Writings of an Owlmoose

Summary: Two years after the defeat of Yevon, Nooj and Paine make some decisions about their future together.

Notes: This is a sequel to Death Shall Have No Dominion, and like that story was co-written with Ikonopeiston.

Metadata: Paine/Nooj. PG-13, about 6000 words, AU. No spoilers for the games but significant spoilers for DSHnD. First posted in November 2006.

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Bloodlines

Nooj was very restless. There was much to do at the headquarters of the government in Bevelle, meetings to convene with the administrators of the various regions and cities who arrived in an ever-changing stream to seek counsel and instructions, rulings to be handed down to the chief officers of the standing army, decisions to be made about the direction of Spira as a whole. So much to do and he was distracted, unable to settle his mind to the business at hand. When Sir Auron had urged him to take on this task, he had thought it would be only as a military leader; it had not occurred to him that he would end up with a finger in every pie on the shelf. Without the steady support of Paine, he … now, there was the trouble. Paine.

They had been together, really together without the uncertainty of their original connection, for more than two years — since just before the defeat of the Yevon dictatorship, the conquest of Sin and the final sending of the great Guardian Auron himself. By and large, it had been a joyful and mutually beneficial partnership in which both had grown and changed in appropriate ways. Paine had become his touchstone, always connecting him to the needs of the world in which he had suddenly become the towering figure to whom all looked for guidance. He was now the Meyvn, a title resurrected from the ancient history of Spira just for him. It meant, roughly, one who is an expert. The field of expertise was left unspecified.

He had been happy. As happy as was possible for a man of his temperament. Naturally inclined toward the melancholy and with that tendency reinforced by his years as a Deathseeker, excessive emotions were alien to Nooj and he was properly suspicious of great joy, knowing that nothing lasted. But this was different. There was a longing in him, a need which he was unable to express openly even to himself. It was a feeling he had never felt before and one which he had thought entirely absent from his psyche.

As he gradually had begun to consider seriously the probability that he would live at least as long as most Spirans, Nooj had found himself entertaining ideas which had never been permitted entrance before. Paine! She was everything he had every wanted in a woman. Her intelligence and independence had proved equal to his own and her passion answered his in every way. Before her, he had resigned himself to the ministrations of a succession of women (and the occasional man) in order to satisfy his physical needs. With her, he had no inclination for other excursions. But, there was this new imperative which he must discuss with her and he did not know how.

He had talked about everything with her and they held nothing secret from one another. Still, this new thought simmering in his mind, inchoate even to himself, posed a difficulty. He had suddenly realized that he was the last one of his bloodline alive in the world. There were none of his family left after all the incursions by Sin and the inclination of those of his inheritance to take up violent professions. At long last, he was all that remained of the tall, strong men and women of his kind. And he wanted to change that; he wanted to leave his mark on Spira in more than a footnote to history. He wanted to father children — at least one son.

How to ask a woman as remarkable as Paine to set aside her own life and career to take on the indignities, as he saw them, of pregnancy? How to ask her to sacrifice her goals so that he could be a father? He wondered if it might be more reasonable to find some healthy nonentity from amongst the women of the city and use her as a vessel for his seed. It was his bloodline which was in need of preservation.

As Nooj brooded, Paine made her way down the breezeway and paused a moment to look out the colonnade, admiring the way the late-morning sunlight danced over the sea. She hadn’t expected to like living in Bevelle, but in fact she did; she enjoyed visiting the bustling town, the old palace had become comfortable now that such a diverse group lived here, and she could escape up to the highest pinnacle whenever she wanted to get some peace. Sometimes Nooj would join her up there, and the two of them would stand together and watch the waves, either talking about the day and working on whatever issue happened to be bothering her, or simply enjoying one another’s company and the view in silence. When the time had come to choose permanent quarters here, she had made a point of choosing rooms close to the lift. It was their private retreat, their haven.

She smiled to herself. Life with Nooj hadn’t been perfect bliss, exactly; he still had a tendency to overprotect her, and they both had their moments of moodiness and ill temper. But overall she was happy. Busy as they were, they had still found the time to finally get to know one another, sharing all their stories and secrets, and the more pieces of him she discovered, the more her love grew. They had slipped into a comfortable togetherness over these past two years, and Paine was more than content to have this man at the center of her life.

