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Post by Satra on Feb 22, 2009 19:20:58 GMT -5
[PLEASE FORGIVE ME PEOPLE I OWE THREADS TO. It's just.. this muse charged me and punched me right in the face. I had to do it. >> ] Hadrian didn't know how long he'd been unconscious for. That was quite possibly the most painful experience he'd ever undergone in his life. He was being told how the medical staff had saved his life and was now being read a list of precautions he'd have to be taking for the next several months. Male pregnancy was... a complicated thing. He'd be weak for a while, several months, by their guesses. He shouldn't be doing strenuous physical labor until he was fully healed. He'd passed out right after giving birth. Several hours later when he woke up again, he stared at the basket he knew contains his unnamed child. One of the nurses smiled at him. "Are you feeling alright?" "No... I feel like I was sedated by a sack of bricks... but can I see... it?" he looked up at the woman. She nodded, and touched the side of his head gently. She turned around, scooped up the child, and showed him. She could only smile... not able to sincerely get out a 'Congratulations'. She worked here long enough to know exactly how the father would react. "It's a boy," she told him. At first, Hadrian smiled. His... son. That... thing came out of him. Then it hit him. The Gold. It was too rare of an occurrence for it to be anyone else. "Oh... suits..." this couldn't be happening. -- Another several hours went by. Another several hours of a drug-induced haze. When the painkillers finally began to wear off, Hadrian requested the child set down next to him since he wasn't going to sleep again any time soon. He had a servant go fetch Anoushka. He just stared at the sleeping child. Her Highness was not going to be pleased. |
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Post by The Jenn on Feb 22, 2009 19:28:13 GMT -5
Anoushka never assumed that Hadrian's pregnancy had anything to do with her. Naively, she preferred to think on the various other women, and possibly men, that the boy had bonked since his time at the Court. She'd taught him quite a few things, she was sure, especially considering their relative and and... experience... differences. She could have been his grandmother. It made her smirk to think about it. She still had it! When one of the servants came to fetch her to the Jack's bedside, she was briefly confused, but assumed that he wanted to tell her himself that he wouldn't be able to work for a few weeks. Silly pup could have just sent a message or a note. He was a sweet one, though, if rough around the edges, and probably worrying about offending her. He knew her opinion well enough on children. Hell, he'd asked at one point why she'd never had kids, and she flat out told him that she'd deck him if he ever brought the subject up again. Entering the room, she wondered why the servant so timidly skittered away. Had the birth been complicated? Was he ill? Slightly more concerned now, she strode into the room. "Hadrian? Vhatever is the matter, boy? Are you feeling vell enough, then? Vhy-" She stopped mid-question. That little squirmy thing on the bed, covered in a peach fuzz of fur. That wasn't a coyote. That was a wolf. She could tell. And it had gold on its back. Her mouth snapped shut with an audible click and she just stared, her expression horrified. |
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Post by Satra on Feb 22, 2009 19:38:58 GMT -5
He had a nice conversation with the nurse until Anoushka arrived. She'd even helped him some up with a name. Radek. Radek was an excellent name. It just... fit him. He hoped Anoushka would agree.
Then Anoushka came in. The Nurse was gone in the blink of an eye. He didn't blame her. He wished he could have done the same. That look on her face... he knew nothing he could have done would have prepared her for this... but he suddenly wished he was a little stronger at least before he'd summoned her.
He was silent for a little while, then spoke, breaking the heavy silence.
"Anoushka... I... I don't know what to say... I know you never wanted kids... I wouldn't be offended if you left him up to me entirely..." he took a breath in, waiting for it.
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Post by The Jenn on Feb 22, 2009 19:48:52 GMT -5
Anoushka was doing her best to just breathe. In and out. In and out. In and- "FUCKING HELL, HADRIAN!" she roared, then gritted her teeth hard enough that there was an audible grind and squeak as they protested. Don't yell at the man who just gave birth to a child. That was a shitty thing to do. He just gave birth.
