all I’m saying is that if pro-lifers were actuallyabout protecting children’s lives…they’d also demand that the father serves as an obligatory blood and organ donor later.
Are you an idiot? One has nothing to do with the other.
How about we force birth mothers to be organ donors as well?
hey look, finally someone walked right into that one!
As they neared home, Martin’s eyes closed for a moment, and he let the evening warmth and the sound of Jon’s voice bathe him, and his heart beat in a new time: Aamal, Aamal, Aamal.
when you’ve just chosen a name for your upcoming baby and you have to go home and just stare at your beautiful partner for a while <3
a little illustration for ch 4 of my jmart kid fic, Do It All Anew!
thought i’d illustrate an upcoming scene from my jmart kid fic, Do It All Anew!! it’s taking me 100 years to finish this chapter but i promise im still writing
As ever, many many thanks to @detroitbydark who has listened to me rant about Kal for many months now. We’re almost finished! Also this is basically unedited please forgive me.
Summary:Kal’buir finds his baby mama and Orla gets revenge.
Warnings:Torture (mild), violence, gore, pregnancy, sensitive medical exam (!!)
Words: 5500
Kyrimorut, Northern Mandalore
18 BBY
Mereel doesn’t know he’d kept it - the recording from the garrison. Maybe he’d think his buir had finally gone a bit soft in the head, but he finds himself watching it over and over again, in the downtime while they plan, his singular focus. By now he can practically feel the rifle butt on his own face, hear the resounding crack reverberate through the room. What he’d failed to notice until the fourth time he’d watched was the way her hand snakes underneath her as she’s pushed to the ground. It punches him in the gut.
The selfish part of him blames her for putting herself in danger. Because she knew that she was carrying their child and confronted the empire anyway.
It’s the same part of him, he knows, that had raged at Etain for making a decision for Darman. It’s an action that he regrets to this day, with Etain dead and her son sleeping with his dark curly head on his chest. The di’kutla part that was constantly getting him into scrapes and arguments, fistfights and skirmishes. Munin had always commented on his lack of patience, his temper that lit like a tinderbox. It was part of him that he constantly has to keep in check.
Precious weeks have flown by tracking the place down, gathering supplies and finishing the appropriate recce. The more the days tick by, the more anxious he gets. He knows they can’t just bust in. Knowing doesn’t make it easier to swallow, and he turns inward more and more. It’s something he feels he can’t lay on his boys. They’ve surpassed his wildest hopes, with careers and families of their own. Their own worries and responsibilities outside a war and staying alive.
He sits blankly at the table, all planning done with the exception of the transport they’d need, feeling utterly useless for the first time in a long while. In times like these he felt a little Falin come back.
The nightmares of his mangled parents were back to haunt him, and this time there is no Munin Skirata to shake him out of it. A flash of blue and silver comes out the corner of his eye and slams a paper down in front of him wordlessly. Mereel. Kal would know him just from the sound of his walk - more confident than Jaing or Kom’rk, less clipped than Ordo. Entirely his own. A paper materializes on the table in front of him as Mereel drops heavily into the adjacent chair.
“We found this in their records.” Mereel sighs, and Kal notes the sound is becoming more and more burdened. They may age at a regular rate now, but he couldn’t take away the burdens they’d already faced, let alone those to come. The paper before him is lined with transactions connected to nonsense numbers. He looks up at Mereel who’s gone ever so slightly ashen while he stares at the paper.
He’s not comprehending.
“Son?” Mereel looks strained.
“It’s a balance sheet.”
Studying the page again, he tries to parse out what the jumble of numbers and letters mean. Each is connected to a sum of Imperial credits. Large sums. Hundreds of thousands of credits deposited sporadically, all from different accounts.
“They’re selling them.” Kal gapes, struggling to process. When he finally does, he’s not surprised. This new Empire seems awfully unconcerned with the ethics of buying and selling sentients. Not that the Republic was either, he reminds himself. Good old Palps is a practical man.
Mereel points to a specific line about three quarters down the bottom of the page.
“This one I was able to track,” he starts. “They tried to hide behind a few shell companies but ultimately it originates from a Mandalorian account. A private one.”
He feels adrift, like he’s fallen into the river that runs through Keldabe, running over the rocks and drowning in eddies.
