Page 23

She dragged her face off the bed and lifted back so she could peek down at them when she didn’t hear a cry. Immediately worried, she furrowed her brows at the strange black blobby creature between her knees.

It didn’t look human, although it did have an impression of a baby shape – two stubby little arms and legs, a torso, and a head.

Their featureless, oval face was pointed around their nose and mouth like a muzzled creature.

They had no eyes – not even concaves to allude to any – and they had tiny little ear holes rather than fleshy ears.

Their little toes and fingers were stubby, with tiny, pointed tips like claws, but they were bent in different directions, as if they were soft rather than sharp and hard.

She realised then that they weren’t actually black but such a dark grey that they appeared so.

They laid there still as stone but languid. She noticed that although they had the evidence of a cord, it must have snapped or ripped during birth, as the rest was no longer attached to her.

Their stomach wasn’t moving.

Gasping in fear, she grabbed her newborn something and began rubbing what she thought might be their back.

Their body was soft, squishy – as if they completely lacked any bones – and jiggled wildly.

At least they were hot to the touch. They flopped for a few strokes before slitted nose holes flared open and they coughed up dark muck.

Lindi had held a newborn before, as she’d visited a couple in her village not long after the women had given birth. She remembered the feel of them, how delicate, fragile, and incapable they were. How their little cries sounded, and the way they looked around sightlessly and mindlessly.

That’s what she’d been expecting.

Something that would need assistance in everything they did.

Her child was so tiny that it barely fit into both her trembling hands when she went to cup them around it securely. Despite how odd they looked, the fact that they appeared blind made her heart ache for them.

She lifted her own child so she could hold them, properly inspect them, and... cuddle them like she was supposed to.

Lindi didn’t expect for them to breathe in, and then for a horrible shriek – so loud it pierced her already ringing ears – to come from them.

They leapt out of her hold and lunged within the span of a heartbeat.

Lindi screamed when they parted what she originally thought was a non-existent mouth to reveal a hard zig-zagging line of black jagged fangs as they bit her.

Tearing through her shirt, their fangs sliced into her biceps.

Terrified, confused, and in agony, Lindi ripped them away from her.

Her skin tore further in the process, and she belted out a cry.

Before she even had the chance to let go of them, they lunged again, this time biting into her thigh just above her knee.

“Weldir!” Lindi cried.

Her body protested as she fell back onto her arse and started to scramble away with horrified tears welling.

She scratched them off her bare thigh when they bit it again, this time taking a small chunk from her.

She turned incorporeal before they could do anything more, and they lunged for the blood-soiled blanket she’d originally placed them on.

As they twisted themselves up, burying into the blanket and chewing on it, high-pitched, infant snarls came from the red-and-white bundle.

A black tendril shot out from Weldir’s mist. The moment it sunk into the baby thing , deeper than just the skin’s surface, they turned incorporeal. They also immediately stopped moving as if they’d gone to sleep.

A sorrowful rage had Lindi parting her lips to shout at him, but she was shoved into darkness before she could even utter a word.

The moment Lindi appeared in Weldir’s realm of nothingness and weightlessness took over, she turned physical. What the fuck? What in the absolute fuck?! As much as she tried to scamper away, her legs did nothing but kick at the emptiness and keep her exactly where she was.

Turning physical removed the ache between her thighs, but she didn’t care about that other than covering herself by shoving her shirt down.

“What the hell are you?!” she screamed, watching as her baby was brought to his arm by his tendril.

He touched the creature, as if he was able to hold them. Or, rather, the solid parts of him were able to. The chalky parts of him, which had been diluting over the course of the night, rested under the child to hold them.

“I told you,” he stated with an emptiness. “I am an Elven demi-god.”

“I know what you told me, but you said you weren’t evil,” she snapped back, wishing she could feel the tears coming from her. They floated off her jawline instead of dripping to the ground in this lack-of-gravity place. “You said your children wouldn’t be evil.”

“We aren’t–”

“It tried to eat me the moment I gave birth!” Her shout was so twisted and raw with emotion it was more like a screech. “Do you understand how fucked up that is?!”

The parts of his face she could see tilted down to the child sleeping on top of his forearm. “Yes. Well–”

“I gave birth to a Demon! The very thing you said you were fighting against!”

His head cocked so sharply, she thought most people would have snapped their neck. His nose lifted, as if he greeted her eyes, not that she could tell by the lack of them present currently.

“This creature is not a Demon.”

Her bottom lip trembled as she said, “Then what is it?”

His mouth tightened before dispersing, and he looked down once more. “I am... uncertain.”

“You never know anything!” Lindi, with her free hand, fisted the messy, sweat-soaked strands of her hair. “You are the most useless god I’ve ever heard of! You’re not all-knowing or all-powerful. How can you not know what your own child will become?!”

“Calm, female.” He said this, but there was a sternness to his deep tone, a disgruntled demand in it. “You’re only upset after your ordeal.”

She ignored his ire when hers outweighed it.

“Upset?!” she bit out. “I just spent hours giving birth to your child, essentially alone, and it bit me three fucking times. You can’t even tell me what they are. Of course I’m upset!”

