The first few weeks after Kysis left passed by in a blur, for Lam. She spent equal amounts of time lamenting his absence and sobbing with missing him as she did attending to her new baby\'s needs. Being a mother was something she\'d thought she\'d been prepared to deal with... until it actually happened. Pandora was a fussy newborn, one that seemed to like the attention of being held and who seemed determined to stretch her little lungs to unbelievable proportions if her demands were not met immediately.
Lam had never lacked sleep so badly in all her life.
Eventually, her aunt came to her rescue and moved into the manor for just a week to help her niece - and Alex, her dogged companion - get on top of things. A new cook was hired to prepare all of the household\'s meals on demand - a business-like girl of twenty years who was not daunted by the modern accessories in the kitchen - so that Lam had the ability to present a well-nourished breast to her daughter when she required it (every three hours or so - she seemed to have inherited her mother\'s appetite, unfortunately).
Mairin taught Lam and Alex how to bathe and clothe Pandora properly, gave them hints about extracting wind from a bloated belly and also introduced her niece to a whole new world of clothing, which she tailored especially to her. Mairin was determined that Lam would never again return to her moulded armour, even if her pregnancy belly had drawn back to near-flat by the end of the moon (and Lam hadn\'t even exercised), and so she presented her with four beautiful new dresses that were high-waisted and completely flattering. They also had the added bonus of buttoned or drawn bodices that could be opened to breastfeed and closed again without any undressing being necessary - they were a godsend! A final gift of some very thick wadding that could be inserted to soak up the extra milk that leaked out of her whenever Pandora cried (much to Lam\'s eternal chagrin) completed Mairin\'s visit and she left the single mother to go it alone once more.
It had never been easy, but Lam had certainly gained confidence in her abilities - watching her aunt swing the baby around by the feet and assure her that they were very hard to break and were, in fact, very resilient beings to counteract their vulnerabilities had helped unbelievably - and so her household had settled a great deal in the wake of Mairin\'s stabilising stay. Even Pandora seemed more relaxed (though Lam wasn\'t experienced enough to understand that this was a direct result of her feelings being communicated silently to her child, and her no longer sensing nervousness or fear coming from her mother).
The second moon had augured a shift from despondent and scared to relaxed and resentful for Lam. She was happy with her homelife but resented that she had to go through it all alone; her damned husband ought to have been there to help her, as well as witness how his daughter was growing. Something about her changed every time Lam looked at her, and it was a fascinating process. She spent hours on end with Pandora naked on a blanket with her in the garden or curled in her arms or sprawled upon her bed, just... looking at her and feeling so much love that it felt like her heart would burst and release a fiery sun into her chest. She still cried regularly, but they were generally happy tears when she was with her daughter and they dried up quickly when thoughts of her husband interceded.
As time passed and the third moon of being alone loomed, Lam\'s emotions shifted again. She felt lonely and downright angry that Kysis had been so stupid to leave them, paying attention to everything Pandora did, just so that she could throw it right back in his face when he came home and didn\'t recognise the tall, chubby baby he hadn\'t contributed anything of quality to. Pandora began sleeping for longer periods at a time - five hours most nights - and was seeing better, so she was happily occupied by the shifting sun shining through stained glass windows during the day, desiring less and less cuddling as the world around her cleared up.
It seemed mean to move a perfectly happy baby from her makeshift cradle simply because she was bored, so all that was left for Lam to do was pace. Being stuck in the house was getting to her, the garden was as far as she\'d ventured in weeks and she\'d only had contact with the same people, over and over again. Although she was loathe to move her contented daughter, Lam knew that if she didn\'t, she would go crazy... she just needed someplace to go!
She wanted desperately to take Dora to the palace and introduce her to the new king but the official mourning period was still in place and no visitors would be allowed there for at least two weeks to come. Besides, her post-birth dresses were not black and she would need to be out of the public\'s eye as quickly as possible, especially if she timed things badly and the baby needed to feed - she could hardly do that on the street! Her family (well, her brother in law, aunt, uncle and cousins and their children - not her father, sister or nephews or niece) all came to her to visit with she and Pandora, so they were not a good excuse to travel and she was fairly certain that a smelly barracks or a muscle-filled guardhouse was not the place to show up with a two month old. Freddy had visited her a couple of times but he was relatively awkward about the baby being so small and refused to hold her in case he dropped her.
