piece of your heart

by blutopaz15, mistenflute

Chapter 7

Summary:

On her own again, Rayla realizes she can't keep roughing it forever.

Notes:

Hello, hello, and welcome back to...Rayla Suffers: The Fic :')

Real life got busy, oops! We've been working on this chapter for quite a while and "family" week for rayllum mini month on tumblr was the push we needed to get back to it. (It also helps that we are currently posting from vacation together in a lovely, beautiful undisclosed location! 😉)

As a reminder, this fic contains explicit sexual content throughout! Read at your own risk!!

As always, we love and appreciate any comments, kudos, reblogs, and good vibes you might want to send our way! Thanks for reading!

september 25th

She’s not going home.

Not yet.

Every passing hour since she’d first climbed up here has only made her more sure.

It’s been two days—three?—that she’s spent up in this tree—or another, a few minutes’ walk away—surveilling the side of the Spire that the tracks she’d been following had led to…and there’s been absolutely nothing.

No Claudia.

No Viren.

Nothing.

After getting rained on all day yesterday—

After shivering since sunset without even a cloak to keep her warm—

After spending the night with her legs safety-lashed to the branch she’d picked as her perch—

Nothing.

Nothing, and she could be home, she seethes silently, instead of sitting here—damp and cold and miserable—dozing in a tree.

She could be there, in Katolis, with Callum.

With his cute little umbrella spell to shield her from the weather…

With his fireplace, glowing hot and orange, just in case his skin on hers isn’t warm enough…

With his soft, fluffy castle pillows enveloping her, his bedding smelling of the castle soap scent that lingers in his hair…

With his arms wrapped around her, his hands gently cradling her little bump with his baby inside…

With Callum’s lips—

—but she’s not going home.

Not yet.

That much is clear.

Callum’s not safe.

Not yet.

Rayla sighs and unties her belt from around her legs, then digs in her nearly empty bag for something—anything—other than the gross, too-ripe moonberries she’d plucked in the last little sliver of moonlight last night, every muscle tight with frustration, and she shouldn’t be surprised. She knows the answer—

Nothing.

No food.

How could she have been this stupid?

Of course Claudia wasn’t going to leave such an obvious path to wherever she’s hiding for any elf or human to find when she has to know that no one, elf or human, would be too keen to know that she—and Viren, especially—are here somewhere, hiding in Xadia. Probably it’d been her, killing the chamomile fields and stealing the little cuddlemonkey babies from their nests, but—

She wouldn’t lead her to her.

Claudia’s a lot of things, but she’s not stupid.

She sure is, though, she thinks, with nothing left in her pack but the berries her nausea would’ve ruined even if they weren’t mushy and over-ripe. Stupid and reckless, leaving the safe, easy respite she’d weaseled her way into the very instant she’d had even an inkling of a lead, instead of stopping to fucking think about it for even a minute.

And what was she supposed to do now, just…go back to Tab and Isi’s, tail between her legs? It’s not like she’d deserved their charity in the first place, and that’s what it’d been—charity. Who is she, then, to go back there, begging for a bed to sleep in when she can’t even work without barfing all over everything and sleeping half the day away?

It’s not like they needed her help…and she hadn’t done anything to deserve theirs.

And she can’t go home either.

It’s not all that much different, she scowls, pulling at her too-tight waistband before buckling her still-big-enough belt back into place.

Who is she to show up on their doorstep back in Katolis, away now for longer than she’d even known them, begging Callum and Ezran not to abandon her when that’s exactly what she’d done to them…and for what?

For nothing.

She can’t go home.

She doesn’t deserve to.

Not with her mission unfulfilled.

Not with the life they’re supposed to have still on the line.

Her stomach growls.

She doesn’t deserve home.

Baby does though.

“Not yet,” she murmurs, quiet enough that her voice only barely wobbles, her palm cold and pressed to her belly. “Not til you’re safe.

She can’t go home—not yet—and she can’t stay here, either.

And so, she eats the last bitter, mushy late-season moonberry she’d plucked from a bush down below…and tries not to gag.

The moon is new.

She’s hungry, still.

They’re hungry, still.