Lindi was exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to finish the process – because her stupid body still felt the pressure of an afterbirth – and then curl into a ball and sleep for an eternity.

She’d been hoping to maybe cuddle them and take care of them as she rested.

Even though her pregnancy had been thankfully short, she’d still grown attached to them.

Maybe her child could have been something she could adore in her loneliness. Now she was just frightened and concerned about whatever evil she may have brought into the world!

“Return back to your Phantom form and I will heal you,” Weldir stated. “It’s not their fault.”

“Not their fault?!” she yelled. She opened her mouth to say they chose to attack her, but he spoke over the top of her.

“They are a baby,” he stated coldly, and it shocked her silent.

Because he was right...

Yes, it was only a baby, and likely didn’t understand anything about the world.

He waved his free arm to the side, and the entire thing evaporated into mist when he finished – and never returned, as if what had been keeping him physical was wearing out. Less and less of him was visible, and the white glow in his chest was growing smaller by the minute.

“I can see that, like me, they are half-formed. I have no idea as to why they attacked you, but they are asleep now and I sense no hostility from them. They may have been frightened from leaving the safety of your womb. Do not judge them so harshly when you, nor I, know the answer.”

Lindi blew air into her cheeks until they puffed, and it forced her bottom lip forward into a pout. Okay, so maybe he had a point, and that did make her heart squeeze in pity for them.

They may have been disorientated. Giving birth to them had been traumatising for her, but they’d also just gone through an ordeal.

Feeling rather guilty about her reaction, she turned incorporeal as an apology. To show that she was sorry and that she kind of – not really – trusted him.

She gave him a wincing plea. Nothing reached out to her, but her wounds instantly began to fill with black, glittering sand. It tickled, rather than being abrasive, and her wounds, even the one between her thighs, faded.

Even the blood on her skin and clothing disappeared.

“You have said some hurtful things, Lindiwe.” The lack of emotion in his tone made it hard to tell if he was actually upset or not.

“Forgive me for not being impressed, nor impressive, right now.” She eyed the creature on his arm with deep-seated wariness. “Y-you promise they aren’t a Demon?”

“Yes, as I am not one myself – although my creation is entirely due to them.”

Lindi’s head tilted at that. “What do you mean?”

If his arm hadn’t been missing, would he have waved it dismissively? His shoulder joint twitching gave her that impression.

“Never mind. It is unimportant.” The creature didn’t stir at all, even when it was brought before Weldir’s face to be inspected further.

“I have no idea what they will turn into, but I’m slightly disappointed they are not properly formed, nor entirely Elven.

I was hoping your mortality would make them whole. ”

Her nose scrunched. “Are you seriously blaming me?”

“Blaming you?” The child moved to the side in the air so he could look at her. “When did I ever insinuate such a thing? I’m merely stating the truth of my thoughts.”

Okay, that was fair. Lindi was just on an emotional whirlwind due to hormones and her terrifying night! She wanted to feel awful about that, but she just couldn’t muster up the will to give a shit right then. She was actually relatively calm, all things considered.

“You have done brilliantly in your role. There is nothing more you could have done, and the fact that they at least have a physical form means I am proud. Hopefully they will grow the rest on their own. We will have to wait and see, although it is concerning that they are sightless. Perhaps they have their own way of seeing the world, and more importantly, souls.”

Lindi averted her gaze to the side, and tried to not let the strange, half-hearted compliments get to her.

Yet, surprisingly, him being proud of her did make her feel better.

She was proud of herself and that she hadn’t gone insane with how her life had turned.

She’d made all these choices, had consented to everything, and she was trying her hardest to wear it all bravely.

She let Weldir inspect them in his own time, while her own eyes drooped. She was tired, and she wanted rest more than anything. She wished she felt comfortable enough around Weldir to let herself drift off, but she was currently not wearing pants and in a place that felt wrong.

There was nothing here, no warmth or cold, but also no scents.

It didn’t feel real, which warped in her mind that she didn’t exist. It was often harrowing, like she was haunting the place just as much as he was.

With the way she floated, she often worried her next breath would be filled with water and that she’d been dreaming the entire time as she drowned.

Her eyes slitted from the weight of her sleep-straining lids, but she kept watching him tilt the child one way and then the other.

“I know you will not sleep comfortably here, so I will return you back to where you were.”

“I thought you couldn’t do that,” Lindi muttered softly, although pointedly.

“I left a small amount of my mist behind so that I may do so. Consuming the soul in the way I did allows me to do small things like this temporarily.” The fact that Weldir had thought to do such a thing for her benefit was both relieving and surprising.

She didn’t think he’d show her any modicum of respect for where she wanted to rest. “I will keep our offspring until you have rested and then return them to you.”

Her skin ran cold with fear, but she didn’t reject the notion, nor them.

She would learn, and she would adapt, no matter if they continued to be a bloodthirsty thing.

I need to remain resilient.

Even when tears dotted her eyelashes once more, and she thought she’d choke on her next breaths, she needed to stay strong.