A Happy Event - Eventually.

[channe]

And Magda Kaczmarek, who has been downstairs running interference, so to speak -- follows, almost as quickly as Cinnabar himself -- "Ser," she calls, "ser, you must not alarm her, she will be tired --"

She follows.

[Raveness]

Lavender is bursting with smiles and hugs. She leans over to press a kiss to Cambree's cheek, even though she didn't get a good peek at the baby.

Her eyes glance at the figure by the fire, the midwife there.. but her mind is pulled back to take care of her cousin. She is as nurturing as she could be, trying to fill in the big shoes of a mother, when it was usually Cambree who mothered her.

Then, the ice breaks.. and before Lavender can understand, people are everywhere consoling. She blinks back tears, warm and hot that spill down her cheeks and bats at them with trembling hands.

"Wha.. ? No.. NO!" She gets louder and begins to shake her head, moving to stand, but her feet won't budge and her head begins to pound. One hand slips up to rub the side of her head, the other, struggling to hold for dear life onto her cousin.

Lavender scoots back on the bed, trying to pull Cambree with her, away from the women in the room.. away from it all.

[Wendy]

How quickly everything changes.

The baby's arrived, and Cam could not wait to see it, hear it, hold it! Mistress Roslin was so gentle, so tender in her mercy toward finalizing her delivery. Cambree couldn't wait for Cinn, to show him this and share with him. All along, they've talked about how they'd be including tiny Calomel in their life - and finally! The bump-dweller has arrived. She couldn't be more elated.

How quickly everything changes.

No sound from the baby, her heart waits to beat. Perhaps without a noise, she will hear its faint cry. Nothing, and then gauze and cloth is holding her in, the Susan girl is changing her mind, no longer looking Cambree in the face, but down or away...

"Mistress?" she glances, noting the hunch of Roslin's wide back. Apologies are dripping from the lips of the handmaidens upon her. Lavender is pulling her by the arms, scrambling to draw her away from their apologies.

Dismay climbs the walls of her heart. It shuts her throat down, throws open her lids, and leaps to embed itself in the front of her mind. NO! It will become fragmented by hope that everything is truly all right - that it's going to be - it was promised.

"I need... Lavender!" she calls, though the cousin is right behind her, literally pulling on arms that Cambree can no longer feel, "Where's Cinnabar?"

How quickly everything changes.

There is a heat so strong in this room. A palpable heat that now touches her brow, doting like the ladies have with their damp cloths and repetitious condolences.

There are too many hands here. There are too many faces. There's so much talk in attempt to fill the silence that grows on the tail of the infant's delivery. "WILL you PLEASE stop TALKING?" she hollers, "I can't hear!"

The baby could be crying. Everything they'd hoped for.... the things they were promised. The baby could be crying - she'll allow her mind to insist.

Mistress Roslin turns. Susan and Elizabeth give her just enough space, and then she hears it. Her baby's crying. Tears that were standing in her eyes are swept out of the way by falling lids. It's crying. "Thank goodness," she utters, relishing breath.

How quickly everything changes.

"Please, give me the baby," she smiles, grateful that she did not run out of hope.

Mistress Roslin steps toward her without a bundle in her care. There are glances toward Susan, toward Elizabeth, toward the bath that was drawn for the infant.

"I'm sorry, Missus Calomel," says Roslin, "It was all I could do."

Cambree shakes her head in dismissal, "Where's the baby?"

How quickly everything changes.

That grave apology mingles with the midwife's features, though she hears that tiny cry.

Where's the baby?

No one has it.

The hearth's fire is, for a moment, dimmed by swirling, blackened smoke, and Cambree realizes that it's where the sound is coming from. But, it can't be...!

"Mistress Roslin, WHERE IS MY BABY?!"

[channe]

And, at that cry, another mother -- one Magda Kaczmarek, who has borne so many and had hoped to help her mistress bear another -- bursts past Cinnabar, runs into the room, stares with her jaw akimbo --

And you have not heard such words from Magda Kaczmarek, sera. Ever.

She runs to the hearth as fast as she can, throws her hands into the fire, into the coals, to retrieve -- to retrieve what?

[Cinnabar]

A fistful of blazing linen already burning to char; a double-handful of flaming gauze and glowing coals, hot enough to sear skin to the raw flesh beneath, if one is so foolish as to grasp it. A fire stoked and fed to heat kettles for tea and bathing water, a fire kept burning for a span of days now, in anticipation of the arrival of the tiny form that cries in the heart of the flames.

