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Every day following the argument between Takhi and Casseth involving where she would stay as she drew within the final weeks of her pregnancy, Lithian worried on the days that she did not visit and breathed again when she did. When she did not, though, despite his own private concerns, he would work to soothe Casseth’s also, stating that she simply needed her space. She was a grown woman and had been highly independant most all of her life and valued that. That it wasn’t their place to invade that privacy without cause and that they ought to do their best to respect her wishes to the fullest.

On the third day without word from her, his arguments weakened, his own concern creeping up. On the fourth, he found himself anxious and distracted for the better part of the day, and on the morning of the fifth day without word, he conceded to Casseth’s urgings, saying that he had likely been right all along and yes, they ought to at least drop by her residence and check on her. As he had every morning prior, he prayed, and on that one, he sent one specifically for each of their unborn daughters, for Takhi, himself, Casseth, and even Drannath, the father of their children. As he and Casseth left the familiar beach at their housefront, crossed the rocky pass leading towards the city’s edge itself and made footprints over the dusty streets leading towards Takhi’s current home, Lithian found himself reminding himself every other step to breathe and sending up small, furtive prayers between breaths, silent and to his god.

Let her be healthy.

Let all be well.

Let our children into this world. (But please, not quite yet.)

The house on arrival looked unencouragingly quiet, and after administering several knocks met with silence, Lithian found himself working simply to keep his heart from climbing onto his tongue. He swallowed, tested the latch, and found it locked.

“Casseth…should we…?”

“Nnh.” Lithian’s brow pinched, accompanied by the frustrated huff of sound. “She could be…but she could be anything. You were right, we should have come back earlier…should have at least visited after the first day or two, and then if she hadn’t answered, we could have come back later or the next day, but now it’s been five and I…” Lithian shut his eyes, running a hand back through his hair and gripping as he drew a breath. “Why can things not be simple…”

“Mm…I don’t think she’s intending to make things complicated, it just…” Lithian trailed off, watching instead as Casseth stepped back and manipulated up some of the surrounding sand from the nearby street. After working it in, something cracked at a twitch of his magic, and in spite of himself, Lithian felt a rush of relief as Casseth tried the door and it gave without resistance. Flushing with a heavy exhale, Lithian nodded and moved in.

It wasn’t but moments later after stepping across the threshold that he felt something brush at his feet. He barely had opportunity to glance down and register the snake of sand from the front door and around his ankles before he was locked and shoved, effectively shackled to the wall nearest the door directly beside his mate. Sand at his boots, knees, waist, wrist — and throat. The sound he made was ineffectual, muffled by an earthen muzzle over his mouth, and for a moment he imagined all the worst that this could possibly entail.

Then, from the shadow to their right, a familiar figure stepped into view. Hands out, maintaining control over the manipulated earth. Stance rooted, despite how awkward it must have been in her state. After several seconds of holding them in her narrow, brown-eyed gaze, Takhi gave a derivative snort and let her hands drop, the sand relaxing into dust and filtering back out of the house like an obedient puppet.

“Impatient,” she grunted. “The both o’ you. Would have benefited you, too, to start by callin’ my name so as I knew it was you and not some vagabonds. But you owe me door, oi?” Her expression, despite a small pinch of tension, was facially neutral as she reached down after the words, supporting the weight of her belly with a hand before moving to step towards the small corner of space that sufficed as a ‘kitchen’. Takhi’s house, on the whole, made Lithian wonder why she hadn’t used her earnings in the pit to move up to something more comfortable. But then, he knew, too, that she didn’t necessarily spend a great deal of time in it. Still, the very air of it felt small and insufficient.

And dark.

He wouldn’t have wanted to be alone and pregnant in it. Moments after opening his mouth to ask if she was well, though, she was speaking again.

“So, seeing as you were so intent on gettin’ to me…can I get you anythin’? Cup of water…I have some bread and fruit on hand…”

“Takhi—”

“Or wine? Also a block of cheese here somewhere, though that might be a touch old.”

Lithian blinked, frowning. “You’re not…drinking are you?” he asked, though the question was half-drowned by the clack and shuffle of activity as Takhi mulled about her things, opening this small cupboard and then that before eventually drawing out a half-gone loaf of bread, tearing off a chunk, and beginning to eat.

She glanced his way as she stepped back into the threshold between ‘kitchen’ and the main room, resting her weight there. “Mm?” she ‘asked’, mouth full, before swallowing. “Drinking? I’m getting plenty to drink. I feel fine. And you?”

“Been here,” Takhi responded in a curt grunt of sound. “Been fine. Told you I would be, didn’ I? Nothin’ happened. My—” She cleared her throat, a shadow of a frown rippling across her features briefly before she took another large bite of bread, chewing and flattening her expression before swallowing and continuing with a shake of her handful. “Dran didn’ wanna be around for the delivery, so he continent hopped—not sure t’ where, exactly. Someplace o’ his on Soudul, I reckon. So it was a touch more trouble comin’ to see you is all. Figured I would if something went wrong, maybe. Or in a couple more days or so…” Her eyes trailed to a window and lingered there, avoiding both of them.