He had seemed a bit restless, though, of late, Paine thought as she began walking again in the direction of his office. Nothing he had said, particularly, just something in his manner, a distracted air that she couldn’t connect to any one incident. She knew he was eager to finally get the provisional government in place, pull all the civilian issues off his plate so he could concentrate his attention back on the military, but that was a long-term issue with no recent change. Perhaps she would ask him about it today.

With that thought, she had reached Nooj’s door. After a light tap, she pushed it open and made her way to his desk. He turned in his chair and, without a word, took her hand and then pulled her into him for a long kiss. Paine settled down into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. The kiss was thorough, and when he had finished, she pulled back and playfully pushed the hair out of his face. “What brought that on?” she asked with a smile.

Without speaking, he gathered her to him again, burying his face against the nape of her neck and inhaling the good, clean scent of her body. During the day, she smelled of well-tended leather, lemon hair pomade and warm flesh. At night, herbal soap and the intoxicating aroma of woman defined her in the darkness. At all times, she was perfection. How could he even consider asking her to make such a great sacrifice for his vanity?

“I was just rejoicing in the fact I have you with me.” He did not look up. The next words were so soft they were nearly unintelligible, “Paine, … I want a son.” As soon as he had spoken them, he wished he could call them back but feared any effort to modify what he had said would only make it worse. His best hope was that she had not heard that pathetic murmur into her skin.

She had heard it, though. Almost surprised into pulling away, Paine hugged him close instead, running a hand over his hair. They’d covered a lot of ground in their discussions about the future, but the question of children had never come up, not once. It had never really occurred to her to wonder why not. Her own childhood, spent mostly alone and unhappy in the temple and then on the streets of Luca, had been so miserable that she had often promised herself that she would never risk inflicting that on a child. But now, with Yevon and Sin both out of the picture, and a strong, stable partner by her side, she allowed herself to really consider the possibility. On a quick examination of her feelings, she found the idea far more appealing than she might have expected.

“A son,” she murmured. “He’d be tall, of course. And strong. And almost frighteningly stubborn, considering how much of that he’d get from both sides.” She dropped a thoughtful kiss on the top of his head. “So do you just want the one, or were you thinking more in terms of a brood? Would a daughter do?”

He was uncertain just how to interpret her response. She seemed not to be taking him seriously, or was she signaling that she had no interest in the subject? If the latter was the truth, he felt he must hasten to reassure her that he was placing no demands on her person.

“Believe me, Paine, I would never expect you to set aside your own goals in order to indulge me and my illogical needs. It’s just I’m the last of my family and for some reason, I’ve begun to feel an obligation to a future I never expected to see. You have your own rights as an individual … there must be some female who … there are probably some who would agree to …” He stopped speaking, silenced by the storm clouds gathering as she pushed herself violently out of his embrace.

“I didn’t mean I expected you …” He spluttered up into her furious face. “You know I respect you too much to ask you to …” It finally occurred to him that it would be better to stop talking altogether.

Paine planted her feet on the floor and stood up, still for a moment before beginning to pace around the room, her insides churning wildly. “Respect. You respect me?” The words dripped with anger and sarcasm. “And your idea of a way to show that is by getting some other woman pregnant. Good. Brilliant.” She stopped at the windowsill and turned around, heels of her hands braced against the frame. “So that’s why you want a son. It’s not about making a family, not about creating a lasting legacy from us both. Oh no. Carrying on some precious family bloodline, that’s all you care about. And I suppose one woman would be as good as another for that!” Her voice rose, threatening to burst into a yell. His bewildered expression was making her even more angry, if such a thing were possible, and she found herself unable to say anything more. In a single motion, she hopped up onto the frame, crossed her arms and ankles, and glared, so furious that some distant part of her wondered if sparks might not shoot from her eyes.