“Do you know if-” Mereel cuts him off with a shake of his head, a touch of annoyance in his features.
“It’s still a little early,” he reassures, “but even then we don’t know who’s who. But it stands to reason that a Mandalorian would want a child from one of their own.” He can’t help but agree with Mereel’s logic. Kal scrubs a hand over his face, closing his gritty eyes for a moment before steeling himself again. Looking a little uncomfortable, Mereel rises. “Everything should be ready by tonight.”
Overcome with emotion, he trips over his words. “Mer’ika…I don’t know how to thank you. You and your vode have been through enough. I can’t ask you to-”
“We made our choice,” says Mereel, who meets Kal’s gaze unwaveringly, his eyes a shade softer than Jango’s had ever been. Mereel, never one to act without motive, has just given him more evidence - concrete evidence - of what’s happening at this place. It just feeds the fire that’s been burning since the day she left.
Five ex-ARC troopers, two ex-commandos and a washed up old merc huddle outside two transports. Laden with gear and beskar, they make a formidable sight. Kal feels diminutive, even next to the slightly shorter, slimmer commandos. Mereel takes the lead.
“We’ll find her and get as many of the others out as we can. Kill anyone who resists. K'oyacyi!” Kal slams his buy’ce on and activates their private comm channel as they board their transports.
—
Imperial Rehabilitation Center
Brentaal, Imperial Core
18 BBY
Taren turns the small black rectangle over and over in her hands. Her heart aches for Orla, who lies curled into a ball on her cot across the small room, still out cold from whatever tranq they’d given her. Every so often she twitches and mutters. Taren sits facing her friend, cross legged on her own bed. Pins and needles shoot up her legs as she straightens them and her lower back screams its protest. Satisfied her friend is safe, she slips the chip into the pocket of her trousers and lies on her side. To say she feels ungainly is an understatement. It’s more like enormous. Slow. Sluggish. How she hates it.
If she could just get to a terminal, the datachip in her pocket has enough memory to hold the record of every inmate here. And with any luck, the Empire is keeping track of where the children are being sent. As long as a clumsy tech doesn’t miss a single stray datachip. As long as the both of them can hold out a little while longer.
She tries to work out the details of her plan without thinking of Eryk. How he’d grill her with questions, attacking from every angle to ensure her - their - plan was watertight. His face flashes in her mind’s eye and Taren desperately tries to hold on to the image. It’s only been months but already she feels like she’s losing the details of his face. She fights back a choked sob.
Her son - their son - squirms impatiently. Smoothing a hand over her belly, she tries to picture Eryk’s face when she’d told him she was pregnant. How shock had transformed to pure joy on his normally stoic face. How he’d balked when she insisted on going with him to Sundari the last time. I’m not fragile, she’d told him. I can hold my own. Typical protective Mando. Eryk had finally had thrown his hands up and shoved his buy’ce on. Before she knew it, his body was lying on the ground unmoving and she was being dragged away by stormtroopers. A shudder runs through her. Something hadn’t felt right since this morning; she was nauseous and jittery, utterly drained. The persistent twinge flares and she can’t help but grimace.
When she’s able to stop screwing her eyes shut, she looks back at Ori and finds her friend staring back, eyes narrowed, assessing - clearer than she expects them after being out cold for hours.
“What was that?”
Taren readjusts on her cot. “Nothing,” she replies, “I think I slept weird last night.”
Her friend hums, obviously unconvinced, so Taren tries another approach.
“You’ll never guess what I found,” Taren says, and holds the precious chip up in front of her.
“Where did you get that?” she asks, no small amount of wonder in her voice. Maybe even a little hope.
“Took it off your friend while he was occupied helping you take a nap.” Ori’s eyes narrow again. It was the wrong thing to say; she was obviously remembering last night’s events, as she curled in on herself protectively, her lips tightening into a grim line. But Taren can’t help but continue. It’s too important.
“This is exactly what we needed. If one of us can get to a terminal–” The twinge is back in full force, stealing her breath away. Again she shuts her eyes against the sharp pain, trying to will it to stop. A soft hand is holding hers.
“Try and breathe throught it.” Ori’s voice, calm and clear, cuts through the fog as the pain finally starts to let up. “How long has this really been going on?”
Fighting against the lump in her throat, she opens her eyes to find Ori on her knees beside her cot.
