," she turned her serious gaze upon Stefan, "at the party where we met, I also met the ghost of your twin. He clings to you still. He has wings. From what I gather, your parents made a decisive and deadly choice when the two of you were born. He sensed the impending birth of his nephews and woke me up and here I am. So, while I cannot make your parenting decisions for you, I can offer an alternative to your parents' choice. If you wish, I will take the winged child with me to raise in Starfall. They will not grow up hating Zaichaer or you. They will know they were loved and sent to where they could be safe. I can also take your brother with me, and perhaps guide him toward peace, as well."

.

[Stefan Dornkirk]

The explanation of Lady Kala's medical training made sense. It didn't answer the questions milling around in Stefan like leaves caught in a whirlpool, but he could be patient. Sometimes he thought that all he had ever been was patient. A part of him, the one that was physically tired and emotionally stunted, kept trying to drift away from the present. At least, he thought that it was the fatigue and confusion that was causing the disassociation.

The ghost, now that it seemed to have been reassured that no one was going to smother his generational counter-part with a pillow, was hovering near Stefan, watching him. Its face, so much more expressive than Stefan's own, was as worried as it had been when infanticide had been its fear. Insubstantial hands making abortive movements of comfort, as though he would have wrapped his brother away from the pain of what was coming if he had been able to colored by all the years it had wanted to protect and had been able only to watch.

The First Minister pulled himself back to full attention when their unexpected guest turned her words from his wife and directed them to himself. They were in a language he understood but it felt like he was being told a faerytale, a bedtime story, something for children.

When it was done he blinked slowly, cleared his throat, glanced down at his wife and sons and then turned back to the diminutive Lady.

"I..." Stefan blinked again, several times, something seemed to be wrong with his vision. He had a brother? Of course he did. His throat began to tighten up. Brenner had gone but that wasn't what was being spoken of.

"What?" The word had felt perfectly reasonable inside his head but it sounded muffled in his ears, like he was underwater. Was he underwater?

A hand rose to his forehead and it took effort to realize it was his own.

"There must be... My brother? I don't..." The room was beginning to tilt, was there something wrong with the island? Panic shoved its way through the mass of confusion that he now realize had been holding it back in ice spikes of adrenaline and horror but it had nothing to do with fear for his mechanical-aether constructions.

Stefan was falling, head heading for the wood and marble surface of the bedside table so slowly. Then arms came up to wrap around him, as familiar as his own, catching and holding him and he was staring up into a face that was his own.

The aether being had somehow manifested, not fully, but enough to be able to affect the world, or, at least the one who anchored it to the world. They pair, identical except that one was outlines of pure aether while the other retained his flesh, stared at one another with nearly opposite expressions. Horror blinking up into sorrow, and love. Recognition bloomed through Stefan and it hurt. Information flowed into him from what felt like every place they touched. Moments, too many to count, from his childhood, from his adolescents, the day he'd joined the academy, the day he'd graduated with his engineering degree, the day of his marriage, the day the sky shattered. So many more too intimate to put words to, most of them when he'd been alone, but even those weren't from his eyes. Watching him, living his life with him, one step to the side, had always been there. But he hadn't know. But he had known. Not mentally, certainly not physically; his soul had known, had reached, always, for this other self, but never been able to reach it.

Stefan didn't know he was crying until he started shaking with it, didn't know he had stopped breathing until he tore in a breath so his whole body could shatter into a sob.

[Kala Leukos]

.

When Stefan handed the other twin to Delia, the new mother held them both with the same maternal affection, though she looked to one of them as if torn by an impossible dilemma. Perhaps she was wondering whether she could protect the infant boy from the world, whether the correct thing for a loving mother to do being letting him go.

Kala had overheard Dr Stechpalme discussing amputation options with young Storlock, whose face had been too impassive.

"Stefan—!" Delia yelped.

Then Stefan was falling. She didn't feel a pull, but she could sense some of her power being pulled into the ghost as he caught and cradled his living twin. Perhaps she emanated stellar, divine power and the prayer that brought her here opened a channel to the poor spirit. She didn't make to stop him. This meeting was important.

Delia tore her gaze from her husband and the apparition. Her hands were literally full with newborns, and she had a young daughter asleep in another room, governmental challenges waiting on her desk, and the weight of a nation upon her shoulders as much as the beloved weight of her family. She looked at Kala.

"Help him. Please."

Then Kala too was supporting him, she and the ghost easing him down to sit upon the ground. Spectral wings mantled, then curled protectively around the First Minister. She clasped his big, strong hand in her smaller one. Between their palms, a soul totem she had fashioned out of warming, positive illumite. Between the soul totem and the woman who had transformed it, his twin took all all the color and solidity of a corporeal form. He could see him, hear him, and touch him as if he had never died, at least for now.

"Minister Dornkirk," she began. "Stefan. Please meet your brother, with whom you shared a womb." To the ghost, "You are as flesh to him now. For now. I do not know how long I can maintain this bridge between life and death."

.