My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  * * *

  The new family took a few hours to get cleaned up, as rested as one can with a newborn, and for Reiss to get some milk into Myra's belly before Alistair went to tell everyone the good news. He was sitting in the chair holding Myra while Reiss lay in bed when the Queen appeared with her children in tow. Cailan was in her arms, his exhausted head laying upon her chest as he must have been roused from a nap or perhaps sleep itself.

  Reiss wasn't certain what time it was, or even what day.

  "Congratulations," Beatrice tipped her head to the mistress while acting as civil as possible. "Satinalia is an auspicious day to be born. There are no doubt great things in this child's life."

  "No," Reiss groaned, "she did not come out on..."

  "Yup, biggest holiday of the year. Bet she's gonna love you for choosing it," Alistair leaned over to Reiss and pecked a kiss on her cheek.

  "As if I had any say in the matter," Reiss groaned to herself.

  The princess clutched tight to her mother's skirt, her rarely pacified thumb suckered into her mouth. She peered first over at Reiss in bed, then at her father holding onto the baby. Slowly, the girl risked inching nearer to Alistair. When nothing deadly shot out of the blankets in his hand, she removed her thumb and gripped onto his knee.

  "See Spuddy," Alistair tipped Myra towards her, "a new little sister." The girl eyed up the baby with cautious disinterest before popping her thumb back in her mouth. "Oh, come here," Alistair slid Myra over to one arm then scooped the other around his first daughter. She fully abandoned her mother's skirt in order to hug around her father's neck, the princess laughing at the kisses he peppered her in.

  "You know I love you, Spud. All three of you. Even you, sleeping beauty," he chuckled and jerked his chin to Cailan who seemed to be slowly rousing from his nap.

  The boy took a few more blinks before he caught sight of his sister in his father's arms then began to slide out of Beatrice's. As Cailan rushed over for a hug, the princess slipped away, her little emerald eyes rolling wide. When Cailan received his requisite kiss to the forehead, he gripped onto the edge of Alistair's arm under the blanket and peered in at Myra's bright pink face.

  "Baby?"

  "Yep, another sister for you too."

  "I wanna hold!" Cailan insisted extending his hands out as if the newborn was about to be plopped into them.

  "Cailan, that's..." Beatrice reached over, but Alistair waved it off.

  "I got this." He smoothly lifted Myra up into the air, the baby gurgling from the move but not crying, then he patted his lap. Cailan was quick to scurry up into it. "Okay, hold your hands out like this," Alistair commanded and he slowly settled Myra into the boy's arms while still maintaining his steady grip below.

  "Baby!" Cailan squealed, entertained with the tiny child he stared down at.

  "This is Myra," Alistair said, his nose bonking into the back of his son's head after.

  "Then you..." Beatrice glanced over at Reiss, "have forgone the tradition."

  "There didn't seem to be much point," Reiss admitted. "Not as if the chantry wants to get involved."

  The Queen flinched at her laying out the facts so succinctly, then nodded, "I suppose that is true." Reiss wasn't delusional enough to think her child would be welcomed by everyone just because Alistair wished it to be. Besides, she wasn't about to call her child 'baby' for a good month in order to appease some old rule to keep her from getting attached.

  Cailan began to kick his legs in excitement, one plowing into Alistair's shin as he cried, "I want a baby!"

  "A baby? You're a little young for that," he laughed to hide the pain. "How about a doll instead?"

  "If Caywen gets a doll, then I get a sword! A real one too!" the princess spun fast towards her father, quick to cut in on this deal.

  "Spud, we've been over this. You can't have a real sword until you're how old?"

  She gripped onto the bedspread below Reiss and groaned, "Ten."

  "And how old are you now?" Alistair continued questioning her.

  "Six," she shot out through clenched teeth.

  "Which means there are how many more years remaining until you can hit people with a metal sword?"

  The girl grumbled into her hands, not wanting to relent. It was Cailan who spoke up in his happy, singsong voice, "Four."

