Tormented Baldur's Gate

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Three
years later…

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Annah
threw her head back and screamed as loudly as she could while she lay on the
bed in a sheen of sweat. As she ceased her scream she flopped back onto the
bed, exhausted, as a new voice started screaming, or more accurately crying;
picking up where she left off.

The
midwife removed herself from between her opened legs with a bundle of blanket,
before handing it to Annah with a smile and the words “It’s a girl!”

Annah sat
upright, despite her fatigue, and took the bundle in the midwife’s arms
nervously, scared it… *she* would disappear. She cradled the newborn infant in
her arms and looked down into its-her-face.
She smiled at her, the baby stopping its crying to look up at her mother
with curiosity.

Annah
felt tears form in her eyes as her vision blurred. She was holding her
*daughter* in her arms. She was a mother. She… she was a mother, holding her
child. She felt like she was dreaming and a thought kept repeating itself,
‘Annae second now… ah’m gonna wake up annae second…’

As the
door opened she looked up, her eyes shining with joy and unshed tears. It was
Loké. She looked back at her baby.

“My
love?” Asked Loké nervously.

“She’s ah
girl… a wee girl…” She nearly sobbed as she looked down at the bundle with a
loving smile. Her little girl… she looked at Loké, who was sitting on the edge
of the bed next to her. Her family.

“She’s
beautiful. Just like her mother,” Loké whispered as he hugged his wife and
looked on his daughter.

She
‘looked’ at her child for the first time. Her eyes were dark red, a faint blue
light was being given off, a colour her parents would learn changed with her
emotions, with a small wedge shaped stripes from the bottom of her eyes down to
her jaw on either side, both the same colour as her eyes. Her mother’s eyes
widened slightly in surprise and amusement as she felt a tail move in the
sheet.

The tears
started running freely as she felt her life click into place. She had a home, a
husband and a child. She finally had something she’d wanted ever since she’d
beena small child, something she’d wanted for so long and so early she hadn’t
even known she’d been after it.

She had
family.

“What are
we going to name her?” Loké murmured into her ear.

“I-I
dannae know,” she whispered, all the while looking down at her daughter and
smiling, whom had started smiling back up at her, gurgling quietly as if in
recognition.

“How
about ‘Mika’?”

“Mika…”
Annah tested the name while looking at the little girl in her arms, said girl
looking up at her with a curious look and a smile. Her smile was returned as
Annah repeated the name. She nodded.

“A’reeght.
Mika. Mika Nightflame.”

She slid
over slightly so Loké could climb onto their bed too and she lay back with
little Mika in her arms. The family lay there in silence as they basked in the
presence of each other until sleep claimed them.

“Ah love
yeh,” Annah whispered to both.

Then
sleep claimed her until she would wake up with her family.

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Little
footnote:

Mika is
pronounced ‘Mee-ka’