Chapter 2: Dream and Idea

He would never tire of this sight.

Maric stood in the doorway, resting a hand on the solid frame. Rowan didn't look up; she hadn't heard him, and he liked it that way. She rested in an overstuffed chair, a pillow under the arm that supported Cailan, who was sleeping. The sun shone through the windows over her shoulder. Her long, wavy hair gleamed in the golden rays. But he could still trace the graceful curve of her neck in spite of all her glorious hair, as she bent over yet another huge tome balanced on her lap.

She would spend many of her afternoons like this, in the few months since Cailan's birth. She'd not yet officially returned to court, and Maric was secretly jealous. He often hurried through court matters in the morning, just to get a moment in with his wife and son. Those stolen moments, holding that growing, but still tiny body were his favorites.

Then after his afternoon nursing, Cailan would gorge himself into slumber. Not willing to disturb her son by getting up and putting him in his crib, Rowan had a nursemaid bring her a book from the library. The Orlesian usurper had destroyed so much of Ferelden, but he'd actually improved the palace library. And Rowan was taking time to enjoy as much of it as she could.

Maric could hear her murmuring. It wasn't a story he recognized, but then again, growing up as a refugee, and then running and winning a rebellion hadn't given Maric much time for pleasure reading. He took one careful step over the threshold, then another. She didn't look up, fully immersed in the joy she took reading to her son.

"He's too young to understand," he teased gently, voice soft so as not to wake the napping prince. He knelt down by the footstool on which she'd propped her feet.

Rowan smiled, and her eyelids drooped over her gray eyes as he absently began rubbing her bare feet. "I know. But my earliest memory was of my father reading to me," she said. She closed the book, having marked her place with a small woven strip. "I don't know how old I was. He was in his study in Redcliffe with a book. I asked him what it was, and he told me it was a story about the lands beyond the Waking Sea. It was the first time I'd thought that the world was bigger than Redcliffe." Her eyes were dreamy as she gently shifted Cailan in her arms. Maric took the book from her and set it on the floor. "He took me on his lap and read to me. I don't remember the story now for the life of me, and I'm sure the book was destroyed when the Orlesians took Redcliffe." Her brow furrowed with the memory, but one small sigh from Cailan was all it took to shake her from the troubling past. "I would have Cailan's early memories be of the magic of books."

"Our son has options we did not," Maric said, gazing up at her. He laughed softly. "My first thought was, how those hands could ever grow large enough to hold a sword; but Cailan could be a scholar if he wanted, and not a warrior."

"He was born into freedom," Rowan agreed.

Maric rose to his feet. "I'm not due at court for a couple more hours yet," he said. He rested his eyes on Cailan, whose face was twisted in some little grimace as he squirmed in his sleep. Maric reached out and took the child from Rowan, cradling Cailan in the crook of his elbow. He paced around the airy nursery, rocking his sleeping son.

"You've gotten far more comfortable with him." Rowan hadn't moved from her seat, but she'd tucked her legs up under her and dropped the pillow on the floor beside her. "I wonder what the nobility would say if you took him to court with you," she said, her gray eyes sparkling.

"Don't tempt me," Maric said with a smile. "But if you wanted to go deal with the squabbles of the Bannorn, be my guest. Bryce and Loghain are doing all they can to keep the Banns united, but people are still people and they want more power." He looked down at Cailan, whose grimace had relaxed some.

"Which is why you need to take Cailan to court," Rowan said. "The nobles will be so taken with his cuteness that they will unite."

It would be nice if so many issues could be so easily resolved. Maric knew that in the months since Cailan's birth, the many problems that had subtly plagued his and Rowan's relationship had melted away. "He'll have his turn at court, and will probably have to solve the same sorts of problems from the same sorts of people when he's king," Maric said with a smile. "For now, I think I'd take him to court for my own well being."

Cailan stiffened in his arms and his sleeping face contorted. His mouth opened in a soundless cry, showing his tiny pink tongue and his toothless gums. His eyes scrunched shut. Maric held his breath, uncertain of what was happening. It was true, he didn't hold his son as much as he wanted to; often the affairs of court and running a kingdom kept him occupied. After all, his court advisors reminded him that he hadn't pushed a child out of himself, so he could still run his kingdom.

As a result, he'd never seen this sort of expression from his son before. He looked up at Rowan, who started to rise from her seat at his look of concern.

Then Cailan relaxed, and Maric nearly did too, when a prodigious shudder rippled from the little body and all over his arm and hands. And then a smell worse than an Orlesian chevalier mounted patrol camp assaulted him. "Maker's, breath!" he cursed, torn between needing to run, and realizing that running wouldn't do any good since the source of the stench was in his arms.

Rowan laughed, nearly doubled over in the chair, her face red. "You need to see your face!" she said, rising. "Give him here," she said, and Maric handed Cailan to his mother. "There's my boy… oh Maker!" she exclaimed, and held the boy gingerly. At that point Cailan was beginning to wake, his pale blue eyes bleary and confused by the noise his parents were making. "You, ser, are a stinkbug, yes you are," Rowan said, laughing, even as her nose wrinkled.

Cailan cooed and yawned, balling his hands into small fists that struck at the air. Rowan held him out at arms' length and the loosely swaddled blanket fell to the floor. Maric saw that Cailan's diaper hung heavy, and that must be the source of the foul smell. He hadn't even smelled anything that bad in the Deep Roads! "I think the Maker will be holding his breath," he said as he trailed Rowan over to the padded bench that served as Cailan's changing table.

