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“Is there anything else you’ll be needing, my lord?”
“No, that’s all,” Yuri said. The servant bowed and left the room with a pile of folded sheets. Yuri heard the soft click of the door and bent his head to stare at the baby sleeping on her crib. She was so small and precious that Yuri felt most of the time overwhelmed by her sheer helplessness. The palace’s physician had assured him it was normal to feel like that in the first months, even more so towards a firstborn.
Yuri watched as the baby breathed peacefully, resting his chin on his hand. He’d named her Neva.
Her birth had been mighty difficult. Out of all the emperor’s consorts Yuri had to be the one who’d needed more than four midwives for a royal birth. They said his biology didn’t help and the statement brought angry tears to Yuri’s eyes.
In his land, Yuri was considered too young to be married, but when his kingdom found itself weakened and his parents needed the neighboring empire’s help on the borders, alliances had been rushed up.
Though their neighbor’s polygamous tradition was considered disgusting and appalling among Yuri’s folk, the young prince had quickly found himself engaged to Emperor Otabek of the South, just freshly after completing his seventeenth spring. Yuri’s mother had insisted the nuptials were to be held in a year’s time, when Yuri would’ve completed eighteen, but her protests turned futile when a powerful attack from the east forced their army to retreat, losing them two islands and part of the coast side territory. In the very night those news were received, Yuri’s things were packed and he’d travelled eight days until reaching the bright citadel of Verny.
The wedding was brief but the weight of it hung heavy on Yuri’s shoulders. Part of the empire’s court was present, but other than Victor, his kingdom’s ambassador on the southern warm lands, none of the people in attendance were known to him, and that included his husband.
The Emperor wasn’t cruel as his mother told him he was meant to be. He was silent and stoic, but treated Yuri with the utmost respect, which only served to infuriate his blond consort even more. Yuri had come prepared to fight tooth and nail against a barbaric tyrant but instead found a young man with a heavy sense of duty that had, for Yuri’s comfort, suggested to consummate their wedding when Yuri was considered ready by his own standards. Yuri had denied it. He hated pity when it came his way, and if Otabek’s past wives had married him and held their nuptials at the same night, surely Yuri could do the same.
The ordeal was painful, but not unpleasant. Otabek didn’t shrink back from his duty, and paused when Yuri winced but resumed as soon as he felt right to. His face, once impassive and neutral, changed during sex, and Yuri felt somehow emboldened for being the one delivering such pleasure to have an unmovable man breaking character. He learned to enjoy the time he spent with his husband, despite what his mother had previewed for his future. If he hadn’t, Yuri wouldn’t have found himself with child merely four moons after his wedding.
At the news, Victor had offered him his congratulations and Otabek presented him with a whole new wing of the palace for him to make use of. Hope was that it was a boy, for Otabek already had one heir in the form of a five-year old boy from his first marriage, but a second in line would appease the empire.
Otabek was away visiting their second capital city when Yuri went into labor. He thought he would die. He spent close to two days sweating and bleeding out on the sheets, a pain so strong he felt his spine was being crushed. The palace grew restless with his screams and the midwives, numerous as they were, frantic. When the baby finally pushed past him it cried and wiggled, a blood red thing. It was a girl. Victor watched him from the doorway, smile rigidly in place.
Yuri had lost too much blood and had to stay in bed for two moons before he was deemed healthy enough by the royal physician. Neva was now fat and sleepy. The servants and the maidens sent to help him praised his daughter for her quietness, deeming him lucky.
Yuri doesn’t really know what to do with her. She cries sometimes and he needs to feed her. His breast aches. Yuri sighs and moves to his writing table. There’s parchment and some ink poised on it and Yuri takes the feather in hand to begin a letter to his mother. Their correspondence had increased in volume since the late days of Yuri’s pregnancy. Yuri had sent her a sketch of her granddaughter along with the news of her birth and his mother had answered back in kind, proud but also visibly shaken that her son had produced a child when he was, by her view, still so young himself.
