Nixiesocean: First off: I need to apologize for not updating sooner. I'm super sorry. I was gone to Tenn. for thanksgiving and my grandparents have a super-slow internet. Second off: This is the last chapter. There'll be an epilogue, though I'm not sure how long that will take me. I know there'll be a sequel, and I'm working on it, but I don't know how long it'll take me.
Responses:
ScoutcraftPiratess:-D Thanks! I like kiddies too. I baby-sit two little boys. Exhausting, but they're cute. Anyways, I hope you like this second installment of the children.
Rush of Waves: With you literal definition of 'cliffie' you'll probably consider this one a cliffie, though I wouldn't. P.S. You'll recognize the lullabies. :-D
Da Vinici at Work: It's cliché in a way. Katharine finds it cliché because the knight (her) saves the damsel (Lance) and falls in love, eventually marries. It's also cliché in the way that all the knight/damsel combos are cliché. Its cliché in a weird way.
Chapter 21: Lullabies
I sat in my chair, looking out the window. Ade and Aram were asleep in my arms, breathing quietly. I looked at them. They were adorable. They took after me in hair and Lance in eye color. Those bright jade eyes always sought me out. Now, however, baby eyelids covered those glowing orbs. I loved those twins deeply. I wanted a daughter; every mother wants a daughter.
I rocked my babies, softly singing a tune I knew from childhood.
"Soon night will come,"
Quieting the sun,
Silent the sound,
Of the night coming through!
Hear the wind,
Whispering to you,
Sleep, sleep, sleep.
Goodnight my sweet one,
Goodnight my dear one,
Goodnight my sweet one,
To you,
Good night."
I stopped my singing, ending on a low note. I sighed happily. Aram was rousing. I hugged him close. His eyes, framed by thin black hair, looked innocently at me. I whispered quietly to the child, "Aram, sleep." His eyes rolled back. But he wasn't asleep. I felt something stir inside me. I softly sang another lullaby.
"Himmel und Erde,
Müssen vergehn,
Aber die Musiki,
Aber die Musiki,
Aber die Musiki,
Bleiben bestehn."
I realized I didn't even know what the words meant. They seemed to soothe the fretting Aram, however, so I sang it again. He closed his eyes and drifted into the sleeping lands. I cuddled the quiet Ade to my chest. He was quiet, but I lavished the same love onto him. I couldn't decide whom I loved more. It was beyond me to even try.
Ade, with his silent love, opened his jade eyes. They glowed, even in the afternoon light. He reached up and grabbed a lock of my wavy hair. He had inherited his black hair from me. Lance's hair had been no match. I heard a quiet knock. I grew very cross if someone knocked hard, since it was bad enough to try to get my twins to sleep. I gently set the boys on their conjoined cradles and got the door.
Cyrun stood there. She held little Ceara, her baby girl. I smiled. "Did you need something?"
"Well, since you seem to know how to get your children to quiet, I was wondering if you could show me." She whispered. Ceara was in a fitful sleep, I could tell. "So?"
I breathed deeply. I'd only been a parent slightly longer than she. I smiled graciously. "Of course." I brought her over to my rocking chair. "Now, you have sit in this –I'm not quite sure why, but children like the rocking– and rock back and forth." She sat, holding Ceara, I continued. "Now, hum a soft tune, one that'll relax the baby." I felt uncomfortable. Wouldn't she know, being a mother already? Maybe dragons don't have that kind of instinct. I smiled. Ceara was beginning to quiet.
"It works!" Cyrun exclaimed softly. Ceara took after her mother in everything but size. She had her mother's silvery hair and blue eyes. It was a sight to behold. She was beautiful. I still favored my sons over Ceara. Ceara wasn't my child. I tucked a stray lock of Ceara's hair from her eyes. She opened them briefly and took me in. I smiled gently, like I did my children, and she smiled back. Her eyes looked at her mother, then slowly closed. Rocking chairs were like a spell on small infants.
I patted Cyrun's shoulder. Aram was beginning to cry without my warmth. "You'll make a wonderful mother, Cyrun."
She looked back at me, her silver hair parting. "You're already one, Katharine." I grinned and went to attend my twins.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I watched my wife quietly from the doorway. She was rocking the children, singing softly. Cyrun left a while back. My wife spends far too much time bottled up in this room. She sung in a language neither of us knew. I don't even know what she said, but somehow it soothed little Aram.
I waited. Ade, who always woke after Aram, would be waking soon. They took turns it seems. I entered, announcing my presence. "Hey, love." I whispered. I knew better than to wake the little boys.
"I knew you were there before, Lance." She replied just as softly. I kissed the top of her head. "What time is lunch?"
