She is okay with this. This doesn't mean a lot because she's committed to being as okay as she can possibly be with everything that happens, but she doesn't think it's causing any further damage. She gets a little better at talking. She does not start weighing her own interests at all.

She asks Zakiya to make a large donation to the temple of Erastil, for the care of orphans and the sick. She doesn't know whether she gets any points for this but it's what Hagan said he wanted. And she remembers working at the temple of Erastil for a month, years ago. She's pretty sure they'll make good use of it.

Giving birth is pretty horrible but it isn't clearly the worst experience of her life or anything. And the cleric heals the bleeding right up. They hand her a baby girl. She's tiny and warm and soft and helpless and very very important. She's not very good at feeling emotions, but she's very sure that she would die for her. It is a fact about the universe.

She feeds the very very important tiny helpless human.

He's not supposed to watch his wife give birth but he waits outside, snaps at people, comes in as soon as they say she's ready. 

Poor little baby who deserves so much better than becoming pharaoh of Osirion. 

They have the potion on hand to change the baby's sex. 

Then the baby can become a little boy baby. (He cries about it. Probably doesn't like the taste.)

She will go back to snuggling and trying to feed her baby if anybody thinks to give her her baby back.

They do, once he's a little boy baby. 

"I love you. How are you feeling?"

"I don't - know, exactly. Tired."

"The ring should help with that. Babies are hard without one but with - it's supposed to be okay. You can have more staff, if you want them."

Nodnod. That sounds hard and complicated but not having people also sounds hard and complicated. She will maybe just focus on feeding this baby again. Maybe she can get the taste of that potion out of his mouth.

"Would you like me to stay here with you?"

"You can."

"Okay." 

He does. "He's beautiful."

Nodnod.

"I'm proud of you. I know it was really awful getting here. But - you'll be a good mother. This is the part you're good at."

"'M not very sure of this. I'll - try."

"Can you tell me about him?"

...nod.

"I mean, right now. Can you tell me about him right now."

"Oh.

"He's very small, and warm, and helpless, and he didn't like the potion, and he's still figuring out how nursing works."

"Does he feel safe here?"

"...I think maybe he's scared when he's not with somebody he knows. And he might be scared anyway, but... less."

"Do you remember when Verita was that small?"

"Little bit. Forgot exactly how small they are."

"So small.

Can I hold him?"

Nodnod. Here is a baby.

He holds his baby. He kisses his baby, very gently. 

"That's your mother," he tells the baby seriously. "She is the bravest and kindest and smartest woman I have ever known, and everyone who she loves is very lucky, and she loves you, and so you are very lucky, even though you are also very unlucky because you will have to be pharaoh."

For some reason this makes much more of an impression than any of the other nice things he's said about her in the past year. Mostly her brain just kind of skips over them, like there isn't a real meaning to them and they're just things you say to fill out a grammatical form, or something, but she doesn't feel like that about this.

She starts crying. Silently. She thinks she cries a sort of ridiculous amount, but maybe this time it's a little less ridiculous than normal. Maybe people are allowed to cry when they meet their babies.