...Oh. 

"My little angel," she breathes, and cuddles the baby close. Madeline makes another attempt to bite, and Eleanor gently nudges her mouth away with her talent. 

"At least you've got a full set of teeth," she murmurs. "I'm afraid I don't have any milk for you, little one. We'll just have to see what you can eat." After a moment, she lifts one hand slightly from the baby's side. ...There's no visible mark...

Oh. 

The baby is even pinker than normal. 

A normal mark is white. The mark she left on the baby's father was red. She spent weeks using her talent on the baby inside the womb...

"Well. At least you're not all red," she sighs. "Let's get you cleaned up." 

She washes the baby--and herself--and changes into clothes that are neither torn nor bloodied. The baby reaches for the bloody clothes, but Eleanor puts them aside for rags. 

She gets the pot of porridge that Old Maude left bubbling over the hearth fire off it, and ladles out a bowl. 

The baby, it transpires, will eat oatmeal without too much fuss if little enthusiasm, and periodically has to be physically prevented from biting. Well, that's alright; some fully-human babies are biters too, it's only this one's unusual strength that makes it a problem. And it's a problem she can handle. She wouldn't want to see some other woman try to handle this, but...well, some other woman wouldn't have survived Madeline's father. 

She has a few hours to enjoy snuggling her warm cozy baby and feeding her oatmeal before Maude comes home. 

"Hello, Maude!" she calls, once she's sure her mentor is alone. "Meet little Madeline." 

The baby wriggles in her arms. She feeds her another spoonful of porridge, which distracts her for a moment, before she reaches out towards Maude. 

Maude approaches carefully. 

"I suppose I shouldn't have been away for so long, with you so far along, but it seems you've made it through alright..." she trails of, examining Eleanor critically; she seems a lot more mobile than a woman just out of childbed ought to be. 

"My little angel," she says warmly, "can heal."

"Can she now," Maude says. She examines the baby with the same critical eye. The baby waves her arms at her. Maude holds out her arms, and Eleanor places the child in them, keeping a hand on the baby's thinly-haired scalp to ensure that she won't accidentally hurt Maude with her astonishing strength. 

Madeline waves her arms some more and pats at Maude, and the older midwife makes a startled noise. Eleanor looks at her questioningly. 

"It doesn't hurt anymore," Maude says, surprised. "My knees, and my back, and my right shoulder...nothing hurts." 

A smug smile slowly spreads across Eleanor's face. "I did say she can heal." 

"You did." Maude sighs. "I suppose this means we can't leave her with the church."

Eleanor had had no intention whatever of doing so anyway, but she's not going to quibble with Maude about exactly why she isn't giving up her little girl. 

"We'll say she's a foundling," she says instead. "Everyone saw me on May Day with a perfectly flat belly; even the sharpest-tongued gossips will have little to say to that. Little that will harm us, in any case."

Maude sighs again. "I suppose you're right. We'll have to tell the priest, sooner than later, to get her christened." 

"Mmhm," Eleanor says absently, distracted by getting more oatmeal in her less than thrilled baby.