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“... Columbina, I do trust your judgement, but might I ask why you left the Doctor alive?”
Dottore, imprisoned in a cage of moonlight beneath Hiisi Island, looks just as confused about his survival as Lauma is. That does not comfort her. Columbina had made this prison herself with the power of the Trilune, so there's hardly any way he's breaking out, but nevertheless there's something calculating about him that makes her skin crawl.
“Ah,” Columbina says, as if she did not really consider that she would have to explain herself. She gives Dottore a glance that could be filled with hate, but is somehow overwhelmed with pity. He scoffs, disgusted.
“Do you really think you're too good to kill me? What, don't want murder to dirty your divine little hands?” Dottore teases. It’s almost disturbing how little he seems to care about his own life.
“No,” Columbina replies. “I have no qualms about killing you. The baby, however…”
She lets the sentence trail off.
Dottore realizes what she's saying before Lauma does, and pulls back, blanching. He holds his hands to his mouth like he fears he's going to throw up. Lauma gets it a moment later.
“... He's an omega?”
“It's none of your business,” Dottore spits, though that cat is certainly out of the bag. Lauma looks him over with that fresh perspective, but finds him to be the same sinister man as before. Pregnant or not, he's still a deranged heretic.
Columbina shugs. Lauma wonders if she'd known he was an omega when she was in the Fatui, or if it is only with this particular discovery that she'd learned his subgender.
“Your baby is innocent. I did not wish to kill it alongside you,” she explains.
“It’s nothing,” Dottore hisses. “It hasn't been born yet. It's just a parasite– and, tell me, how do you plan to separate it from me? Are you going to keep me locked up like a broodmare, just to tear it away from me the second it's born?”
Lauma can't tell if he's worked himself into a fit or if the idea that he might not be allowed to raise his baby is genuinely distressing to him. She wonders if he can't tell, either.
“Do you think you're qualified to be a parent?”
“Columbina,” Lauma warns. There's no point in attacking him like that when he's completely in their power.
Dottore says nothing. He looks disgusted, though not at Columbina. Perhaps he's thinking of how his own body has betrayed him, or perhaps he's thinking about what might happen to him next if he's forced to carry this baby.
“You can't have it,” he says weakly. “I’d rather you just kill me and be done with it.”
“I've got medicines back home,” Lauma quickly offers. “There's an abortive that should work at this stage.”
“Yes,” Dottore says quickly. “That. I'll take that.”
He doesn't even seem peeved by the fact that he'll have to rely on her help to save himself. It really does seem as if he's as pragmatic as he'd claimed, though it's almost funny to imagine that someone so twisted knows how to behave to get what's good for him.
Lauma glances at Columbina.
“Don't look at her,” Dottore insists. “She doesn't have anything to do with this.”
Lauma hates to admit that he's right. No matter what Columbina says, she'll find a way to slip him this drug. If she doesn't, she knows he'll only find some riskier way to induce a miscarriage– it's a story she's seen play out more than once before on the streets of Nasha Town.
“It's none of my business,” Columbina tells him. “I just didn't feel it was my decision to make. If you don't want the baby, do whatever you want.”
She turns her back on him, moving to head out of the cave she'd fashioned into a prison.
“I'm going to see Sandone,” she says, in such a way that it's impossible to ignore that her words are pointed.
Dottore again says nothing. Lauma struggles to read him, which is somewhat strange. She'd expected him to gloat over Sandrone's death, but perhaps he's merely distracted at the moment. She could hardly blame him, really.
He slumps against the wall with a sigh, and she turns to look back at him. It's almost shocking how human he looks, sitting there, given that he is a man who'd turn godhood itself into a weapon. She wonders if the father of his baby has ever seen him like this, powerless, or if they're some subordinate Dottore had thrown himself onto in the midst of a heat and disposed of afterwards.
“The drug I have will cause some side effects,” she warns.
“Cramping and lethargy, yes, I'm aware. I am a doctor, you know.”
“I was under the impression you were not a medical doctor.”
It's not that Lauma is either, but only because the role of Moonchanter did not afford her the opportunity to pursue a formal degree. Her degree of training more than likely meets the qualification, she imagines.
“I'm 400 years old, Moonchanter. I've studied everything at least a little.”
He sounds oddly tired, somehow, so much so that Lauma is compelled to let him rest.
“I'll be back,” she promises, and sets off to retrieve the herbs she'll need.
~
The medicine she's used before, and that will be effective at how far along she estimates he is, is nothing too complicated. It's a simple blend of a few herbs that grow along the island, as well as one from up north by Piramida, that she turns into a kind of paste just thin enough to drink. It'll take a couple hours to work its way through his system, triggering a detachment of the embryo from the body, and then it will all be over.