Nooj caught his breath. The window looked out on the stone courtyard three floors below and was neither barred nor screened. “Don’t move.” He spoke softly and distinctly, slowly pushing himself from his chair and approaching her as gingerly as he would a frightened cat about to bolt. When he was close enough he wrapped both hands around her waist and lifted her to the safety of the floor, staggering as she pushed him away with all her strength and drew back her arm, ready to deliver a blow. For a while he was certain he would fall as his balance failed him. Only a lucky grasp of his desk with his left hand saved him from that indignity at the cost of four deep splintering gouges in the surface of the wood, inflicted by the metal fingers.

“What’s the matter with you, woman?” he growled harshly once he had regained his footing and seized his cane. “In all the years we’ve been together, you’ve never given me the slightest indication, not a single hint, that you have considered motherhood, then I mention — just mention in passing — that I might — just might — owe a duty to my ancestors to continue their line. And I try to assure you that I have no intention of imposing my wishes on you. And you explode like a class-M grenade, threaten to throw yourself out the window, and attack me like Sinspawn. What’s the matter with you? I haven’t asked you to do anything.” He glared at her from under his eyebrows, his head lowered like that of a bull about to charge.

“It’s not as though you ever said anything about having kids before either,” she shot back. “This all came out of nowhere, and–” She interrupted herself as her mind caught up with her words and she truly registered what he had just said. “Throw myself out the… Nooj, you couldn’t… you didn’t really think I might…” Suddenly overwhelmed by having run through nearly every emotion it was possible for her to feel in the space of two minutes, she realized that the only response left was to laugh.

So she did. First a snorting snicker that she tried to hold back by covering her mouth with her hand, and then it was too late and she was full-out laughing. She could see that it was only making him angrier, but she couldn’t help herself, and once again she leaned on the windowsill, propping her hand against it to keep upright. Nooj took a sudden step toward her and she waved him off. “No, I’m not going to jump,” she said when she had calmed enough to speak, turning back to meet his glowering gaze. “You know me better than that. Although I’m starting to wonder. How could you possibly think that I might stand by and watch while another woman carried your child?”

He started to speak, then stopped and stood there with his mouth open and his motion arrested as though he had been caught in a paralysis spell. The sight of him only made her start laughing again until she was gasping for breath, bent over to ease her aching mid-section.

“Stop that at once!” Nooj barked in a confusion of anger and surprise. “We can’t talk if you’re going to keep on sounding like a siren. Do I have to slap you?” The threat was half-hearted. He grasped his cane more firmly in his hand and moved toward her. “Why are you carrying on like that? You don’t think I have any feelings? You should know better than that. And I wasn’t trying to upset you about another woman. I was just trying to spare you thinking I would put you to the inconvenience …”

As he spoke, he inched closer to her, and as soon as she was within reach, he swept her away from the window and into his embrace, cradling her head in its accustomed place against his chest. “You know I would never hurt you or demand you do anything just to please me. Now, stop being silly and let’s talk.” He held her firmly, feeling the last hiccoughs of her laughter die away, stroking her as he would a kitten.

Paine gave herself a moment to nestle against him, letting his presence surround her, solid and familiar. It was always easier to talk when they were touching, when she could feel his warmth and the beating of his heart. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have made jokes before, but you took me by surprise and I wasn’t sure how to react. I didn’t mean for you to think that I wasn’t taking you seriously. I do. Because this may be the most serious thing we ever do.” She tipped her head back, her eyes calm and solemn. “So stop focusing on what you call the ‘inconvenience’ of pregnancy. That’s not even a year out of my life; if we decide to have a kid, I’ll deal with it, no problem. It’s the rest of it that we need to be sure of. If we go through with this, our lives change, forever. Are you ready for that?”

He just held her for another long while, calmed by the touch of her body, his cheek resting against the top of her head. The import of her words was strange to him but he was pleased she was taking his blurted statement seriously. However, nothing in his thoughts about a son to carry on his family’s traditions had implied that any part of his own personal life would be affected. Yes, he would have the duty of teaching the lad how to be a good Warrior and the pleasure of playing with him, but other than that?

“I’m not quite sure I know what you mean, my love. The way I understand this business, we cooperate and you bear a child with my contribution … my seed, your egg. Tutors and nurses are easily found so what changes so radically in the way we live? It’s just the physical thing. My chief concern is that you … well, you know. Other people have done this without turning their lives into something else. … Haven’t they?”