“—couple hours,” she says through her teeth.
“You’re in labor. We need to call the techs.”
She chokes back a sob. “No.”
“Yes, Taren.”
“No,” she hisses, desperate. She feels like a child, tears streaming down her face, younger and more vulnerable than she’s ever been. Her hands shake, clutched in Ori’s, knuckles white against the pain. They should be on Mandalore, her cyare with her. But they aren’t, and the new reality under the Empire has had more than enough time to sink in. As the contraction eases, Taren gets a few better breaths in.
Ori rises and bangs on the door to call a guard. No. This can’t be happening. She thought there would be more time. Time for what, she doesn’t know. Eryk is gone. Taren turns toward the wall, clutching her thin pillow. After a few moments, her friend is back at her side as voices gather outside the door.
“I’m sorry,” Ori says, her voice shaking, “they won’t let me come with you.”
She’s crying in earnest now, terrified, hopeless. Ori strokes her hair back as the guards and techs enter the room with a wheelchair. She puts up a weak fight against the arms that maneuver her body into the chair, begging for her friend to be allowed with her, but it’s no use. She has to go alone.
—–
Imperial Rehabilitation Center
Brentaal, Imperial Core
18 BBY
One Week Later
“You know the drill, doctor.” Dr. Loesch sits at the end of the exam table expectantly, at the level of her knees, as if this is a regular checkup and not a literal prison. She half expects him to start small talking with her. As if he hadn’t sold her baby to the highest bidder. Hadn’t drugged her to keep her quiet and pliant.
He cheerfully pats the bottom edge of the table to urge her along. One of these days I’m gonna kick him right in the face. Her feet are placed in the stirrups and she dutifully scoots her body down the table.
“All right, let’s see how we’re doing this week.” She hears the crinkling of a sterile glove packet and starts counting ceiling tiles. She counts to five before two cool gloved fingers press into her. He’s checking her cervix and she prays it’s not dilated, that she can keep her baby safe for just a little while longer, just a few more weeks. But Empire are impatient to claim their prize.
He never tells her anything. She hasn’t even gotten to see a sono; they always turn the screen away from her during her appointments. She hasn’t dared to think of a name. A real name. Somehow she’s sure it’ll make losing her more painful, if such a thing is possible.
But she and Taren have their insurance. Giving up isn’t an option.
To her horror, he does start making small talk. Loesch hums noncommittally as he takes his glove off, pauses and chuckles to himself.
“You’ve been such a model participant in our program,” he says, letting her close her legs and push back up on the table. “We thought we were going to have such a problem with you at first.” His broad hand squeezes her shoulder and she fights the urge to flinch away.
The nurse helps her get her pants back on. “You know, I could talk to the site director to have you stay. The other prisoners respect you. I think you could do some good here with your skills. Considering, of course, that you can control your little outbursts. I’d hate to have to sedate you again.”
Internally, she’s appalled at the suggestion. Stealing children for the Empire is the very last thing she would be caught doing. And how long could she keep tracking their movements before someone inevitably caught on? Externally, she keeps her expression level, gritting her teeth as hard as she can, pretending once again to be perfectly obedient, resigned to her fate.
“May I think about it?” she asks.
She wants to get back to Taren. Her friend had been even worse for the wear this morning, practically catatonic, staring blankly at a spot on the wall.
“Of course. But let me take a moment to remind you of the conditions of the Mining Guild facilities. Here you could be truly useful.” Ori continues to stare incredulously. “You can make things better for your friend. Stay. Don’t throw your life away.”
They leave to let her change and Ori lets out the breath she’s been holding.
She feeds the chip into the slot on the front of the terminal, sweating. There’s too much data to download and too little time. Her guard is going to realize she’s dragging her feet any moment now. Ori’d never had much slicing experience, but these internal medical systems are largely unprotected. The nurse hasn’t even bothered to log herself out of the terminal - she’s not going to get another chance like this one.
Bang.
“Just a minute!” Hands shaking, she waits at the terminal. Almost finished. Adrenaline turns her knees to jelly. The knock was her one warning to finish up before the guard comes to drag her out by her hair. Thankfully, the data finishes downloading within a few seconds, flooding her with relief as she tucks the chip safely into her uniform and out of sight.