Yuri’s father had also sent him a congratulating letter, thanking him for completing his duty. He’d hinted heavily that now Otabek’s army was legitimately obligated to assist their lines on the war, as their family was joined by blood. Yuri wondered if that was all he ever wanted in the first place.
He writes his mother about the weather in Verny: sunny during the day but the wind here picks up when the sun sets. He pauses before writing about his daughter, and in the end, says he’s glad she’s happy and that Neva was growing out fine. Yuri thinks twice before explaining that Otabek was away since before the birth, but that that was normal since the country was so extensive. His mother wrote small critiques on his husband every other letter or so.
Yuri tries not to think too much on it but the truth is that he was the first of the consorts not to have the emperor present to his firstborn birth, and even after two moons Otabek hadn’t made an appearance. Certainly, the news had already reached the country’s people. Otabek had to know it already. Maybe he found it unimportant as Yuri had given him another daughter and not the boy he had been hoping for.
Yuri puts the feather back in place and finds himself dismayed at the sound of his daughter’s whines. She squirms in her crib, little brow furrowing and mouth twisting as she wakes up. She opens her eyes now. They’re blue, just as his mother said Yuri’s had been when he was a baby.
Neva had taken so long to open her eyes that Yuri had grown desperate. The physician chuckled at him and said some babies took a while to do that. Yuri, in his ignorance, thought babies were born clean and bright, eyes wide open. It’s a little shameful to think back on it but then again Yuri had no means to know such things as he wasn’t schooled in child-rearing. The rest of Otabek’s consorts were taught since they were young enough to understand that they would one day have sex with the emperor and produce him a child. Whereas Yuri grew up thinking he would one day run a kingdom.
He doesn’t resent his parents, not now anyway. It was already done with. And Otabek’s empire had to be ten times the size and importance of his own kingdom. He hadn’t come out losing, per see, though the outcome was far from what he had imagined.
Neva doesn’t really have a reason to be awake, she just kicks her legs around and stares up at Yuri when he goes see to her. “Hi,” he murmurs, touching the delicate tip of her nose with his fingertip. Her face scrunches up like she’s about to sneeze and Yuri laughs, withdrawing his finger.
Neva makes a gurgling sound up at him and Yuri chuckles. He’s just stretching his hand out to rub the soft tuft of black hair on top of her head when there comes a knock on the door.
“Yes?” Yuri asks.
Instead of answering, the person at the other side of the door inches it open. It’s Otabek. He inclines his head into the room and then his whole body, eyes instantly fixated on the crib. He takes slow steps towards them and Yuri straightens his position, standing awkwardly next to the crib. He’d expected a fanfare in the palace once the emperor returned, but if there was indeed such a commotion Yuri hadn’t heard it. His wing was at the back of the palace anyway.
“Yuri,” Otabek whispers in a breath, but his eyes are still on Neva, who turns her eyes in his direction when Otabek comes close enough to rest his hands on the bars of her crib. “Oh, Yuri,” Otabek chokes, bending on one knee next to the crib. His upper body shields the baby from Yuri’s vision when he bends to marvel at her. “She is so beautiful. My daughter,” he grins, “Imperial Princess Neva of the South,” Otabek croons, nudging her small hand around the tip of his index finger. He kisses it and Neva makes an uncomfortable sound, pulling her arm back and kicking impatiently at the soft linens of her crib. Otabek smiles down at her before turning his gaze on Yuri.
“She has your clear eyes,” Otabek says in amazement, reaching out to run his thumb down Yuri’s chin. “She’s beautiful, like her mother.”
Yuri feels warm at his touch, gulping when he feels like his throat is about to close off. He breaks eye contact with Otabek and clears his throat. “Do you wish to hold her?”
Otabek trains his gaze back on Neva. “Yes,” he says, and bends to scoop her up. He does so carefully, bringing her closer to his chest. Yuri hadn’t noticed before but Otabek still seemed to be in his travelling clothes.