"Highness, allow me." The elven serving girl melted out of the shadows in the corner. Maric wondered if she'd been there the whole time, or come in silently after him. She reached for Cailan, but Rowan changed her mind and did not hand the baby over. "My lady?"

"Thank you, Shiranna, but I'd like to tend to my son's needs this time," Rowan said with a smile as she laid Cailan down and began to undo his diaper cloth. "I know you have your own small one; from one mother to another, let me… Maker's balls!" she exclaimed, coughing.

Maric's jaw dropped and his eyes bugged out; he'd never heard Rowan curse by the Maker so harshly before. The shock only lasted a moment before he caught a whiff of what made her swear. His stomach heaved and his eyes watered and he looked at his son, giggling on the changing bench and kicking the air like nothing was wrong. "If we'd had him do that during the war, we could have avoided the River Dane entirely," he choked out.

"Something like that," Rowan said. She stood over Cailan, trying to figure out the best angle of approach. Shiranna looked concerned as she hovered on the edge of their small family circle, torn between jumping in and helping, or honoring Rowan's requests. Rowan ignored Shiranna and gingerly grasped Cailan's ankles and slid the diaper out from under him while he giggled away. She pulled too quickly, and the diaper and its deadly contents fell to the floor.

Both Rowan and Maric leapt back, as if it was a soulrot bomb thrown by some Orlesian magician on the battlefield. Shiranna jumped forward with the reflexes of both a servant and a mother and placed a slender hand on Cailan to keep him from rolling off the bench. "Allow me to handle this one, my lady Rowan," she said with a smile. It was evident from the twinkle in her greenish eyes that she was trying very hard not to laugh. "I've tended to my younger siblings long before this. I've seen worse." She dunked a cloth in a bucket filled with warmed water and began to wash Cailan's backside, humming.

Rowan looked at Maric. They book looked at the pile of diaper on the floor. Maric's stomach lurched and he had to turn away and fight the retching. Rowan rubbed the small of his back, and when he looked at her, her nose was wrinkled, and she was nodding.

"We drove the Orlesians out of this country," he said. "And this is what defeats us?"

"We had Loghain helping us with that one," Rowan said, shrugging.

"He's going to love that."

"What?"

"When I write telling him he's been appointed the royal diaper changer."

Cailan wouldn't stop crying. It had been going on all night, and nothing seemed to stop it. He didn't want to eat. He didn't have a fever. He pushed away his favorite toys. He cried so hard he nearly spit up, then cried even harder. Parenthood had not quite been what Maric dreamed, but then again, he'd had little idea of what it would entail when he entered into it. Certainly not this all-consuming panic, borne of a complete and utter cluelessness about how to stop his son from wailing. "Let me call Shiranna," he pleaded with Rowan.

"No," Rowan said, yawning. Ever since the Diaper of Doom, she'd been determined to take an active role in rearing her son. When he'd been formally presented at court last month, at six months of age, she'd bathed and dressed him herself while her handmaidens fretted and Shiranna bit her fingernails.

Overall, Cailan was a happy baby; he was what kept Maric sane when the affairs of court were too disturbing or ridiculous to deal with. But now his beautiful, healthy child had been screaming his head off of for hours. Rowan was pale, her eyes shadowed and glassy. "He's growing, that's all. This is a test, I suppose. Shiranna said they do this sometimes."

But Cailan didn't sound like he was testing them. He sounded like he was in true pain, and at only seven months of age, he couldn't tell his parents what exactly was wrong. So he kept screaming. Maric reached out and took Cailan from Rowan. "Rest," he said gently, and she flopped back on the bed in relief. She was starting to get back to court as well, and it was taking its toll on her. More than it should have, if Maric was being honest.

He paced the room, bouncing Cailan and humming an old Fereldan lullaby his mother had sung to him many, many years ago. He was surprised he remembered it. Cailan's tears soaked through his chemise. His hair, which had turned from dark to pale blond, like Maric's, was matted to his head with sweat. He was getting bigger, and easier to hold upright, but Maric shifted his son and cradled him in one arm. "What's got my boy so upset?" he cooed over the piercing screams. "You can't cry like that forever," he said, rocking his son as he walked. He stopped by a window. The faintest gray hints of dawn shone in the sky. "You'd wake a golem if you kept doing that." He brushed a tear away from Cailan's red mottled cheek.

Cailan grabbed his hand and squeezed with his ineffectual fingers. His mouth opened in a silent scream as he pulled his father's hand. Maric let him do it, and next thing he knew, his fingers were covered with warm baby drool, and Cailan's toothless gums were trying to gnaw through his finger bones.

As a Fereldan born and raised, Maric had seen Mabari bitches whelp, and had seen the pups grow. Often they would gnaw on sticks and bones when they were cutting adult teeth.

"My little pup," Maric said, gazing down at Cailan, who had stopped crying and was now working on his father's finger with more pressure than those little jaws should have had. Maric smiled. "Now if I could only get someone to go to court for me, so you could chew on me until your teeth come in…"

He settled down on a stuffed sofa next to the fireplace. Rowan was sleeping soundly. She didn't snore, precisely, more like she sighed every so often. And even though the sun was rising and they would both be due to preside over matters of the crown in a few hours, Maric allowed himself to doze and dream while Cailan cooed and gnawed on his finger.