Chapter 252 Acquiring Water

"How is this a test?" asked Aella, staring at Josephine in horror. "This doesn't have anything to do with being the water hero!"

"Part of being the hero," panted Josephine, "is being able to heal people. Remember?"

"But, how do you heal? You haven't told me how you do that! I can heal people with my own ways!"

Josephine winced and raised her leg. "Here she comes!"

Aella caught the bloody babe and held it up for Josephine to see. It's cord dangling, still attached to its mother.

"Well, I thought it would be a girl," panted Josephine, seeing the evidence otherwise.

"Congratulations?" said Aella, gently handing the slippery boy to his mother.

"Cut the cord, please," said Josephine, giving another grunt, and a second baby, very quickly followed by a third, much smaller one, slipped out from between Josephine's bloody thighs.

"This is disgusting," winced Aella, picking the babies up from the mess that was birthed with them.

"I thought you were used to blood?" asked Josephine, quickly wrapping the extra two up in her shirt with the first one.

Cutting the cords of all three, Aella stepped away from the bloody mess to wash her hands in the water nearby. "Blood spilled while taking life is different from that during birth."

"Heal me, before I bleed out," said Josephine, weakly. "Not all births are this quick."

Aella healed Josephine, and glanced around to make sure nothing was attracted to the sudden smell of blood.

Josephine used her water abilities to wash all of the blood off and then turned to Aella.

"We should go back now. I need to feed the babies and let Curt know there were three."

She smiled down at them with a smile as two were rooting for a meal and one was sleeping peacefully. "It's good that you are taking my powers, because this little guy would be the one getting them when I die. Such a heavy burden for him!"

Aella thought that maybe Josephine was loosing it a little, mentally, as the ugly newborns squirmed in her shirt, still covered in almost a fuzzy white fur. Their faces were scrunched and their heads were molded from the birth. What made mothers love such ugly things?

Teleporting them back to the orphanage, where Aella had found Josephine, she waited while Curt helped her into the back bedroom, to settle the babies down. She wanted to just take the powers and leave, but she wasn't sure now was a good time. Josephine was obviously tired after having given birth, so wouldn't losing her powers make her even weaker?

"Aella?" called Curt, waving for her to enter the room.

Josephine was standing at a short counter, wrapping one of the babies up in a blanket before laying it down in a crib. Turning to sit in a rocking chair, she held another one up to feed at her breast with a contented sigh.

"I think you need to take my powers now, before you get too much further along," said Josephine, not looking up at Aella.

"Are you sure you're not too weak?" asked Aella.

"Ha! This was so much easier than it was with my daughter. I needed that moment of peacefulness you gave me with the snow and ice to get my mind in the right place for the birth. Having water powers makes giving birth, and keeping track of the baby so much easier. You can feel if anything is going wrong and correct it, in a way. You've been blessed so much from the realm itself; I'm surprised it hasn't taken my powers and given them to you already."

"I don't doubt having water powers helped with your pregnancy," nodded Aella, stepping up next to the new mother.

Curt stood nearby, watching nervously, as if he wanted to help in some way, but knew there wasn't anything he could do. Taking the baby from her, when it was finished eating, he placed it in the crib next to its siblings.

Taking out her dagger, Aella quickly slit Josephine's offered wrist and licked the welling blood before healing it. The taste of the blood was almost sweet and salty. There was also a thick copper taste to it. Swallowing it, she felt a rush hit her, as if a wave was dragging her down under the water, to drown her. The water was not convinced this was a good idea!

Using all of the knowledge she had gained while speaking with Josephine, she closed her eyes and thought of the calm waves on a beach, the steady drip of water in a cave, and the soft hum of a steady rain.

Her air welled up, assuring Aella that she was not indeed drowning, that she was surrounded by air, but the water fought against it. Her fire welled up, trying to contain it with heat, as if to burn it into submission, but it began to rage at the oppression. Earth merely remained steady in the ensuing battles between the different elements.

Aella gasped, stumbling back away from Josephine, as the former hero looked at her hands in surprise.

"It worked!" she whispered, looking at Curt with such a look of delight and exhilaration, the water Aella had just acquired howled in agony at being rejected by her.

Not wanting to cause Josephine any distress, Aella teleported high above the ocean, then dived down towards it. Precious gave a squawk of indignation and flew off her shoulder before she hit the water. Not stopping in her dive until she was deep into the depths, Aella sought to calm the water that was raging inside of her.

Air freaked out that Aella didn't have a bubble around her to breath, and fire was freaking out that she was in a very cold place. Aella calmed them, by assuring them she knew what she was doing, and merely floated in the cold dark of the water. Her lungs were burning from lack of air, but she turned to water, instead.

"I need to be able to survive, so I want you to help me," she thought to it.

"Why are you so sure I want you to survive?" it lashed out.

"I have no children for you to go to, so you will cease to be if I die."

"The realm won't let you die," it said.

"But the realm might let you die," she thought back. "I went into a volcano that was about to erupt, to calm fire and earth. I allowed a raging storm to take me for air. I now leave myself to you, here in this darkness."

Water was silent as it thought about that, and Aella fought against the urge to breathe. She forced her body to float and remain relaxed, making her heart slow in response.

"There is far more to me, then Josephine told you," it warned.

"I know, which is why I am here, and willing to learn," said Aella.

"It could take a while."

"I understand."

The burning faded as heat drained from her body, sucked away by the deep cold of the depths. And then, her body changed to that of water, and she was swept away.

She experienced many things. A fish swallowed her, taking air from her, to fuel its own need to survive, before spitting her back out through its gills. The air blew across her, picking her up from the massive ocean and carrying her to the billowing clouds. She was carried to a place that was so dry, she fell from the sky to moisten it. The trees sucked her up through their roots, and she evaporated out from their leaves, to be blown up against the rocks of a mountain. The cold air flowed over her, causing her to harden and swell as she froze. The rocks gave up, splitting and cracking, before the sun came to melt her away.

Aella lost track of how many creatures drank her, and peed her out, before she finally found herself back in the ocean. How much time had passed? Water agreed she knew everything she needed to know, and let her pull herself back together. She found herself laying on the beach, looking up at the night sky where stars twinkled down at her. Precious was laying next to her, fast asleep.

Had the cat gone with her on this adventure, as he had with the volcano? She didn't think so. Sitting up, she felt awkward and ungainly. Glancing down, she gasped, waking Precious up, who stretched and yawned.

"What's up? I'm glad you finally came back from the water. I was getting tired of waiting," he mewed, climbing into her lap and rubbing against her oversized belly. "When did you get so fat? Was it all of the water you drank while you were in the ocean?"

She couldn't answer him, merely staring at her belly, and then she felt movement and a bulge formed briefly. Precious stopped in mid movement and stared at the bulge with wide eyes.

"Aella, what have you done?"