“I came as fast as I reached the palace,” he tells Yuri. “I’ll bathe in a while, I just had to meet her,” he looks down at his daughter. Neva doesn’t make a sound, just wiggles and blinks blearily up at her father. Otabek seems extremely secure holding her and Yuri feels a bite of jealousy at this realization. Otabek had other children from other mothers, holding a newborn came naturally to him as he’d had more practice. Yuri himself was still afraid of picking her up; she felt small and easily breakable in his arms, her spine and neck much too soft to be real. The servants usually passed her over to him when he was already sat down to feed her. Yuri had a feeling that they talked behind his back, about how he wasn’t suited for watching his own baby.
“I’m truly sorry I couldn’t make it to her birth,” Otabek looks up to tell Yuri. “The physician told me you suffered a lot. Blood loss-”
“Yes,” Yuri spoke up, maybe a little too harshly. He didn’t like it enumerated as though Otabek pitied him. “It was quite terrible,” he finishes. Yuri drops his gaze and moves to his writing table, where the letter to his mother dries under the sunlight. He folds it closed and stamps his seal on it, feeling the weight of Otabek’s gaze on his shoulders.
“I wouldn’t forgive myself if I’d lost you,” Otabek continues. He’s turned on his heels to face Yuri, still holding onto Neva.
“But you didn’t, did you?” Yuri smiles sharply. Deep down he feels like Otabek wasn’t as preoccupied as he’d seemed intent on making Yuri believe. Yuri was a firm believer that actions spoke louder than words and the facts laid here were quite clear: Otabek hadn’t minded to return sooner to meet his daughter. But then again, what was another child among so many?
What infuriates Yuri the most was that he’d gone through all the trouble of leaving his land, been forced into a marriage and into so many things others took years to experience, like the pain of a birth, only to end up becoming just another of Otabek’s consorts who’d failed to give him a boy.
He almost knocks over the ink pot in his sudden fury, pursing his lips together and moving brusquely to the door. The guard by his door, slouched against the wall, straightens his back at his appearance. “Have this sent to my mother,” Yuri says, shoving the letter his way. He goes back inside, where Otabek still has Neva in his arms, intelligent eyes watching Yuri avidly. He’s no stranger to Yuri’s mood, but must sense this time the roots run deeper than mere annoyance, his lips drawn in a flat line.
“Yuri,” he speaks up, “I won’t bother you with the political details of my travelling but I assure you that coming back to meet my daughter was my priority the moment the news reached me.”
“And yet it took you two moons to do so,” Yuri can’t help himself from snapping. He doesn’t know what he lets on behind those words other than what he explicitly meant, but it seems to have made something clear to Otabek.
“I make no distinction between my children,” the emperor says, quite coldly, tightening his hold on Neva.
“Then I believe it’d have taken you as long if it was a boy.” Yuri feels wise for verbalizing that quip, even more so when Otabek’s expression closes off. Wordlessly, his husband sets Neva back in her crib, setting a lingering kiss to her forehead. He then walks up to Yuri, whose position as far away from the crib as possible hasn’t changed.
“We’ll baptize her tomorrow. The servants should be here by morning to help you,” Otabek says. Yuri wasn’t even aware that baptisms were required. He’s still not familiar with Otabek’s religion and to be quite frank, isn’t interested on learning. Much of the costumes and the lifestyle led in the palace as well as in all the empire were derived from it and Yuri found himself lost most of the times. He took to ignoring it as his small act of rebellion.
Yuri nods tightly. He’s still waiting for Otabek to react to his words, terribly expectant as to what he could say or do to Yuri. Yuri’s mother said legend had it that if a consort in any way insulted or displeased the emperor they could be sentenced to a night in the dungeon.
Otabek doesn’t tell him anything else, however, simply inspecting Yuri for a few more seconds before heading to the door.
“Wait.”
Otabek turns around and Yuri avoids eye contact. “My father’s war. I haven’t heard any news on it.” The consorts had no access to the Council and before the time he’d spent bedded, none of the counselors seemed willing to share any news with Yuri. “He mentioned you promised to send two thousand more men before the winter.”
Otabek nods on his way out the door, giving a curt sigh. “I’ll see to it.”