…and every hour she wastes on this lead is an hour that baby’s not home.

She doesn’t have a choice.

She climbs down from the tree, careful in the dark, moonless night.

She’s not going home.

september 27th

She’s not going home.

…or maybe she is.

She might not have a choice.

Rayla thumbs over the money in her palm, regretting the latest in her string of rash decisions more and more all the time.

She’s supposed to be protecting Callum from evil dark mages, not standing in the shadows at the edge of town, budgeting out her coins.

How is she supposed to hunt down Viren and Claudia—and take care of a baby!—when she can hardly even clothe herself?

The wind whips through the foliage at her back and up into her hair, sending a new chill over her bare arms. The breeze is still nice, overall, in the lingering early autumn heat…but a month from now? Two? Three?

She tugs her hood up over her horns, reminded of shivering in the cold rain in the woods the other night, and the boogie berries she’d preemptively shoved up her nose in her search for a town with a market, and the tight feeling in her throat that came with worrying about if a cold would be bad for baby too…

The hood won’t do the trick for long, though, she knows. The scarf she’d left hanging on his chair back at the Nexus might’ve, though…and the cloak she’d—stupidly—left at Tab and Isi’s definitely would’ve helped.

The cozy scene she keeps picturing for herself back at the castle would be best of all, of course—

Spiced cider Callum had waxed on and on about, wishing for winter during that heat wave at the Nexus…

Clothes for her growing belly on stand-by and indulgences she’d scoffed at, welcome now for their little one…

A blanket (just the one) between the two—soon three—of them…

—but even if she were home by winter, she’d need at least a cloak to get her through.

She shifts, knowing that not even standing upright will relieve the strain of her waistband over her stomach at this point.

…and pants.

She needs pants.

Rayla bites her lip, though, looking again at her little pile of coins.

The solutions to both of these problems will leave her with…enough for maybe a week’s worth of food?

Unless—

She clenches her fist tight around her money, aware of Callum’s little pile of coins, still untouched and tucked into her armor—

That’s for emergencies, though—she’d decided that the very second she’d taken it with her—and, of course, now that means it’s for baby emergencies.

Pants aren’t an emergency—not yet, anyway—and she has enough from Tab and Isi…probably?

There’s nothing else for it.

She doesn’t have a choice.

She needs clothes.

Rayla swallows hard and slips what’ll be set aside for food back in her own coin pouch, eyeing the Moonshadow-minded storefront, filled with purples and navies and deep forest greens, from afar. Resolved that, again, blending in is best—nevermind that there’s no stealth necessary here—she waits until a few more elves find their way into the shop…

…and the first thing she does inside is wince, summing different combinations of the prices posted.

She has no choice, though, she frowns, taking down her hood and bracing to empty out her week’s worth of back-up money too—and just for pants!—and then sets to work, picking through piles.

In the middle of frowning at pants that would’ve fit two of her two moons ago, she startles:

“Those are too big for you, lass,” the merchant tuts, and Rayla crumples the waistband in against her chest, hesitating, but…there’s no use pretending, she figures.

“I’m, uh…expecting, is the thing, though, so I need—” It’s odd, catching herself smiling and touching her belly, and apparently it’s just as strange to the shopkeeper too, who looks at her like…well, like she’s a pregnant sixteen year old. “—uh…expecting clothes.”

She’s not sure what reaction she’d been expecting, exactly, but the man harrumphs and then goes quiet, a long white braid nearly catching her as he turns sharply on his heel, and…well, she has money, doesn’t she, even if she doesn’t particularly want to spend it?

She’s about to insist, but then—

He’s circled his way back to face her quickly, having plucked things from the folded-up piles around the shop.

“Oh, no, I just need—” Well, she really does need a cloak, actually…and this—dress? tunic?—that’ll eventually probably be just a shirt once she’s round is probably smart, too. She tugs the pants’ drawstring all the way loose, and then, wincing worse than before, glances up at the numbers written up across the pavilion. “That’s…how much?”

