Thread by @xpityxfanfic

#MamaJiuWeek2022 Noble Birth
ABO: Prized Verse | Bingjiu | CW difficult birth

"Promise!" Shen Jiu gasped, gripping Binghe's hand tight."Promise you will save our baby!"

Binghe looked distraught, but he shook his head. "I cannot promise that, my Empress: your life comes first."

Shen Jiu never thought he would miss the barbaric culture of the human world, but in this he was in agreement: his life was worth nothing next to the heartbeat he had felt under his own for months.

Demon culture, however, valued the mother's life above all else.

"Do not give up, Empress," Healer Gong Lan ordered. "There is still hope: now push!"

Shen Jiu pushed, agony lancing up his spine. His baby could be dying, could be dead already, harmed by Shen Jiu's own body, tangled in the cord that was supposed to give only life.

Then nothing, only emptiness and quiet.

Shen Jiu pushed himself up on shaking arms, trying to see. Binghe helped him to sit up but all he could see were Gong Lan and her assistants huddled over a low table.

A high gurgling wail shattered the silence.

Shen Jiu sobbed & held out his arms. "My baby, give me my baby!"

Gong Lan rushed over with a tiny parcel of folded cloth. "It's a girl," she said with a smile, tears running down her furred cheeks.

Shen Jiu tucked his daughter against his chest, where she hiccuped into silence.

"She is beautiful," Binghe said, laying a kiss on Shen Jiu's sweaty hair. "Thank you, my Empress."

Shen Jiu wasn't sure she was beautiful: she looked like someone had drawn two oversized eyes onto a raisin.

But she was alive, and she was his.

"Yes," he agreed. "She is."

(Prized Verse: archiveofourown.org/series/3172212)