Ch 1 – Birth of the Unwanted

The moon was just rising, full and yellow over the trees as the Princess heaved herself up once more to push. Between her legs gently soothing and cooing in gentle tones was Mahela, the forest healer. Soon, very soon, the little child would be born.

The Princess screamed with effort and then gasped as she felt the child slip from her loins. She fell back exhausted as Mahela attended the small child in her arms. She looked up and met the gaze of the new mother. She walked to her side. The Princess lifted her weary head and looked at the child in the healer's arms. The infant opened her eyes revealing eyes the color of the sea to her mother. Sighing she turned away and closed her eyes.

Mahela reached out and touched the Princess's cheek. She felt the woman take a long drawn out sigh and then watched her go limp. Mahela sighed and pulled the child closer to her. The Princess of the Blood Elves, sister to the King, had just died from childbirth. It was no lack of skill from which she died; it was a lack of will to live. It was an unnatural thing for a sin'dorei to loose the will to live. Elves were immortal and to die so was looked on as a failure of the person's spirit.

She walked to her chair by the fireplace and looked at the baby in her arms. All too much of her sire showed in her. Her eyes were the wrong color for a sin'dorei as Mahela well knew. She too was a half elf, born between peoples and sides of a war. Her father, being an officer was able to keep her and her mother in his home. His superiors had looked the other way since he was such a fine officer and in high standing. Mahela became a healer to appease the people about her since many women such as the Princess made mistakes and needed help the full blood priests would not give to them.

Mahela looked at the tiny ears that ended in points. Those and her high cheekbones she would bear as testimony to her heritage even as her body was that of a human, much more stocky and not as thin boned as a sin'dorei would be. Her eyes were not the forest green of her mother's people either.

This poor child had no place in the world. Her father either did not know of her or was dead and now her mother was dead as well. She was not yet hungry enough to wake. Birth was tiring on infants as well as the mother and they often slept for a time after in order to recover.

Mahela sat watching. Her keen ears then picked up the sound of running feet in the forest nearby. Hawkstriders. She took a breath. That meant officers in the army or…

The door opened to reveal two home guards in their red and yellow uniforms holding shields and lances in their hands. They took up positions by the door as a taller elf walked between them. His robes and face made him none other than King Anasterian Sunstrider.

Mahela rose to her feet and bowed deeply. She was startled that he himself came to see his sister, not an underling or a lesser member of his household such as his son.

The King step forward. "Rise healer." He said softly. "So she came to you." He said looking at the healer's modest dwelling as if he were amazed a member of the royal household would come there. He was correct. Strictly speaking a place such as this was below the lady in every way. There was a royal birthing suite at the palace, but the young woman had come to Mahela instead.

He took a step toward his sister. Behind him came Lord Anthalas, Captain of the Home Guard, and husband of the Princess.

"A'latha?" He said softly as he took another step forward. He extended his hand and then stopped. "Even you, Mahela, with all your skills, could not save her." He said. He turned to Anthalas. "I grieve with you old friend. Please, leave me a moment."

Anthalas bowed and walked out. His face was expressionless, but his eyes held the pain of loosing his beloved spouse. He shut the door behind him as the guards left as well.

The King looked at her. "Why did she come to you? We have healers enough at the palace. You are the best healer I am told. How could you let her die?" He asked. His voice was calm, but she could hear the pain behind it.

"I did all I could you highness." She said looking up at him boldly as if waiting for him to challenge that. "She let herself go."

His eyes flickered. That was blasphemy among his people. He looked back his beloved sister and then back to Mahela. "And the child?"

"Female, your highness." Mahela lifted the baby so he could see her in the light. The bold eyes opened at being moved and looked up at the King.

He looked a moment and then sighed. "So it is as we feared." He said swallowing and looking out the window beyond his sister.

No it is as you feared, Mahela's brain screamed, but she would never voice that to the man that had let her stay among her father's people.

"Give her to me." He ordered.

The healer did as she was told and stepped back from the king. He held her in his arms with surprising tenderness for a man who thought no doubt she was less than the dirt under his feet. Though his niece, the healer could tell he did not like the idea of having a half elf at the palace. He held the infant with the ease and experience of a father for his son, Crown Prince Kael'thas, was nearing adulthood and his daughter was just fifty years. There was a small light in his eyes as he held her as if he enjoyed holding a baby once again.

