Regis didn't sleep through until dawn because Reina didn't sleep through until dawn. Some parents might have been irked to be woken at four by a crying infant, but, then again, most parents weren't having a subpar night's sleep in an armchair in the first place.
The king rose, holding his daughter against his chest, and found that Weskham had fallen asleep on the lounge. His steward didn't sleep long through Reina's cries, however.
"A bottle, perhaps, Sire?" He suggested, pushing himself upright.
"Do not trouble yourself," Regis said, waving him back to sleep, "I will see to it."
He took the path upstairs the the nursery with Reina crying and fussing in parts, not feeling entirely certain that Weskham would go back to sleep at all. Either way, he had no concrete plans to do so, himself. His sleep was haunted just as his waking hours were.
In the nursery he found one nursemaid sitting up while Noctis slept, still. The young woman leapt to her feet, performing a hasty curtsy as he entered.
"Your Majesty—!" She kept her voice quiet in spite of her clear surprise.
"Apologies," Regis said, lifting his hand to head off any further formality.
Reina made a sharp objection.
"Hush, my dear, you shall wake your brother," Regis told her. To the nursemaid he added. "She woke—I thought… perhaps she might be hungry?"
"Quite likely," she smiled and held out her hands for the fussing baby.
Regis hesitated. "I should like to feed her, myself."
Surprised flitted across her face once more. "Oh! I suppose there is a bottle in the fridge. I'll warm it up."
The nursery was actually a suite of rooms just down the hall from Regis' own room; it was large enough to eventually be converted into a bedroom for the twins to share and grow up in, but for the present it contained two cribs, a pair of armchairs, a small sofa, and an assortment of toys. The adjoining room had been transformed into a sort of kitchenette so that milk and—eventually—baby food could be stored on-site without needing to ring to kitchens.
It was to the kitchen that the nursemaid crossed, disappearing out of sight for a few moments while Regis tried to convince Reina to be patient. It wasn't an overwhelmingly successful endeavor, but eventually relief arrived in the form of a bottle of milk and the little princess told him in no uncertain terms that this was precisely what she wanted.
Regis settled into one of the armchairs, watching her drink from the bottle. She blinked overlarge blue eyes and looked up at him as he brushed tears from her cheeks. It was amazing how quickly they could go from bawling to utterly content; though her eyes were still rimmed in red and she sniffled as she drank, she seemed not to have any cares in the world, anymore. In another moment she had fallen into her recent habit of studying him and he fell straight into her endless gaze, smiling absentmindedly.
It was so much easier to forget the nighttime ghosts when he had a content child in his arms.
"My mother always said babies are the Gods' greatest gift to us: the purest things in Eos," the nurse said.
He had nearly forgotten she was there, but when she spoke he did look up at her, if only briefly, before his eyes settled back on his daughter.
"So they are…" Regis murmured. "Pure and untouched by the world. What they become… that depends upon us."
Reina kicked her little feet and grasped at the bottle, blinking up at him.
"Shh… hush, little princess," Regis crooned, brushing her silky-smooth cheek with one finger. Just one finger was all that would fit, about. She was so tiny, so precious.
Her kicking subsided and she settled once more. Regis smiled, pulling her blankets tighter around her.
"Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but you're not at all like I expected."
"Is that so?"
He blinked and looked back to the nurse, actually looked at her, this time. She couldn't have been much older than eighteen, surely, with that naive round face and wide brown eyes. For all the innocence, though, there was something of practicality about her. She wore pants, rather than a skirt—jeans and a sweater with a tight row of buttons down the front—and her blonde hair was pulled back in a sensible knot, out of the way but without frills or ornamentation. It was almost refreshing to see someone dressed so plainly, for all the time he spent in formality.
"What did you expect of me?" He asked because he was curious. Everyone expected something of the king. What was it for this young woman, so simple and unassuming?
"Aloofness, I suppose," she admitted. "Most rich people hire a nursemaid because they can't be bothered; to see them, you'd think their children were an imposition. So I guess I thought… well… the king…"
She dropped her gaze, but not before he caught the flush on her cheeks.
"I'm sorry. I'm being terribly rude."
"Not at all. I appreciate your candor," Regis said. "What is your name?"
"Crea, Your Majesty—Creare Vinculum."
"Crea," he said, turning his gaze back to Reina. "My queen is gone. All I have left of her are these two beautiful children, and yet, for all my desires, I cannot raise them myself. Would that I could. Alas, duty calls me elsewhere, as it always will. I fear they must grow up at another's hands but, be that as it may, I will not let them grow up without a father. The loss of one parent is quite enough."