“Oh, that?” he mumbles, gaze following, and then shakes his head, red-faced. “That’s…new prices, not new-to-you.” Maybe she can afford it then? She doesn’t bother hiding the little collection of coins in her hand, fully expecting that he’ll require the whole sum. “Half that’ll do.”

She’s on her way out with her armful of varying purple garments when she stops in her tracks—

A tiny navy dress, stitched with a lavender heart.

Her hand slides down to her little swell…

—but there’ll be time for that.

Later.

After.

And anyway—Callum should get to help her pick, once she’s home.

Once he’s safe.

She’s not going home—not yet.

She has a mission.

And speaking of missions—

Rayla pivots, half of her coins somehow heavier now than the whole lot had been before. Hesitating only a moment, she presses the rest of her budget to the wooden counter with a metallic thud.

“Do you…happen to have any armor?”

october 3rd

She’s not going home.

Rayla fidgets with her next to last—actual last—coin, loitering by the village’s noticeboard, an ear out for leads that…well, just aren’t coming, and if she’s stuck out here, waiting for a clue…

…the next thing she needs is a job.

Foraging on the go will only go so far as the weather cools and harvests end…nevermind that she’d been definitely wrong about just a cloak getting her through colder nights, nevermind that bedrolls and blankets are—apparently—expensive, nevermind how long it’d been since she’d had soap to call her own.

Nevermind that baby needs better than this.

She bites her lip, sharp enough to wince.

Baby needs better than this.

Rayla wanders under the village bulletin’s gazebo, finding the board in question opposite the walkway.

Just barely, she’s been getting by on the meager supplies she’s scrounged together, but the weather is turning, and the ground is cold and hard…and the way she smells can’t be good for anybody—baby included?

If she’s not going home—and she can’t yet, despite her best efforts, skulking around squares and taverns and markets—she definitely needs money, which means she needs a job, and—apparently?—people post those here…but Rayla frowns, blinking at the mostly ragged sheets littering the village bulletin.

An incomprehensible, weatherworn poster where she can only make-out cobbler, help, boot and…moonberry?

Some letters she can almost read if she squints, on another torn up paper—

Is that looking after a bog…or a frog?

Well, she has frog-sitting skills…

Some in languages she hardly knows—

Who exactly is writing in Draconic, wanting a…babysitter? Body guard?

Body guard for a baby dragon, sure, but—well, maybe she should practice with some actual babies?

Some jobs she won’t be doing—

She’d had enough grubs for a lifetime, thank you—she doesn’t need go be a grub farmer.

“Hmm. Dual.”

Standoffish in a flash—at someone asking outright about her blades before she even knows anyone’s there—Rayla turns to the source of the gravelly voice. He—whoever he is—stands a ways away still, but he…knows something, clearly.

About her?

She’s glad for whatever had made her keep her hands off her belly…but panicked at being caught unawares nonetheless.

With the calculated calm of someone who’s already sized her up and all the sneering pride of someone who’s clearly found no threat, he glowers, deliberately imposing.

…and she thinks she manages to hide the little electric jump that shivers across her shoulders.

Large.

Probably slow.

But—

There’s a square full of people beyond the noticeboard’s enclosed pavilion that she’s—yep—found herself confined by, and…what?

Is she just going to…whip out her swords?

“Sharp, too,” she answers, her arms crossed, just pointedly enough, she hopes.

She eyes the wooden slats at the sides of the shelter.

It’d be no problem, ducking down low, squeezing between—usually.

She can do it, she thinks, but…quickly?

Rayla catches herself with her arms halfway lowered, on their way to her stomach, and she’s hardly showing to an unfamiliar eye, but if she holds herself that way—

The source of the rasping moves closer, eyes narrowing. Hers do too—and yeah, her gut was right to be on guard.

Rayla resists the way her hands itch for the swords in question. It wouldn’t be ideal, to say the least, if she wants to keep her low profile in the middle of this very public square.

“Selling?” he says, more like a toad-like croak than a voice…and her alarm lowers just enough for her to scoff.

“And why, exactly, would I sell—”

“Why wouldn’t you sell your services? Unless—ah. So, stolen swords, then, I’ll assume, or…for show,” he finishes, scowling and gripping his belt very near a badly sheathed blade of his own. “Safer with me, then.”