Or so she thinks, until she opens the door to leave and Loesch is standing in it. He hulks over her, even with her not-insignificant height. As usual, his eyes are cool and expression even, but now they hold a spark of malignant rage. He knows. Loesch’s hand circles her wrist, squeezing until the flesh blanches. The guard behind him holds a datapad, no doubt with video feed of what she just did.
“I thought you were smarter than this, Orla.” His grip tightens even further and she winces. “Give me the datachip. Or you’ll never see your friend again.”
She’s lost. The realization hits her like a mortar to the chest. It doesn’t take long to sink in, but the loss of her and Taren’s lost hope is crushing. She sags, close to tears. Running is impossible, hiding futile. Eyes unfocused, she pulls the chip from its hiding place and into Loesch’s outstretched hand. The diminutive black square disappears as his huge hand closes into a fist around it. Releasing her arm, he spins, shoving the chip into his belt pocket.
“Take her back,” he spits over his shoulder. The guard takes her roughly by the arm, leading her down the hallway. She stumbles but he only jerks her forward in response. Ori drags her feet, afraid of what’s next, but the man is much stronger than her, and locks the cell door behind after shoving her in.
—
Imperial Rehabilitation Center
Brentaal, Imperial Core
18 BBY
That night
The five of them get the uniform colors down fast. Inmates are green. Staff are pink. Most of the pinks go down without much of a fight. Lucky for them the Empire’s obsession with color coordination is working out in their favor. The guards are even slower and more complacent than he imagined.
Mereel takes one down to his right - firing almost lazily. The man slumps against the wall with a gurgle as Mereel slaps in a new power pack from his belt, two smoking holes in the center of his chest. He hadn’t even gotten a shot off before Mereel slotted him. As they advance toward the cell blocks, Kal’s heart starts to pound.
Heavy silence fills the comm channel as they edge forward. None of them are sure what sight is going to meet them beyond the blast doors at the end of the hall. Every possibility flies through his mind - Orla lying on the floor bleeding, half her head missing, or slashed through the spine with a laser sword…..Kal shakes his head violently. No use speculating. He’s been on hundreds of missions, many tougher than this one, but none with higher stakes. Even the thought of failure steals his breath away. He thinks he’s never been so fucking afraid in his sorry life.
They reach the end of the hall and Scorch starts setting charges on the door as the rest of the team catches their breath. Mereel covers their shebs with his cooling Z-6 while the rest of them reload. Kal nods at Jaing, who peels off the group to head for the central computer.
“Sev?”
“In position,” the sniper replies, his deep voice clear as a bell through the comms.
“We’re about to blow the blast doors to the cell blocks.”
“Roger,” Sev replies as Scorch painstakingly lays a frame charge, “Not much movement from out here, Sarge.”
The guards run. In his experience, it takes a squad of about five fully-armored Mandos to make a civilian security force piss themselves and turn tail. He scoffs. For guarding such expensive assets, the empire picked a piss poor option. Why aren’t they using clones?
“They’re kriffing running.” Mereel laughs incredulously, tagging one in the knee before they can turn the corner of a hallway. The man shrieks, holding his injured leg, oozing a bloody puddle at the entrance to the easternmost hallway.
As the smoke clears they edge their way into what appears to be a mess hall. The opposite wall has a door with a medic’s red cross above - not their target. The other two walls lead to an east and west wing of cell blocks and the group splits in two at his hand signal. As they walk, he notices the walls are cheerily bright, painted in varying pastel colors. The banality of it irks him, and hushed frightened voices waft from past the doors leading to the cell block before Kal and Prudii.
He and Prudii take the guards in the hallway down without much of a ruckus. Only the final straggler has gotten the bright idea to use one of the extremely lucrative hostages as leverage, conveniently trapped in a small room with a barred window. It doesn’t work out well for him. Mandos don’t negotiate, nor do they tolerate hut’uune who use human shields.
Without a word, Prudii shoots his blaster arm, incapacitating it. The man drops to the ground with a scream.
“Break the others out,” he says to his son. Prudii gets to work immediately and Kal gets the job he relishes. Kneeling by the prone shrieking man, he places his shin plate directly on the man’s smoking wound. His screams intensify. Kal is getting desperate, Orla isn’t here and he doesn’t know where she could’ve gone. Unless he’s too late.
