Manon's Ascension

Within the Palace

Within the Palace

"Your majesty, have you still not started bleeding?"

"Huh?" Manon, who had been reading reports on the continued unrest in the city while she sat and let Bidaude do her hair, relaxing in her dressing gown as her body cooled from her hot bath, was so focused she didn't understand the question.

Adilla was standing beside her vanity, holding Manon's clean undergarments in hand, working with Nellie to prepare her outfit for the day. Manon hadn't even really been paying attention to them, though she was aware of them talking around her.

"Have you not started bleeding?" Adilla pressed again, showing her the clean undergarments she had yet to change into.

"Oh, no. It's not time yet."

"It's past time."

"Huh? It is?"

Bidaude nodded as her fingers worked through Manon's hair. "We keep faultless track, your majesty, so we are always prepared. You should have started bleeding days ago."

Manon, who was still thinking about damage estimates and casualty numbers and riot countermeasures, didn't immediately understand what she was saying.

Then, the realization hit her all at once and she gasped, grabbing for her belly.

"Do you think...?"

Bidaude smiled, nodding eagerly. "You are normally quite regular, your majesty. You've never been late by a day. I really think so."

"What wonderful news!" Adilla beamed, pinning Manon's hair back. "We are to have an heir at last!"

"Well, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves," Manon said quickly, trying and failing to mitigate her own excitement as her lady's maids chittered excitedly around her. "It might still be nothing. I'm not feeling nauseous or anything."

"That means nothing," Adilla said, shaking her head. "My mother had not a single symptom the entire time she carried me and my brother."

"And my mother had all of them," Bidaude chuckled. "Poor dear was miserable the entire time and she threatened to cut off my father's manhood if he ever came near her again. There is no pattern to these things. You really could be..."

Manon struggled to keep her excitement down, but she couldn't help but beam excitedly as her lady's maids finished getting her ready. All the while, Bidaude and Adilla gave her a great deal of advice for healthy foods and simple stretches while imploring her to give up on training and using her power around her belly.

"You may be stretchable, but that doesn't mean your baby is," Adilla said sagely. "It might be, but better safe than sorry, right?"

Manon nodded along, but she was only partially paying attention.

Making an heir was near the top of her priority list. It was something they had been working towards for weeks. And somehow, she was still flabbergasted.

Was she actually pregnant?

She should feel different, right? Wasn't some sort of knowing of motherhood supposed to come over her and she should be able to feel the baby in her womb? Or something? Anything? Instead, she was just surprised, like this hadn't been the plan the entire time.

Her lady's maids waved her off when they finished their work, grinning and laughing and promising that none of them would say a word until she had told Jacques. Though, she better tell him soon because the laundresses would definitely notice the lack of blood from any of her garments soon and they were notorious gossips. This was not the kind of news they wanted to lose control of.