She still seems kind of fragile but she's so much less defensive and irritable and hard to navigate. It feels less like she has decided to judge him for everything he does. 

Afterwards he holds her and tells her that she's wonderful and he's proud of her and he knows it's hard, and casts lots of healing spells.

Her fear spell doesn't actually make her any less afraid, it just makes it easier to continue doing whatever you're trying to do even if you're completely terrified. It doesn't do anything for pain, either, but the pain is similarly less disruptive than it otherwise would be.

It hurts a lot. It hurts after he finishes and it hurts after the healing spells. But she doesn't yell, and she doesn't cry, and she doesn't complain, once the spell's worn off. She lets him hold her, and she kisses him again, and she feels like everything inside her is very dark and empty.

They should be able to do this as often as he likes now, probably. Since it works.

He's so relieved. He feels so much more like maybe they can do this thing. He falls asleep holding her.

She sleeps poorly in the months that follow, waking up several times a night. Sometimes this is the result of a nightmare, and sometimes there's no apparent cause. If Hagan is awake, he usually dismisses her. She ends up very tired almost all the time, sleeping at odd hours and trying very hard not to cry when she's awake. She's worse at listening and worse at thinking. It's hard to process complicated conversations. They never spend mornings together anymore. Mornings were the only time when their interactions were mostly positive. She doesn't think they have genuine positive interactions anymore. This is fine.

She takes to spending most of her time in her bed. When she's not sleeping, she's generally reading, or at least pretending to read. Sometimes she asks for histories, and sometimes she reads whatever books Verita and Zakiya bring her. She reads more slowly than she used to. Walking hurts more and more, and while she still walks to dinner and to Hagan's bed and back to her room, she doesn't subject herself to it unnecessarily. She's weaker and paler than she was. She tries very hard not to look like she's in pain, at least when people other than Zakiya are around, and manages to walk almost normally.

Verita visits her. She knows something's wrong. Eventually she stops asking what. She shows her her magic. Sometimes she reads aloud to her. Sometimes she looks like she's trying not to cry. She talks about Fazil and his wife, sometimes, trying to reassure her that someone else is looking out for her.

Korva starts throwing up in the mornings. Takes to spending a lot of her time in the bathtub, where it's colder and a little easier to clean things up. She tries very hard to eat enough, even when all food sounds horrible. Her body aches in more places. 

She can't actually limit the throwing up to her own bathroom, if she keeps spending the night in Hagan's bed. At some point she throws up in his bathroom, and there's really no hiding that, is there.

- this is almost certainly good news and he is confused about why she would even try to hide it! Is she all right? Does she want a seriously excessive barrage of healing spells, again, they don't seem to help her as thoroughly as they should but they can't hurt and there's ones for nausea specifically - 

"Do you think you're expecting -"

She doesn't specifically protest the healing spells. Not being nauseous anymore is good. She still hurts everywhere, from having to walk and bend over, not that she's going to say anything about that.

"Seems possible," she says, quietly, still kneeling on the bathroom floor.

He picks her up and carries her back into bed. 

Kisses her forehead. 

"I love you. What do you think you need right now -"

She's so tired. It's hard to think. But she's in bed again, so maybe she gets to sleep today. It'd be so nice to get to sleep today.

"I don't think I need anything in particular."

"Okay." He will sit beside her and pat her. "How are you feeling?"

Has to answer honestly. She thinks there's a law. Doesn't have to answer completely.

"Tired. Not nauseous anymore."

"Should I let you sleep?"

- she can't say "if you want", that's not the right thing to say here. It's hard to think of the right things. They have to not be trying to get anything and they have to also not call attention to the fact that she's not trying to get anything, she doesn't think he'd like it if it sounded like she was trying to remind him of that.

"Might be good for the baby," she tries, after a moment.

He kisses her forehead. "Sleep well, love."

She never does.

She can close her eyes and try to rest, though. Eventually she manages a few more hours. Wakes up again. She's still tired, but a little less.

He has already left for his meetings; breakfast is on the table, and an unfamiliar servant is sweeping.

....she doesn't know what she's supposed to be doing.

Doing things is very hard, so she ends up defaulting to staring at the ceiling. She doesn't have paper or books, so she can't do anything here. She can snuggle up under the covers and not do anything that hurts, though.

Eventually she forces herself to get up and nibble on breakfast. It takes a long time; she gets nauseous again if she eats too much of it, and has to stop. And sometimes she forgets that she's supposed to be eating, and ends up just staring into space for a while at a time.

Nobody's told her to leave, and she doesn't really want to walk if she doesn't have to, but she also isn't sure whether going back to bed would be a bad thing to do, so she ends up stuck at the table.

"Should I fetch anyone?" the servant asks eventually.

" - hm?"

"Would you like me to get anybody for you. A healer or your personal maid or anything."

"Uh. I don't - I'm fine."

She's not really supposed to be here. It's probably bad to be here. And if she's here she has to keep interacting with unfamiliar people. She stands up to leave, and then - immediately feels really nauseous again and has to head back to the bathroom instead.

The servant will shrug and go back to cleaning.

She throws up again. She hates throwing up in front of people. It's humiliating. She hadn't quite realized how much less bad that feeling was in front of Zakiya. When she's done she prestidigitates herself clean.

She's going to need to eat again, now. Since she threw up. There's no more food here.

She makes herself stand up and head back to her room.

" - hey. What happened -"

"Threw up breakfast. Need to eat more but - maybe in a bit."

"Lemme call someone in."