He was genuinely puzzled. Like so many of Spira’s children, he had grown up in a parentless household. Having no experience with a traditional life, he could not wrap his mind around how one worked. All his existence, he had been aware of the necessity for those capable of doing so to procreate and keep the populace of the planet as high as possible to make up for the depredations of Sin. Yet at no time had this seemed more than a mechanical process, one which demanded only the genetic material, not the mind.

Paine suppressed a smile and considered her next words carefully. “Spira is changing, love. Children like us grew up without families because Sin took them away. But just because we weren’t raised by our parents doesn’t mean our kids shouldn’t be. I promised myself long ago that I would never have a kid if I couldn’t be part of its life.” She tipped her head back and raised her hand to his face, lightly resting her fingertips on his cheek. “We’ll have help, of course, but the ultimate responsibility will be ours. Yours and mine. And that’s the other thing: having kids will bind us together for the rest of our lives. I do think that’s what we both want. But we have to be sure.”

He loosed his grip and moved a little from her, reaching for the door to the hall. With precise deliberation, he turned the key. “Come sit with me,” he said seriously. “We seem to have more to discuss than I had thought.”

When she had settled down against him in the massive chair near the bookshelves, he pulled her still closer.

“You keep raising topics I’ve never considered. Do you really feel so strongly about involving yourself in the day to day rearing of a child? I’m trying to understand your feelings, but I can’t believe tending a kid is the best use of your talents, even if the child is also mine. We have vital duties to perform for our world, duties of much greater import than the well being of a single infant.”

“Would they be, though? More important than our duty to our child?” Paine shook her head. She had grown used to having to explain the emotional responses that came naturally to her, but Nooj’s reactions could still surprise her. “It’s not like some baby might randomly show up on our doorstep. We’re talking about choosing to create a human life, and I think making that choice gives us certain responsibilities.” She touched his cheek again, just barely brushing it. “You’re not wrong, technically speaking. We could just go through the biological motions and then hand the kid off to other people to raise. But it wouldn’t be very honorable of us.”

He flinched as though she had struck him. What did honor have to do with preserving one’s bloodline? It was simply a matter of duty, which was not at all the same thing. He absently began to stroke the curves of her body; it always soothed him to draw the swooping shapes of her elegant form with his fingertips.

“Dearest Paine, let’s not argue. Can’t we just say we’ll compromise on this? You seem determined to bear my child. I would not have ventured to demand it of you but since you are agreeable, so be it. I will support you in every way I can during the time you are lending your body to our joint enterprise. However, once separation is complete, can’t we utilize the assistance of willing helpers to take some of the more tedious burdens away from us? Do you really think it is necessary that we do all the work ourselves? Come on now, you know you would go out of your mind if you were stuck all day every day nursing a child. Later, when time comes to shape the mind and character — that’s when we’ll be most necessary.”

He bent to her and gently caught her lips with his, nuzzling and nibbling. She noticed that he was becoming aroused, and she had to force down another laugh as she thumped him affectionately on the chest. “I seem determined?” she asked. “May I remind you that you were the one who raised the subject in the first place. And when did I ever say that we’d be doing all the work ourselves? We’ll have help with the day to day stuff, no question.” She twisted around in the chair to lean back against him, tucking her head beneath his chin. “Just, remember that this kid is going to be a living, breathing human being. A new life, and we’re ultimately the ones responsible for it. That’s what I meant by it being a matter of honor. Not honor due to me, or to your ancestors. To our son.” A little shiver ran down her spine as she spoke these last two words out loud, half fear and half anticipation. Were they really going to attempt this?

Suddenly the reality of the words hit him. A son! They were talking about a son, created from the genetic material of both of them, the combined fruit of what they had become. He lost his breath for a moment and closed his eyes against an abrupt attack of vertigo.

