She had the same dream again, as she awoke the ship rocking and shaking, the storm crashing and shaking the entire vessel. It had been the same for days. And they had been fine for days.
She stared at the wooden ceiling, as she felt her stomach move this way and that. Her entire midsection felt numb and tingly, as if responding to the dream she’d just had.
The dream where she’d had her first child, at sea, just like this. Except Meloe was standing over her, and the child was theirs. There was no storm, the sun was shining, and new life had been born under the sunlight. All was well.
The doctor that stood over here had an eye of gold, and a smile of the same. His hair was windswept, and his body was pure in purpose. As he handed her the newborn, her eyes clouded by the sun above and the faintly numbing pain, he always said something nice. And she never quite remembered what when she awoke. Meloe always did the same.
Of course, when she woke up, she always had to remember that it wasn’t real. Because Meloe was dead at the bottom of the sea, and the magic which had changed her body didn’t let her reproduce.
It was worth it, of course. She refused to live like she had before. She stomached it, because maybe Meloe could make up for it. They could have what they had wanted, a quiet retirement in some beautiful kingdom’s cost. A child, two, three. They could never decide.
But it wasn’t to be. Meloe had eaten a scimitar to the gut, and her body was shark food. It had been so quick, too. One minute, back to back, the next, gone.
She hadn’t slept for days. Six months later, she wasn’t sure how she managed it.
By living the life she wanted in dreams, maybe.
She wasn’t sure when, but eventually, she drifted back to sleep.
Her day was normal. The storm was lessened, simply stormy churning skies, the threat of destruction without delivering. The ship’s mage said they didn’t have much to worry about. They would be out of the Ring soon. That should abet the storm.
They had always said don’t sail in the Ring. Any pirate worth their salt didn’t listen. The captain had found this route from a friend of a friend, and it had served them well. The storm just looked scary, or so the pirates tales said.
Meloe had died when two pirate ships had found each other. She hadn’t even been able to get revenge. The ship rocked, and sent her killed to the same fate. The bottom of the sea. Shark food, maybe.
That night, she awoke in actual pain. The dream had gone on a few more seconds, this time. Long enough for Meloe to kiss her again. The rush of that, how real it had felt almost distracted her the entire day. It felt like her entire lower body was cramping.
The night after that, more pain. And a few precious more seconds. The doctor said how beautiful the child was, and that giant golden smile shone like a thousand stars.
That day, the captain addressed the crew. Apparently, they were due a few more days in the Ring. They were trying to avoid the worst of the storm by sticking to the edge. They’d be in port, soon enough, he assured.
After he had been done, she hurled black bile and crimson blood over the side of the ship, where it found churning waters below.
The next night, the pain had mostly subsided. She felt sluggish. She snuck out right after the dream, and raided the commissary, and sat up alone, eating and eating.
She put on some weight. Enough that her crewmates noticed. She was starting to believe that the Dreams were more than that. As they expanded, more and more seconds with her child-a daughter, she had come to realize, and Meloe, the less she cared about the stares she got from the crew.
The captain hardly left his quarters. The ship’s mage was always murmuring about nothing making sense, about resisting.
The next few nights, the pains came back. Vivid. Awful. She often bled. She often wept. She often ate. But it was with some foreboding knowledge.
Slowly, slowly, she saw less, and less people on deck during the day. And she cared less and less.
Meloe started speaking more, in the dreams. She talked of how happy she was. She thanked the doctor for his work, making sure that her-their daughter was happy and healthy.
And how beautiful the child was. It had begun to be that they had nearly decided on a name and she would be pulled free. They had nearly had it, one night, when she awoke screaming, blood pushing itself from her eyelids, bile pushing itself between her lips.
She decided to make sure she wasn’t sick. She went to the infirmary. The healing man they had, however, had other plans. Opening the closed door when he didn’t answer, she found him lying, dissected on his own surgical table.
She left him there. When she closed her eyes, she could now see her child in the sunlight.
She awoke with a name. Lidia. She stumbled onto the deck, as her pain reached fever pitch. No one was there to watch, as she crumbled, her legs pushed open by tiny hands within. She screamed Meloe’s name into the storm, she asked for forgiveness from any god who would listen. She begged for the world, and watched as it wasn’t delivered.
The doctor was there. Standing over her, with his golden eye, he reached down and picked up the baby girl, drenched in black, red and green, slowly cleaning the fluids off of her face.
She was too weak to move. She couldn’t scream anymore.
As the clouds cleared, and the sun shined down, she saw the doctors long shadow, and that Lidia had Meloe’s eyes after all.
Kindling And Miscellany 