Chapter Text
Li Ai goes into labor just as dawn casts the skies into soft shades of lavender and red.
In the first hour, progress is slow but exciting. Servants flit about her like disturbed ants. Someone sends for her husband, another goes to fetch her midwife. Her enterprising handmaiden, Daiyu, helps her move to her nest directly and settles in beside her without a hint of hesitation, taking her trembling hand into her own and holding it through her contractions.
The second hour enters with her flustered and worried husband finally making an appearance, at least three servants latched onto him that she could see, and all attempting (and failing) to remove him.
“Ai!” Ming Yong breathes. Li Ai whines back, free hand raising towards him. He doesn't waste a second, roughly dislodging each servant and rushing to her side. Like Daiyu, he does not hesitate to sit in her nest and take her hand. Li Ai purrs quietly, pleasantly surrounded.
“How has she been?” He asks Daiyu.
“Well. Contractions are far apart still, but they are getting faster.” Li Ai can hear a hint of pride in her voice, “She might even give birth before the afternoon.”
Ming Yong settles himself more firmly at Li Ai's side, switching hands so he can lay his arm behind her head. “Hear that, Ai? Miss Daiyu thinks we'll meet our baby today!”
Li Ai smiles up at him, warm and sweaty and in pain, but nonetheless just as excited as he.
The second hour ends with the midwife's arrival. She pauses for a long moment at the threshold, taking in Li Ai's full nest and the smattering of female servants lingering fretful at the door with critical eyes. For a moment, Li Ai fears she will ask Ming Yong to leave, but then the midwife smiles with a long, exasperated exhale and goes to Daiyu's side instead.
“I will need your help soon,” She warns her. Daiyu nods with a sparkle in her eye, and Li Ai can practically hear her think, What kind of personal servant would I be if I did not do this much for my lady?
Li Ai adores her, her beloved beta.
The next few hours pass in a blur of pain and comfort, Daiyu and Ming Yong taking turns wiping her brow and holding her when contractions leave her sore and shaking. Their hands must hurt by now, but neither dares do more than gently adjust her hold.
Finally, as Daiyu had nearly predicted, the Midwife’s final check yields terrifying news just as the sun reaches its peak in the sky.
“She’s dilated. Miss Daiyu, I will need your assistance now.”
Daiyu nods. She detangles from Li Ai as gently as she can, but Li Ai, deep in labor pains, clings to her packmate desperately.
“Don’t go,” She whines, voice already beginning to break. Daiyu leans down and rubs her cheek against her crown.
“Don’t worry, my lady. I will be right here. I am not leaving you.”
Ming Yong helps her from the other side, carefully reaching over to pry Li Ai’s hand off, the action not unkind, but firm. When Li Ai whines at him with a hint of growl, he leans down and nips her ear. She lets go, scolded.
Daiyu is true to her word as the last hour passes, never going farther than the edges of the room to fetch things as the midwife asks for them and always quickly returning to place her hand on some part of Li Ai she can reach without being grabbed back. Li Ai makes up for it by clinging to her husband harder, screams and wails ripping out of her almost without her notice.
“You are almost there, Lady Li,” The midwife calls. “I can see the head now.”
Li Ai almost bursts into tears on the spot. Finally, an end on the horizon!
Her baby is born very shortly after. For a moment, she does not realize what’s happened; in one breath, she is pushing what felt like an entire melon from her body, and in the next, there is such great relief and absence that she almost feels as if she could float away-
But there is silence. Such dreadful silence.
“Yong?” She whispers, turning to him. He purses his lips and squeezes her hand, gaze locked at the midwife at her feet. She turns to her handmaiden, “Daiyu? Daiyu, are they well?”
Daiyu squeezes her thigh, eyes locked on the quiet movements of the midwife. Briefly, the two make eye contact, servant to servant. Nothing is said, but Diayu understands. She swallows, eyes shutting tight and head dropping. What awful news she has to deliver.
“My Lord, my Lady-”
Then, a most beautiful sound. First, a faint little gasp, then breathless coughing. Like a miracle, the bright, joyful sound of a babe’s first wailing cries fill the room. The darkness that had begun to consume lifts with such relief that even servants outside could be heard sobbing and murmuring things like, “Thank the heavens! Thank the heavens!”
Diayu turns back to her lady and lord just in time to see Ming Yong wiping at his eyes like a child, face scrunched tight as he tries and fails to contain himself. Her lady, perhaps too exhausted to do much else, lies there bonelessly, tears freely falling down her pale cheeks; yet on her face was the weakest, brightest smile Daiyu had ever had the pleasure of seeing.
Daiyu smiles back, her own eyes wet with unshed tears. With great happiness, she takes in a shuddering breath and says, “My lady, all is well.”
“-a beta?!”
Ming Yong purses his lips. “Yes, Mother. However-”
“How could she? First, she sneaks her way into your bed, then she has the nerve to give you a beta child?!” His mother paces her room, scowling and hissing like some kind of feral creature. “I should have thrown her from this manor the moment you put her before me! What a useless, ungrateful-”
“Mother,” Ming Yong cuts in, just barely holding back the urge to bare his teeth. “I ask you refrain from speaking of my mate in such a way-”
Mother scoffs. She goes on, as if she hadn’t heard him. “She acts like there are no other wives here! Wives who, unlike her, have done their duty and presented you- rightly!- with two strong alpha sons! Just as she should have!” She turns on him, eyes wide with rage. “Something must be done, surely you see that?!”
“I see no such thing!” Ming Yong hisses. “My mate has, after hours of agony and months of discomfort, presented me with a healthy son with ten fingers and ten toes. He cries when he is hungry, and he sleeps when he tires. He is a beta, yes, but this is merely another part of my child that I will learn from as he grows, and I will not listen to you belittle him or his mother for a crime that does not exist, let alone been committed; so sit down, Mother!”
“My little meatbun..” Li Ai murmurs a whole room away, listening to the two argue nervously with her baby boy in her arms. Daiyu glares at her side, eyes trained on the door and poised at the edge of their nest, ready to launch herself forward in defence of her lady and new little lord at even a hint of violence coming their direction.
She reaches back and lays her hand on Li Ai’s thigh, “Don’t worry, my Lady. Lord Ming will not let her win.”
Li Ai lets out an anxious, stuttering purr. “And if she does? They fight so often because of me…”
“Then I will be with you: whatever happens, wherever you go.” Daiyu turns to give her a quick, reassuring smile, “You will not be alone while I still breathe.”