"Uggh, my head…"
Lilith groaned as she tried to get up, but the glaring sunlight made her wince in pain.
What in the name of the Titan happened last night?
Alright, so I went to a bar, I know that much, but why did I go there? She thought to herself, then she remembered.
Right.
The guilt of an act she committed long ago, one she wanted to make up for but didn't want to think about, was eating away at her. So she decided to go out and drink to numb the pain.
The last thing she remembered before that last drink was just some words being shared with some stranger and then…everything after that was a blank.
She started moving to get up, but as she slowly came to her senses, she began to take notice of things around her.
The first was that she was naked underneath the cover of the blankets.
The second was that she was all alone.
It didn't take long for her to process what happened last night.
"Well, I suppose having a drunken affair is enough humiliation for one night." Lilith said out loud. From what she could sense, whoever she slept with wasn't here, so they in all likelihood left.
Not like it mattered. Even if the person she slept with was still here, she'd probably do the same. The last thing she needed was rumor spreading that she was whoring herself out.
Deciding not to spend another moment here, she reached out her hand and called forth her staff. It took a few minutes, since apparently, she left it at her room at the Emperor's palace, but it eventually flew in through the open window, stopping neatly in her hand.
With a spell circle, she was now fully dressed in her usual attire; a long-sleeved two-tone dark gray dress and dark gray laced boots. She brushed her indigo dyed hair out of her face and straightened it out.
Lilith started walking out of the apartment room. As she did so, she stopped by the kitchen and took note that the bill for the room was on the table. She initially groaned and reached into her pocket for the proper snails but stopped when she saw that the bill had already been signed and filled out, indicating that her unknown partner had already paid for the room.
Well, if nothing else, whoever my partner was, they were at least considerate.
Lilith then walked outside and sat on her staff, flying back to the Emperor's palace to report for duty.
Lilith found herself ill.
It had been two weeks since that drunken night and Lilith had now found herself retching in her bathroom toilet. She didn't understand why this was happening.
It wasn't just the vomiting. She would also undergo chronic pains in various parts of her body, as well as violent mood swings (she had already apologized to Steve for setting him on fire in a sudden fit of anger), and odd cravings (she usually didn't eat this many live birds). Not to mention that she was exhausted half the time even when she barely expended any energy at all.
She was starting to get sick of all this…well, sickness. She needed to do something about it.
She went back to her room and activated her Crystal Ball. It flickered for a moment before Matilda, a high ranking member of the Healer's Coven, appeared on its screen.
"Yes, this is Mat-" She said before stopping when she saw Lilith. "Oh, Mistress Lilith! What an unexpected surprise. Oh, wait, those mean the same thing. What do you need?"
"Matilda, something's wrong with me. I've been rather ill as of late and I need your expertise on how to fix it."
"Is it anything life threatening?"
"As far as I can tell, no," Lilith replied, "But I need an expert opinion on this. It's been rather chronic and I'm getting fed up with it."
"Well, I should be able to have an opening soon. Come in about a week from now and I'll get you looked at, alright?"
"Very well then. Thank you, Matilda."
Lilith then hung up and went to bed, feeling exhausted. Just one week before she could figure out what was happening.
The week had passed, and Lilith had visited Matilda's office and did as she was told. They ran a series of tests on her to figure out the cause of her illness.
Right now, she was just waiting for the results so she could get whatever prescribed medication she needed to fix this.
Her tapping foot as she sat on the chair in the Matilda's office was the sound that filled the room.
She was growing anxious. Just what was taking her so long?
Before she could get up and go to her herself, Matilda walked in, a rather concerned look on her face. She was about as tall as Lilith was and was wearing a modified version of the Healer's Coven robes, having designed hers to look like a doctor's coat. Her brown hair was cut short into a bob and she wore glasses over her hazel eyes.
"Yes, um Mistress Lili-"
"Well, out with it Matilda! What's wrong with me? Am I dying? Do I have a parasite? What is it!?"
"Uh, I-I was just about to tell you."
Lilith paused and breathed in, trying to calm herself down. "Right, sorry. I've just been having all these mood swings as of late."
