Sisters Three (Completed)

53. Morna

Morna shrugged her cloak higher on her shoulders as the wind cut down from the mountains and chilled her bones. The slicing rain did nothing to help with the chill, and Afton had taken to walking right behind her to try and block some of the weather. She kept her hands firmly on her middle, feeling the baby squirming and hoping that it couldn't feel the chilling bite that made her lips blue.

"We should head back," Afton shouted over the din. The wind whipped his hair, now getting unruly, into his eyes and he had to hold it back with one hand.

Morna shook her head. "The shepherd said he'd seen her just last night. If we turn back now, the rain will wash away all her tracks and we'll have to start over!"

"You're not in a condition to be traipsing around in the cold and dark," Afton countered. He made to take her arm, trying to steer her around to head back to the village they'd left a few hours ago, but she planted her feet firmly in the rippling puddles.

"No!" She jerked her arm away from him. "I'm not going until we find her!"

"Morna..."

"I won't leave her! Brenna and I left her alone to find her own way, when we should have been making her a part of our family. Because she is family! She's my sister and I have to find her because I want her to be loved and safe and everything that we should have been for all these years that we spent drowning in our tears and fears."

"I know how much she means to you, but we can't do anything to help her if you catch a cold from this weather..." He trailed off when he noticed the look of shock on Morna's face. "What?"

Her hand clutched the fabric at her middle, and she shook as she looked up at Afton. "I think the baby-" She cut off as she drew in a sharp breath.

"It's coming?" Afton asked, panic rising in his voice. His head whipped around as he searched for anything or anyone to help them, but Morna knew he'd only see rocks and dark rain, just the same as she did.

"I think I can still walk," she said, trying to ignore the sharp pains with less and less luck.

"Come here. We'll find some shelter, and-" He scooped her up, her head bumping his chest as they cut across the grass toward the base of the mountains. "I guess I'll just have to be the midwife."

Morna wanted to laugh at the thought of Afton trying to help a baby into the world, but the pain rushed in to claim any emotion besides panicked desperation.

Next thing she knew she was lain across a cold, damp ground, and Afton crouched by her side, dripping water onto her face from his soaked hair.

"Do you have any idea how to deliver a baby?" he asked, but she couldn't answer him. She only shook her head and grasped his hand in an attempt to anchor herself.

The rest was a blur of pain and screaming and hours and hours of burning heat. Afton's voice punctuated her agony every so often, his assurances tinged with his worry. "Almost there, Morna."

She tried to respond, ask him where he was, but her throat was raw from screaming. It mixed with the shrieking rain until she wasn't sure which was which.

"Morna, I'm going to try and create a fire to keep you warm," Afton said, his hands shaking as he gently laid her head on the floor. "I think you're getting the chills."

She heard him scrounging up what little dry debris had gathered in the cave, and heard the smack of rocks against each other. She barely noticed when the orange flicker of flames filled the cave. Her whole body shook with cold, and she could only think of the irony of dying just when she wanted to live.