“The Mandalorian,” he growls, “where is she?” He grinds his plate down and the man sobs pitifully. Kal lets up a bit and the man drags in a great breath. Now that he knows what they’re capable of, he’s doesn’t hold back information for the Empire’s sake.
“–left with the doctor…” he gasps, “the two of them.” Two of them? They hadn’t gotten any intel on another mando.
“Where?” The man’s eyes roll up into his skull, passed out. Kriff.
Kal switches to the universal comm. “Does anyone have eyes on Beviin? Guard says she left with a doctor and another mando.” He’s met with silence and his heart drops the longer it stretches. They’ve missed her, which means his child has been born, bought and sold. And Ori is gone. He’s failed. For the rest of the prisoners, Kal collects himself the best he can.
“Get the rest of them out of here to the arranged location. We’re gonna try and get any intel we can on their whereabouts–”
Sev interjects.
“Wait.” Sev pauses. “I’m seeing movement in the courtyard.” A pause. “Confirmed, target is in the courtyard heading towards a transport.”
“How many with them?”
Sev counts only briefly before continuing, his speech pressured. “One guard, one unidentified female prisoner, one unidentified male.”
It’s the hope he needs. It has to be them.
“I’m headed there now-”
“–Sev and I are closer,” Mereel cuts in. Kal wars with himself for a moment, but he knows his son is right. “We’ll collect them, get back to the transport.”
Mereel waits for his reply.
“Buir?”
“Fine,” Kal replies.
—
Bang.
Bang. Bang.
“Get up,” says a gruff voice from outside their cell door. Barely dozing off, Ori jerks upright. Taren remains unmoving on the cot next to her. Taren sleeps better with someone close. The door slams open with a bang and finally Taren wakes.
“Get the kriff up,” says the guard, jerking Taren to her feet. She cries out, startled. “You too, bitch.” Orla rises as fast as she can, too slow for the man, who grasps her arm and shoves her out the cell door. Taren follows close behind, throwing a murderous look at the guard. It’s the most Taren-like expression she’s seen in a week and it would give her hope were it not for the blaster in her face.
“Down the hallway.” They obey, in their sleep clothes and barefoot. Ori can hear the nerves in the guard’s voice. Something is happening. The guard’s blaster hand shakes, and she can just make out the sound of blaster fire in the distance. Loesch waits at the end of the hall, briefcase in hand, dressed to leave. It’s then that she realizes that he’s taking his valuable prize with him - and Taren as collateral damage. The guard’s blaster again prods her in the back as they walk silently across the dark courtyard to a small transport. Before her, Taren digs in her heels.
“I’m not leaving,” warns Taren, voice hoarse with disuse. There’s smoke in the air now, and it’s burning Ori’s eyes, making them water and sting.
Loesch only nods to the guard, aims his weapon at Taren and fires. Ori screams as her friend falls to the ground, just outside the door to the ship.
“Get her inside,” Loesch tells the guard. Stunned, she’s only stunned. Ori’s head swims with relief.
With only the zing of a blaster bolt as a warning, the guard goes down. There’s an awful pause where Ori expects the man to get up, but he only lies prone next to Taren’s stunned body, hand still on his blaster. Loesch is in the mouth of the transport and he stares at her as if waiting to see what she’ll do. She lunges for the blaster as he advances but she’s closer, and grabs the weapon before he can get close. Waiting for the sniper to make a move, she aims the blaster at his chest. No shots ring out. Loesch must be too protected by the door of the transport.
Loesch’s lip curls into a snarl as his mud-water eyes remain fixed on her, reflecting tiny pinpricks of fire from the main compound behind them. Taren lies on the ground in a heap before him, unmoving.
“Fucking Mando bitch,” he growls, hands half-raised, poised to make a move. She takes a stap back, wishing Taren’s body was behind her. For a second she lets herself revel in having the upper hand, and for once, savors his icy rage. This is the last time he’ll inflict it on anyone. Ori switches the safety off with a practiced finger as he edges dangerously close. She’s Mando and he’s not. She’d had a blaster in her hand by two years old and this piece of shit won’t shut up.
“The Empire owns you. That brat’s been bought and paid for,” he sneers, nodding at her abdomen.
Without a warning, she fires. And fires again. And again. The bulk of him falls to the ground with a shriek after the first shot, smoking as she nears. There’s a rushing in her ears that wasn’t there before, accompanying the frantic beat of her heart threatening to leave her chest, and the thud of blaster bolts into flesh.