Okay, yeah, no—Rayla grips a sword at her back. That’s a threat.

But…

Services? Like…a job?

He lumbers over her, though, the spread of his elbows making it clear just how trapped she is, and there’s the board at her back and this broad, bulky bully between her and the open square, and—

She glares back.

“What do you want?”

october 6th

She’s not going home.

No matter how much wood this stupid fire needs—

No matter how many times a night nature calls at baby’s behest—

No matter how lumpy every single square inch of this campsite is—

She’s not.

She can’t.

But, fuck, she wants to.

She could do it right now, Rayla thinks, sighing and shifting to her left.

Maybe if she bunches her legs up under her new cloak too?—nope.

She groans.

Literally all she’d have to do is kill the fire, and she could just…start walking. She could just…go, right now, paying her way west with the money that she’s forbidden herself to spend that Callum probably doesn’t even realize she’d taken. Sure, he’d be pissed at her for, like, a second about the whole leaving on his birthday business—but then she’ll tell him about baby, and everything will be fine.

Hopefully.

She’d explain herself: how she’d been so desperate to keep him safe, how she’d spent these past months, all alone, pregnant and pining for him, for home—

How she needs him.

How she loves him.

And—

Well, it’ll all turn out fine for baby at least.

She could go home.

She maybe…should.

She and baby would be fed and warm and comfortable, for another—what, six months?—and then baby can live at the castle with Callum and Ez and Soren and Opeli to look after them, and then maybe someday—once Viren’s well and truly dead and gone—she could come back.

And then maybe she could live at the castle too.

With baby.

With Callum.

…if he’ll have her.

She has time, though, right? She can still find Viren, find Claudia, take them out, get herself and baby home—

—and so she can’t give up now.

Not yet.

She’s not going home.

She’s not, she’s not, she’s not, she repeats, eyes pinched closed, trying to ignore the rock jabbing her in her rib.

She’s not—and Callum is precisely why.

She needs him warm and safe and alive, and more importantly—

Baby needs him.

As dubious as it seems, she has a job now, anyway, aside from her mission—

“Services. Saturday. Sunset.”

—if she can just get to Saturday.

She’ll buy a bedroll with a blanket, maybe a hot meal…and then she’ll be set, and all it’ll take is one little sellsword stint. She’ll be warm enough to sleep out here, rested enough to find another lead, quick enough to be home by winter—

Rayla, again, sighs noisily at the end of a shiver, and blows on her freezing hands.

Fuck, she hopes she’ll be home by winter.

Maybe if she—

Okay, yeah: she tucks her hands down into her waistband…that might just work, she thinks, her rounding belly warm enough for her cold fingers and her drawstring tight enough to keep her in a little ball on the ground in front of the fire that’s…well, almost comfortable.

It’s just Callum holding her tight like this, she tells herself—his warm middle guarding her back from the cold, his breath a little tickly on her neck…

…his hand in her pants?

Yeah, his hand in her pants—

Drifting down one thigh…

Then up again…

Then down the other…

She goes tense at the scene in her head—as if she’s not just making up the anticipation herself.

Callum’s breath, gentle in her ear, wondering if she wants this—

Callum’s fingers finding themselves in the heat of her wanting once it’s clear that she does—

Callum’s lips, puckering on her shoulder, whispering that she can relax, that he loves her, that he’ll do anything for her—

Her own touch is more efficient—too efficient. She falls apart before her fantasy of Callum can even find his way inside her, falling to pieces completely—

For him.

It’s warm when she’s done…or, at least, she is for a change.

It won’t last—the warmth, the satisfaction, the contentment. She’ll fall asleep and maybe her dreams will be kind enough to send her home to him, but that’s all it’ll be—a dream.

She knows that, of course.

She’s not going home.

october 9th

She’s not going home.

The moon is full, and it’s storming, and she may not be going home, but—

—but she’s sure as shit not sleeping outside in the rain, again.

It’s for baby, she tells herself, scouting out the town square at a very gray sundown, hood down low. She can’t be getting sick, after all, right on the cusp of the job that she—and baby—so badly need.

