My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  "Do...do they need someone to break them apart?" Gavin whispered, his eyes honing in on the pair that were fighting fully in the Comtess' language now.

  "Throw a bucket of water on them, maybe," Myra sighed, rolling her eyes. Confused, Gavin turned to her and she must have read his true concern for someone's safety. Placing a hand to his cheek, Myra snickered, "That's their foreplay."

  "What?"

  "Yes, I fear it's become rather pronounced as of late," the Princess groaned while stretching her neck.

  "All the servants working at Cailan's estate know once those two raise their voices they best dash off to the safest far ends of the palace or get caught in the crossfire."

  "You know this?" Rosie seemed surprised at Myra's depth of knowledge.

  His wife snorted, "Gonna ask how next? I talk to 'em sometimes. They come along, we strike up a conversation, usually while kvetching about shems mostly. Someone's gonna have to tell those two to tone it down though. Heard they scared the ever loving hell out of the Teyrn."

  Rosie groaned fully now, her fingers worrying over her forehead, "That was a diplomatic disaster I never anticipated. Cailan bedding her certainly, loudly even, but..."

  Standing taller, Myra ran her hand against Gavin's arm and whispered in his ear, "From one minute watching those two get into an epic screaming match, to suffering their lovey dovey eyes at the breakfast nook the next morning. That poor Teyrn's head was spinning like mad."

  "I don't understand," Gavin continued, his skin itching to rush over and defend someone though he wasn't certain who. There'd been nothing physical, thankfully, but their eyes were both flashing, and breath buffeting from flailed nostrils, and... Oh. Ah, it was like when...

  Turning, he caught Myra's perked eyebrow, a glimmer of mischief that could easily snag him resting in her eye. Barely able to contain the smile that transformed into a blush, Gavin wrapped his hands around Myra's back and pulled her closer. Arms sliding under her belly to support it, he buried his burning face into the back of her head. "I am grateful I don't have to yell at you."

  "Me too, you're so bad at it I'd break into fits of laughter." Myra giggled at the thought, her fingers darting down Gavin's exposed forearms. Humming under her breath, she whispered, "My softy." He was and he didn't mind at all. Gavin moved to brush his lips against the nape of her neck, when her entire belly trembled as if she swallowed an earthquake.

  Panic seeped into his bones, Gavin leaning back fast. "Myra...?" He didn't move his hands away from her belly that continued to tremble, hoping to protect it.

  "What?"

  "Your stomach, the baby..." he gestured to her dress which was quivering to match whatever was happening inside her. Was it labor? No, it couldn't be. It was far too soon. Far too soon for anything healthy to...!

  Her palm smoothed against her stomach and she gripped onto his hand. "Kid's got the hiccups, again. I think we got a heavy drinker on our hands for how often this happens."

  "Hiccups?" he gasped, his veins yet flushed with the acid from panic.

  "Yep, all the time now. Had 'em for two hours straight in the middle of the night."

  "I've heard that drinking milk can calm them," Rosie said and Myra glared at her.

  "Tried it. Tried everything. I even finagled myself into sitting on my head, nothing works. Ugh," she stretched her neck a bit and attempted to make more room in her body for the hiccuping baby. "Maybe walking will work or keep me distracted." Myra stepped into the gravely path with Gavin happy to follow her.

  A great groan erupted from the pack of children and a very flushed King rose from the pile. "Sorry kids, Grampy needs a break."

  "Oh!" a few whined.

  Struggling to stretch, Alistair paused and he placed a hand to his forehead. More than a few eyes darted over to their King who seemed to be suffering. Before any could offer their assistance, he waved over his eldest granddaughter. "Toffee," he called to Elizabeth by her nickname, "can you help Pampy to the bench please?"

  "Kay!" she cried, all the flower petals she collected scattering from her hands as she guided the old man to the stone seat. For a moment, she scrambled up beside him and gave a quick kiss to her grandpa's cheek. He smiled at that, but before Alistair could return a hug, the girl dashed off to join her cousins in a new game.