Her finger stays on the trigger for what seems like an eternity, daring him to rise. He doesn’t make a fucking sound. A hand comes to rest on her forearm and she jumps, ripping her out of her trance and another hand pushes her weapon down. Rigid muscles screech in protest, sure it’s a guard come to drag her back inside. She follows the arm with her eyes, up to familiar silhouette of a beskar helmet, smeared with red. Whether it’s paint or blood, she can’t quite tell in the darkness of the prison yard.
Looking back down at the smoking body lying in front of her, it’s barely recognizable. She tries to bring the blaster back up towards the smoking corpse, but the hand stops her again.
“He’s dead, doc,” he says calmly, “it’s done.”
Ori chucks the blaster toward the body and her knees buckle, just a bit, but the ever-vigilant trooper holds her up by the shoulders before her knees can hit the ground. His beskar plates dig into her skin uncomfortably. Another form brushes by them, beskar gleaming lowly in the light from the blazing compound.
Blue-and-silver crouches over Taren, feeling for a pulse. He must be pleased with the result of his assessment as he lifts her limp body up into his arms, hoisting a rotary blaster over his shoulder and out of the way.
“We need to get out of here.” Bloody helmet clasps her shoulder but she wrenches it away, stumbling a little.
“The chip! I need the chip.” Clumsily, she makes her way towards the Loesch’s body and fishes the small plasteel chip out of his undamaged belt pouch. The mando doesn’t make a move to stop her, just stands silently just behind. They must be on an internal comm system - he hasn’t called or signaled his team, though his body language hasn’t given anything away.
“What the hell is that?” he asks.
“Insurance,” she snaps, shoving the chip into her trouser pocket, eyeing him with suspicion.
Without another word, he takes her by the wrist and drags her from the smoldering yard back into the compound. Ori keeps her hand over the chip the entire time, assuring herself it’s still there. The commando, still gripping her by the arm, doesn’t seem to understand that she can’t keep up with his pace. Blessedly he’s said nothing. Blue-and-silver keeps pace just behind them, cradling a limp Taren in his arms.
She has to stop. Her lungs are on fire as she gulps acrid breaths. Flakes of fluffy ash fall on her skin and blow into her eyes, making them sting and water. Her companions grind to an impatient stop when they realize she’s struggling.
“I really don’t want to carry you, ma’am. Nobody’s covering our ass as it is.”
“I’m sorry,” she gasps, “I can’t run with this.” She gestures at her abdomen.
Ori takes one last ash-filled breath and jogs as best she can after him, listening for silver-and-blue’s almost imperceptible footfalls behind them. Downed guards litter the hallway leading to the entrance. The enclosed space is thick with the smell of blaster residue and charred flesh. The make it through the entrance to freedom without a single shot fired.
He has a look on his face she can’t decipher. She takes in the new char marks on his gold beskar, daring to believe he’s really here. He’s really here to rescue her after all these months. She stands motionless in front of him.
“We need to get out of here before reinforcements come.” Kal glances behind, at Taren in his companion’s arms, then back at Ori. His mouth opens and closes - why does he have his bucket off - but no words come out. He only clears his throat and ushers up the ramp and into the dark belly of the transport.
—
She’s still shaking like a leaf in the wind, even with a hand at her back bracing her which she imagines must belong to Kal, who hasn’t left her side the whole way home. They finally touch down and the ramp lowers, revealing a heavily pregnant Besany and stoic Laseema with their arms wrapped around themselves against the chill air, whose faces turn from concern to horror when they see her come down the ramp. Besany’s hand flies up to cover her mouth. Behind them, Ordo’s shadow lurks in the doorway.
She is absolutely covered, caked in blood. Having been around blood her whole life, it’s not as much the smell but the sensation of it drying and cracking on her skin that makes her shudder and heave as she makes her weary way to the ‘fresher. Kal had tried to wipe the majority off her face on the trip back but to no avail. He’d only succeeded in smudging it across her face in smooth lines instead of drops and spatters.
The two women try to shoo Kal away but he won’t hear it. She lets the sounds of them talking with Kal wash over her as she sways back and forth, unsteady on her feet and unbalanced from the counterweight that is her belly.
