You Are My Light Part II

221 - Miscarriage

"How did you get through it?" the former Baroness de Portiers asks the Queen of France as the ravenette pours them both hot tea. Mary glances at Kenna at the sudden question, for the ex-fiancee to the King of Armenia had been stone cold silent ever since she had climbed into Mary's carriage at the port de Outreaux. "Your miscarriage." she clarifies in a whisper.

Mary feels a cold shiver run down her spine at the memory of her lost baby. The painful cramping, her bloody shoes on the day of Jean's Christening. Such joy scuppered so soon, a life that would have been so cherished, gone like the breath of the wind. The tears, the constant stream of blood and tears that the Queen thought they'd never stop.

"You know I don't like to talk about it." Mary says quickly, pushing her hair from her face as she sat across from Kenna at the small tea table covered in little biscuits and cakes. She takes her teacup, holding the hot china in her small hands, allowing it to heat her skin that was suddenly so cold. 

"I have to know." Kenna replies, reaching over, grabbing Mary's wrist. "It's been months, and I feel as lost and pained as the day it happened." she says. Mary licks her lips, pushing hair out of her face with a flick of the neck. "You're the only woman I know that it's happened to. Greer's in hiding with her bastard pregnancy, and Lola-"

The whisper of Lola's royal bastard goes unsaid. It causes Mary to tense, and for the two who were once bound by their marriages, who are now barely bound by blood, to lock eyes.

"I survived my loss because I had to." she says after a pause. "It hurt, good God, it hurt. The worst pain I'd ever felt, at that point, anyway-" she says, the two casting a dark look at each other again. The echoes of Mary's rape, and then the near death of her husband, those put that pain to shame. And the pain was so great at the start. "I thought I'd never find the strength to get out of bed, I thought I'd never stop bleeding, stop crying." she says. "But I had Francis, I still had Francis. You remember the lovely fire show he set for me."

"Henry did something similar," Kenna whispers, but she lets out a soft cry at the memory of the dead King. The one who took her virtue and took everything from her, using her and casting her aside to his bastard son, the same one who neglected her and pushed her into the arms of other men. So many mistakes, so little time. And, let's face the facts, King Francis lit the skies to comfort his wife. King Henry lit the skies to get Kenna into bed.

"That's over now." Mary takes her wrist. "It is." she says. "I thought I'd die from the pain, from the blood. It was terrible, my voice ran dry from the tears I sheded. But Francis was by my side the moment Conde allerted him." The memory of Louis of Conde sends regret through Mary's blood. So many mistakes, both of them had made. "It took weeks to stop bleeding, to start to see the light again, after so much darkness and coldness. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about my child, nor do I wish he or she walked the earth at my side, but I knew that there was a reason why he was taken from me. One that I had to overcome and prove that I was prepared to hold a child again, whenever that may be. Of course, trials and tribulations kept happening, but that's okay. Because they're over now, Francis is recovering more and more every day, and so am I." She takes Kenna's hand. "And you will too, cousin. One day, you'll find a man who can give you what you want and can attend to your needs. The little King who you became friends with wasn't that man, and neither was Sebastian. But that's okay, because one day, you'll have everything you want and more."

"You think so?"

"I know so."