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You take a step forward - and are immediately assaulted on all sides. Your uncles and cousins are each pawing, pushing you, congratulating you, embracing you. Adrastus claps his great hands upon your shoulders and kisses you on each cheek, beaming -
“Go, Hippomedon! Meet your heir!”
As your family hollers encouragement from behind, your sandaled feet bear you weightlessly down the hall, through the royal apartments, and into the fragrant suite, air rich in incense, where your wife lies.
You see Euanippe immediately as you enter, half-clothed and in repose on a heavily-pillowed bed – the world falls away, and only she remains.
She is beautiful – her golden hair plastered with sweat, pale, still breathless, panting, a smear of dried blood against her chin.
The only woman you have loved – the only one who matters.
She sees you enter and a weak smile blooms. She whispers gently to a bundle of linens held against her naked breast – and it stirs – <span class="mu-i">by the Gods!</span>
“Wake, child – wake! Your <span class="mu-s">father</span> is here,” and the word disorients you.
You settle gingerly on the bed next to your wife, saying nothing, and she simply holds the bundle out to you. Your hands shake before you take the bundle into your hands as gently as you can, and when you do, it is surprisingly heavy. Euanippe gently pulls the white linens aside – and a child’s face appears, pink and compressed together – smudged with… wax, residue?
A perfect face.
The child sleeps peacefully.
<span class="mu-i">Your</span> child.
You feel some deep part of your mind changing, shifting, itching, growing - a sensation that you could not describe to another even if you tried. Your heart fractures, some fragment escaping into the air – and then passing into the tiny breast of the child. You feel the pull of it already – your core seeking theirs, always.
<span class="mu-i">Your</span> child.
You look to Euanippe, tears flowing down your face, and cannot find the words you seek – Euanippe only smiles, eyes shadowed with fatigure, and clarifies your question:
“Boy or girl?”
You nod.
“A girl,” she whispers.
The child’s brow tenses – her eyelids flicker. She dreams.
She.
She.
“A girl!” you exclaim, a bit louder than you intended, your mouth falling open. You can’t believe it – ridiculously you had discarded the possibility outright – so many men in the line of Talaus, you had simply -
“Yes, Hippomedon – you have a daughter,” Euanippe intones, warm and solemn and weeping herself, all at once.
>cont
