Blinking a few times, I slowly opened my eyes. The sun was bright, making it difficult to keep them open for long. Then the thought occurred to me—I was alone. Every morning, one of my parents woke me up, but now neither of them was there. The room was empty, save for the few toys that I'd left on the floor from the previous night. It was also noticeably quiet, which made me a little scared.
Slowly, I crawled out of my oversized bed and slithered down the side and to the ground. I had never done this before, so it felt strange to me, but also oddly fun. I rubbed the sleepy out of my eyes as I left my bedroom. My little feet padded on the cold floor in the hallway as I walked to find someone who could let me know what was going on. Maids busily walked down the same pathway, carrying various things that they did not normally carry. None of them even stopped to smile at me like they always would in the mornings.
At this point, I was frustrated. Something seemed different, and no one had told me about it. Sometimes, my parents would leave for a day or two, but they would always tell me before they went. No one had said anything to me about it. My tummy grumbled, probably because it was annoyed too. I brushed my blue hair behind my ear with the back of my hand and huffed down hallway.
Coming to my parents' bedroom entrance, I noticed that it was opened just a little bit. It must have been left this way by a maid, I thought. Not wishing to intrude, as I had been taught not to do, I simply peeked through the crack in between the two large doors. I could see Father sitting on the end of their bed, which was larger than mine, and I could barely see Mother's elbow as she sat against the pillows.
I thought that I was being super sneaky and that no one would see me peeking, until my tummy rumbled again; this time, much louder than before. I gasped and swiftly hid behind the door. I thought that I was safe after a moment of quiet from the bedroom, but then I heard Mother's voice.
"Lucina, baby, you may come in," she called to me.
I knew that because Mother said that it was alright, it was, but I still didn't like being caught. Slowly, I pushed the left door open enough so that I could step into the room. I expected them to not be happy, because I had been peeping, but when I finally dared to look at them, they both were smiling gently at me.
"Good morning, Lucina," said Father in a kind voice.
I didn't respond, only standing in the doorway curiously. I knew better than to ask something like "why didn't you wake me up?" or "I want breakfast". I wasn't sure what to do, so I didn't do anything.
"Come," Mother said to me, waving her hand towards her. This meant that I could go onto their bed, which was always exciting.
I wandered up to the big bed and grabbed a fistful of the bedcovering in each hand. I tried to pull myself up, but the loose quilt fell off the edge, taking me back down to the ground with it. This situation made me even more irritated than I already was, so I stayed right there on the ground where the sheets clearly wanted me to be. I then felt Father's arms pick me up and set me on the bed where I immediately crawled over to be next to Mother.
It wasn't until I was settled with my head resting on her shoulder that I noticed something else on the bed.
"What are those?" I asked quietly, pointing to two rolled up blankets that sat in the center of the bed.
"Those are your new little siblings," Mother told me with a tired smile. She looked to me as if she had been up all night.
I gave her a confused look.
"What is it? Don't look at me like that—you look like your father," she laughed at me. "You have a new little brother and a new little sister. Go look at them and maybe you will understand better."
Obeying, I cautiously made my way to where the two bundled blankets were. As soon as I got near them, I could see the tiny, pink faces. The faces were sleeping, so they had their eyes tightly closed. Their cheeks were so squishy looking that I couldn't help when my finger just had to touch it. The face moved, and a tiny little tongue licked its lips before sighing and settling down again.
I hadn't realized how wide my eyes had gotten until I heard Father laugh about it. I decided a few moments later that I'd had enough of looking, so I silently crawled back to lean against Mother again.
She wrapped her arm around me, holding me close. "What do you think, butterfly?" She asked kindly, brushing my long hair back out of my face.
I thought about this for a moment. There was a little girl, who would be my sister. This made me excited, because I could play games like tea party with her—a game that Owain never wanted to play. On the other hand, I would also have a brother, otherwise known as a boy. With the exception of Owain, I never had liked boys that much. They liked the mud and often played with gross bugs.
"I… don't think I like boys… very much," I explained to her slowly, not wishing to sound too mean.
Mother looked up to Father and they exchanged a look that I couldn't decipher at the time. Then Mother sighed and turned back to me, "I bet your opinion will change as he grows up. For now, why don't you take your daddy and get dressed?"
I nodded and crawled off the bed, this time sliding down the side. I took Father's hand and we walked back to my bedroom together. He let me pick out what I wanted to wear, which was, of course, my favorite play dress. I insisted on dressing myself that day, and nothing would convince me otherwise. The only trouble I had was that I did not unbutton the back, making it rather difficult to get over my head.
"Daddy… I can't…" I said, my voice muffled by the dress in front of my face.
Father unbuttoned the back and the dress fell into place. He the refastened it, making me completely dressed. I looked at myself in the mirror across the room. I thought that I always looked the best whenever I wore this dress. It was white and had a bright blue ribbon along the bottom; the same blue as my eyes.
"Now, go find your aunt to do your hair for you," he said to me, lifting me off my bed (where I had chosen to dress).
"Why can't Mama?" I asked curiously, tilting my head to one side.
"Your mama needs to rest for a little while, but she will be able to do it tomorrow, I'm sure," he replied with an assuring nod.
