From that moment on, she could not bring herself up with the burden. Annette fell on the bench, rubbing her abdomen with discomfort.
She tried her best to soothe her ailments with various food items in the pouches from her bags. A weight against her chest, that the vial of her love's blood was heavier than before.
Seeing her daughter socializing was enough for her to feel happy about how much Cloette had grown in the past couple of months. Since they had escaped from the Papacy back home.
The dwarven folk were joyous and impressed about how much their village stabilized. Winters were not as harsh since Annette worked among the villagers. They were provided with healing broths, salves, and various salts made from animal urine.
Some of the villagers prepared buckets of animal urine to the brim and dumped them into a pot. It was covered in a ring of sulfurous crystals that crusted around over the makeshift brick stone shack, kilometers away from the village. But the stench was revolting if a person would enter.
For the dwarves though, with thoughts of the sulfurous stench as a memory of the smithies' fires that surrounded the town. In the Valley, the Smithies were the homes of blacksmiths who each cooperated in making certain projects that piqued their interests to benefit the village.
A true accomplishment of the Dwarven folk was to one day, return to their homes in the realm of the Dwarves, Nidavellir. A realm filled with many of the Dwarven who were revered as the builders of the Gods of all realms in Yggdrasil. But, in Annette's eyes, she would ensure that their longing to be able to return to their home was to be in comfort on what she could do to offer her services.
"There aren't many people who would work with horse piss and be so unfazed." sighed Hana, leaning on the wall of the barn holding her nose.
Annette perched upwards and cleared the snow from the fireplace. While the embers were prodded to keep the flames fueled with extra pieces of dry lumber left in the pile. She turned around to Hana, rubbing her stomach gently as it was protruding from the side.
Hana's eyes widened and smiled, causing her to immediately start hopping around in a small circle. Squealing from the excitement of the news, the witch was just excited about the news.
But the dread was then filled in her soul, she looked down on the vial, slightly shaking the contents inside it. It glowed a slight ruby-red shade, but droplets of warm water befallen her eyes.
Wondrous news but mixed with the grim reality, that brought an inevitability of this age into fruition. She remembered when Samuel learned of the truth, from the scent that she gave off from her body's hormones back at the house.
It was a month before the Father came to their home before the incident. While Cloette played with shaven blocks with her globular friend.
"But, what if you have difficulties again? You barely survived with Cloette being born. Almost being torn in half and near Death's door!" said Samuel, holding his wife's hands to his lips in earnest.
"Mi amor, it was inevitable, to begin with. There must be something between us that would let us be blessed with so many children in this lifetime and among many of yours since you came to this realm," said Annette, squeezing her husband's slightly cold hands.
Both of them held each other in an embrace about the news that came. Annette kissed Samuel's cheek and looked over in Cloette's direction when the blob morphed into the shapes of a book, a cube, a small house, and a star.
Cloette giggled and hugged the blob as it turned into a black bunny. Annette sniffed the air for a bit, but the scent ended up making her gag. She quickly pushed Samuel away and ran to the outside in the back of the house, vomiting, hurling her breakfast, and last night's dinner.
Once she ceased vomiting any longer, she almost fainted from the spasms her stomach made to empty everything in her stomach. Samuel quickly ran to her and covered her in his cloak on their shared bed.
He looked at Cloette and sighed deeply. Cloette noticed that the blob was looking at her mother in the bed. Samuel signaled the blood to return to the child, sternly as if it would annihilate it from existence.
The blob shriveled in fear stuck itself onto Cloette's arm and was absorbed through the skin. Cloette didn't know what was happening but the sudden absence resulted in crying for her friend.
Samuel picked up the child, cradling her in his arms, shushing her with sweet whispers of tales of old. He sang of heroes and monsters who helped the world, the world of the misunderstood.
Outcasts, seamstresses, different abilities of Samuel's species, and Annette's accomplishments as a medicine woman were when she went to the small backyard herb garden. Pointing them out and explaining the basic knowledge of what to do with these plants for healing purposes only.
Her mind came back to the present, as she explained the process to Hana while stirring the cauldron of urine. A painful but gentle memory had always been at the back of her mind and used these memories as a way to push herself for her growing family.
"These salts were used to make a nice salt water taste. So that people could prevent being dehydrated for longer periods. And to prevent their Ice Caves from melting most of the ice." explained Annette.
"But we don't really need that Ann, it's winter all year round. Except for like two months." Chuckled the Dwarven giantess.
Annette stopped herself and the atmosphere shifted drastically from the news. Then she looked over to Hanna and pouted in disappointment with her eyes just slightly tearing up.
"Well I guess we can just give the salt to water and den purify it with some spells and we would have salt..." she grumbled.
"Now that is a better idea, to be honest. Also, why didn't you use magic to make salt from urine immediately?" Asked Hanna, stroking her beard deep in thought.
Annette looked down and stroked her stomach gently. She felt herself getting injured as she spat up blood and the leaking came from her birthing canal.
She quickly grabbed a vial from her shoulder strap and downed it in desperation. Muttering a few words, the leaking stopped slowly, and the blood dissipated.