To her child.
"I don't care if you're offended or not," she growled, all of her hackles raised to their fullest point. "You keep that thing avay from me, you hear?! If I so much as catch vind of it, I vill make you vish it had never been born." She turned and stormed out of the room, hands clenched into fists and shaking with emotion.
The thought of having children had been squashed from her mind ever since that bastard of a peacock Queen had cheated on her with his three other wives so many years ago. After that abortion, she'd despised the very thought of ever spawning. She'd had her uterus removed along with the brood of the man who had ripped out her heart, and had thought that would be that. The doctors had told her that she didn't have much in the way of sperm to work with, and she hadn't thought about it in years.
She couldn't think. She couldn't breathe. She was seventy-four years old. She should not be a parent.
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Post by Satra on Feb 22, 2009 19:57:15 GMT -5
Hadrian just stared wide-eyed back at her. There were so many things he wanted to say. It wasn't anyone's fault, for one. He wanted to assure her that her wish was his command as far as this went.
There was a voice in the back of his mind that wanted to ask her if they'd ever sleep together again and what she thought of the name he came up with.
But he didn't dare say a word. He let her storm out. The medical staff slowly re entered the room. Hadrian just stared at the door for a few moments, then turned back to the nurse.
"I think we'll stick with Radek..."
--
It was barely a month an a half later, and Hadrian was still walking a little funny. He was allowed to do a little weeding, but only with his magic. He watched and smiled as the young puppy wiggled around on the grass. He thanked luck, fate, whatever it was that made him born a freed Torque. Hadrian didn't know what he would've done had he have to put those miserable bindings on him.
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Post by The Jenn on Feb 22, 2009 20:07:35 GMT -5
For a month and a half, Anoushka threw herself into her work to the point where she didn't have to think. All she had to do was work and work and eat and work and fall into bed at night. Half of the time her body let her get away with it. The other half, sleep wasn't so easy in coming, even after fifteen, sixteen, seventeen hours of paperwork and meetings and drills with the guards. She slept poorly some nights and woke up snappish and irritable, with a throbbing headache and an aching body.
It was getting older. She could feel it every morning in her joints and her muscles, and she fought it with everything she had. She'd been fighting the inevitable for years. It was still working, but who knew for how long?
She hadn't seen hide or hair of the boy, and took great pains to ignore Hadrian. In her own way, she kept tabs on him in order to be in a different place than wherever he was. Others could give him tasks and orders. For the most part, he knew what to do anyway. She just couldn't stand to look at him and know what he'd brought into this world.
--
Another few months passed, four or five, and over the course of that period she began to wonder. There were murmurs around the Court, of course, about the little Torque child who'd been born completely free. It was a rare enough occurrence than some outside the palace knew about it, and one or two Torquehelms made the journey just to get a glimpse of the child out of hope or trepidation or disbelief. Sure, some managed to free themselves in adulthood, as Anoushka had. Being born free, though... that was something significant.
She also heard that he was healthy, squirmy, and loud. Six months had passed since his birth and she had to admit a certain degree of curiosity. What... did he really look like? She'd gotten the barest glimpse, but that was all. Did he have any sort of personality to speak of yet? She didn't know when children developed a sense of self.
The thoughts nagged at her, mostly at night when she was trying to fall asleep. There was also a healthy dose of guilt. Really, it hadn't been Hadrian's fault that all of this had happened, not at all. She had quite happily seduced him several years back, and he had gone along for the ride. The very fun ride. She was being a complete and utter ass, and remarkably unfair.
Ultimately, it was her guilt that brought her to see him, rather than the child's existence.
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Post by Satra on Feb 23, 2009 1:40:54 GMT -5
Months passed and the child grew. Did they really get so big so fast?
His first steps had come at first as a blessing, then as sheer terror. He could just hear his Mother's laughter ringing from the Heart's Court that he was finally getting everything he terrorized her with when he was this age. Thank the suits he'd healed from the birth by the time the child had learned to walk. He wondered how long it would be before he started going out of his way to break things.