He took a breath and shook his head. "My sister's husband will decide what is to be done with his wife's bastard." He said his voice and eyes suddenly cold. He turned drawing his cloak about the baby for now. At the door he paused. "Prepare the Princess for burial. I will find a place in the woods for her. She is not worthy of being buried with her kin for this offense."

Mahela winced. That was the sin'dorei way of banishing someone's soul forever. She had gotten pregnant by a human outside of wedlock and now would spend her days in purgatory for it.

The King walked out and mounted his hawkstrider with ease. He eyed his friend and brother-in-law who sat on his own mount waiting for orders. The King came to him and held out the baby. "Do as you like with this." He said.

Anthalas looked down at the baby who whimpered at suddenly being held so insecurely. He took the baby as the king nodded to the guards. "I will join you in time." The Captain said.

The King nodded in understanding and he with the others left.

The Captain held the child close to him as he rode at a gentle pace to the coast. Part of him hated this child, but part of him hated himself as well. After more than an hour of riding they had reached the coast. He dismounted and walked to a rock near the gentle surf. He watched the setting sun and looked down at the baby that had fallen asleep again in the security of his arms. He watched it a moment curiously.

How he had wanted to have a child. There was no lack of trying between he and his wife. They had bedded often and well, but no child came. For many years they had tired and failed.

He swallowed looking at the baby. The fault lay with him as this babe bore witness. His seed would not take root with his wife. She had been so desperate for a child that she had taken a lover, A HUMAN LOVER, and made a baby with him.

He swallowed again thinking back to the night he had discovered her pregnancy with the babe he held in his arms now. He had followed his wife one night to the woods. He had been there in the clearing waiting. Blind rage had struck Anthalas. He had watched them make love under the stars, watched the man kiss the belly of his lover where the baby was growing. Anthalas had come into the clearing seething in rage. He was a paladin after all and was much stronger than the human was. Anthalas murdered him before his wife's eyes. He had known she hated him then. He had murdered the man she loved. Anthalas wondered if she had ever loved him. They had seemed happy, why this betrayal? Then he had whirled on his wife. She had hate and fear in her eyes. She had known full well he was well within his rights to murder her as well and bring their bodies to the king as proof.

He had struck her hard with his gauntleted hand causing her to fall in a heap of a blanket and her naked limbs. He stood over her for some moments trying to collect himself before he bashed her skull in. Her small weak voice had permeated his thoughts. She had convinced him that she was pregnant. That was what saved her. The thought of murdering the babe within her that could have just have been easily been his stayed his hand from striking. He had bedded her that night as he had every night trying for the baby they both willed.

He had taken her home leaving the body of her lover to rot there. He had told her as he treated the cut on her fact and broken nose that he would accept the baby as his and they would be a family once more. They had put up a front for the time she had carried the babe within her. Only her brother seemed to sense something was ill. Anthalas confessed one day when the King had cornered him in the stables. He had noticed that the couple were polite everywhere they had gone. Too polite. The King agreed with his old friend and decided it was for the best if they waited to see what was born from her loins. If it was Anthalas' all would have been forgiven as least from the two men.

The Captain felt sick on the inside as he came back to the moment as the baby shifted in sleep. His inadequacy had led to this. Though a powerful blood knight, he could not father a child on his wife and so she had turned from him and their marriage to get it. His inadequacy had made his wife turn herself into a whore. She had known he would never accept another man's spawn live in his home as his own, especially with the child's eyes, her all too human eyes. The captain would have been a laughing stock and a cuckold to everyone. That was why she let herself go. Perhaps it was her final act of love to him. He could think of it that way, a small glimmer of hope of what had been. She let herself go to save him from shame.

He took a breath. The babe could not stay. He had lost his wife, and this baby would remind him of her and his wife's sins against him forever. He looked about. He found a drift wood log. He put in moss and then removed his cloak. He wrapped the baby in it. It was still warm from his own body. He looked at her dreamy face in the small raft and sighed. She was so innocent and yet such a devil. He then removed his necklace, the one his wife had given to him on their wedding day and put it about her neck.

She was an innocent babe, fresh from the womb and helpless. It was for this reason he could not kill her outright. He loved children and murdering such an innocent would have cause him to become ill. This way her life was in the will of the Gods.

He walked out so he was hip deep in the water outside the breaking surf and pushed her out to sea. He watched her float away on the gentle waves. The current started to carry her north. He watched as the wind blew his hair. So died the last remnant of his wife. He could start a new life now.

He walked out of the sea and mounted his hawkstrider. He took a breath, swallowing down his worry about leaving an infant so and rode off, not looking back.