You Lost Your What?

Writers: Heather
Date Posted: 2nd August 2016

Characters: Reven, Coran, Pippa
Description: Reven loses something very important and relies on Coran to help him find it.
Location: Green Valley Hold
Date: month 7, day 2 of Turn 8

Reven

"You cannot tell your mother. She will kill me." Reven said the words very slowly to his baby daughter, who smiled up at him with bright eyes, clearly not understanding, but just happy to have her papa's attention.

Reven had volunteered to watch Pippa that day, he rarely got to spend an entire day with his daughter, after all, but what he hadn't counted on was losing something... Something important.

"Oh Faranth!" Coran burst into the room, panting as if he'd been running, his eyes wide as he began tearing through Reven's quarters. "You lost the _baby_?! How do you lose a baby? She's round, and pudgy, with those big cute eyes, you know, and that one smiley tooth..." He continued babbling as he looked beneath tables and even the wardrobe.

"Coran," Reven sighed.

"She's not a pet, you know, Reven, you can't just give her a bone and leave her to her own devices." Coran was on his hands and knees, poking his head beneath the bed.

"Coran."

"And you're right, when Arippa finds out, she's going to rip off your - "

"Coran!"

The healer finally drew upright, and his mouth dropped open a little as he looked at Reven, holding a very happy Pippa on his hip.

"You found her!" Coran pushed to his feet.

Reven rolled his eyes, "I never lost her! I swear, are you sleep deprived?"

Coran rubbed his eyes, "Well, Relea's been pretty restless at night here in her last trimester."

"I didn't lose the baby," he held up his left hand, "I lost my _wedding ring_."

"Ouch, that's worse than losing the baby." Coran made a face.

"Tell me about it." Reven readjusted Pippa on his hip.

"Well, let's retrace your steps, you haven't been out of here have you?" Coran asked, tapping a finger to his lips.

"No, I had breakfast brought here," he walked over to the little table that sat near the preciously expensive glass window he'd had put in, "and we ate. Pippa's loving the scrambled eggs, she even dribbled a little...." He trailed off at the deadpan look Coran was giving him.

"Ehem, right. So, after breakfast, I brought her over here, spread a blanket, and we played with her blocks. You've got to see this one block it's carved like a ..." Reven froze looking at Coran with Pippa in one arm and a carved block animal in the other. Coran did not look amused.

"Right, well, we sat," he crossed his legs and sat in the floor, sitting Pippa down on the blanket. "And then she noticed my wedding ring, so I took it off and let her play with it...." His words started to grow more tense, "But then the steward knocked at the door...."

Coran's eyes bulged, "You left your baby alone with an object she could SWALLOW?"

Reven's eyes slid shut as he ran a hand over his face, "You don't think she...."

"Ate it? Probably! Let's see, you give your wedding ring to your daughter, whose at the grabbing-and-stuffing-it-in-her-mouth stage, and then you leave her unsupervised, and now you can't find the ring? So yes, I DO think she ate it!"

"Well? What do we do? You're a healer, get it out!" Reven picked up Pippa and held her out to Coran.

Pippa giggled and flailed her chunky arms.

Coran sighed, "It's not quite as easy as that. I've got something I can give her to make her have to poo and then well... We'll have to wait for the ring to pass..."

Reven lowered the baby, "You've got to be kidding me."

"I'm not. Let me go get my supplies and then we'll begin."

~*~

TWO HOURS LATER....

"Any poop yet?" Coran asked, shoving some of the thin, crispy tuber skins he'd snagged from the kitchens into his mouth.

Reven, whose own mouth was full of the delicious snack, reached over and peeked inside Pippa's cloth diaper.

"Nothing, man. Are you sure that stuff works?"

"Of course it works." Coran lifted his mug of ale to his lips. If they had to be on poop-duty then they might as well make the most of it.

"Have you thought of a name yet for your soon-to-be little one?" Reven asked, sticking his hand into the bowl for more tuber skins.

"I've got one or two in mind that I like. Caelon for a boy, maybe Caela for a girl. I don't know, I'm trying not to count my eggs before they hatch." Coran said with a lift of his shoulders.

Reven knew without asking that Coran was thinking of his first wife and stillborn child. "Don't deny yourself the joy of the occasion by borrowing sorrow from the past. This is Relea's first child, she deserves to go into it with the same happiness and excitement that normal couples do."

"I know, I just... It's easier said than done."

"Hey, look at that face she's making," Reven elbowed Coran and pointed down to Pippa, who had been crawling around happily on the floor but was now frozen in place, her brow furrowed in clear concentration.

"Show time!"

Reven waited until Pippa was finished with her "business" and then took her over to the changing table. "Well, here goes," he said, making a face at the smell that was already emanating from the soiled diaper. Coran stood, peering over Reven's shoulder, and hiding his nose beneath the collar of his shirt.

"Aw, man!" Reven, sighed as he opened the steamy package. "There's no ring in here and... I got some on my hand! Finish with the diaper will you while I wash my hands."

Coran sighed, he hated diaper duty, but stepped forward and picked up where his brother had left off.

"Coran...."

"Yeah?" he asked, with his nose still hidden beneath his shirt.

"I found my ring."

Coran's head snapped up, "What? Where?"

Reven picked the ring up from the corner of the wash basin and turned back to look at his brother, "I _did_ put it back on when the knock came at the door, but the steward's hands were all sweaty, and he coughed into them, so I came over here and washed my hands before coming back to Pippa...." It all came back to him now. Why hadn't he been able to remember that before?

The look on Coran's face was priceless, "You mean I've spent two hours waiting on a poopy diaper and it was on your wash basin the entire time?"

Reven gave him a toothy smile.

"I'm going to kill you." Coran swore, pinning Pippa's clean diaper in place.

"Ah ah, Coran," Reven said as he came over and clapped his hand on his brother's shoulder, "no murdering in front of the baby."

Last updated on the August 16th 2016

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You Lost Your What?