  Tugging up his stark white hair, the King twisted his head around to spot Myra hopping around the garden. "Wheaters," he called, waving his hands towards her. Together Myra and Gavin stepped to the man's side. "How are you feeling?"

  "Fine, Dad. Usually fine. You blighted ask that every time you see me. It's not as if my innards are just gonna fall out one day. I'm pregnant, not cursed."

  He chuckled at Myra's assessment, his eyes rolling towards the Son-in-Law, "Let me guess, she's always like this."

  "On the good days," Gavin confessed when an elbow found its way into his side. Fair enough.

  "Have you felt it kick yet?" the King who couldn't get enough of babies asked.

  "Kick, punch, head butt, lunge forward as if it can tear through my skin...Which is all your fault," Myra waved a finger at her father and then her husband.

  Gavin blinked a moment, "Mine?"

  "Yes yours, and yours," she jabbed back at the King, "and mom's too. Three warriors in here is three too many."

  "Uh," Gavin bit into his lip, his voice falling soft, "four, actually."

  "Right," Myra winced instantly, "Four. And all four are converging together to beat me up from the inside out."

  He tried to put on a smile, Gavin siding an arm around the back of his beautiful wife, but it was stinging. The hurt never vanished. "I seem to recall you can do quite a bit of damage on your own as well, love."

  She rolled her eyes far, but slipped her body near as if she needed to support him. "If the kid's gotten its hands on a stick while up in there I will be damn impressed." Her jocularity snapped in an instant as Myra turned to her husband. Hands swiping up his cheeks, she closed her eyes and pressed his forehead to hers.

  It would be okay. He had her. Soon he'd have another bright light in his life. He just wished that...

  "Bryn!" Myra suddenly squealed, twisting away from her husband faster than a snake's strike. He barely had a chance to release his hands before she waddled away towards the elven woman standing near the far gate.

  "My!" she shouted back, "Your Mom said you were up here and I thought to stop by."

  "How's it been...?" The two old friends fell back into chatting far away from the hanger-on husband. Bryn's moving away was hard on Myra, but every time they reconnected again it was as if no time had passed.

  "I assume this means Reiss' spare room will be full up," the King whispered seemingly to himself.

  Gavin nodded a moment, "The last time she was here, she and Myra leapt off the cliffs overlooking the harbor."

  "Well, might want to gently remind my daughter a few dozen times that she's carrying an extra passenger. Or tie her to the chair until the urge passes," he snickered to himself before turning to face the children who were quickly tuckering out one by one. Little heads conked out nestling on piles of leaves or wherever they fell while a few dogs wandered past to either lick up any excess sugar or snuggle beside the babies.

  "Come have a sit by me, son," the King patted the bench beside him.

  Glancing around a moment to find nearly all the other adults were busy, Gavin moved to slide his nonexistent scabbard to the side and sat down. "Thank you, Sir," he said, tipping his head to the old man. Alistair had his eyes screwed up tight a moment as if he was trying to shake off some internal pain, but they shot open and he turned to Gavin.

  "You know you can call me Dad if you'd like. I mean, you're in the family now whether you like it or not," he chuckled.

  "I do like it," Gavin raced to insist, always feeling on edge around him. "I mean...I love her, and I want to-to do what's right for her, and..."

  The King smiled a moment at Gavin's stumbling, "So, call me Dad. Or Pops. Pampy if you're so
inclined like the rest of them."

  He'd made the offer numerous times to Gavin starting around the time of their wedding, but it was hard for him to spit the word out while looking at the man he swore to serve. "I will...try, Sir," he said instead.

  "Fair enough," the old man shrugged, lifting a weight off of Gavin's shoulders while he stared around the little garden. Hoping that was enough to give him a reprieve, Gavin turned to try and find his wife, when Alistair spoke again, "But I know you called Reiss 'Mom' once."

  That caused Gavin to blink furiously, his brain struggling to remember when that might happened. Right. At her place, when she was teaching him how to handle a baby with colic and every other infant matter she could think of. It fell out of him almost without thought.