  That caused all the adults to whip their heads over at the boy who was still enthralled with the idea of his own baby. "You're right," Alistair breathed against him, "and scare me sometimes. We know you didn't get your smarts from me," he chuckled to the kid meaning it as a compliment to the boy's mother, but a deafening silence fell. Every adult in that room knew the truth, that Cailan got nothing from his father. The only child who did wasn't even a day old.

  Reiss tried to not look over at Beatrice, but she felt the glare increasing tenfold. Maker's sake, was this how it was always going to be? Reiss didn't want her daughter anywhere near the throne. Alistair didn't want Myra on it either. The Queen had nothing to fear and yet...

  "Where'd the baby come from?" The princess' voice shattered the rising tension to replace it with a new awkward one.

  "Wh...?" Alistair coughed and sputtered, his face turning as pink as their baby daughter's. "What do you mean?"

  "First it was in there," she pointed at Reiss deflated stomach, then turned to her father, "now it's there. How?"

  "Oh sweet merciful Maker," Alistair gasped as the other two women sighed in relief at not having to explain reproduction to the six year old at that moment. The girl, however, wanted an explanation for this parlor trick. She folded her arms tight to her chest and glowered at her father.

  Alistair began, "Well, you know when your tummy hurts really bad, Spud?" He couldn't be serious. Reiss shook her head, catching Beatrice's eye a moment. He was serious. The girl nodded in agreement as the man continued, "And then you go to the bathroom and you feel better. That's kinda how it works."

  She fell silent, digesting her father's words with a seriousness only a young child was capable of. It seemed to work to satiate her curiosity when the girl suddenly spat out in an accusatory fashion at Reiss, "You pooed a baby out?"

  "That, uh... Bloody hell, Alistair," Reiss spat at the man who was shrugging his shoulders and trying to bury the embarrassment into the baby and the back of his son's head. The Queen politely palmed her face at the idiocy then beckoned her daughter to her. Sliding over, Reiss whispered in Alistair's ear, "I know who's not having the birds and bees talk with our daughter now."

  He chuckled at that, his come-what-may shrug lapping across those gorgeous eyes. Unable to take it, Reiss cupped her fingers against his jaw for a sweet kiss. Even feeling like someone jammed a flaming hot sword up her Abyssal Reach she couldn't stop loving this giant goof.

  "Come along, son," Beatrice suddenly spoke up, breaking the two lovebirds apart. "We should let them alone to rest."

  Cailan stuck out his lip, not wanting to give up on his baby, but at his mother's look he sighed and began to wiggle out. Would Reiss get that same skill? She could barely get her cat to stay off the counter. Maker's breath, how was she going to control a toddler?

  The Queen scooped her hands around her son and moved to tug her daughter away when Reiss suddenly sat up with a thought, "Beatrice?" She flinched at using the woman's given name and not title, but the Queen didn't react. "Would you like to hold the baby?"

  "I..." she glanced down at her pair of children, then her eyes began to water as Alistair slid up to his legs. "I would, please." As the father left his daughter in the Queen's arms Beatrice snuggled Myra tighter to her breast. Alistair sat down on the bed beside Reiss, the pair of them locking hands together.

  For awhile Beatrice stood in silence staring down at the tiny creature asleep in her arms. She seemed as much in awe of her as the ones who created Myra. Reiss often wondered if the woman didn't wish she could have had more children, but the Maker was cruel and cut her off as soon as she got going.

  "You know," Alistair sp
oke up, "she's gonna need some help and hands to hold her. If you want to take the baby for a bit, show her how to be as lady-like as our daughter who's sticking her finger into the placenta we need to burn..." At the sudden attention of her parents the princess snaked her fingers away and began to stare at the ceiling.

  "I," Beatrice tipped her head in gratitude, "it would be my pleasure." She shuffled forward, Cailan clinging tight to her skirt as she moved to deposit Myra back in Reiss' arms. "You are very blessed. She is a beautiful baby."

  "Thank you," Reiss said.

  "Let's go children. I believe we can have one quick slice of cake before bed," Beatrice smiled.

  "Weally?" the princess gasped, her lisp snapping back as joy overflowed off her face. Cailan tugged up and down on Beatrice's gown to register his own excitement.

  "Yes," she smiled, wrapping both kids with her arms, "We have reason to celebrate your new sister." All joys and laughter, the three of them left the room to go ransack the larder.