It took her a week, but she eventually settled on a plan - a brilliant plan at that! She would go and visit Dagger. He didn\'t live too far away so not too many eyes would see her cavorting in bright colours on the street and such a visit was bound to provide the spark of life she was desperatey lacking. It wasn\'t like she and her ex-lover had parted on the best of terms but she liked to think that their ability to click on an intellectual level hadn\'t faded, no matter what had changed in their lives.
She\'d heard rumours of him marrying his serving girl, Mia, and her producing a child and Lam was dying to know if that was true or not. She\'d made her peace with the marriage thing - she\'d had her chance, in the end, after all, and was no longer angry oabout him marrying another woman - but she was insanely curious to see what Dagger as a father with a newborn baby (rather than a bitch who would use him and then run away) was like. Did he have a son or a daughter? How would he react to her daughter? She simply had to know!
After a further few days of planning and debate, Lam arranged her visit carefully to coincide with the Dagger family\'s return from his favourite service on Worship Day - she liked to think she still knew him well enough to know that he would attend the morning service, arriving at his home again just in time for mid-day meal (a time when people rarely visited, for all those in the same circles were doing the same thing - it had been their most frequent time of lovemaking, back in the days when they were terrified of being discovered together; having everyone cossetted away in their homes for hours of eating left she and Dagger plenty of time for sport of a different kind, in daylight, no less).
She ate her own food at likely the time Dagger and Mia were eating theirs, fed Pandora and dressed her dozy angel in a beautiful lemon-coloured visiting dress, with a knitted bonnet and bootees to match. The cap tied upon her head had a little beak on it that sat, upright, perched atop her forehead. It looked so darling with the frothy array of strawberry-coloured curls sneaking out beneath it that Lam felt Dagger couldn\'t help but fall in love with her daughter on sight - especially with her chubby cheeks flushed a rosy red from her feeding, her curled, pretty lips sucking occasionally out of habit as she slept. Her eyes - which seemed to be determined to stay the brilliant blue of the Liari line even beyond the time it took them to settle down from the hazy blue of all newborns - would likely open again in an hour or so, just as her mother was getting settled at the manor and he could behold all her beauty... if all went to plan.
If it didn\'t and she was stopped at the door, oh well, at least she had an outing. Her hair hadn\'t been cut since the king died and it was down to the base of her shoulder blades now, so she pulled the top half back and clipped it tidily at the back of her head before brushing it and her fringe until they shone. Checking herself in the mirror - she\'d chosen to wear the deep red dress with the white fringing because it was the closest she had to either black or purple - Lam was happy with what she saw. Her body had changed (her breasts had doubled in size, it seemed) since having the baby and there was a softness in her green eyes and expression that had never been there before but she was mostly the woman Dagger had once loved. Resembled her strongly, anyway.
Wrapping Pandora in a thick woollen blanket - the weather was warm, but she\'d learned not to take anything for granted with babies - and gathering her bag with extra napkins and clothes in case Dora dirtied herself while out visiting, Lam set off.
The mid-day sun on her face felt hot and the bundle she carried soon became heavy and made her sweat as she walked. She found herself wishing she\'d put a hat on before she left the manor and trie to walk in the shade of trees or houses as she walked a well-remembered path to her ex-love\'s door. By the time she got there, she was huffing from the exertion of lugging her child plus a bunch of supplies, even though it had been a relatively short walk. Oh, if only her guards could see her now! They\'d have laughed their asses off at the lady of leisure losing her breath from a little bit of exercise!
Pausing to arrange Pandora into the crook of her left arm, Lam ascended the stoop of Lord Dagger\'s and used her right hand to rap loudly upon his door. For better or worse, the deed was now done and so she waited to see who would greet her on this warm, sunny afternoon.
