The room is dimly lit, as the wooden window is still closed, though it's past the time people would be active in a rural town.
Without saying a word, Cecilia hurries over and opens the window ajar, letting the daylight enter. Only then does she turn to face Margarete and Mutt.
Mutt is looking from Margarete to Cecilia, back to Margarete, distraught.
"What do I do? H-how can I help?"
More than asking, Mutt was pleading. He wanted to do something to help his wife but was too panicked to think straight and take action.
((That's a good question, for I don't know the answer myself. Yet, I can't say that. I have to do something. Let me check her first.))
She hurries to Margarete's side. She's on a straw mattress, pale, sweating, and trembling. Blood stains the sheets beneath her, and her eyes shine with a fierce determination.
"You… came. AAGHH!"
Cecilia wasn't a doctor, but she wouldn't need modern medicine knowledge to know that Margarete is in pain and really weakened. Her heart races as her eyes dart around, looking for solutions.
She used to live in a hospital, but this was the first time she was on the side of the person who had to save a life. Right now, she couldn't be the disabled teenager Cecilia but the capable priestess Morielen. She needed to really play her game character.
"Don't worry, Margarete. I'm here. It will be all right."
The blood keeps trailing down, increasing the size of the stain. She knows what it is. It's a hemorrhage. She saw it before. She had it before. She could remember very clearly when the car…
((No, no. It's not the moment for those memories to come. Damn.))
"Mutt, water. Warm, clean water and clean clothes. Hurry."
She didn't have time to explain. She just asked straight out what she needed. She activated her Appraisal skill and went straight to the woman's status.
[Status:
Pregnant
Bleeding
Weakness]
"I'll start cleaning you. How's the pain?"
Mutt had scrambled to bring what she asked for, but she paid it no mind, focusing on the woman in front of her. She remembers some scenes from movies and internet videos, searching for any useful information.
Before Mutt returns, Marya enters the room, breathless. She's carrying some cloths and herbs on her small hands.
"Oh, thank you, Marya! Those will be useful."
Cecilia didn't recognize the herbs at first sight, but she decided to praise the girl for her effort anyway. She then used Appraisal on the herbs, and information flew through her mind.
[Herzmoos (Heartmoss)
A soft moss that grows on the shaded side of stones near streams. Removes bleeding status.]
[Mutternkraut (Mother's Grace)
A tall plant with a warming scent. Encourages uterine contractions.]
((Oh, those are actually really good. I remember Heartmoss from the game, but I've never heard about that Mother's Grace. And I maxed out the Alchemy-related skills.))
Right at that moment, Mutt entered the room with a basin full of water and a jar.
"Thank you, Mutt. Now, please wait outside and leave this to us."
Marya thanks his efforts and then shoos him out of the room. To her, childbirth is a woman's matter. Cecilia wouldn't mind, but she didn't know about the country's customs, and she had no time to discuss it.
Cecilia tests the water's temperature, nods, then takes the jar, filling it with water from the basin. She then throws some leaves of Herzmoss in it and puts a lid on it.
"She's not contracting. She needs to contract. Make an infusion of the other herb."
Marya understood what she meant halfway through the phrase and was already moving when Cecilia finished talking.
The water in the basin was still warm, so she took a cup of the water, put a bit of Mother's Grace's flowers in it, then held it in her hands, closing her eyes and muttering 'Infusion.'
After some moments, she opened her eyes again, smiling, and hurried back to Margarete.
Cecilia didn't see any of that, as she was still focused on the two lives, but she heard the muttering and felt the mana changing. She could notice by the scent that the infusion was properly made.
Of course, Cecilia herself had no knowledge about it, but Morielen knew, with her Medicine and Herbalism skills, which were part of the 'Alchemist' package. And everything Morielen knew, Cecilia knew.
"Cecilia! Cecilia! The baby's not moving!"
Margarete's sudden shout startles everyone. The woman is crying in despair.
"Don't worry, Margarete. It's okay. Just take deep breaths. Keep breathing deeply. Drink the infusion Marya made."
((Please, please, Ephemerys… You're the goddess of reBIRTH, aren't you? Please, help me bring the child.))
In that panicked moment, while Margarete drank the infusion between sobs, her vision narrowed and all sounds around her dulled out. There's too much blood, and everything is eerily silent and slowed down.
She takes one of the clothes and soaks it in the infusion of Herzmoss, then proceeds to clean the woman.
She is desperate to stop the bleeding and puts every ounce of her feelings into the movements she does. She doesn't see anything else, only the bleeding and her determination to stop it.
Meanwhile, for Marya, the vision was different. She only saw Cecilia start glowing with particles of purple light, which began concentrating on her hands, then entering Margarete's body.
Their world wasn't slowed down, like Cecilia's. What seemed like entire minutes for Cecilia were just instants for her. She could see the bleeding miraculously stopping as the purple light was absorbed by Margarete's body.
"Cecilia! Margarete's…"
Marya had looked at Margarete's face, and only then did she notice that she wasn't moving anymore. Her voice snapped Cecilia back to the normal flow of the world.
Cecilia looked up and started calling for Margarete. She instinctively activated one of her priestess' techniques that he had forgotten existed because it was so useless in the game.
With that technique, she was able to see the lifelines of every living being around her. It was something she unlocked to get a reward in a quest and an achievement but never used after that.
But, right now, it meant she could see that Margarete was alive, as well as the fetus inside her. Though it was very faint, almost disappearing, it was there.
"No, no, no. Wake up! Margarete!"
But the vision of the lifelines reminded her that she wasn't a nurse. She was a priestess. She had healing powers.
"Ephen na'rath silurai,
Thalen mori en'shae."
("By the soft wings of ending,
Let stillness give way to breath.")
She chanted the general healing spell she remembered, trying to strengthen both mother and infant. Marya hurried to her side and started trying to wake Margarete up, while Cecilia chanted over and over again.
((Please, not her. Don't let her go. Please, Ephemerys, help this child come to life. Please… I am not a doctor, nor a nurse. I am your servant, please…))
Tears ran down Cecilia's cheeks as her voice cracked and wavered. Yet, they showed no signs of recovering. Instead, both their already faint lifelines weakened even more.
((Please, Ephemerys, please…))
Cecilia never was a religious person. Yet, right now, she was living an afterlife of sorts. And, in this world, the only thing she had was her character's background as a priestess. She had no one else to turn to.
At that moment, a butterfly of pale, deathly light flutters into the room through the window. It circles twice around Cecilia, then goes to Margarete, entering her chest.
Margarete gasps, waking up, prompting Cecilia to hurry to her head.
"It's okay, it's okay. Now I need you to breathe and push. Just breathe and push."
Cecilia guides Margarete through the breathing and contracting. Soon, the crown of the baby's head appears.
"It's working! Keep breathing and pushing!"
She runs back to position herself to get the baby as it begins to exit. Margarete's screams mix with Cecilia's instructions and Marya's mumblings as she repeats the instructions and tries to calm Margarete down.
The cacophony reaches a climax, and then it stops for a moment. That moment of absolute silence seems to last an eternity, until a newborn's cry pierces the air.