Shock is a strange beast, and it has many faces. For a while she feels like she is floating above herself, watching the interactions around her like a dispassionate ghost.
Finally Kal ushers her shuffling form into his rooms, stripping off her bloody tunic and pants and tossing them in the corner after starting the shower. He hesitates before touching her, a look in his eye that she belatedly recognizes as apprehension. He’s worried they hurt me there. Which Orla supposes they did, but not in the usual way that men like to hurt women. She wants to crack a joke, but can’t find the words for it. It would probably fall flat anyway.
“It’s fine,” she croaks.
Fortunately, he listens and starts gently removing the cotton undershirt and briefs. Her belly button looks so weird, and she can’t stop staring at it as if she’s never seen it before. Which may also be the shock talking. He undresses down to his own underclothes, carefully keeping his shorts on. Orla is a little surprised at exactly how much she just wants his warm body wrapped around hers, surrounding her, keeping her safe. Tears start to track down her cheeks and she swipes them away, trying to keep Kal from seeing. He’s facing the bathtub, but ultimately her sniffling gets too loud and he turns back to look at her. His hand is testing the water temperature.
“Get in,” he says.
She shakily obeys and dips her head under the hot spray. Her hands press against the tiled sides to keep herself steady, though she still shakes violently from head to toe. He seems to realize that she is in imminent danger of falling and takes action.
“Sit.”
Again she obliges, and he comes to sit behind her, slowly washing away the blood from her skin with welcomingly gentle hands. Gentle fingers with blunt nails loosen her short hair from its tie and let the warm water soak it fully. Finally Ori starts to warm up and the shaking lessens.
She cries and cries. Weeps out all the trauma and indignity and loneliness until there aren’t any more tears. And then she’s numb, blank and silent to the world.
*banner art is this pieceby@xandrei (used w/ artists permission)*
~
fandom: six of crows / kaz brekker x inej ghafa
word count: 6,017
rating: t
c/w: discussion of pregnancy, pregnancy loss, and fertility. (if these are triggering topics for you, proceed with caution).
summary: kaz and inej navigate the rough seas of reproduction.
~
“what if we had one?” he asked, after dancing around the topic for a while.
“what? a baby?” inej just blinked at him.
“i mean… it’s what people do, right? start a family?”
“kaz, are you saying what i think you’re saying?”
they were sitting in the lounge of their new place, half-swallowed in cushions in the second-floor window seat. inej’s legs draped over his and kaz kneaded her thigh to distract from his rising butterflies.
“i—i think so,” he winces
suddenly, his lap was full of inej and she was clutching his face in both her hands.
completely unable to help himself, kaz spread his hands over her thighs, intent on watching the way his fingers splayed over her slender form.
“look at me, kaz.” there were tears in her eyes when he did. “don’t lie to me now. is this really something you want? because i don’t think i could bear it if you’re kidding.”
sliding his hands further up her legs until he clutched her hips and dragged her closer, he said, “i want to start a family with you. i—i want to leave something behind.”
“other than damage?” inej was half crying, half laughing, so close to him he could feel the warm wash of her breath as she spoke.
“other than damage.”
“i love you somuch, kaz.”
“so, is that a yes?” he didn’t know why he wasn’t sure, it seemed like a yes.
“of course, of course, my love—” and then, she was kissing him.
@fixusi said to @ask-drferox: Hey! I read your post on why horse anatomy is quite bad, and it was great. I snooped around online some more about it, and I saw someone mention that cows are really tough, kinda like the opposite of a horse. I was wondering if you could elaborate on what makes cow anatomy so good? I wasn’t able to really find anything online, though I’m not even sure what search terms to use. Thanks for the great blog!!
Cows are tough, infinitely moreso than horses though it’s not necessarily apparent unless you’re studying their medicine side by side. So have ten facts about cows.
Cattle can eat quite a lot of things that are not food, and aside from the occasional inconvenient potato which might get stuck in their throat, most of it will cruise on down to the massive rumen and just kind of… float there for years. Occasionally pointy metal bits will cause a problem and can actually enter the reticulum, and be pushed forward all the way to the pericardium (heart sack) if they are long and pointy enough. This causes an infectious pericarditis which is not necessarily lethal but is inconvenient.