Katharine had refused a wet nurse. Many ladies had jumped at the option of nursing the young princes. My mother and father had wanted to abdicate in favor of me, but I had refused, saying my wife and I would take the throne at the normal time, when one of my parents passed into the Goddess' arms.
"I think in an hour or so." I replied. Katharine rolled her eyes. She hated public, especially with the young twins. Everyone crooned over the little boys and wanted to know how they were fairing, what their weight, what her secret was! I never left Katharine to them. I wanted to ask how they were doing, but held my tongue. "Can I hold Ade?" I asked, pointing at the one on the left.
"That's Aram." She muttered, handing me the one on the right.
"They look the same!" I replied, cradling little Ade in my arms. "How do you tell them apart?"
"Ade has slightly smaller lips." She shrugged. "They're of my body, I would know them." She held Aram, the more talkative of the two.
The little twins were already two months old, and progressing at an amazing speed. Ceara, the daughter of Cyrun and Bamien, was just about the same size as her birth size. She had matured at the same pace, though, and that confused the palace healers. Cyrun and Bamien shrugged off the remarks that maybe their child weren't human.
Katharine left to change Aram's diaper. I went out to the balcony with Ade. A bird, and brave one at that, chirped on the windowsill. Suddenly, it changed, morphing into a human-ish form. He grinned. The human's eyes were dark, black to be exact, and had red hair that tinted black. I knew the colors.
"Katharine said you up and left." I muttered, Ade was nervous. I held him.
"I did." Asnarinith replied coolly. "I just wanted to see the princes." He shrugged. "Monsters." He said, after I tried to hide Ade. "Ade, crown or royal, and interesting name. Oh, and Aram, Royal Highness. Interesting picks for the sons of a prince."
"Go away." I said, backing up against the stone walls of the palace.
"My dear prince! I only wanted to see my slave and your princes!" Asnarinith said, offended. "Besides I wanted to tell you something: your wife will never bear a girl!" The human turned and jumped off the balcony, morphing into a bird again. I was shaken. Katharine came out to see me staring off into the distance.
"Dear? I heard voices, who was it?" I handed over Ade. "Lance?"
"Just… an old friend." I muttered. "I need to see Bamien. I'll be right back." I stormed down the halls. I came to Bamien and Cyrun's rooms. I knocked. Bamien answered the doors. Seeing my face, he allowed me entry.
"What's wrong?" He asked. Cyrun called something in that strange snake-elegant tongue. Bamien looked back and answered. "Sorry, Cyrun was wondering who it was."
"Asnarinith." I said. "He visited me and Ade." I looked into Bamien's storm-grey eyes. "He… said he wanted to see 'his slave and the princes'. Did he mean Cyrun?"
"We haven't a word of Asnar." Bamien yelled something to Cyrun. "Yet. We'll be on the watch." Bamien's mind must've been thinking quiet hard because he looked me straight in the eyes. "He saw Ade?"
"Yes," I whispered.
"Goddess help us." He said. He frantically yelled to Cyrun who came stumbling into the open.
"Goddess, Lance." She said. "Do you know what he can do now that he has your child's face in his mind?"
"No. Or I wouldn't've done it!" I yelled. There was something wrong.
"Calm down…" Bamien said.
"NO! You're scolding me for something I had no idea was a problem!"
Cyrun moved into my field of vision. "He said you would have no daughters, correct?" I nodded. She rubbed her eyes with her spare hand. "Oh, I knew it! He hasn't put a curse on you, but he saw the future."
"Saw… the… future…?" I asked.
"Asnar wanted to rub it in your face, he does that sometimes."
"Great." I muttered. "My wife wants a daughter, and we'll never have one."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I smiled at Ceara. She was beautiful. The palace healers said she wasn't normal for her age. I knew that. I didn't care; she was my child. I rocked her back and forth. She was worth it, the being nearly killed by a human Asnar, the convincing Asnar to leave, the being drug nearly a millennia in the future. Her blue eyes stared up at me. Already, she smelled lightly of rain. It boded well. If Cyrun and I were only half-dragon each, she'd be half-dragon as well. I hoped, for whatever reason, she was full-dragon. Her blue eyes entranced me like everything else about Cyrun. Her silver hair, inherited from both sides, gave her a rather unearthly appearance. This had confused the palace healers as well.
"Even if the parents are early-agers, the child still should have a normal hair color." They spoke in whispers. Cyrun and I often appeared when they least wanted us. We brushed off their insensitive comments. How well little Ceara would do was beyond me. I sighed and rocked my small child in my arms. She would be a beauty, like her mother.
REVIEW! … Please…?