  "I lost a bet with her over that. She is going to be smug for weeks, you know," his King didn't grumble from the son-in-law causing him to lose, but laughed. The foggy eyes shifted over to Gavin who was stewing inside of himself. It should be simple enough, it'd clearly make him happy and he wanted to make the King happy. That was more or less a Knight's calling even if the circumstances behind it could change. A simple word...

  "Hey," Alistair shook him from his dark thoughts, "I'm kidding. Well, not about Reiss being smug, that's a given. It's okay, Son." He reached over to tenderly slug Gavin in the arm. "Dad, no dad, I'm glad you're here. With her. Giving me another grandbaby to fuss over."

  "Thank you, Sir," Gavin gasped, his eyes screwed up tight as he released a breath.

  "Are you okay?" the patriarch of the entire country asked.

  Gavin tried to nod his head that he was fine. People kept wondering how the new about-to-be father was handling all this, often snickering as if he should be terrified. While he was scared of so many ways that Myra or their child could be put in danger, he didn't fear this step into fatherhood. But something nestled deep in his heart that would never leave.

  "I miss them," he blubbered to the King sitting beside him. "I wish...I wish that Mom could be here, and Dad. That they'd..." Gavin fell silent as he tried to conjure how his parents would adjust to becoming grandparents. To watch his mother with one hand wrapped around an infant, her other clutching tight to the cane. His father holding the baby up to his eyes and staring deep to find the child's soul.

  "They're here," Alistair said, a hand landing upon Gavin's shoulder. The King tugged him into a half hug a moment. "They're always watching over you, probably over Myra too. Lanny in particular. She loved keeping her nose stuck in everybody's business."

  Gavin snorted at that thought. His mother didn't seem to be that much of a gossiper, though she did have a habit of knowing things that by all rights she shouldn't. The real worrier was his father. Maker, the idea of the great Commander having to race about his home in order to baby proof it for the grandchild... And Mom would insist they visit all the time, every...every chance he had.

  "Know what I think," Alistair said, breaking Gavin away from his dark thoughts. "I bet right now Lanny and your old dad are sitting with your soon to be baby. She's filling its head with all kinds of arcane knowledge, and tactics, and bawdy jokes that'll make a dwarf blush."

  The thought make Gavin smile, "And my father?"

  "The templar?" Alistair shifted in his seat and an eye darted over to the boy, "Let's just say if the first time the baby sees me it starts screaming we'll know your dad was involved."

  It was a nice idea, to think that his parents could know their child before they did. That they were looking in from across the veil, that they at least knew how much Gavin missed them and wished they could both be here every day. Knitting his fingers together, Gavin watched the calluses and knots of a life built swinging weapons and riding horses. Maker willing, soon they'd be cuddling a warm baby tight to his chest.

  "I admit," he said, still lost in the thrum of his life's work told in scars and dents to his flesh, "given how much you and my father seemed to despise each other, I am surprised that you let me into your life. Into Myra's..."

  Despite all of Gavin's fears to the contrary, when he informed the King of their very impending nuptials, the man slapped him on the back, grabbed a few bottles out of the wine cellar, and hightailed it to the chantry. There was no threat of a duel, no trying to ferret his youngest daughter away to safety. He did cry a lot, but they seemed to be tears of happiness.

  "Son," the King began with a sigh, "I don't call you that just 'cause I like to sound old and folksy. I'm Maker awful at playing the spoons, for one. You are family to me."

  "But my father...?"

  "Yes, yes, we got on about as great as two cats shoved in a sack and then dropped in a river. But I'd be the absolute worst person in thedas to treat you terrible because I didn't like your dad. I mean, what kind of adult would take that out on a boy? Especially when your mom meant so much to me."

  He leaned back on the bench, the one dedicated not only to the memory of Lady Rutherford but her husband as well. It was a much simpler memorial than the giant onyx statue, but the King seemed to spend most of his time sitting on it playing with his grandchildren or watching the garden unfurl with dawn's light.

  "Lanny, we both spent a lot of our youth trying to reclaim our lost family. Then we realized that the real answer was building it with our friends, with those we adore beyond reason, with our kids. You've always been family to me, even before you and Myra finally got it in your heads to tie that knot."

