122 - Breathe, Baby Girl, Breathe

 Diryish, coming up out of the water, met hands reaching down to haul them all out.  Brienz flung himself into the pool bodily and Diryish thrust Homa into his arms.  He struggled to the edge with Maryish in his arms, eeling out on one elbow, sideways, pouring water, and with help floundered away from the edge.  “B...Bri...” he coughed... “Bugs... dissol...ving... their lungs...”  He’d breathed in some water himself and lay for a long moment, coughing, choking as people pounded on his back... the zardukar, the Rasheem.  Emir Yahya, head of his security, had the whole room covered and the bees were all over his armour, pouring information into his ear.

“Mariush!”  Diryish rolled over and Brienz was at his side, his beetles forming an electric green helmet on Homa’s head.  “Give her...” He managed to sit up and the physician sat next to him, holding the baby between them. “Brienz...” the Emperor wheezed... “Go... save Mariush... No one... is taking this child away from me...”

The bees descended and the old man held hard against the cascade of bee venom supporting him and giving him access to the deep code he needed.  “Repair mode, Prime prime prime. Biological,” he rasped.  “Prime, emergency function. Deenay attack.  Neutralize virus. Repair lung tissue.” Homa squirmed in his arms, unbreathing, her eyes fluttered open, then closed as the bees stung her. She writhed hard enough he had to clench his arms around her to keep her from convulsing off his lap.  “Breathe... baby... girl...”

She had to have something to breathe with.  The bugs had destroyed so much tissue... rebuilding it... it could be too long.  “Oxygenate bloodstream.  Slow metabolism...” In his sight the mechanisms... his bugs, the bugs of the Hive shimmered under his skin and under hers,  down into muscles, down into flowing veins of blood.  Her lungs were a seething blur of activity.

“Breathe baby girl.  Come on, Homa... you’re strong... you can fight this.”  Mariush, next to him, vomited onto the bath floor, coughed and coughed again.  The next wave of bees came down and the zardukar... it was the zardukar all around them, sent their coding mechanisms to work with the Hive.

“Coding, emergency repair, support team...” the murmur as they talked through the the support code for him and the doctor was a soothing hum as lines of code wrapped around Diryish, Brienz, Mariush and Homa. It’s taking too long.  Breathe baby, breathe. Come on. Come on. Every breath he took, every cough from Mariush, every word or sigh from the guards or the zardukar were like brands of fire on his skin.  They were breathing. She was not.  Work, damn you.  Work! He poured more of his energy into the shining motes under his skin, under her skin.  The wet dripped off his face, sweat mingled with the bath water, and landed on her cheeks like tears.

“Homa... Homa...” She was still as porcelain in his hands, unresponsive and he felt the tears well up in his own.  “No, no!  Baby, breathe!”  His arms shook, his whole body shook, great tremors as his energy poured into the tiny body in his arms.  He bled his energy into the baby, felt Mariush crawl over to him, to his other side, wrap her arms around them both.  She understands, she's forgiven my drowning them.  

His tears poured out of him like blood.  She’s not coming around.  She’s... no... baby, breathe... breathe...

“She’s so beautiful,” Mariush said to no one, to everyone. Her bare face was rigid as beeswax. “I--"  She let go of Diryish to stroke the baby's head and face and the other zardukar lifted her up, drew her away as she started to scream and tear at her hair and her veils.

“STOP!”  Diryish managed a shout that silenced the room, freezing Mariush mid-shriek. He panted and gulped air.  Light and Dark... heat and vacuum... I'm tired.  Please...

Homa twitched, a tiny cough echoed in the room, thunderous.  

The kitten sound she made drew a cry from Mariush, a cry from her gut and her heart as she tore free of the other zardukar, leaving shreds of clothing in their hands.  She landed on her knees, slid against Diryish, freezing as if her jostling him would make her daughter’s whimper somehow not real, as if her stillness could hold her daughter to life in her cupped and trembling hands.

The baby turned her head and belched a huge quantity of bloody tissue and water, followed by the clear goo that was the destroyed remnants of the attacking bugs.  She coughed and took a full breath.

“Oh, Light,” Mariush whispered.  “Oh, Diryish.” Her hands, full of energy, tilted to pour all she could into her baby.  Diryish lifted a trembling hand, ran his gnarled old fingers over the baby’s head.  Her first cry was weak but her second stronger.  Her face... all of her was smeared with blood and mucus as if she'd just been born a second time.

Diryish held up the wailing baby to her mother, barely managing her weight.  Mariush folded around Homa, weeping in joy, weeping and laughing, clutching the now silent, but breathing baby to her, set her to her breast.  “She’s nursing... oh Diryish... she’s fine... she’s fine.  You did it.  You did it.”

“Oh, good,” he said faintly.  The bees had not left him, The doctor’s beetles had flown from the baby once she began breathing and flocked to the old man.  The doctor flung his arm around Diryish and eased him down to the puddles of water and blood on the floor, keeping him from falling backwards like a tree, kept him from cracking his head on the stone.

I’m having trouble hearing what all the babble is about.  Oh, yes. That stinger felt good.  The baby’s fine... I’m getting reports from my little sisters.  Homa... my baby girl is fine.  Can I let go now?  No.  I’m so tired, light can I just let go and let the cool dark swallow me? No.  Endark.  I really want to stop fighting now. 

“Rasheem...” Yahya ordered the guards in to lift Diryish from the floor, at his shoulder, helping the doctor support him. 

“He’s exhausted,” Brienz said shortly.  “Put him to bed.  He’s exhausted himself and needs to rest.  Crystal of the Sun, please come with and let me monitor your recuperation... you and the tiniest Radiance.”

No one blinked at the honourifics.  Well, so much for secrecy.  I suppose I blew that when I burst out of my secret door, Diryish tried to open his eyes but they were so heavy. Whose child she is, though no one will say it, will be common knowledge.  I can’t die now.  However much I want to.