And plus—Callum would want this.

He’d want her—and baby, most of all—warm and dry.

There’s nothing else for it, then, she thinks, turning down the alley adjacent to whatever building she’d just watched a bespectacled Earthblood lock up, following the walls until—yep.

Chimney.

Gingerly she lays a palm against it, and—nope.

Not too hot.

So, she starts climbing.

…and it’s a library, it seems, through the first window she passes, that she’s chosen as her refuge.

She can’t help herself: her heart thuds as she climbs, her stomach goes a little topsy-turvy, the corner of her mouth pitches upward, knowing she’ll spend tonight’s moon even more caught up in Callum than usual.

And speaking of the full moon—

It’s not like she’ll be able to see it anyway in this weather, even if she were outside, so—

Hi, Callum.

—might as well start now.

You’ll never guess where I’m sleeping tonight.

Maybe all her breaking-and-entering acrobatics—scaling across a tiny little ledge, prying a window open, balancing across a beam—aren’t strictly necessary, and probably Callum wouldn’t be thrilled about her teetering a story up with their little one in her belly…but the floaty feeling in her head can’t be reasoned with. It’d be fun, she thinks, breaking into a library with Callum, him all flustered and nervous out in the square, then clumsily tracing the same path she’d taken with all the excitement of a building’s-worth of new books at his fingertips for the night…

Probably he’d find them another solution that doesn’t have her even close to teetering though—mage wings up to the roof, maybe?—because…yeah, he would definitely do this with her, but he wouldn’t exactly be thrilled about it.

Especially with baby.

He’d be thrilled about that, at least, though.

He’ll love baby.

That’s right, Callum! I’m breaking into—

Rayla somersaults down to the ground, landing with a silent roll.

—the library!

She straightens up and scoffs: she’s fine, even with baby. That dummy has—would have—no reason to worry. After all, she better be able to do that much at least, still, with this job tomorrow and all.

I know, I know. I’m okay, Callum, promise. Now, let’s just make sure we’re alone…

The aisles are almost certainly empty—What? Did the elf with the glasses lock someone in on purpose?—but she still goes around to check, footsteps soft as she hesitates around each corner.

Who’s going to care, anyway, about her breaking into a library?

It’s not like it’s the Great Bookery or anything: this little one-story library, just off the town square where she’s due to meet what’s-his-name for tomorrow’s job. It’s the rain’s fault, anyway. The weather couldn’t have waited? This time tomorrow, she’d be just fine sleeping outside in this—a bedroll, a tent, a pouch full of money—and anyway…what are a bunch of nice townspeople going to do to her? Pregnant and alone and sixteen…and sleeping in the library?

Oh no! What a terrible, terrible crime.

She says to the Callum in her head, scoffing at his panicky list of worries.

Pfft, it’ll be fine. Nobody’s going to care, even if I do get caught.

It’s just me, anyway—

Her stupid illusion breaks, and Rayla swallows thickly, hiding behind a corner before easing open an office-door that creaks just like the ones back at the castle.

—but you knew that already.

Just me…and baby. We’re…okay, I guess. I mean—we’ll be fine. We miss you, that’s…that’s all.

Blinking away the sudden blur in her eyes, she checks the office with the whining door, slips into another room—storage, maybe?—and then turns back to survey her shelter for the night—

—and she can practically see Callum, all over this library.

Callum, pressing her backwards against a shelf with a kiss—

The last time they’d been all alone in a library…

Rayla shivers.

Maybe…later, she’ll go ahead and think about his hand hooked under her open knee, his hips thoughtlessly rolling against her center, his fist gripped firm and hot on her horn—

Nope.

I miss you, Callum…but you probably knew that already.

She’ll leave that thought there, thank you.

There are more Callums to imagine all over the place, anyway.

Callum, buried in the stacks of books that’d been left out, his sketchbook open while he furiously scribbles whatever he doesn’t want to forget, everything spread across the giant table beneath the big window that—

—oops, she should probably stay away from.

Callum, teetering at the tippy-top of that ladder, trying to get that oddly pastel-covered book with a font on the spine that’s—huh—familiarly silvery and ornate that says—

Oh.