“Paine, Paine, Paine.” He buried his face in the smooth fragrant spot where her neck joined her shoulder. “What are we thinking? Do we have the right to do this? Do we have the courage? What are we likely to produce? A son, a daughter? – if she were like you, that would be all right.” The arm that curled around her slid downward, and he rested his right hand gently on her belly. “A product of your bloodline too … together …” His voice choked again at the vision of a small Paine leaning against his knee. “Ah, love, are we fit to take this chance? What are the possibilities of me being even a marginally decent father?”

A surge of affection rose in her breast as she lifted a hand to lay it against his neck. Her other hand covered his where it still rested on her stomach; she twisted their fingers together and squeezed. “You’ll be fine,” she assured him. “We’ll muddle through together. It’s not as though I have any sort of stellar role model for how to be a mother, either. But people have been doing this for thousands of years, and I have confidence in us both.” She pressed back against his chest with a sigh and realized that he was trembling. Turning to face him, she cupped his cheek in her hand and touched her forehead to his. For a moment she held there, breathing with him, and then she moved in even closer. “You’ll be fine,” she repeated, murmuring the words against his lips, and then she kissed him as tenderly as she could.

He clung to her as he had done when he had thought she had fallen to Sin. “Beloved, what if our child has the faults I am cursed with? A child born with my dark spirit will be a monster. I don’t have the right to inflict my horrors on an innocent. You know what I am; how can you bear to think of what a child of mine might be? I was dreaming, forgetting what I am. When you show me the responsibility and the duty … it will be better to let this line which produced me stop with me.” He drew a ragged breath and hid his face in her hair.

“Nooj.” She sighed again, this time with exasperation as much as affection. How had she ended up having to talk him into going along with his own suggestion? “You know better than that. No one is doomed to be an exact copy of their parents. We’re a product of our experiences as much as anything else. How much of your darker side came from seeing your parents killed by Sin, nearly dying yourself, and then growing up alone?” She pulled away and forced him to meet her eyes. “Our children will grow up in a different world, a safer, easier one. And they’ll have us.” With a smile, she ran a finger down the sharp line of his nose.

He looked at her bitterly. “You mean they’ll have you. You went through the same thing I did and you didn’t end up a monster.” Then he stopped, appalled by the querulous note in his own voice, and turned his head away. “I am the world’s greatest fool! How you can put up with me, I shall never understand. I am supposed to be Nooj the Fearless and you are the one with the courage. You believe we can do this, so how can I be less brave than you?” He turned back, placed a finger beneath her chin, and tipped her face up to his. “Shall we swear to do the best we can by whatever son or daughter we bring into this better world, this world our efforts have made more peaceful and decent? If so, then… let’s roll the dice.” He let himself sink downward into the crimson lakes of her eyes and rejoice in what he found there.

She saw that same wonder mirrored on his face and knew he was going to kiss her, the sort of kiss that would lead to his gathering her up and then laying her down on the couch across the room. Only this time would be different; this would be far bigger than just the two of them. Pulse racing, she stopped him, pressing two fingers against his lips. “There’s one more thing, love. Before we do this, before there’s no turning back, promise me something.”

Nooj caught her fingers in his metal ones, kissed them, then pressed her hand into his cheek, waiting.

Paine took a deep breath, and her next words came out in a rush. “I have to know that our child will still have a father even if something happens to me. If I die before they’re grown, you can’t just follow me to the Farplane. You’ll need to live for them, as you do now for me. Swear to me that you will.”

He froze. As she watched, his face took on the bleak lines she had not seen for more than two years. “You ask me to live without my heart? Paine, you know full well that you are the cord which ties me to life. How can you ask me to even consider breathing in a world which has lost you? If I must choose between descendants and you, there is no choice.” He looked into a distance which seems to have become a wilderness as it reflected in his eyes.

Her gaze softened, but her resolve did not. “I know this isn’t a small thing to ask. And I wouldn’t bring it up if it weren’t so important to me. But I won’t bring a child into the world when I know that losing one parent means losing both. It’s not fair to them. I know what it is to be an orphan. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, and especially not my own flesh and blood.” She stroked his cheekbone with her thumb. “I would hope that you’d love our children enough to want to live for them. But if you aren’t ready to be open to that possibility, then you’re not.” To her surprise, a wave of sadness washed through her as she spoke these words. Only a few minutes ago, having children had been the furthest thought from her mind. Now the idea that she might never bear Nooj a child was almost intolerable. But she wasn’t sure what else to do.