"That's a wonderful sentiment, Your Majesty," Crea murmured, coming to stand next to him in front of Reina's crib.
"Sentiment will not win this battle."
"Maybe not by itself. But the feeling behind it might. Your Majesty." She added on the last hastily, as if she had just remembered who she was speaking to.
Regis gave a short, humorless smile. "Only time will tell."
Reina had finished her bottle, though she didn't seem ready to give it up. She objected only briefly when he took it away and passed it into Crea's outstretched hand.
"Will she go back to sleep?" He asked.
"She might," Crea said. "But you should burp her, first—that is, if you want to, Your Majesty. I'll do it, otherwise."
Regis blinked at her, trying to decide how to admit he had no idea what that meant. She saved him the trouble.
"It's very simple. Just hold her upright, against your shoulder, Your Majesty," she said.
She reached for the little blanket lain across the back of his chair as he hastened to do as she instructed. Once he had the blanket draped over his shoulder and Reina held against it, Crea stepped back.
"Now pat her on the back—a little more firmly, she's a tough little thing—just like that until she burps."
He did as he was instructed, casting a sideways glance at Reina as she settled her head against his shoulder. "Why is this done?" He asked, feeling uncharacteristically foolish.
"Babies swallow a lot of air when they're drinking milk; it helps get it out so they don't get fussy, after," Crea supplied, granting him a smile. He was starting to think she never stopped smiling. Even when she wasn't smiling, she was.
"And what is the purpose of the blanket?"
Crea tilted her head to one side, her smiling turning amused. "I thought you might like to keep your nice black suit black, instead of baby spit-up white, Your Majesty."
Whatever his face looked like at that revelation, it drew a laugh from her. She stopped herself, flushing and clapping one hand over her mouth.
"I'm so sorry. I shouldn't laugh at the king," she mumbled through her fingers.
"Someone probably should," Regis said gravely as he continued to pat Reina's back. "Else I may begin to take myself too seriously."
She dropped her hand. A shy smile took the place of the mortified look from before. "The other servants said you were kind," she admitted; there was something like approval in her voice.
"A man's character might be judged on how he treats his servants."
Her smile brightened. "I think that would be a good test."
They persisted in quiet company, exchanging only a few more words, until the little princess' stomach was properly settled. If Crea found him unlike she expected, Regis certainly found her different than he had anticipated. Though he found that a certain level of aloofness maintained his kingly persona best, he was never unkind to her servants. The result was that his presence left many stricken and in awe. It wasn't exactly comfortable to be stared at and goggled over, but after a lifetime he was used to it.
Crea, however, didn't stare at him. She didn't lurk uncertainly, hovering like she wasn't sure what to do with herself while he was there. She checked that Noctis was comfortable and returned to her chair and her book, as if having the king take her job wasn't unusual at all. If she did cast him a curious glance through her lashes now and then, it was no more than what he did.
In the end she rose from her chair and declared that he could stop. He hadn't even had to deal with any baby spit-up.
"How is it done, then?" Regis inquired as Crea resettled the blankets around Reina. "How are they made to fall asleep, again?"
"With a great deal of patience, mostly," Crea said. She shot him a wry smile. "And a little arm muscle, as they get bigger. Different babies like different things and not all babies like the same thing all the time. You just have to try a few and hope for the best. Recently, Reina wants to be held on her stomach and walked up and down the room."
Regis rose from his armchair without hesitation. "How…?"
Crea reached up to take Reina. She settled the princess across her forearm so that the infant laid on her stomach and faced the ground, then braced and supported with her off hand. "A better fit, for you, I think," she commented. "Your arms are longer."
She passed his daughter back to him; Reina fussed at the treatment, but Regis mimicked Crea's demonstration in spite of her objections.
"Now what?"
"Now you walk. She likes the motion," Crea said, taking a step back.
Reina made another sound of discontentment, as if to make certain that everyone knew she didn't approve of being passed back and forth. Regis took a few hesitant steps toward the opposite of the room, trying to keep his motions smooth so as not to jar her.
"That is all?" He asked, certain he had done—or would do—something wrong.
"That's all there is to it," Crea smiled, dropping back into her chair. "If she cries you try something else and so on until she finally falls asleep. Sometimes it takes ages. But it really just comes down to getting to know the baby and their likes and dislikes."