She squints to be sure.

Nine Moons Expecting: The Mating at Moonrise Companion.

Guess we really should have read that prequel, hmm?

Obviously, she has to climb up there and get it down for him—for them.

They have research to do.

Okay—buckle up, book-boy. Let’s read up on baby.

It’s hardly a strain to reach for the yellow book from the top rung, though—oh—it’s a little thicker than its predecessor.

Oof. Lots of reading up, I guess.

She drops the book, letting it thud to the ground, and settles on the ground there under the ladder. Turning right on past the chapter titled Conception—

Well, we’re way past that. Wait—shouldn’t your “Mating” book have that covered?

—and on, past 2 weeks, and 4 weeks, and on, and on—

It’s been…12? I guess?

—the page after is the one that falls open. Embellished and colorful, unlike the rest of the black-and-white book, there’s a summary in that fancy cover-font and a heading that reads: Second Trimester.

I guess I knew that, and—oh—I do feel a little better, actually? A little less barfy at least.

She lets the book lay open on her knees, flipping to the next page, tracing her fingertips over the drawing that…maybe looks like her at this point? Her bump is…maybe a little rounder, actually? She hasn’t had a good look at herself in a while, but—

Maybe—are human babies bigger?

Ugh, I’m going to have a giant smooth-skulled baby with extra fingers and toes, aren’t I?

His—extra big—hand would cover over hers on the page just then, Rayla thinks, and maybe she’d lean over to kiss those cute round ears of his that maybe baby will have too? Callum would tease her back, obviously—

No, we’re not born with full-grown horns, dummy.

She’d hope not anyway. She’s going to have to give birth, after all, and—

Let’s get this over with.

Sighing—She’ll be fine! She’s not scared! People have babies every day!—as she turns to the back of the book, Rayla gulps at illustrations of—

Really? Ten whole centimeters?

A…placenta?

She’s…not squeamish, not really, but—

Rayla flips the page, and the lists of complications…it’s even worse.

Signs that she might not make it—

Worse, ways that baby could get hurt on their way out—

Rayla shuts her eyes, and flips past.

She’ll be home by then, though.

She’ll be in a castle, with hot water at the ready and more towels and rags than she could possibly need and the castle has a doctor—

The Callum in her head takes her hand again, squeezing tight, smiling slightly and sweetly when she looks up at him, with so much love and care in his eyes that she could just cry—whatever hormones the book keeps talking about aside.

She’ll be home—with Callum at her side.

She exhales and looks back at the book—she really should read this—and finds a sweet little Moonshadow baby drawn in full, gorgeous color, with practically translucent white hair touching the tips of her ears and the tiniest little violet horn nubs and itty-bitty fists all balled up…

It’ll be worth it, though.

They’ll have baby afterwards.

Their baby won’t be quite like the one on the page, though

Their baby will be half him, after all.

Rayla swallows, pressing a knuckle to the weepy mist in her eyes again, her other hand splayed over her bump with his baby inside.

What could be better than that? Callum with her this whole time. Not just that intangible love she’d known she’d be carrying all the way across Xadia when she set out, and not just that metaphorical piece of his heart she’d promised she’d have with her in that letter she’d written back at the Nexus—

We love you so much, Callum.

Their baby.

Literally Callum and her, together as one inside her: a part of her and a part of him.

With her, even when he’s not.

She closes the book there and lets herself weep, content with the picture in her head of their tiny dark-haired, pointy-eared little one, imagining Callum speculating in his sketchbook right along with her.

She ought to read more of the book—and probably she will—but she’s warm and dry and indoors for once, and she really hasn’t been sleeping all that well, and, well—

Rayla lies back, looking up at the rows and rows of books overhead, letting herself get lost in the thought of Callum laid out there with her.

You’d love this—all of this!—Callum, and—

This is a nice way to drift off, she thinks—just her and Callum and their little bundle of love.

I wish I could come home.

But she can’t.

They can’t.

Not yet.

Rayla curls up, slipping her hands down around her belly, holding baby like she knows Callum would.

She’s not going home.

Notes:

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Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of the ttm rayllum baby au