Quills: the Rise of the Northern Matriarch-Chapter 64: More to Protect

"What do you think?" Nora asked as she held up the first set of playing cards. The boredom was getting to her, there was nothing really to do and the entertainment that was available was cringe worthy and not relatable to her. So she created a bucket list of games that she wanted to create. Her children would be able to play them as well. She did not have to worry about patents here, because they would all belong to her.

"We will be playing with them tonight? The Poker?" Cerez said.

"And other games as well. They are going to be very cheap to produce, however there are so many games you can play with them, a few of them alone." Nora said.

"The betting games seem interesting." Cerez said. Cerez had a knack for quickly creating and manufacturing the games she replicated at home. Checkers and Othello were being manufactured and sold to the masses and were a great success. He opted to make the boards out of wood and stone, and they would soon offer an augmented version that will be integrated into the Interface software. Kadir was currently working on the project and had two versions. One would change the lives of many but would throw them into possible danger and the other innocent and mundane. Kadir rubbed the bridge of his nose, frustrated. This would definitely implicate their clan if they found the underlying commands in the code. He sighed and closed and encrypted his research. Kadir could only pray that Talan would overlook it during the review process. This would either have to be reviewed by him or side loaded into their own Interface software as testing versions of the game to protect the six of them.

'Please, let Talon get the point of this. He will not betray me, but he will rewrite it.' Kadir begged internally.

"You should take a break." Nora said, putting down her own work.

"You are the one to talk my love." Kadir said back. "You should just set it aside for now. You seem very uncomfortable." Kadir continued. She had been shifting her sitting position. She should be lying down in bed. Janel had advised them multiple times. He was getting worried about how much she was pushing herself.

'He is in a bad mood, but he is right,' Nora thought.

"I am finished, I will go lie down after we eat. You are finished. Why not go and help Liem?" Nora said. Kadir laughed.

"He will kick me out. I will just close my eyes and relax. Call me if you need to shift your position." Kadir said as he closed his eyes. Nora looked at the finished deck in front of her with satisfaction. She was still working on a game booklet for the various card games and mulling over introducing betting games in it. She had an ethical problem with the results of gambling and the addiction problems associated with it. Although there were forms of betting already. She did not have much experience with the society she was introducing these games into.

Gambling was mostly done in sports or a type of mixed martial art from what she knew. When she explained that the games she would be offering were meant to up the value of the mass production of Cards, they chose five games to market alongside the decks. Dice games and Bingo were something that they really enjoyed the idea of, so she was working out the design aspects of that on paper to bring to Kadir to help her engineer. Nora tried to position herself in a more comfortable position as she worked out the rules for popular games like Gin, Hearts, Cribbage and Euchre in a beginner's pamphlet to include with the deck. The adaptations of them changed the designs back to people from numbers.

In her spouse's opinion, using the upper class as a model for the deck was a good parallel to the Earth desk that she made as a variable. The only difference was that the Matriarch was the highest card in the deck. This led to more questions when they saw the Earth deck about kings, queens, lords, ladies, knights and chivalry. They wanted to learn more about the lore of Earth. Every night she would tell them about history in story form.Eventually, that led to her telling them the stories she had read from the One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. She would tell them a story every night, she had a lot of material to share over a lifetime. She would release the finest examples of civilization as the last Earth human.

They were fluent in Korean now, which made talking about home so much easier. Korean was pretty easy for them to learn. She was really impressed that they were able to keep up. She was tired from last night, she just could not get comfortable no matter what position she took. Sleep was challenging. Nora grunted in pain. She dazedly shifted again, trying to get comfortable again and made a few sounds of discomfort.

"Do you need a pillow or a back rub with cream?" Kadir said, looking up from his work. They were on high alert with her being past the expected due date and watching her deal with some discomfort. The longer her pregnancy the better, but she had already blown past the thirty-two-week mark that women usually hit with a single pregnancy. They were all happy that their twins had developed so healthily. They were ready to thrive and were starting to put on more weight. This, unfortunately, was causing her pain and discomfort which, in turn, made them feel terrible for her. Nora winced and nodded. Kadir opened a tube of Amlat cream and rubbed it all over her back.

"Is that better?" Nora winced again, raising some concern for Kadir. He rubbed more and rested his big palm on her lower back. Cerez grabbed a heating pack and handed it to Kadir, who replaced it with his hand so he could return to work. Nora went back to work, her back continuing to throb. As she typed, she periodically stopped. Kadir started to snore.

"I need to go to the bathroom." Nora said as she felt a strong urge to go to the bathroom. Kadir did not wake up. She rocked to bring herself to her feet. If she did not get to the bathroom immediately, she was certain she would leave a huge mess behind. She loathed being assisted in the toilet right now. It was humiliating to depend on them sometimes. She had become very gassy, it was very loud on the toilet. Nora tried to stand again and succeeded. She felt proud, and then a trickle. A wave of humiliation overcame her.

"Oh, no Flower. It is okay. Everyone has accidents. Want some help?" Cerez said. Nora's face went scarlet from embarrassment. Her eyes widened with shock.

"Oh no." Nora groaned as her dress became wetter. "Please tell me that it was my water breaking and not urine?" Nora said.

"What does that mean?" Cerez asked. The phrase was an Earth phrase. Nora sighed, frustrated.

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"It is time, the twins are coming." Nora said, feeling heavy pressure starting to build in her lower abdomen. Had she been in labor all day and did not think of drawing the conclusion that it was time? Cerez looked at her in shock as Kadir sprang up to help her. Nora counted the time as she felt a contraction.

"I do not think we have long to go-o." Nora said as she doubled over in pain with a groan as her next contraction hit her. "Oh, shit, ow! Uh." Nora processed the pain. Her interface kicked in finally to anesthetize the pain. She felt her knees weaken and was quickly braced by Kadir. "Wow, that was weird. I can still feel my muscles contracting but the pain is negligible." Nora said pleasantly surprised. Kadir saw the relief fill her face as the pain was numbed. He held her steady on her feet. If the pain had reached this intensity then it meant that things were progressing very quickly. She must have been in a great deal of pain for her Interface to have responded so quickly.

"Liem. We need to go upstairs now." Kadir yelled, not caring about the call he was on. Liem disconnected his conference in the other room, hearing Kadir from the other room giving his apologies, and headed out from the office to the main hall.

"Remember, sometimes there are false contractions." Liem said, walking into the main room to investigate. Nora had them before on multiple occasions.

"Look at her dress." Kadir said with fear on his face. A small amount of blood tinged the fabric of her dress, which was normal when a woman's body gave the sign it was ready for birth. The fear on Kadir's face was one he had not seen grace his friend's face in years. Kadir picked her up easily and carried her to the doorway. They filed out of the room and headed to the bank of elevators. Kadir could feel her body contracting, her lower back and buttocks clenching naturally with the process of delivering.

It seemed like time slowed down and the wait for the normally very prompt elevator became unreasonably long. They finally boarded the elevator. As they climbed the multiple stories to the clinic they were thankful for the forethought that Allurai had put into the decision to add it to the building. The Allari clan's primary business focus was medicine. The request had thoroughly pacified Liem and had become well-used already. His mother and Leilanna had already had the comfort of home births. Janel was waiting for her with a bed to transfer her to when the doors opened. Kadir carefully laid her onto the bed as they rolled her quickly into a birthing suite. Her spouses quickly stripped and changed her. She was further anesthetized with oil and other topicals. For her, any pain soon turned into a pleasant sensation. She was examined and was shortly ready to push.