Seriously the cardiovascular system of cattle is quite durable. With a horse a valid method of emergency euthanasia is to slice open the aorta via the rectum. A horse will be dead in 20-30 seconds. A cow will continue to walk around for several minutes and may even have a snack with a severed aorta.
While the guts of a cow are huge, most of it is the rumen which is really too big to go anywhere. They can displace their abomasum (‘true stomach’) but most of the time this is into a position which only inconveniences the cow a little.
Because they’re a ruminant they don’t colic in the same way horses do, but they will get bloat if they can’t burp (the rumen fills with gas and/or foam). If this happens it is an emergency, and it’s perfectly legitimate for a farmer to stab their affected cattle in the stomach to open it up and let out the gas. The cow will probably wander around and have a snack, with a stab wound into her rumen letting it vent, until the vet can get there to patch it up.
While there is lots that can go wrong with giving birth in cattle, it’s not nearly as dramatic as the horse can be. While with a horse if something goes wrong, it goes wrong fast, cattle can survive having their calf die while giving birth and being stuck, starting to rot, and then being pulled out piece by piece.
Cattle have sturdy skulls with well-built sinuses, which is how it’s possible to shoot one in the head multiple times and still not have it be dead.
Their infection resistance is superb compared to the horse. If a horse has retained fetal membranes after giving birth, it’s an emergency by 24 hours. With a cow you can leave them for days or weeks if you can stand the smell.
If they’ve busted their stitches and eviscerated themselves after a caesarian, you can scoop up those intestines she’s been walking on in the mud, hose them off, put them back in, and with treatment it’s plausible she’ll survive. We do caesarians standing in cattle by the way, under local anaesthetic.
They’re actually pretty good at having their organs outside their body. If cow prolapses her uterus (the whole organ pops inside out through her vagina following the calf after giving birth) then it’s not certain death, so long as she doesn’t run about too much.
Because they have two toes on each foot, instead of one hoof like the horse, if they break a bone in either toe you can reasonably attempt treatment.
In short, when faced with conditions that would devastate another species, cows respond by wandering off and possibly having a snack at the inconvenience.
In addition, cattle can do some seriously weird things. Sometimes they’re born with an extra, non-functional leg. Sometimes you get a schistosoma reflexus. Cattle can throw some weird curve balls and then they just keep going on with life.
That’s not to say they’re bombproof. (Partially bulletproof maybe, but not bombproof). If they don’t burp, they die. They can bloat. They can get anthrax if they eat too much dirt. They can do some serious damage to each other, especially bulls and once they’re down they’re in serious trouble. But compared to the horse, cows want to live.
I feel compelled to tell you all that dairy cattle in particular sometimes sever the freaking enormous vein that runs along their abdomen to their udder. This is a surgical emergency because they lose a lot of blood very quickly, but you can tie it off fairly quickly.
But because they lose a lot of blood, and a cow who is ‘down’ (unable to rise) is quite likely to die if you don’t get her standing reasonably promptly, doing blood transfusions on farms was a thing.
And the very old school way of doing it was:
Find a donor cow, ideally a sibling or half sibling
Put some anticoagulant in a clean bucket
Cut one of her jugular veins and catch the blood in the bucket.
Suture closed the laceration in the donor cow’s jugular
Elevate the bucket of blood to use a gravity line to transfuse it into the recipient cow
Administer antibiotics
And I’m told this succeeded more often than it failed.
I don’t think people realize how some people need abortions because they want to be pregnant. I really genuinely want a child. However, if abortion becomes criminalized, it becomes incredibly dangerous for me to be pregnant. I am physically ill and have multiple health problems that make me susceptible to having various pregnancy complications, miscarriage, and birth defects (that lead to stillbirth). Hell, I have a higher chance of maternal mortality than most women. Banning abortion puts me at severe medical risk. Miscarriage is now under legal suspect and is continuing to be seen as “potential” abortions or just flat out manslaughter; I could be interrogated by the police or even prosecuted in the court of law for having a miscarriage. I could have a pregnancy complication that cannot be resolved because a law prevents me from having an abortion, and I could, at best, be rendered infertile or, at worst, end up dead. I could be forced to go through an excruciatingly long and painful birth so that I can hold a dead infant in my arms because the law wouldn’t let me get a “late-term” abortion. The list is endless. Don’t let anyone tell you pregnancy is a safe procedure. It is not. Abortion is healthcare.