He was noisy, too. He was making noises that almost sounded like words, but he mostly just made noise.
He was curious, too. Anything he could sniff at, he did. Nobles, busy servants, breakable things, chairs, desks, plants, pet Aces, banders... anything. He didn't differentiate between the unfreed Torquehelms than any one else. Except after a while, everyone in the Court got used to him, but the very small handful of visitors always exhibited a fresh wonder for the boy. Hadrian was a touch uncomfortable with the prospect of people who went out of their way to request entrance to the Court of Clubs so they can gawk at a child. He attempted the political acting Anoushka had tried to teach him, pretending to be the stereotypical unfriendly Solandrian hoping it would make these people go away faster.
He was also becoming increasingly annoyed with Anoushka. This wasn't his fault. He understood not wanting to take care of the kid. She was always busy and, well, she was old. Raising a child wasn't going to be something she would take well to. But completely giving him the cold shoulder? For months on end? That just pissed him off. She was going to get a meeting with him soon whether she liked it or not.
"Gotcha!" he laughed in triumph when he caught up to the child and pinned him to the ground. He almost set off at a very clumsy run at someone who just turned the corner, "Little rascal. Don't be a pain in the ass to--" he looked up to see who it was. His smile immediately dropped, "Anoushka..."
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Post by The Jenn on Feb 23, 2009 14:56:21 GMT -5
Looking at the child was like staring into some bizarre, time-warp of a mirror. Save for the gender, the lack of bindings, and the placement of his markings, he could have been a miniature her at that age. Which was, of course, the problem. Golden eyes stared into their tiny duplicate's before hers twitched upward to regard the canine pinning the pup to the ground.
She couldn't help the jab. "Hadrian. Excellent use of language around children." And that hadn't been what she'd wanted to say at all. Her muzzle set into a half-grimace and she crossed her arms over her chest in an uneasy, defensive-aggressive gesture. This entire situation set her on edge and moved her out of her league.
How could she speak to him without sounding awkward? Oh well. She'd been in more embarrassing situations in her lifetime than most people had the pleasure of experiencing. "Sorry. Force of habit. I'm a bitch, and you already know that qvite vell. Ve should talk."
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Post by Satra on Feb 23, 2009 15:26:36 GMT -5
Radek made every effort to approach this new person despite being held back by his Mother. Hadrian ignored her comment and stared back at her. She was right, of course. He needed to start watching his language around the kid, but months of ignoring him and her first comment to him was on the care of Radek?
He gave a sigh of relief. At least she was receptive to the idea of talking and he wouldn't have to force his way to attempt to reason with his superior.
"All true statements, Your Highness," he agreed. He hated social confrontations, but he had to go through with this, "Shall I get someone to watch him for a bit while we go somewhere else?" He assumed she wouldn't want to have this talk in the middle of a public hallway. Radek looked back up at her with gold eyes and barked at her for attention while wagging his tail.
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Post by The Jenn on Feb 23, 2009 15:37:10 GMT -5
Watching him sigh and relax the tiniest bit when she relented made Anoushka feel like more of an ass. Which she was. Damnit all. "Yes, that vould be a good idea. Ve can discuss things in my office, or in the garden. Really, I don't care vhere. Someplace less public, hopefully." Unless he was the type for overt drama, which she certainly didn't think was the case.
The high-pitched barking made her glance down reflexively and she caught another stare from the wide golden eyes. She stared back, her expression changing from a half-grimace to something less easily pegged, neither entirely pleasant nor unpleasant. "He looks... vell," was her only comment at that point. No, she did not want to have this conversation with a six-month-old puppy in the room to distract her and set her even more on edge. When it was just Hadrian, she had the feeling she would be able to relax a little bit.
She didn't want to talk about any of this, but she owed it to him and she knew it. At the very least, more of an explanation was in order.
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