Alliance

Chapter 31- Filia

"Oh, er, Aura, Your Majesty. No la- no last name, simply Aura." She tried her best not to stammer as she looked into navy blue eyes. No, Aura! Be professional! You dress wounds and treat diseases, not wax poetic about ocean blue eyes and honey blond hair!

"I see." He couldn't help be amused at her nervousness- sure, he was a King but he was also human. "Peter Pevensie, but you can call me Peter."

She was spared from answering by Dr. Asherii calling from inside, "Aura! Aren't you done telling them already? I need you here!"

"Yes, yes, Doctor, I'm coming!" She called back quickly before turning and curtseying to the Monarchs, "Your Majesties."

"Peter, please, Aura." The High King corrected.

She grinned at him- her real, broad grin and not a timid flitting smile- and nodded, "Peter," before dashing into the medical chambers again.

-

"So wrinkled and red." Edmund was close to crying. "Why is she so wrinkled and red, Doctor? Why-"

"Oh quiet, Your Majesty." Aura snapped, entering to hear his snivelling. "That's what babies look like when they're born."

"I thought they were supposed to be cute-"

"They grow cuter." Dr. Asherii cut him off, swaddling the newly cleaned babe in a lilac blanket and handing her over to her father. "Now, she's had her first cry, so just bounce her a little gently till she falls asleep. Usually, I'd give her to her mother, but the Queen has lost a lot of blood, and needs rest."

'Needs rest' was an understatement. The build-up to the actual childbirth was easy and quick- even the date had been earlier than expected, the 31st of January- just eleven days after Sanya's twenty-second birthday- was a few days before the date that the Prince-ss had been expected. And the Queen had been at the proper dilation length in less than an hour, but the actual act of pushing the baby out of her body had taken over three hours, a lot of effort, a lot of sobbing (the number of times Aura had to hand the Just King a tissue), a lot of loss of body fluids, and a lot of excruciating pain.

At the end, Edmund wanted to wail from second hand pain (and also because his wife had almost broken his hand), he couldn't even imagine what she was going through.

He said none of this, his attention captured entirely by the small being placed in his arms- she was even smaller than a chessboard and her eyes really were wrinkled and her cheeks red as tomatoes and her face all frowny and grumpy. From the moment her tiny fingers wrapped themselves around his much larger one, however, his heart completely and absolutely belonged to her.

"Hi, Selene." He whispered, taking in the fine downy dark hair on top of her head, the fact that she didn't have eyebrows yet and that she was now struggling to get her eyes open. "Hi, my princess. Welcome to your new home. Not as nice or safe or warm as your old one-" He chuckled, and immediately thought that the second he would get a moment of free time, he would come up with as many dad jokes as he could. Sure, he was a father already and he loved Jem immensely but there would be a feeling of satisfaction at annoying your own blood, "but I promise I'll make this as wonderful and peaceful a place for you as possible."

"Your Majesty." Aura brought him out of his new-father-enamoured-with-baby-daughter session. "If you're done, perhaps you can show the Princess to your brother. An-and your sisters, of course! We'll call you in when Her Majesty is well enough to see you and the babe."

He looked to the nurse, and then through the doorway where the birthing chamber was, and where his brave wife was sleeping, exhausted to the point of feeling dead, smelling like blood and sweat and mucus.