Lithian, however, wasn’t buying the calm. “He left…” He shook his head. “So you’re alone here? Entirely alone, just in this house? How long has he been gone? And why didn’t—”

“Aye, I’m alone,” Takhi quipped, her frown returning sharply. “I don’t see why you have to make such a fuss deal about it, though. I said I was fine. Been fine. Doin’ fine.”

“But you’re just one person…” Lithian murmured. “A hyb—you’ve made some less than favorable acquaintances in the Vienrith Stadium when you fought, didn’t you? And you’ve been living with an oblivionite, which I’m sure people have seen, carrying children in—”

“I know,” Takhi grit out, “what I am, an’ what I’m doin’…” She popped the remaining portion of bread in her mouth, chewing and folding her arms beneath her belly with a scowl as she rest more of her weight back against the wall. After swallowing, she shut her eyes, but expression remained tight and terse. “An’ no…” she muttered after a moment, “…to answer your previous question, I haven’t been drinkin’. Thanks for trustin’ me that much. I’m not stupid.”

In spite of himself, Lithian winced. The apology that wanted to leave his throat, though, felt hollow and dry. Hot as the sand they had walked across to her door and useless. Instead, he said, “We were just worried about you…that’s all.”

As Casseth settled his weight beside her, Takhi released a ragged exhale, her gaze flitting from the window to him and then away again, her brow still furrowed but in a different way as she rolled her shoulders and gave a half-nod. “Aye, yeah. Wouldn’t want to worry your boy blue, would we?”

When Lithian approached, though, and offered a hand, she took it, and they moved to sit at the single, old and part-battered couch in the right portion of the room. As Lithian went to work, running over his checks — and relaxing gradually as it did seem that she was still healthy, if exhausted and stressed — Takhi said little, shutting her eyes and letting him work, her mind evidently elsewhere. Lunch was further discussed, eventually leading to Casseth departing briefly and bringing back a fresh meal from nearby market vendors for them. As they ate, though, the subject of Takhi’s new, even more vulnerable state was inevitably brought up alongside the renewed offer of them opening their doors to her.

She shook her head. “Don’t need it.”

Lithian’s gut sank. “Takhi…without even Drannath here—”

“I didn’t need him around, and I don’t need anyone around. I was fine before ‘im wasn’t I? He said he’d leave, you know. He said it once and I told him he could if it pleased him, I’m not here to rope anyone down — not like folks seem to want to rope me and get all disappointed when they can’t — but he said it, and I didn’t believe him, you know? Because he never did before, not proper like. Sure, we’d run our separate ways all sorts of times before and criss cross paths and round about but when I told him…”

She frowned, pausing and twining aimlessly with a utensil, frowning at the remaining food before her but not looking as though she were really looking at it.

“When I told him I was heavy, things changed a touch…I didn’ want them to. I told him as much. I said to him, I said it didn’t mean anything and I would just find homes for them and that would be that and we could go on as we pleased and I thought he’d be happy with that as I was but he…” She pursed her lips. “You know, he wasn’t? I don’t know if I realized it proper at first, but he got a bit different…and he’d say sometimes…” She trailed off. “Well, you know he doesn’t say a great lot in the normal course of things, but when he did he’d say sometimes how we wouldn’t have to give them up. It was ‘we’ wouldn’t have to give ‘em up, ‘we’ could keep them, and raise them…” Her lashes flit low, her scowl convoluted — a mesh of blame and uncertainty. “He said he had a house on the dark continent…a small, tucked off place, not so hidden as you couldn’t access things, but far enough that no one would have to bother us and we could just be…”

Abruptly, she tapped her utensils roughly, jabbing at the food, lifting a portion, but then seeming to change her mind mid-way and setting it all aside and down to the table before leaning back against the couch and squeezing her eyes shut.

“But I didn’t want none of that, not yet. Maybe later, yeah? Maybe later, but not yet, and he said he’d leave—said he didn’t want to watch—” Her throat seemed to tense, and for a period she paused, silence preceding a brittle exhale. At length, she shook her head sharply, and when she spoke again, her voice was uncharacteristically quiet. “So it doesn’t matter I suppose, yeah…? I don’ know why I told you any of that…”

“Nn.” Takhi said little immediately, but seemed to allow the gesture and even, after a moment — to Lithian’s surprise — leaned into it, shutting her eyes and resting her head against Casseth’s shoulder. Without budging, she spoke. “So…I had this brilliant idea…”

“Mm?”

“Since I got this space all to myself now, and nobody about, it gets a touch boring…plus no one t’ make breakfast,” she said, “which is a constant frustration. So I thought, if you two were willing and had space, I could bother you two lovebirds for this last week or so until the brats make up their minds ‘bout when they wanna come join us all…yeah?”

Lithian blinked, staring for a long moment. Then, after a unison glance towards Casseth: “I think that is a magnificent idea.”