Prolonge 

There were battle cries everywhere the nursemaid turned, the sound of steel clashing against one another echoing to her ears, as well as the yells and shouts of soldiers dying mercilessly at the hands of those they once called allies. 

The three bundles, wrapped warmly in cotton cloths tucked in her arms, squirmed and screamed, not aware that their crying voices could easily give them away to a horrid death. She rocked them the best she could, trying not to let the panic eclipse the need for escape. 

She managed to sneak through the underground tunnels, through hidden passageways long since forgotten by anyone important, leading her to the sewers, where the dirt, mud, shit and waste were stored. The nursemaid trudged till she made it to the forest, her feet aching, adjusting the three infants in her arms, she looked about the clearing, making sure none was there before she picked up her pace rushing and weaving between the trees. Running and running till dawn, that was however till she felt a sharp stab on her back, turning to see an arrow had struck her, she knew not when or for how long, but there was dried blood on her dress where the arrow had found its mark. She roughly pulled out the weapon from between her shoulder blades and tossed it to the ground as she whispered soothing words to the babies who had peacefully gone to sleep. She soon came to the great river that bordered the edge of the kingdom, gritting her teeth as she swam through the river crossing onto new land panting and checking every so often on the babes in her arms, her back bleed but she could still hear the the sounds of hounds and horses on her heels and continued to run as fast as she could. 

Cold with blisters on her feet and blood dripping down her back she somehow made it to a town or perhaps it was a city she could not tell her vision was hazy and her head pounded, a fever she thought, she would battle through it as she done everything else, but the burning on her back was hard to ignore as she limped through the streets. She found a temple where the priestesses allowed her to take shelter; it was an orphanage, a grateful covinidance for the nursemaid. The priestesses tried to nurse her back to health the best they could but her fever would not break and the wound on her back was infected, it being much too late to get a healer to stop the festering. 

She handed the goddesses servants the three babes over, begging them to be looked after them, her words a desperate plea, the precious babes she had watched come into the world, the ones she had feed with her own breasts when the mistress could not, and though the pain of losing her own infant daughter was one that would never go away the three babies had become like her own children and she gladly knew she would die for them.  

She held on for three more days, her words jumbled as she came out and in of consciousness. She died with the head priestess praying to the goddess, the infants who she mumbled about in sleep were left with no one who knew who they truly were, the priestesses assuming the nursemaid was the mother, and the words she rumbled so often in her sleep, as if calling out for someone, were their names. Aster, Basil and Clover...