Chapter Text
Silence.
For what seemed like a heartbreaking eternity, there was silence; and finally, a beautiful wail.
The meranth sobbed in joy as her newborn cried, cradling him protectively. She had been so afraid, so convinced he would die that she had questioned if she should prepare his grave as she built his crib. But he was here, whole and healthy and soft and perfect. She kissed over his fat cheeks and board forehead, letting her tears baptise him as she was overcome with emotion. Normally they would have been in the meranth birthing pools, surrounded by familiar faces, her sisters and aunties, her own mother…but that wasn’t how it had gone. They only had each other, in their small shanty home, in the cold bathtub.
Curling around her child, she began to whisper to him. Singing softly, she told him the story of a sickly woman and a noble man, of a sweet love between a meranth and a vigil knight. How he broke an unjust code and faced his peers, how his heart was so good that they couldn’t bear it and executed him. How she was shunned by her kin and cast upon the shore as all that was left of their love grew in her belly. The baby has fallen quiet, listening to her sorrowful song. A little hand rested upon her breast. She smiled, exhausted. She wanted to sleep but she wanted to just hold and watch her baby.
Weakly, limbs shaking, she tried to get out of the bath. It was too much effort, to lift herself and her newborn out of the tub. She sank into the embrace of the water. It wouldn’t affect her but she didn’t know how well the baby would fare; she didn’t even know if humans could be born in water. His meranth genes had helped there she thought. It was going to be hard, she knew. This was her first child. Her family didn’t want to know them and her sweet knight was gone. She didn’t know much about hybrid children, so few were born and survived. Her own health was flighty and should anything happen to her, then her baby…No, she couldn’t bear to think about that.
He was still quiet and watching, blue eyes warming her heart. She kissed him again, tasting her own bittersweet tears. Already a stoic, she thought, just like his father. What would Sven have wanted to name their son? She’d never know. Heart at once both light and forever burdened, she leaned back to think. Meranth names were so rarely spoken on land; to only give him such a name would hinder him as they couldn’t return to the sea. But what if he chose to join the meranth as an adult? Wouldn’t Sven have wanted her to give their son a meranth name, just as she had playfully given him one?
A smile lifted her lips. His human name would be Sven, exactly as his father’s. Alone in a cold bathroom, in a shanty house within the Shadeshore Ruins, she began to sing. A slow, beautiful note resonated in their small home, low and tender, full of adoration and speaking of future bravery. It wasn’t exactly the same as what she had used for her darling knight but the meaning was almost identical. While his father had been her ‘dear love’, her little Sven was her ‘most beloved’.