From the midwife's expression it is clear that this is a surprise to her, that the infant should cry even as the cloth wrapped about it burns; that Magda Kaczmarek should dive past her to reach into the crackling hearth is yet worse, and has her turning, reaching desperately for the woman's shoulders, intent on hauling her back lest she maim herself in those flames. She is a substantial woman, is Mistress Roslin, well-versed in restraining birthing mothers or firmly escorting anxious fathers from the delivery room, and fear feeds the urgency of her movements.

"No! No, it is too late, it is for the best! You mustn't!"

The room is a scene of chaos as Cinnabar arrives through the doorway, close on Magda's skirts; screams and cries resound from the stone walls, lamplight and firelight bathing figures that struggle with one another in dismay and anguish. There is a feeling of pressure that enters the room with him, a sense of anger so intense as to be almost tangible; those who have seen the Governor fight may know this feeling - those who were there for Snowstill, or the Ashfiend's assault upon the farm what seems like a lifetime ago. His face is a mask of rage, of catastrophic fury; strange patterns ripple beneath his skin, and firelight dances in eyes gone from grey to liquid silver.

There is very little of the genial, well-mannered Governor in the figure that casts a searching gaze around the room; as his attention fixes upon the hearth there is very little that is human. He crosses the room with rapid strides, and around him is the sense of a roaring storm of wrath that deafens and blinds, for all that he says nothing. His posture and gaze say everything:

Nothing shall stand between him and his child.

[Glenn]

Chaos. Horrific chaos at that. Calomel is moving more quickly than Glenn Burnie, trained as those legs of his are, can possibly keep up. It means that he hits the room some real seconds after Cinnabar, and his mind immediately flashes back to a memory of his own. Glenn Burnie occasionally sees the world through a self-centered lens, but he must be forgiven here, for the feeling was so tangible.

He could remember Calomel lifting him up and throwing him halfway across the dagger. He could remember a flash of gutwrenching fear and little else. Perhaps that experience helped him steady himself now. There was little he could do for anyone who tried to bar his friend's way. All he could manage was a sharp warning. "Give him room! Out of his way!" He was going towards the hearth? Realization hit Burnie suddenly, yet his eyes did not go to the hearth, not to Cambree, not to even see if Calomel had pushed someone aside and injured them. No, as he hovered near that door way, his gaze was on Cinnabar and Cinnabar alone.

[Wendy]

She, too, would have been at the fire if it wasn't for Elizabeth who has pushed a chemise over Cambree's head. Lavender is keeping her arms, and there is great effort, on Cambree's part, to be let go of. Susan has aborted the mission of aiding her partner, seeing that the door is open and using it as her chance to flee.

Chaos is a burst of color at the fireplace. The area of the bed is serene by comparison, but is no less full of strife. Screams and yelling, the cackle of flames, the shivering cry of an infant to one side - rumpled fabrics, grunts, curses to the other, should Burnie follow in.

Cambree sees Cinnabar there when she pushes downswept auburn away from her face. The one freed hand slaps at the wrist of the girl that insists on dressing her. The other struggles to be rid of Lavender's control - all throughout, there is panic in the rising volume of her voice.

Shouted words no one could render sensible without having been born of the tribe and are aimed at Magda, then Cinnabar, since she can't seem to free herself of these suffocative women.

[Raveness]

Lavender is struggling to keep anyone from touching Cambree, but mostly the women. Any of them.. all of them.. those coyotes. She is fighting with her to try and continue to pull her back on the bed, more toward the back wall, away from the fire, the fury, as Cambree fights back mightily.

With a glance to the door, Lav's eyes widen at the people there. One appears to be the Governor, at least she thinks its Cinnabar. She's unsure for a moment, in all of the chaos. One person has reached into the fire and...

Lavender begins to scream.

[channe]

And Magda is held back, held back by the women -- but Cinnabar is behind her, Cinnabar with his strange inurement to fire, and for a moment Magda is actually grateful for the demonic gift, because it will allow him to --

-- she whirls on the midwife that held her back from the fire. A substantial woman, Roslin? So is Magda.

She slaps her. Or tries to, at least. It's not enough, but it's a beginning.

[Jirai]

This is... interesting enough that the Trader chooses to actually enter the house - though she does not make for the stairs as yet and stays out of the way.