  Alistair snuggled against Reiss in the bed, both of them watching Myra stretched out upon her chest. There were so many what ifs ahead for the little girl. What would the court think? How would she be accepted not only here but within the streets of Denerim? Would she begin to look more elven with each year or always pass as human?

  "I love you," Alistair breathed beside her. "If I was any happier rainbows would burst out of my belly button."

  With one hand wrapped around her daughter, who would become whatever she wanted to be and whom Reiss would protect her regardless, she cupped her sort-of husband's cheek. "I love you too."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Penance

  5 weeks old...

  Her voice hummed softly above the crackle of the fire, her boy's head twisting around to try and follow the sound while those amber eyes honed in on his mother. He got so into it, he kicked his little feet and twisted an arm, causing the blanket to slip off his stomach. Lana tried to pick back up the song as she tucked her wiggly son up into the warm wool. As winter loomed colder than they thought possible, Lana would often sit in the kitchen by the great hearth to keep both herself and her son warm.

  Cullen noticed her trekking down there, sometimes in the middle of the night thanks to their boy deciding play time was best by moonlight, and moved the comfier chair into the kitchen. A few of the servants drifted in and out, nodding at the mother and trying to catch a glimpse of the bright eyed baby before sadly having to get back to work. Even as she was enraptured with the bundle in her arms, she'd on occasion stir a pot or yank a potentially burning pan out of the fire.

  A little gurgle broke from the boy and she glanced down to catch a very tiny lift of his lips. "Are you smiling?" she asked, her own stretching wide from the possibility. At the attention of his mother, he smacked his lips together and then blew a giant bubble. Lana laughed at the antics and tried to wipe his messy face off.

  "Well, you'll get it next time," she said, lifting her boy up to her lips to kiss him on the cheek.

  The kitchen door blew open and a giant's silhouette nearly crammed the entryway shut. Lana's breath caught, her fingers almost dipping into the veil, when a very familiar and very loud voice shouted, "Where's the baby?!"

  Hawke stepped into the light, looking far more wild than she had in recent years. Her hair had returned to a few random jagged cuts, then knotted back to try and tame it, and she wore tight but padded armor. The last time Lana saw her she was in a Maker given dress of all things.

  The Champion stared around the room in a tizzy, then honed in on the baby in Lana's arms. "Is that...?" she gasped.

  "There aren't any other babies around so I certainly hope so," Lana smiled at her cousin.

  Falling to her knees, Hawke bunched her face up closer to the infant that was carefully eyeing up this stranger. Her finger slowly drifted out towards the baby as if she thought he might try to bite it off, when another pair of silhouettes appeared in the door -- both male. Lana caught the pinched face of her husband as he was no doubt trying to catch his breath after failing to catch a runaway Hawke. After wiping the sweat of a winter sprint from his forehead, Cullen smiled at his wife, then his eyes drifted over to the other person that joined their little party. In the line of people her husband would let live but only because his wife asked, this man probably sat at the top.

  Anders looked like shit. She probably shouldn't think it and certainly wouldn't say it, but it was the truth. Time, or perhaps his lifestyle choice, had worn down what had once been a lithe, debonair attitude to gaunt leeriness. His head pivoted around, searching for anyone or anything about to clap him back in irons. While the eyes seemed to have faded to a duller brown, and he'd abandoned his feathery coat for something with fur, he still kept that same small blonde ponytail.

  "Look, it's a baby!" Hawke shouted in pure ecstasy.

  "Gavin," Lana said, her face full of soft smiles at the joy in her cousin. Cullen slid closer to his wife, his hands trying to wring out the knots in her shoulders as he stared down at their named son. The ceremony was simple but beautiful, performed in the small village chantry that could at most seat ten people. Mia stood there on the last day before she returned home, grinning wide and proud of her nephew and brother, along with all the people who worked in the abbey that could manage to get away. She'd never thought much of the tradition, but Cullen cared, and standing before Andraste declaring to the world that this was their child was a moment she'd treasure forever.

