[Significantly backdated]
"Your son, my lady," the midwife said, settling a tiny bundle within the lady's arms. Exhaustion threaded through every fiber of Ink's being, her hair plastered against her forehead by sweat, the young woman took her child. Purple eyes stared into purple, and something within the lady's heart crumbled, and broke before that gaze. Tears stung her eyes, and she stared hopelessly into the face that she had condemned to a terrible fate. This precious, innocent child was to be the son of Lord Redrick. The guilt was... unbearable, and her heart broke to think of her infant child at the mercy of that monstrous man.
A well of love rushed its way into her soul, and she began to cry. The midwife, who had not yet left her, looked on with an inscrutable expression. There was no accounting for a young mother's responses. But the sobs, however muffled she tried to make them, were of heartbreak and remorse. There was nothing and no one in the world that could save this child from the wretched doom that lay before him. Nor the slight, weary mother, whose jet black hair hid the grief that had so violently taken her.
The tiny boy began to cry, and Lady Ink rocked him, shushing him as gently as a whisper of silk.
"Indrick," Lord Redrick declared, striding into the room. "The boy shall be called Indrick. Now, let me see my son." Prying the child from his mother's unwilling arms, Lord Redrick held him high. A flicker of panic crossed Ink's face as she watched him hold the boy, head and neck unsupported. But the lord shifted his hold, securing him into the crook of his arm, and turned to watch his lady. "You have done well, my dear. Rest, for our son will need tending when you awaken." He leaned down, the motion causing the young woman to flinch away from him, but he only brushed his lips against her forehead.
Silence reigned, and the lord handed the baby off to an attendant. Ink watched her son helplessly, needing to hold him, and yet denied that very thing. Without another word to her, the lord left the room, talking loudly to one of his hangers on. His boastful voice jarred her as she reached out for the babe.
"No, my lady, you must rest," said the midwife. "It was a difficult birth. Your son is in good hands." But Ink, who only wished to hold him, could only lay back uselessly upon the pillows that cradled her. The bitterness of that parting was nearly as painful as the silence from a certain bird. She could do nothing about either, and so she closed her eyes, tears trailing down both cheeks.
Defeated.
Teiha