Before I went to find my aunt, I found my cousin instead. When I told him about all that had happened that morning, he didn't seem terribly impressed. He was just jealous, I thought, because he doesn't have any little siblings. He did not understand that I got to help oversee them, which meant that I could tell them what to do.
After Aunt Lissa fixed my hair, and after I ate some breakfast, I went straight back to my parents' bedroom. Father was not there this time, but Mother still was. I noticed right away that the tiny babies were not there. They were neither on the big bed with Mother, nor in the crib on the other side of the room.
"Mama, where are they?" I asked quietly.
"The maids took them into their room so that I could sleep," Mother answered, propping herself up with her elbow from her earlier lying position. She then reached over to her nightstand, grabbed something, and then put her hands underneath the covers.
Realizing what she was implying, I gasped, "I'm sorry, Mama!"
She smiled, "that's alright, sweetheart. Come, I want to speak with you for a minute."
This time, I set my foot on the base of the bedframe, grabbed the sheets, and heaved myself onto the bed. I crawled over to Mother and sat right next to her. For a moment, I simply wiggled my feet back and forth, feeling the largeness of the bed around me.
"What did you want to speak about?" I asked finally.
"Well, you have new siblings now, and I wanted to tell you a few things about your new job as their big sister," she answered in a serious tone. "You need to remember that you will always be older than them. While they grow up, they are going to look at you, and see how you do things. When we tell you and Owain, 'monkey see, monkey do', it is the same thing. This means that you must do things in the way that you would want them to do to you. Do you understand so far?"
I nodded, matching her serious voice with a serious expression.
"And you always have to be the bigger person, no matter how you feel," she continued, then she extended her gloved right hand towards me, pulling me close again. "Listen, your daddy and I might not be here all the time. And the times that we are gone, you will have to be there for your little brother and sister."
"But when you come back, I can just be their sister, right?" I asked timidly.
"Yes, you can," Mother replied with a contented sigh. She kissed me on the top of my head and then looked at me again. "Do you understand?"
I nodded once again, even though, being quite young, I could not possibly understand the full extent of what she meant. "Mama… I have a question."
"Hmm?"
"What are the babies' names going to be?"
She smiled, "I'm not sure yet, butterfly. Your father and I have not talked about it yet. What do you think their names should be?"
I thought briefly, "I think the girl should be named… Sleeping Beauty, like in the story that Uncle Henry read me last night. And the boy should be named…. Bob!" I felt quite content with these names, and I made sure to put extra emphasis on the "b".
Mother only continued to smile in the kind way she always did, "We will certainly take your opinion into consideration, and I assure you that when we pick one, we will tell you. But just know that it may be a few days before that happens—sometimes it takes a little while to be certain that you have picked the perfect name."
"Did it take you very long to pick my name?" I inquired, tilting my head to one side.
"Yes, you went for about a week with no name," she answered. "We had to make absolute sure that we liked what we chose."
There was suddenly a very shrill cry from the next room over—the room that my new siblings were in. I knew right away that it was the little boy, because it had to have been. Only baby boys cried. But something in my head said that crying was a sad thing, and that there was something wrong.
"Mama, are they going to be alright? Why are they crying?" I asked Mother quickly.
"It's alright, Lucina. They're likely just hungry," she replied calmly. "Now go play with Owain or someone while I feed them."
I nodded and quickly ran out of the room. I did not like the sound of their crying, and it only became louder for the brief period that I was in the near hallway. I ran as fast as I could to get to the other side of the castle. This side was not normally where I played, but I did not want to hear them cry—it made me feel upset.
I spent the entire rest of the morning as far away as possible and did not come back to that side of the castle until it was my naptime. I cautiously made my way to my bedroom, but I stopped when I did not hear any crying. The only sound that I could hear was Father and Mother talking to one another, both in low voices, in their room.
Knowing better than to go anywhere but my bed at naptime, I continued into my bedroom, but I still did not hear any sounds from my siblings. I felt like if I made a single sound, they would start again, and it scared me a little. Father came in to make sure that I was where I should be, and I only silently nodded when he asked me if I was comfortable.
"Is something wrong, Lu? You look like you've just seen a ghost," he commented. "Or, rather, you're trying to be one."
"I don't want to make sounds," I whispered almost inaudibly. "Because I don't want to make them cry again."
"It's alright to make sounds," he said, leaning on the edge of my bed. "Babies cry when they want something, because they don't know how to use words as big girls like you do. If you speak in a normal voice, it won't bother them enough to cry."
"Oh…" I breathed out heavily. "Will they cry a lot?"
"Probably, but that won't last for long," he replied.
I didn't say anything else, but Father left the room. I would be in my bed for another hour, when I was supposed to sleep, but I felt as though I could sleep for days. So much had happened just in one morning, and more would likely happen later that day. I felt happy about my new little brother and sister, despite the crying. I knew that I would get to help them grow, and I would get to teach them things like how to play tag and hide-and-go-seek.
I could hear Father speaking to both Mother and my aunt Lissa out in the hall. I could not hear what they were saying, but I did hear when they laughed. These sounds always made me relaxed, and it was no different this time. I fell right asleep, happy in knowing that this excitement would last for a long time.