The Night
"When will the baby be here?" Anna asked Lief for what felt like the millionth time.
"I do not know, Anna" Lief answered tiredly. "But you must go to sleep now. Look out the window, see how dark it is? All the other people are sleeping, even Doom."
At the age of four, even Anna knew that her grandfather rarely ever slept during the night., And Lief had hoped that seeing him fast asleep in one of the armchairs by the fire would encourage the little girl to follow his lead. But clearly, his hopes had been in vain.
"Is Mama asleep at the palace?"
She might be," Lief sighed, wishing heartily that his daughter would allow him to sleep, even if she did not do so herself.
"Will the baby be sleeping with her?"
Lief had often been told that a child who asked questions was bound to be a fast learner, but right now, he could not agree. For him, Anna asking so many questions was preventing him from getting the last good night's sleep he would have for a while. For as he lay beside his daughter in the bed he shared with Jasmine at the forge, Jasmine herself was at the palace giving birth to their second child.
"I do not think the baby is here yet," Lief yawned. "Your Mama said that she would send a bird when it was." Reluctantly, he got out of bed and took the few steps to the window, knowing that Anna was watching his every move. "I will open the window a little more," he said as he did just that. "That way, the bird can come right into the room, and we will be the first to know when the baby is here."
"Alright," Anna said, finally closing her eyes.
Lief climbed back into bed and took his daughter in his arms. It still surprised him how small she was. Though Anna's eyes were closed, Lief could tell by her breathing that she had not yet fallen asleep.
Almost without thinking, Lief softly began singing a lullaby that Doom had taught him when Anna had been born. He had not sung it to her in years, and he doubted that she would remember it. But for some reason, it felt right to sing it to her now.
"Slumber my darling, your father is near, guarding your dreams from all terror and fear.
Sunlight has passed, and the twilight has gone, slumber my darling, the night's coming on."
As Lief was singing those last two lines, he felt Anna's little face nuzzling into his chest, and her breathing became slow and even. He took a breath to continue the song, but the lump that had formed in his throat prevented him from doing so.
Lief now realised that the moments before Anna fell asleep, when it was just the two of them, would soon come to an end, one way or another. He had come to cherish these moments over the past months, as he spent more time with Anna while Jasmine had been with child. But now, that child was coming, and then there would be another whose dreams he would also have to guard.
Anna herself was also growing quickly, and would soon begin school. He supposed that around that time, she would no longer need her father to hold her in his arms and sing her to sleep.
So he held her more tightly, knowing that it would not be long before he had to let her go.