"Y-yes, that may be another side effect."
"So, I really am sick, aren't I? Is there a cure? What am I even ill with?"
Matilda looked at the papers in her hand and said, "Well, first, I need to confirm something so I can be completely certain."
"What do you need to know?" Lilith asked.
"It's, uh, it's kind of a personal question so please don't take it the wrong way," She said before she cleared her throat and asked, "Have you had any sexual activity within a recent period of time?"
Lilith paused. That was a very odd and specific question to ask her.
"Well, I…uh," Lilith started before she began to stammer, feeling her face heat up, and continued, "I may have gotten rather drunk one night and had an evening with someone around a few weeks ago. What of it?"
"I see," Matilda then organized the papers in her hands and pulled out one of them, "We weren't exactly sure, but all the symptoms you have been experiencing do seem pretty consistent." She then held out one of them in her hand, indicating for Lilith to take it, "Lilith, we believe that you might be pregnant."
Lilith felt as if her whole mind went blank; she went completely stiff and struggled to comprehend what she had just heard. In the span of half a minute, her mind returned to the material world and she uttered the first thing that came to her mind.
"W-what do you mean PREGNANT!?" She screamed out.
"I-it's exactly what it means Mistress Lilith. The symptoms and signs are all there and consistent with early pregnancy. It's very likely that you are going to have a baby." Matilda said.
Lilith lost the ability to speak as she felt the world around her silence. Matilda's concerned cries as she backed to the wall and slumped to the floor went mute amidst her inability to process or accept what she was just told.
"I can't be…I…I just can't be…" Was all that Lilith could utter as she was lost in her own distraught, crumbling world.
"Lilith?" Matilda said as Lilith's mind returned to the world. She saw her kneeling towards her, "Are you alright?"
"You…" Lilith started, "You must be mistaken. I can't be pregnant! Run more tests! It has to be something else!"
Matilda sighed and said, "I can prescribe that you take a pregnancy test or two just to be certain, but all the signs point to it. If it comes back positive, then it will be up to you to decide where to go from there."
All Lilith could do was sit there in silence.
"I'm…I'm…"
Lilith was muttering to herself as she slumped on the wall and bathroom floor. Scattered around her were a number of pregnancy tests that Matilda had instructed her to take. Each and every time, they all came back the same; a positive indicator on all of them.
She tried her best to deny it as much as she could, but there was no way around it now.
She was carrying a child inside her. A bastard child from a drunken affair.
After the last test read positive, she felt herself grow cold and desperate. She moved to call Matilda again and schedule an appointment to get rid of it. But every time she reached for her Crystal Ball to contact her, she froze. She couldn't bring herself to do it. She couldn't end this child's life before it began.
That's where Lilith found herself now; slumped on the floor and not knowing what to do. She couldn't raise a child. She was the leader of the Emperor's Coven. She had her duties and responsibilities. If she was stuck raising it, then it would interfere with her duties and would lower her standing with the Emperor, and if that happened, then she wouldn't be able to cure...
Stop it.
Lilith clutched her head and screamed within her own mind to stop that line of thought. Best not to drown out one crisis with another.
"Just calm down and think Lilith," She said to herself out loud, "You're overthinking this. Just set the child up for adoption. Yes, someone else can take care of them. You need to keep focused. Let the child be someone else's concern. Only one thing matters right now. Just let the child go, and that will be the end of it. Then you and Edalyn can look back on this moment as one of those funny stories you tell your grand...ugh!"
She groaned in frustration. Even talking to herself about it proved fruitless. The more she talked about the idea, the worse she felt.
It's not your problem Lilith. Don't let it be your problem. It's not your problem. Don't let it be your problem.
She repeated that mantra over and over in her head, desperate to convince herself that this was the right choice of action.
She stood up and placed a hand to her womb. It would only be eight months until the child arrived. Just eight months, and it would be over. Before she went to sleep, she contacted Matilda and let her know about what she planned to do; to set the child up for adoption after they were born, which Matilda agreed to help her with. Despite this, she heard a great deal of reluctance in her voice, and as she dosed off later that night, a swell of her own reluctance formed within her chest.
