Chapter Text
This was not how she’d planned the announcement, hunched over the battlements, emptying her stomach into the waters below as Starkhaven's banners snapped in the distant breeze.
Donnic’s hand was at the small of her back, purposely seeking out the spot where there was no metal between his glove and her tunic. His fingers rubbed gentle lines across the leather as the last of her breakfast deposited itself into the churning water.
Maker, it was wrong. It was all wrong. Her chest clenched at the thought of turning to Donnic, of seeing his face when she told him that this life they had hoped and prayed for since before the city descended into madness, now grew below leather and steel plate. That, in waking from a long nightmare, they had descended into another, bleaker reality, one in which their child would taste in its first breath the stench of desperation and war.
This world wasn’t fit for a child; it was barely fit for the living.
Donnic’s hand kept its steady tread across her back as she looked out across the water. For a long while, neither of them spoke.
As the sun rose and the first watchmen of the morning shuffled blearily to their posts, Donnic’s hand paused.
“Do you think it’ll be a boy?” he asked, and Aveline’s breath hitched. She looked up. His eyes were shining.
She could only smile.