Break

In the week after magic class started, everything went wrong.

Tabbris could feel herself getting uneasier the first day of the week, but she had thought it was just because she'd had to cancel her next appointment with Dr. F to be in magic class. He was helping her make sure the egg was coming along okay, especially since she'd been under some stress since realizing she was eggbound. 

She remembered telling Pish about it - he was in disbelief at first, but he was the only wyngro that Tabbris had ever really done anything with that had any means to cause an egg, and she wasn't a miracle-maker. So naturally, he had to come to terms with the fact that he was the father. Then there was the conversation of what to do with the egg.

To even contact him after the fact was something Tabbris had done only because she had gotten to know Pish after that night, and she respected her newfound friend despite how silly he acted sometimes. And, well, she honestly thought he seemed like he might want to know.

"Before you get any ideas," she had said, her voice stern, "I'm taking this egg to the Nook. I won't let you keep it, and I'll tell Alma to tell you the same when I drop it off."

Pish looked troubled for a minute, before he said in a characteristically emotional way, "But it's going to need a family. I remember what it was like growing up in the Nook, Tabbris. Don't you? And while Alma was a great mom, and I am really grateful to her, I know it's nothing like having a family all to yourself."

"Well, I'm not going to tell her to keep you away from the egg altogether," Tabbris said. She sighed as she shook her head, glancing down at the place where the baby pouch was beginning to show. "I can even tell her to introduce you and let you visit when it's hatched, if you really want to keep it company as it grows up. But let's face it, Pish." She turned her head back up to allow her gaze to meet his, making sure their eyes held as she said the next bit. "You can be really immature, and if I leave this egg here with you, you aren't going to take care of it all the time. It's going to fall to the other wyngro living with you to actually be a parent. You'd be more like a grown-up friend."

He opened his mouth as if to respond, then closed it again, nodding as if he knew what she was talking about. She didn't think he fully got it, but hoped it got through on some level. Pish was a good friend, but she couldn't see him being a dad, especially when telling him that she was having his egg had caught him so unaware. So she left him that day to his thoughts and headed off to the market for some shopping; she and her children needed to eat, after all.

That had been about two weeks before magic class started.

She had her own reasons for taking the egg to the Nook. In any other instance, she'd want to keep the precious thing growing inside of her. But it was a baby born of a decision made when she wasn't in her best mind, and she was afraid it was affect her ability to raise it. Don't be fooled, she had come into the Rattle's Rest that night with the intention of the whole adventure happening - even if she hadn't known with who, and with the almost-guaranteed consequences in mind. But she had been in a rough place mentally, and had further diluted her thoughts over the night with sap so the voices in her head would quiet down and stop telling her she wasn't doing what was best.

It was shortly after the Warptide debacle with Gilligan (and other shenanigans) that Tabbris began to feel strange physically. She thought it might've been from all the walking around with Phoenix and Feferi, since she'd felt a little weird on the hike to and from the beach with the class as well. The egg wasn't due for another week or two, according to Dr. F, but that was pretty close, so she thought maybe that was it. Perhaps she should rest more when she was going back to magic class, and maybe get Mari to help her back. 

She wasn't really prepared when she started feeling sudden, intense pains. She shooed Feferi along the pathway with Phoenix and assured both of them she would be home later that night, and then she made her way to Dr. F's, which thankfully was not that far. 

It turned out that all of the exertion had made her go into labor early, and that very night, she saw her egg for the first time.

There was a numbness inside of her when she held it after it was cleaned, and she thanked Dr. F, then, despite his insistence, headed to the Nook.

She filled out paperwork for Alma. "I don't mind what name you give it," she told her foster mother, smiling tiredly. "Just so long as you think it fits them. And, uh - the father may come by asking about it, but he isn't to be able to adopt it. He's a good guy, so he should definitely be able to hang around - Pish, you probably remember him, I can't imagine anyone forgetting - but he's not very.... Well, he...."

Alma understood. Tabbris maintained her smile as Alma walked her out of the front door, then she gave her Nook mother a tender, careful hug before travelling back to her home.

Once there, her eyes lit on the papers laid on her desk and her bedside, the inkwells she kept. She wrote sometimes to make herself feel better, or made paper stars in rainbow colors. But now, she wasn't crafting trinkets or making fiction. She lit a lamp with a match, too tired for magic, and sat down at her desk to write. 

She wanted to write a letter that she could give to Alma to one day give to her baby. To tell them everything she felt. She felt her pen fly across pages, but frustration quickly overtook her; she felt like she was writing empty words. She didn't know what to say when she didn't feel anything at all. Some pages were crumpled and tossed over her shoulder, others torn and tossed into the trash bin. 

Her curtains were drawn, so the lamp she lit was the only light source staring her down as she slid down her door an hour later, sick of writing, sick of pacing, sick of tearing papers and trying to calm her mind and resisting her over-exerted body. 

Only when she saw the mess strewn across the floor did an unnameable something stir within her chest, and she clenched her jaw against it all she could, ran a hand through her hair, bowed her head, and began to shake with the tears she'd been fighting for a long, long time.




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eyyy three cheers for whatever the FUCK that shading is because i kinda got lazy at the end - 

anyway, this just about wraps this up! at least for tab, lol. stay tuned for news of warptide baby Rani and her wonderful adventures in the Nook! |D

note: just for context, tab actually starts to feel a little better about everything after she sleeps it off. coming back for the second week of magic class after a few days off, she was glad to be able to hang out with mari and have fun again, even if she didn't feel as strong as usual. tab's generally pretty healthy, though, and WAS seeing Dr. F regularly before laying the egg, so her recovery was pretty quick. this does take place just before week 2 of magic class, though!

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