Lilith woke up slowly, her eyelids feeling heavy. She had trouble remembering where she was. She looked around and saw that she was on a bed wearing a light blue gown and she was in a sterile, white room, much like...
Oh, right...
She now remembered where she was. She was in a hospital room.
It had been eight months since she learned that she was pregnant, and in those eight months, that swell of regret grew and grew with each passing day. No matter how hard she tried to bite it down, she couldn't help but feel it rise up stronger every single time. As time passed and her pregnancy made itself more known, Lilith's regret gave way to shame and self-loathing, not dissimilar to what she felt from her greatest mistake years prior. She now felt that she didn't want to go through with her choice, but she kept swallowing it down, trying to convince herself that it was the right decision, that it was too late anyway.
And then the day came.
As soon as her water broke, she frantically called Matilda, grabbed her staff, and rushed to her office as soon as she could. Thankfully, she had arrived just in time to make the delivery. After that...
"What happened after that?" Lilith asked herself.
She couldn't remember what came after. She noticed that she wasn't pregnant anymore; the weight that she had grown used to in recent months no longer there. Perhaps the stress from giving birth caused her to black out?
In any case, what's done it done. Lilith thought to herself. Wherever they are now, they'll be in a happy place. A better place, and hopefully they'll find a family who can take care of them.
Lilith heard the door open and her expression became shocked. Matilda was walking in smiling, but that wasn't what shocked her, no.
What shocked her was the small bundle she held in her arms.
"M-Matilda!" Lilith blurted out. "What are you doing here?"
"I just came to check up on my patient. Nothing wrong with that, right?"
"No, of course not. You're just fulfilling your duties, but...but I thought that you were going to take the child to an orphanage by now?"
"Well," Matilda started, "I was, but I figured the boy should at least see his mother's face before he gets sent off and vice versa. So..."
Oh, so the child is a boy, Was Lilith's first thought. I...I have a son.
That second thought she had made her feel something inside her chest. It wasn't the regret, guilt, or self-hatred that grew over the months. It was something else. Something warm that she couldn't describe. Something she hadn't felt since her days with her sister.
"Do you want to hold him before he goes?"
Matilda's question shook her out of her thoughts. Before she could answer, a gurgling sound came from the blankets before it gave way to crying. As Matilda calmed the bundle down, Lilith felt something even stronger stir inside her. Without even thinking, she held her arms out expectantly. Matilda happily obliged and gently placed the bundle in her arms. Lilith brought the child close to her chest and moved the blankets to see his face.
As she did so, the infant stopped crying, and Lilith felt her heart skip a beat.
In her arms was her son, a precious baby boy with pointed witch ears and a head with strands of white hair. His eyes fluttered open, revealing them to be a bright blue. The baby gurgled again, this time sounding content in Lilith's arms.
Lilith found herself instinctively rocking the baby back and forth in her arms; his eyes fluttering closed as he went to sleep. She held him close to her heart as she could now describe her feelings. She wanted to hold him close forever, to kiss him goodnight and watch him grow. This was her child, her son, and she wanted to give him all the love she could. All that guilt and negativity that she held within for months evaporated in an instant. In its place was nothing but love and joy.
As she rocked him, she felt a wetness go down her face and knew what it was. She smiled and sniffled in happiness as she watched her son rest in her arms.
"So," She turned to Matilda, who was wiping a tear from her eye as well, "I'm guessing you're not planning on letting him go?"
Lilith didn't even need a second to think. She knew her answer. In response, she just shook her head as she gently hugged her son.
"Well in that case, what's his name?"
Lilith pondered as she looked at the boy's face, wondering what his name should be. This wasn't something she thought would ever happen. Even in the months of her pregnancy, she never once thought of a name for the child. Now knowing that she would keep and raise him, she frantically searched her mind for the best name that would suit her son.
After a few minutes, she found the perfect name. She smiled, laid a gentle kiss on her son's forehead and said, "Nero. His name will be Nero Clawthorne."