[Cinnabar]

It is a blow that the midwife is clearly not expecting, and it is perhaps the shock as much as the impact of Magda's palm across her face is enough to send her stumbling back, eyes wide. Still she shakes her head, one hand to her stinging cheek and the other reaching imploringly for the Kaczmarek matron; whatever motives Magda might ascribe to Roslin, whatever reasoning she might imagine for the midwife's shocking action, the emotion clearest in the woman's face is fear - not of Magda, but of the newborn that she consigned to the flames, and of what might come to pass if it is not left there.

"You don't understand - you do them no kindness! You don't understand!"

This stout woman of steadfast demeanour and brisk competence is verging on panic to see the situation gone so terribly out of hand, and one can only guess at what might have compelled her to such a horrific act.

Meanwhile the path to the hearth is clear, and it is a small piece of mercy that this is so - the Governor's hand already raised to fling aside those struggling by the fire, but there is no longer the need. Instead he drops to his knees before the grate, reaching without hesitation into the blaze; loosely rolled shirtsleeves blacken and smoke, but he is heedless of such irrelevancies.

A mass of burning linen is drawn from the fireplace and clasped to his chest, urgency in every motion, but moderated by a desperate tenderness; tongues of fire lick at his doublet but he only holds the precious bundle closer, head bowed, arms and wrapping about it and hands moving in an effort to smother the flames with his own body while yet sparing the tiny form that still kicks and squalls at the heart of the blaze.

Oblivious to the rest of the room, to the shouts and cries and pleas and accusations, wreathed in smoke that thickens the air around him. Anger still radiates from him in waves, but it is changed; where his rage had before been a raw furnace-glare it is now a dull glow, locked away for now but still present, still dangerous. Cinnabar whispers as flames subside to glowing ashes and sparks, soft words likely lost amid the tumult of this crowded room but repeated over and over.

Shh, it's alright, I'm here. You're safe. Shh...

[Jirai]

It is quite a simple thing to remain unnoticed. The girl has become more and more willing to use her talents of late, and this application is one of the easiest. Nothing to see here. That's all.

So, unnoticed, the scaled Trader walks quietly up the stairs, smoothly avoiding any who might cross her path.

[Wendy]

Yenaldlooshi. It has to be what Lavender is thinking, too. What else could this be? Did they really think that Cambree'd gotten away from its curse?

Thoughts are closing in on this sensible conclusion. Fire has consumed the flesh of her perfect sons, and now seeks to destroy this newborn child. Moihes. Perhaps he is somewhere. Perhaps present.

Dread turns red, angry skin to the color of ash while her mind grasps for what other reasons there could be - sure that there are none - for having pitched her infant to the fire.

She watches Mistress Roslin stammer, returned from the event of her slapped face - watches very carefully what mannerisms she has in use, and listens for a hint of islander's speak in her proper native accent.

Elizabeth has gone. The fight between the older women has her stepping in between them, hoping to provide them distance from each other.

The surreal gesture of Cinnabar holding that small ball of flames to his chest has made the room quiet. Cambree acts within those seconds while there are no strong holds pulling her this way and that.

She pushes her arms through the frock she will wear and gives Lavender a look to note her condition when the screaming dies down. Her own shimmering eyes threaten to overflow, before she looks away. Cam sinks back to the floor at the foot of the bed and turns her head to view Cinn, her green eyes waiting for his grey.

Her heart is small in her chest, grievously thumping.

[Glenn]

There are long moments where Glenn Burnie is not entirely sure what to do. His initial instinct is to rush towards Cinnabar's side, to draw his dagger (as he was not wearing his sword) and to point it at anyone who might menace his friend and his family.

Somehow, though, he has the good enough sense to realize that blades weren't the answer right now.

Instead, and with a bit of confusion, he will draw back towards the door, meaning to meet Rhaena Olwak upon her arrival. If this is what he suspects (and how could it be anything else?) she might have some acute knowledge that could help the situation far better than he might.

[Cinnabar]

There is a stillness to the young man in these moments, while all around is confusion and distress. Careful fingers brush at the worst of the ash and soot, stroke away the lingering sparks and embers, but it is clear enough that even the layers of linen beneath are blackened and burned, now merely smoking where previously they blazed. No protection at all from the hearth's heat. Yet the infant is still crying and kicking - sound and movement and life where by rights there should be none, and that at least gives hope. Ash-smeared fingertips peel back scorched rags and charred linen, just enough touch that tiny face with such gentleness, such tenderness.

It is a span of seconds before Cinnabar looks up at last, glancing about him. Magda and Roslin and Elizabeth nearby, Glenn stepping back, Lavender screaming in alarm and dismay - ah, there, silvered eyes meet his wife's green, and he offer a slow, tentative, delighted smile.