It's peaceful, the mother muses with a small smile on her face, settled in her sitting room with her husband and children, the fire in the hearth the only thing staving off the night's darkness. Moments like this are rare – and they are now doomed to become rarer still before long at all. The proof is in front of her, in the two boys across the room.
Only, they aren't boys anymore, are they? They're men, which is exactly her point.
The younger – already twenty – is sitting nearest the fireplace, playing a game of chess with his father. From here, she can see where her son can win the game, and she knows he sees the chance too. Only he doesn't make the move, which means that he's in a kind mood himself and is going to let his father win this round.
The elder boy is cattycorner to her, sitting in his father's chair and frowning into the glow of his laptop screen. He's twenty-seven and trying far too hard to carry the weight of an entire nation on his shoulders. It's not that the mother doesn't believe him capable of the feat – in fact, she knows he's capable of it – it's just that this is a family evening, and she'd like to see him engage with his family.
Stifling a sigh at the eldest, she smiles down at the bundle in her arms, the new life that is the reason her boys – men, now – have come 'round. The mother knows, of course, that she and her husband are really too old to begin down this road again, to take on the upbringing of a whole other human being. But she doesn't care, and neither does her husband. This beautiful life – a daughter that she'd never been willing to admit she wanted before she had it – had been granted to them as a wonderful surprise, and far be it from them to turn her away.
The newborn snuffles, stirring restlessly in her mother's arms as she fights sleep. She's too young to try to do such a thing, the mother had thought, but no. This third child of hers fights sleep – the world around the babe is still considered too wonderful to be disengaged from it for any time at all – and the mother has never known such tiredness as she has in the past month since her daughter's arrival.
Still, she considers the girl, maybe there could be some usefulness to the child's restlessness…
She looks to her eldest son, shifting onto her feet and going to stand in front of him before shutting his laptop with her elbow. He looks to her, plainly disgruntled with her, and complains, "I'm working."
Mother rolls her eyes at son, half-commanding, "Hold Enola for a bit? I'm going to go make her bottle."
He looks longingly down at his laptop, but they both know his sibling – now siblings – have always been his greatest weakness. So the laptop is gently placed onto the floor, and he uses even more care to adjust his sister in his arms when his mother hands her over to him. The baby protests the exchange, whining and kicking feebly at her brother's arm where it rests under her.
This he takes in stride, unruffled and even smiling such a very little down at her, a fondness in his eyes that he doesn't yet allow to touch the rest of his expression for reasons the mother has never deciphered. He's better with children than anyone in the world – besides perhaps that new secretary of his – would ever guess, and their mother has no qualms leaving the baby in his care as she goes to get the bottle, even calling over her shoulder, "Do a 'once upon a time' for her, Myc. Maybe your voice will soothe her into sleeping."
The elder brother shoots his mother's back a skeptical glance as she leaves the room, but the younger brother's head snaps curiously away from the chessboard and towards the eldest. "It's been a long time since I've heard about the knight," he says, his tone a perfected form of careless that holds a dozen half-truths. Waiting for their father to make his move on the board, the younger leans back in his chair and quotes from many an old memory, "'Once upon a time, in an age and place far removed from here, there was a kingdom of magic and mystery where there lived a king and his most favored knight.'" He shoots his brother a look that might've been fond had they been anyone else, declaring, "And thus the night's adventure began."
The young politician smiles, first at his brother, but then down at his sister, where his gaze remains locked upon her squirming form. He sways the infant gently, steadily, his smile one that no one outside of this house would ever see, it's that human, as he tells his brother, "But it's time to expand on that beginning, isn't it?" Then he starts his tale, something new, a relative of the fairytales that he used to make up for his brother, "Once upon a time, in an age and place far removed from here, there was a kingdom of magic and mystery where there lived a king, his most favored knight…" he pauses for a beat before making a decision and adding decisively, "And a mage. They lived separately, these three. The king had his castle, of course. The knight lived in an equally lavish if smaller house on the king's estate, and the mage… you see," the storyteller's voice changes now, as if he's disclosing some great secret even while his tone becomes laced with tenderness that he seems not to hear as he addresses the child. "She was so very important to the king and knight that they kept her sequestered away, in a calm corner of the forest away from the bustle and danger of the city. She was their best kept secret, this magical girl, who grew up happy in the forest."
The sister began to still, blinking wide blue eyes up at her brother as she listened to the flow of her big brother's voice. "But then, her existence was only one of many secrets that these three kept, wasn't it? Because though, by all appearances, the king managed to rule his kingdom while hidden away in his castle with no help from the outside world, that wasn't the true state of things at all. It was at night, while no one was looking into the castle windows for once, that the knight would come into the king's inner sanctum and the mage too, magicking herself in through the window from the forest. And it was the three of them together who would discuss the issues of their world, who would solve problems for the rest of the simple world. It was together that they were best. Alone, the king was the most powerful man in the land. Alone, the knight was the most strategic force in the kingdom. Alone, the mage was… a light, a beacon of goodness to all that looked upon her. But together? Together they were a force that surpassed being 'unstoppable.' Together – the power, the cunning, and the light – they were something otherworldly. Yet they chose to protect the mere mortals around them, people who, sadly, were never likely to understand them. But with time and experience, the trio came to accept this. It was the mage that reminded the king and knight that they had each other, who else would they need? After all, reasoned the girl, who has time for negativity inside the world she lived in?
"She was the lucky one, after all, spending her days in the forest among gentle animals, fruit-laden trees, and flowing brooks." The brother narrows his eyes, deciding where to take this story before he continues thoughtfully, "Beyond that, because of the nature of her powers, the mage saw things that others didn't – not even the king and knight. The mage, young and innocent and untouched by the tortured world that the others daily struggled through… she saw the others that lived in her forest home. There were magical creatures in the forest, disguised to the hardened eyes of the king and knight as simple things. Where the king or the knight would see a simple fish in the water, the mage saw a mermaid. A butterfly to the eyes of the men was a beautiful fairy to the girl, and a skittish deer was in her eyes a sprite to befriend."
Their mother slips back into the room, a pleased smile on her face as she listens to her son tell his story to his sister. She hands him the baby's bottle and settles back into her seat without a word. Big brother mode in full swing, he tucks an edge of the baby blanket under his sister's chin and offers the bottle to her with a small smile for both of the females and without breaking stride in the story.
His voice is softer than ever, saying things without saying them now. "Slowly but surely, the longer the mage was around the king and the knight, the more she changed them, softened them again to the world, until one day, so slowly they didn't notice until it was already there, they too could see the sprites and fairies, the mermaids and dragons, the redcaps and sirens, for what they truly were. Though the mage didn't see it that way, that power – to humanize those around her – was the best and strongest magic that she wielded." He's whispering now, watching her eyelids droop before she's barely began on her bottle, safe and warm in her brother's arms. Impulsively, he dips his head, kisses her downy brown hair. "As for the king," he murmurs. "The only thing he ever wishes for the mage is that she never loses that light, never forgets that there's good somewhere in the world, never stops seeing the fairies in the butterflies."