  Hawke scuttled nearer, her single finger reaching over to boop the baby on the nose. Gavin giggled at that, his hands swiping over to try and get her to do it again. Of course, the mighty Champion and slayer of Qunari giggled in response. She stared wide eyed at this tiny thing in complete awe.

  "He's got his momma's smile," she observed.

  "Does he?" Lana tried to tip her boy around to face her, but he was having too much fun with this new plaything.

  "Course, look at that. It's all teeth, would be teeth if there were any. Thank the Maker too. No offense and all Curly," she snickered, easily throwing around Varric's nickname for Cullen. "But you are Captain Dour when it comes to smiling."

  He tipped his head, his fingers curling around their son's cheek. The attention of his father drew those amber eyes right up to Cullen who gave his beautiful, hard-fought smile in response, "None taken. I'd much rather he grin like his mother. Laugh like her."

  "Bet he gets the sneer though," Hawke chuckled. Then she paled, "Oh Maker, do you think he'll get...everything with the sneer?"

  At that the father glowered, and both women broke into laughter. "Honey eyes," Lana snickered while cupping his whiskery cheek. "You can't stop the march of time, nor that..."

  "I can burn every blighted copy of that sketch I find, however," Cullen grumbled to himself, his hands crossing against his chest. Maker, she shouldn't prod him but he should stop being so adorable while stewing over it.

  After pressing a quick kiss to her husband's sneering lips, Lana's eyes wandered over to the vagabond standing limply in the doorway. "You may come over and see," she said to Anders.

  "That..." He bounced up a moment, as curious as Hawke looked, but Cullen's eagle glare winnowed down on the mage who set the world on fire and Anders shrunk back, "I'm fine here. Someone's got to keep the doorframe from collapsing." Lana knew it wouldn't be easy having Anders here, but she didn't think it'd be this hard right out of the gate.

  "Look," Hawke shouted, breaking the two mages and templar from glaring around each other, "he's got tiny little fingers!"

  "Yes, he does," Lana chuckled. "Ten, in fact."

  "How are they so teeny? Look at them!" she fanned out the boy's hand, letting it grip onto her finger to inspect the razor sharp nails better. "Gavin Amell Rutherford," Hawke mused.

  "Ah, it's Gavin Grayson Rutherford," Lana corrected quickly, her eyes dashing around the kitchen to make certain no one else was there.

  "What?" The goofy aunt fell away to reveal the terrifying woman wh
o stopped an invasion, and all her vitriol was aimed at Cullen. "What happened to Amell? Mother's name, it's important." Her voice dropped lower into what some would probably call the pants-wetting range.

  "Hawke," Lana tugged on her arm, trying to get the giantess to break away from her husband before things got messy. "I can't use it, remember. In hiding."

  She blinked a moment then sighed and ran her hand through her shaved section of hair. "Right, hiding. Shame though. Amell's a good name to have."

  Lana reached around to hold onto her cousin, the only one in her family she ever really got to know outside of moldy memories. "He'll know who he is and where he comes from."

  "Comes from?" Hawke twisted her head around, "Yer gonna give 'em the this bit goes into that bit and out pops a baby talk now? Ain't he a little young?"

  "For the love of..." Lana cupped her forehead, feeling the familiar headache that came from her spending too much time with her cousin.

  That drew such a great enough laugh to Hawke that she slapped her knee and turned back to face Anders. "I forgot how squeamish my cousin is about the dirty bits."

  "I am not," Lana rose up to defend herself, but there was little point in it. Switching gears, she shifted in her seat, "Hawke, would you like to hold the baby?"

  "M-m-me...? You, you trust me to-to carry something that fragile?" Her cocksure grin flopped into a terror grimace, the Champion's skin paling to a stricken grey as she stared at the rather happy baby.

  "He's full, been changed fairly recently, and seems to think you're funny." Lana tried to shift the bundle over, but Hawke kept her arms crossed.

  "What if I...I drop him, or-or pinch something, or try to use him to pick up something hot?!" the panic in her face was almost adorable. Lana'd walked the deep roads for weeks with only Hawke and Anders facing every manner of darkspawn those tainted creatures could throw at them and she'd never seen her so terrified. Gavin, unaware of the pressure he could produce, was smiling like mad and gurgling more spit bubbles.