#i am taking A LOT of artistic liberty here as actual revolution to getting eyes back is... complicated

[tes-trash-blog]

Gelebor only just finished evening rites when Chri'krib rushes in. All his Old Falmeri forgotten, he screeches, "Gelbor! Gelbor!" before resorting to his preferred language. Just as Chri'krib and the other Betrayed have learned Old Falmeri, so too has Gelebor learned their tongue. He hears the urgent skreeich of "Help!" and the clicking of either "Immense pain" or "Dying". In any case, Gelebor turns sharply, coos a soothing word when Chri'krib flinches, and asks, as best he can,

"What is happening?"

To this, Chri'krib grabs for Gelebor's arm and hisses an urgent, "Follow! Follow!" He does, out of the Inner Sanctum, the remains of the Chantry, down below. He does not adjust to the sudden dark as well as his fallen kin, and stumbles more than once over roots and debris. Chri'krib pauses, but only long enough for the Knight-Paladin to regain his bearings.

"Follow! Follow!" This time Chri'krib speaks in Old Falmeri. Gelebor channels his magicka for a candlelight, and follows with quick and certain steps.

He is led past Chaurus guardians who no longer regard him as a threat, the tamers who click in reassurance at him, past outcrops of tents and racks of drying snowberries, past fires and gatherings of Betrayed who chant "Gelbor! Gelbor!". Eventually a sound reaches Gelebor's ears. Short, screeching cries. It is this sound Chri'krib follows.

Finally, at the source of the screams, Chri'krib comes to a stop. As whoever inside gasps for breath, Gelebor can hear the humming chants of their Shaman. He can make out a few of her words: "Endure", "Path", "Fear not".

Chri'krib hunches, unable to go any further. "Help," he screeches, motioning to the tent. Words fail him, but Gelebor took a solemn oath before sun, sky, and divine. He would never turn away from a cry for help. He upholds his oath this day.

The air inside of the tent is thick. The Shaman moves about the tent, throwing dried mushrooms over a large fire as her attendants flick water over the flames. The result is a muggy, dizzying steam. Through the haze Gelebor finally sees the source of the cries. It's a female, lying on a makeshift bed of stone and scrap fabric, her belly swollen with child. To her right, a male crouches and strokes her belly; to her left, another female keeps her arms to the laboring Betrayed's back. Gelebor hums a soothing word as he approaches, finally understanding.

It is not an easy birth. Long has it been since Gelebor used his magicka for any healing, let alone assisting in the agony of childbirth. When all is done the Shaman is sung to hoarseness, her attendants kneeling by the final embers, the mother's left and right hands nearly asleep. The mother, exhausted, breathes faintly, clutching her newborn to a small exposed breast.

Gelebor cannot tell for the dimness and humid air, and the smell of the Shaman's herbs are surely playing with his mind, but what he sees in that quiet moment stays with him as he ascends for an exhausted, murmuring morning rite.

A flutter of eyelashes, where there should be none, as a newborn babe yawns and falls asleep in her mother's arms.