It didn't sound so bad. Regis paced. He traced a line back and forth in the carpet, hardly watching where he was going because his eyes were fixed on Reina, instead. Her fussing never escalated into crying. Occasionally she made a discontent, humming sound and kicked her feet, but the longer he walked back and forth the less frequent it became. He watched her little fists loosen until one arm, freed from the blankets, dangled down past his. He watched her head loll forward and rest in the crook of his arm. Miraculously, he didn't walk into anything.
It was like magic. Once he had thought that there was something very mysterious to putting a child to sleep. Perhaps it really did just come down to patience, after all. That seemed to be what Crea had said and somehow, in spite of her age, she appeared to know a great deal.
"How long have you been doing this? Taking care of children," Regis asked.
"About three years," Crea responded, looking up from her book.
He raised his eyebrows at her. "Three years! Forgive me—but you seem so young. You must not have been very old when you began."
She smiled, evidently unperturbed. "I was sixteen."
"That is quite young," Regis said. He had stopped walking, but Reina wasn't objecting. "Would it be it be disrespectful to ask why?"
"No," she smiled. "But it's something of a story, and I think someone has come looking for you."
Regis followed her eyes to the door, where Weskham stood.
"Sire," he bowed. "Forgive my intrusion. I merely wondered, when you did not return…"
"I have been schooled in the art of walking a baby to sleep," Regis said. He looked back at Crea. "Have I succeeded?"
He couldn't see Reina's face at all from where he stood and he was too afraid of shifting positions, lest he wake her.
Crea's eyes flicked toward the child in his arms and she nodded, the perpetual smile lingering in her eyes, even when it wasn't clear on her lips. "You have, Your Majesty."
"What is to be done, next?"
"Unless you intend to hold onto her all morning, I suggest you put her down to sleep in her crib." Crea nodded toward the vacant crib, beside the one where Noctis slept.
Regis considered, not at all certain that he didn't want to hold onto her all morning.
"Sire." Weskham called his attention. "It is dawn. Bastien Kurick is due to appear before the court in two hours. Do you intend to meet him?"
The king sighed, looking down at his sleeping daughter. That was the end of that, hope.
"I suppose I must," he said, but didn't take a step toward the crib.
"Then, might I suggest a fresh change of clothes and… ah… a bath, Sire."
Ah.
When had the last time he had changed clothes been? Regis was uncertain, but it had been decidedly longer than was fitting. Weskham, as always, had an excellent point.
"Very well," Regis sighed, resigned to giving up his twins for several hours, at least. This time he did take the step toward Reina's crib, but it took an extra moment for him to work up the courage to actually set her down. What if he should wake her, on accident?
Finally, he did make an attempt. An excruciatingly slow and cautious one, but an attempt, nonetheless. He rested his arm on the mattress and, with his free hand on her back, slipped it out from underneath her, inch by inch. When at last he was free, Reina grumbled. Regis froze, hardly daring to breathe, but his fear was for naught. She resettled.
Regis let out a breath. He covered her up with the blanket folded at one end of the crib and smoothed his hand over her back.
"Sleep well, Little Princess."
He turned to the door, prepared to follow Weskham for duty and a new suit, but paused, remembering the nursemaid who had so patiently played host to him.
"I mean to have that story from you, some other time," he said.
"I'm here every night, Your Majesty," she said, a sort of open invitation.
He paused, having taken steps toward the doorway before he was struck by another thought. "I apologize for my ignorance, but I realize I have no concept of what it is you do here."
"Oh. I'm a wet nurse, Your Majesty."
Regis' confusion must have shown on his face, for she elaborated after only a moment's pause.
"A wet nurse breastfeeds and cares for children."
Oh.
Oh.
Regis wasn't sure whether he should be mortified or apologetic. Or neither. Of course he knew that babies needed milk, obviously, and that it had to come from somewhere, but it had never really occurred to him that it might come from a woman rather than a bottle. And he had just fed Reina from a bottle. Had that been…?
She was still smiling. In fact, from the way her eyes crinkled in the corners, he thought she might have been trying not to laugh at him. How undignified: standing there looking stunned at the revelation that… well. Never mind.
"Ah. Yes. Of course. Well, then. Perhaps I will see you again another night, as there is time."
He fled. He had faced down daemons and imperials and everything in between; he had negotiated a treaty with the First Secretary of Accordo, but the topic of breastfeeding and the sight of a woman laughing at him—even good-naturedly—sent the king running with his tail betwixt his legs.