He groaned and a steely anger stained his look. “I have conceded everything I held sacred for the sake of your love. I have abandoned those principles which had formed my very existence because without leaving them behind I would have lost you. Am I to be the only one of us to make sacrifices for our life together? You set the barriers higher and higher. I must do this, I must change in this radical way … when will you take a step toward my position? I have asked nothing of you. And you demand that I commit to a life of spiritual pain just to make you comfortable. How much agony of what kinds must I suffer to satisfy you?” His face was a mask and the remembered desolation made him seem very distant from the man whose life she had shared for so long.

She nearly jumped out of the chair in her haste to stand, the fires of anger suddenly stoked and blazing twice as high as they had been before. “To make me comfortable?! You think I ask this for my sake? Dammit Nooj, don’t you realize that if it were just about me we’d never be parted again, not even for five minutes? It’s not about what I want, it’s about what would be best for them. Our son, our daughter. Did you hear nothing that I just said about taking responsibility?”

She started to pace once again. “You asked me to do this. And don’t you dare deny that!” Her head whipped around furiously, cutting off the words she knew he had been about to speak. “If you believed for even a second that I was going to just send you off to some other woman to be your brood-hen with my blessing and a pat on the head then you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought. But fine. That seems to be what you want. If you are so selfish and irresponsible that you’re happy to produce a child with no thought to the consequences, then go. Just make sure I never have to be a part of it.” With that, she turned her back on him and headed for the door.

“Paine.” The word was stern, commanding, and it stopped her dead, even as her hand reached for the key. Once he had her attention, Nooj took a deep breath and continued in his reasonable tone of voice, the one he used when he was proposing an action to his troops. “Have you forgotten who we are? Any child we produce will have more surrogate parents than we can easily count. It will not face the situation we both experienced. We survived even that. Our offspring will have support from the entire planet.”

Slowly, she dropped her hand, where it curled into a loose fist by her side, and she allowed herself to realize that he was right.

Seeing the tension in her shoulders lessen, he pushed himself up from his seated position and limped to her. “I had dreamed of you as the mother of my son but was afraid to ask you. If you will give me that gift, pay me that honor, I am willing to try to do as you ask. I can make no promises right now. But you know my word is good when I tell you I will try.” He hesitantly pulled her back against him, gently, prepared to release her if she protested. But she did not; she relaxed further, then nodded. He tightened his embrace in relief. “If we do this, my love, do you want some sort of formalization of our relationship first? Just as a token of our commitment.” This last was added hastily; given how the rest of their conversation had gone, he was reluctant to bring up anything else new.

“You mean, get married?” The very unexpectedness of Nooj’s suggestion jolted Paine completely out of the little that remained of her fury. She leaned back against his chest and turned the idea over in her mind, tasting it, and found the flavor quite sweet. “I think… I think I would like that.” Turning around to face him, she locked her hands behind his neck. “But we don’t have to wait for it.”

His face was immediately illuminated by one of his rare, surpassingly sweet smiles. “Then shall we go up to our room? We have both done a great deal of work this morning and have earned a small rest. A lie-down before lunch will only aid digestion.” Picking up his cane with one hand and tucking her under his other arm, he steered her toward the door. “Er, by the way, do you have to take some time to undo whatever you’ve been doing to prevent this thing from happening?” A flush of scarlet swept over his cheekbones and he rigidly stared ahead. “I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but … privacy and all that.”

She snorted and looked up at him with a grin. “I can’t believe it’s taken you over two years to even ask about this. Or that you never noticed the bit of potion I drink every night after dinner. It might take a few days to wear off, but…” She paused to make some mental calculations. “Maybe. It’s certainly possible.” The reality of the situation was sinking in; she was starting to get light-headed, and she stumbled a little on her next step, as Nooj reached forward to unlock the door.

He steadied her and kissed the back of her neck. “No hurry. Let’s take our time and do it right.” His hand slipped down to cup her breast and they remained still for a moment, poised like voyagers at the onset of great journey into the unknown.