Queen's Tent

"Aye, ye do. But some whisky and a still are all ye can give me that I cannae make myself."

Mostly because the process of setting up a distillery wasn't one he'd learned. Maybe an oversight on his part but he'd talked to the brewers and brewing a proper batch would require a level of attention he couldn't give daily with the other things on his plate.

"Maybe once yer more settled and not flailing about I'll negotiate for some other things. Cause yer hardly have a forge iffin ye don't have a mine or materials."

They just had a pile of rocks at best and new iron, or better yet, steel tools and weapons were something that he could make himself but only if he had a forge and material. Which he usually traded for both when he required them.

"Good, send fer me at my camp when those two are ready ta head into the woods again. I'll keep em alive."

The dwarf says with the deal made for the moment. Then the dwarf stomps out back into the camp heading towards Basco and once he had his bear he'd head back home to prepare for an extended trip into the woods.

As long as Tana was near the forest, she wasn't alone.

Not a minute had gone by before a set of eyes was on her. The creature scampered through thick brush until its head burst out of a nearby bush and skidded to a stop in front of her. It was a hawkwing fox, followed by a second and a third.

They had grown up quite a bit since Jun had befriended them.

One of the creatures cautiously approached the woman and took a quick whiff of the air. Then she howled. A second hawking flanked Tana and began to make strange purring sounds. The first one came closer to lick Tana's ankle. They seemed to be trying to tell her everything was gonna be alright.

The third observed for a moment, and then ran off back into the forest.

(Avalux had once predicted that repeated exposure to magic would increase the intelligence of animals. And Jun had not stopped training since the day she was defeated by a giant moss-covered cow.)

In under a minute Jun herself made a flying leap over the same bush and almost tripped over the fox who retrieved her, who had run alongside her. He yelped indignantly at the clumsy female biped, who comically skidded to a stop a few meters in front of Tana.

As she recovered, Jun's eyes bugged at seeing Tana's condition. "Y-your highness really needs to adjust the guard shifts a bit." She did her best to conceal her nervousness (though likely that ship had sailed with her entrance). But Tana's birth was enormously significant, not just because it's a baby and babies tend to be important, but also because her baby would be one of the first people to be both conceived and born on the isles!

She looked wide eyed. "Asa...?" There was that normal fear in the mother-to-be's eyes as she peered at both her friend, Jun, and the man who she hardly knew, as she had been in her tent mostly since the poisoning. She was still affected by the poisoning on that day, the jagged scar still the pink of newly wrought flesh. Though she was a strong young miss, she was easily winded and the birth was something that frightened her. What if it killed her?

Her head tilted back and she gave a grunt as another contraction ripped through her belly. Her water broke, then, and things only frightened her that much more. She wrapped her arms around her belly and doubled over, giving a raw cry.

Moir, alerted by the cry of a woman in pain, appeared with arms filled with plants that had been identified as herbs. "Now, now, I am here..."

She turned to the others and then said, "I need boilin' water, lass, a blade, and somethin' ta tie the cord off with. Ye," she said to the man, "I'll need ye ta carry her back to her tent.

Assuming people did as directed, Moir would let the man do what it is he was going to do to help before she got to work.

Eventually, people were shooed away since there was not much room in the tent.

Hours came to pass, the sun moving higher and then lower as the day waxed into night. Eventually, a tired Moir came out, looking around. "The child is large and harder to pass. I need for ye," she pointed to the man, "to sit behind her and help her. She is exhausted and her mate is not here, else I'd ask him."

It was deep into the morning, when the sky was starting to light up with pinks and oranges, the sound of the babe's cry could be heard throughout that part of the island. A princess was born that morning, a rather weighty and broad lass with the dark hair of her father. Tana was exhausted but otherwise, sound.

Avalux kept himself occupied until the labour started. That was the point at which he left the tent to go find somewhere else to be. While he was, generally, not that squeamish something about the thought of a baby had him slightly on edge. Probably because he'd not actually been around any small humans since he'd been one, baring the ones he crossed paths with occasionally while out and about. Still, that was a far cry from interacting with one directly and further still from helping with the birth of one.

Still, he'd done all he could for the moment. He'd only puzzled through about half the numbing spell and he wasn't entirely sure how he would even test it. Trying to deaden someone's nerves seemed like the thing that could very easily go awry. Jun would probably disapprove of human testing even if he found volunteers. Ah well, it was mostly just a thought exercise at present anyway, he was trying to keep himself occupied.

"Er, I am sorry, what was that?"

It had sounded as though Moir had just told him there was a problem with the birth, something about the baby being too large? He supposed, based on what he'd read, he could see how that might cause an issue. But how exactly was he supposed to help with that? She must have been meaning to point at someone else. He was... Well, he wasn't a midwife or even a medic he was ill-equiped to do anything more than what he'd done.

At the entrance of the tent, a groggy Jun poked her head between the curtains. She gingerly walked into to get a better look at the baby, moving cautiously along the side of the tent. Seeing the baby seemed to wake her up real quick; she was staring in awe at the little miracle.

"She's beautiful," Jun said, wiping a little tear away.

The hawkwing foxes trailed in afterwards, circling Jun's feet and then Tana's feet, sniffing curiously.

"They wanna know what new human baby smell is like. They're weird." She gave Avalux a questioning look, as if looking for approval despite the obvious concern for sanitation. She was prepared to shoo them away.

Tana lay resting with the large baby girl. She would grow into an amazon of a woman one day if her length had anything to say about it. Tana named the little one "Mara," without stuttering her name. She was not surprised that the man who was forced to see a bit more than he needed to, she felt bad for him as she heard him retch outside. That could not be helped. Mara was cleaned up soon enough and so was Tana, who was changed into clean clothing after a bit of a sponge while Avalux was out of the tent.

She began to sign tiredly, too tired to write things out on a sand table. Moir translated, "She says to thank ye, sir," she said out of the tent and then to Jun, "And to you, she wants you to be Mara's guardian if something should happen to Tana or her mate. Where has that man gone off to anyway? He shoulda been here with Tana."