I love you.

Most women in the city must have family in the country, right? And the outcomes are better because there's less disease – maybe we should set up a fund to pay for women in Alexandria to travel to their villages for childbirth and lying-in, and see if the numbers look better. That's what the people who can afford it do in Galt. I'm from Isarn, but I was born in the town where my mother's people live, and had my wet-nurse there. Six months, Naima, I don't understand how anyone could stand to be away from their baby for so long, even if they can afford to visit, we're so lucky, our child won't die of pox or consumption or scarlet fever. 

(He's going to fix it for everyone. His prototype almost works. One day, wizards will be able to cast Remove Disease as easily as Light or Mending).

I can get a gaggle of women from Mut in here if you like, but I don't know if that would help. I could get your mother and sisters and Saira – or I could get Catherine to do it, because I don't want to leave even for twelve seconds. I wish I could experience this with you. It's not fair that only you have to suffer to bring our child into the world, and – this is probably insulting, you can tell me to shut up, I should probably shut up right now – I want to know what it's like. The last thing in the world I want is for any of this to be hidden from me. You're the strongest person I've ever met. I think the mortal condition is to be ridiculous, and the fact that you were in Tian Xia saving other people's babies until eight hours ago is ridiculous, and I'm ridiculous and you're ridiculous and little Ines-or-Zaire is going to be ridiculous, and I love them, and I love you. 

She loves him, too. And she's glad he's here, and she feels better knowing how he's thinking about this, and about her. She tries to send these to him without quite forming them neatly into words, because apparently she's coherent enough to babble on her own for however long but isn't entirely coherent enough to promptly respond to anything anyone else says. When she does get her words back they don't seem very interested in covering anything important.

It would be a good thing to test, how much better going out to the country looks, even if it wouldn't make any money. It would mostly be a terrible thing if having the maternity ward here were convincing people not to, if we can't actually offer any real improvements. And I guess I don't actually know how many women in the city have close family in the country, only having lived in the city for a handful - aaaaugh.

Maybe she's just going to gently headbutt him for the next little while, and hope that he can do something sensible with whatever kind of prompt that is.

He can – stroke her hair? That seems like an appropriate thing to do in this situation?? He'd like to be more than appropriate – maybe even helpful – but there's absolutely nothing he can do. 

You can do this – it won't be long now – I love you, I love you – 

And, in fact, it isn't long. The next nurse check-in brings with it the Pharasmin cleric-midwife, who sits with her and tells her when it's time to push. Dahab shows up to fetch things for the midwife, and then to stand awkwardly in the background, occasionally praying audibly (though Naima can't make out what for). 

It's hard. It's not harder than stopping Isarn from being dragged into hell, or saving Bachuan from its hubris, but it calls on different kinds of strength, ones that haven't been tested so recently. She holds her husband's hand very tightly, and doesn't move from the spot where she kneels by the bed. She focuses all of her energy on pushing out the beautiful new life she's grown inside herself, like some kind of mad alchemist. Anyone would be horrified and awed by this project that she's seen to fruition, if all women didn't work whatever not-quite-magic she has worked here. She stops worrying, somewhere in the middle, about whether she looks dignified while she does it.

And then it is over. The midwife cradles the child as it slides out, then hands it off to Dahab and heals up the bleeding. Naima finds herself sobbing, half in exhaustion and half in relief, and briefly collapses against the bed.

     "It's a girl," announces Dahab, quietly. She offers the blood-covered baby to Élie, maybe because Naima looks a little iffy on the holding things front.

A girl. Inés Saira. She has ten fingers and ten toes and a mind endowed with the potential for reason and like all babies looks a little bit like a hobgoblin. She's perfect. 

"Hello, Ines," he says, since he remembers you're supposed to talk to babies. "Your mama and I love you so, so much. If we were better people we might have waited longer to meet you, but we're impatient, so we didn't have time to fix everything up before you got here. But – oh, no, my darling, don't cry, you're safe, I promise, we wouldn't have brought you here if you weren't – that's the way – "

Inés gurgles. 

Naima, help. Her nose is very small and I do not know how I shall live. 

A long time ago - before they were married, before Naima proposed, before she had even settled on Élie at all - one of the very first things that made her consider him was the thought that he would be so good with any babies she had, and that she would be picking a father for them who was overflowing with love and adoration for tiny little humans who can't even do anything.

Naima loves being right. She also loves getting to admire her own handiwork, and she feels that this is near the top of the list. Everything that came before is worth it, for this moment, and for getting to look forward to all of the ones that will come after it. 

Oh, look at her. We made an entire person. Isn't she lovely?

She has all the same parts that adult people have but none of them are the same size and one day she will learn how to talk and I do believe she's trying to grab my finger right now, she hasn't been in the world ten minutes and she's already pursuing goals, she must be terribly precocious.

And at the same time he's telling Inés that she is beautiful and clever and certainly destined to be a great wizard, unless she decides she would like to be something else, in which case they'll make that happen for her, even if she wants to be the moon, although he'd really rather she didn't because it's very dangerous, being the moon – 

They're so adorable. She should probably be thinking about feeding Inés here, at some point, but she's still kind of exhausted, and she's maybe going to take a couple more moments to watch them, first. Her family. She has such a good family, probably the best family that anyone's ever made for themselves, and she's going to make sure that nothing ever happens to any of them, ever.

"Love you," she says, leaning again Élie a little, and doesn't bother figuring out who she's saying it to.