  Gavin snickered, "Here I assumed it was Reiss who talked you into okaying our relationship."

  "She tried, believe me. I wouldn't have argued with her either way but...I knew it was inevitable." His lips lifted in a small smile as he gazed across the bluebells wafting in the breeze. "One of those twists of fate only the Maker could create. For being a great being, the unknowable of unknowables, He sure seems to have a sense of humor about such things.

  "Besides," Alistair slapped a hand against Gavin's knee and the old King sat up, "you're a good man, and while it's a father's prerogative to think his daughter could do better, she could have done much, much worse."

  "Thank you, Sir," Gavin wasn't certain if that was a compliment or not, but it let him breathe a bit easier.

  Alistair folded his arms tight to his chest, "For all we argued, glared, got into pissing contests over nothing...your father -- he was a good man."

  At that Gavin's eyes shot open wide. While no one ever told him explicitly what came between the King and Commander, it was obvious to all that they couldn't stand each other. Warmth rose in Gavin's veins at the man who seemed to have every reason to not like Cullen praising him.

  The King's warm brown eyes slipped over and he smiled, "He'd have to be a good man to raise someone like you."

  "That is...thank you. Thank you so much," Gavin blubbered, feeling the tears stinging in his eyes.

  "Though your mom could have done better," the King snickered to himself, "but that's old friend prerogative talking now. Wherever she is I hope she's happy with him, happy with herself..." His eyes darted over to Gavin, "because I'm certain she's happy about you."

  In turning to try and wick away the tears before his sovereign, boss, and father-in-law saw them Gavin caught sight of Myra. Her hands were waving wildly in the air as she was regaling Bryn with a tale so entertaining her elven friend was in stitches. She'd resumed braiding her hair again, though this one cut off at her shoulders while it bobbed and weaved with the story.

  There were days he'd wake with an ache in his chest so deep all the dirt in thedas couldn't fill it. Then he'd turn in bed to find Myra curled up beside him. No doubt with one hand flung over the pillow as if she was protecting it. Dawn's far too early light flaming her starry freckles, which after all these years he still didn't have a number for. Her bright eyes that carried both the unknown chaos of the future and a summery reminder of his past gently shut in her slumber. And those little hints of bumps to her ears that were all her own, that made her Myra -- like her heart, her exuberance for life, and her unyielding t
enacity.

  Maker, he prayed their baby would be just like its mother.

  "There is one thing you could do for me," the King said, snapping Gavin away from the love of his life.

  He turned his attentions fully upon the old man who seemed to be glancing around in concern. Oh Maker, how bad could this request be?

  Alistair patted his hands like paws and shrugged, "When it came to the kids I didn't get a lot of say in naming them. Royal lines and all..."

  "What about Myra?"

  "You've met Reiss," he shot out fast, causing Gavin to chortle a moment. "Though Myra is a good name."

  "It's beautiful," he nodded, having whispered it far too often to himself before succumbing to sleep to not adore it.

  "Just, for the baby," Alistair began. Leaning over, he whispered his request into Gavin's ear while around them the children giggled and chased each other armed with lollies. Weary parents tried to grab onto them but they didn't seem to be having much luck.

  Soon there'd be another chasing after them.

  "Think upon it," the King said as he tugged away. "But, if Myra shoots it down it's not worth starting a row over or anything. Now..." he clapped his hands and sat up, "I think we should get to the birthday cake before all the kids destroy it."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Dad

  Maker's sake, why was everyone in his bedroom? He hadn't felt this surrounded since the siege of Denerim. Or that time he had to take a shit, a badger leapt straight out of the latrine hole, he panicked, fell over with his pants between his ankles, and the entire damn court had to see what their ol' shrieking King was up to. Rather comparable all things considered. That badger could have put some ogres to shame.

  He tried to turn in his bed, but his body refused to cooperate. Too much, too fast. Yet again. What'd he been up to last night? It wasn't drinking, was it? The flock of doctors Rosie kept sicking on him would cluck him to death if it was. No. Maybe he was wrestling with his grandkids. That'd take out his knees and back, but this felt deep. Bone deep. Vein splintering deep.