Dottore will know how it works. If not the specific formulation she's using, he's likely familiar with the principle of these sorts of medications. It's a little surprising he wasn't on birth control, actually– or was he, and it failed? Or did he think he couldn't get pregnant? Or, perhaps worst of all–
It is not her place to ask. She is his doctor, and his jailkeeper, and she does not like the combination but there isn't really any other options.
He doesn't react to her coming. From her perspective, it looks as if he is merely studying a section of the wall, but she's sure there's a lot running through his mind.
“Here,” she offers, “it's–”
He reaches through the bars, grabs the cup, and drinks the whole thing in one smooth swallow before she can even explain what's in it.
“It's not like this being poison would mean I don't get the end result I want,” he says flippantly. She supposes that's true enough. He may be human, but she's certain most poisons would roll though his experimentally enhanced body taking only the baby with them.
He looks at her. She cannot read his expression, with the half mask he's wearing, and can't help but wonder what he sees. There's no doubt in her mind that he resents the inherent concept of the Moonchanter, but it's anyone's guess if that means he hates her personally. She would hardly mind if he did, of course, she hates him, but it would make this more awkward than it already is.
“Are you going to go?” He asks.
“No,” she replies. “Someone should be with you in case there's complications.”
“Don't tell me you actually care if I bleed out down here,” he scoffs derisively.
“Perhaps you are willing to let your patients die, but I have pride as a doctor,” she replies.
“I have test subjects, not patients,” he says in such a way that it's clear he's conceding the point.
She should probably avoid antagonizing him any further, lest she render her own point null and void. He shouldn't be too difficult if he keeps his mouth shut, which isn't an unreasonable expectation now that Columbina is no longer here to goad him with her existence.
Given that this is going to take a couple hours, she clears off a spot on the ground and makes herself comfortable. This may even be a decent opportunity for her to get a little time to clear her head, assuming nothing too crazy happens to the psycho harbinger she's helping abort his baby.
… Perhaps a clear head is too much to ask for, then. At the very least, this is a break from her usual routine.
“Aren't you going to ask about the father?” Dottore asks.
The question takes her by surprise, which takes him by surprise.
“You really don't intend to hunt him down for the crime of fraternizing with me?”
“If we killed everyone who associated with you, we'd have to kill Columbina,” Lauma says carefully. She hopes Dottore will not notice that, contrary to what he'd just implied, she'd assumed that the father of his baby was a one-off fling.
He's gotten her curious, now. And– it can be useful to have something else to focus on, during the waiting. Perhaps for Dottore, it will be this.
“... The father,” she asks carefully, and only because he'd brought it up first, “what sort of person are they?”
“You'd hate him,” Dottore says cheerfully. Perhaps he's only happy that Lauma won't kill him for this alone. She doesn't think it's an omega instinct, though she's a beta and cannot speak on such things with full confidence. It seems obvious, though, that Dottore is simply happy that someone he cares about will escape this unscathed.
His smile turns to a frown, and he winces. It must have begun.
They sit in silence for a while, interrupted by the occasional groan. He seems to be holding back most of his wines either for his pride or her convenience.
“Do you think it was a boy or a girl?” He asks out of nowhere. His speech is a little slurred– the specific blend she uses does have the consequence of making the patient a little delirious. This must be a question born of that.
“Which would you have liked?” She says, putting the conversation back in his hands. This situation is already strange enough, and she'd rather not talk about things like this with the man who'd nearly destroyed her homeland.
“I guess– well, it doesn't matter,” he says with some effort. He must have decided that, given that there will be no baby, there is no point to pursuing this line of thinking.
“I wouldn't have named it anyway,” he says, proving Lauma entirely off-base. “I hate naming things. I always make Pantalone do it.”
Pantalone– isn't that the ninth Harbinger? Lauma has heard whispers about him, none good. The word is that he's ruthless, and only cares about money.
Hat Guy had mentioned that he's Dottore's business partner. It would seem, assuming Dottore's not thinking of his colleague out of the blue, that he's more than that.
It occurs to her that he probably thinks Dottore is dead. There is certainly no way he knows about the baby, and that Dottore has decided to be rid of it. She wonders if him knowing would have changed the Doctor’s mind.
“Would you have kept it, if you weren't here?” She finds herself asking before she can bite her tongue. It's a useless question, one she never asks at times like this, because with nothing to do but bleed it's all too easy for one to distract themselves with pointless hypotheticals. A good doctor shouldn't aggravate such things.
Dottore is quiet for a very long time.
“... No,” he says. “It was exposed to the Trilune in utero. It wouldn't have made it to term.”
He sounds like he is trying to convince himself. It is also, she notes, not an answer to her question.