Work Text:
"I don't understand," Felix sighs, brushing his fingers through the tufts of thick, blonde hair as the baby rests on his chest for a nap. "How does he get this hair color out of us?"
It's a mindless observation, genetics were just in their son's favor, it seemed. Leaving him to look angelic in sunlight rather than absorb it all in the dark like his parents. It didn't matter, of course. Just idle conversation is all, as he presses a kiss to the baby's hair. "I think your dad would've liked him."
It’s such an uncommon sight to see Felix so still and calm for so long. Though, in the heat of the Deirdru summer, it’s probably for the best. They weren’t quite to the old capital of the former Alliance yet, but they’d need some form of meal to get them through the last legs of the journey before they arrived that evening. It just took longer to travel these days with a baby in tow. Not that either of them were complaining…Batair was well worth whatever delays or caution they had to take.
Fish was an easy enough lunch to catch while they set their son down to nap. And once he woke up, she’d have to feed him as well, since fish wasn’t quite on the child’s menu yet. Byleth sits along the riverbank with rod in hand, waiting calmly for something to bite while Felix lays in the grass next to her, the baby fast asleep on his chest. She looks over at her husband when he speaks, stroking the remarkably blonde patches of hair on the boy’s head. She smiles in amusement at the observation, having always wondered that herself. She knew her blue hair had come from her mother and overridden the blonde of her father. Felix’s dark hair had certainly been a dominant trait from his own father. How Batair had managed to bypass both of his parent’s genes in favor of his grandfather’s was beyond her.
She smiles fondly at the sleeping boy, more than content to rest on his father’s chest. She certainly can’t blame the boy, she’s found the same feeling of comfort there herself more than once. “ he must be as rebellious as we are ,” she jokes. But she’s glad for it, really. It didn’t matter what their son looked like, she’d love him with all her now-beating heart. And she knows Felix is much the same. But to look at her son and so clearly see her own father in him…it’s a bittersweet notion, but one she appreciates. Sure, maybe the boy doesn’t look much like her at all, save for his nose and lips. But he has his father’s eyes and her father’s hair. It only makes her look at him even more fondly.
Felix mentions Jeralt then, how he would have liked the boy. Her smile remains, despite the slightest tinge of sadness that tints its corners as she looks back out over the slow river. “ i think you’re right ,” she agrees, only wishing he’d had the chance. “ he’s a tough little sprout .” He hardly fussed about anything unless he was hungry. He wasn’t as eerily silent as Byleth had been as a child, but certainly he fussed less than Sylvain’s kid.
And of course, she didn’t miss the way Felix pressed a gentle kiss to the top of their son’s head. A gentle, sentimental gesture that most would never see from him. She recounts how lucky she is to see it as often as she does. She leans down as well to where Felix’s head rests in the grass next to her, and presses a kiss of her own onto his forehead. After all, even if he wanted to protest, he’s quite trapped where he is. Still smiling, she turns back to her fishing.
“ i’m glad he got it and not me. i don’t think blonde would suit me .”
It had always been hard to imagine a life of peace.
Mostly because she’d always been so comfortable in violence. Blood and battle were subjects she was well acquainted with since she was a young child. It was not the very air she breathed, but it was the water she bathed in. For him, fighting had been more than a way of life.
Most of her life had been spent as a mercenary. After that, they’d fought in a war, smaller battles littering the year in between when she was a professor. They’d survived a brush with death at the hands of the archbishop herself just a few years back. And somehow, despite everything they’d been through, one of the scariest twists she’d ever encountered was when she found out her ‘stomach virus’ was actually pregnancy.
Looking back, though, it’s a miracle she hadn’t ended up pregnant in the middle of the war, all things considered.
Things had been so different since then. The world around them had calmed into some semblance of stability, only slight tremors of unrest briefly surfacing before dying down. But even with no wars to fight, Byleth and Felix found no shortage of ways to keep their blades from getting rusty. Mercenary work was never without options, in any corner of the world. And they’d seen so many of them already, with still more to go. After a visit to the kingdom capital to see their friends and let them meet Batair, many had been concerned or even aghast to hear that they were going back to the nomadic and ‘dangerous’ lifestyle with such a young child. It was too risky! The child needed stability! Things of that nature.
‘ my father raised me this way .’ It was all she had to say. No one would argue against it. How could they?
They’d finally made their way to Brigid this year. A trip across the sea had been interesting, to say the least. She’d never traveled so far by boat. And it showed on that first day of the voyage for sure, but she got her sea legs quickly enough. And now, here on the warm tropics of the beach, she sits in the sand with her knees tucked up near her chest. One arm wraps loosely around her shins, the other idly fidgeting with the werewolf fang that dangles around her neck. Brigid was a bit too warm for Felix’s pelt cloak, however. So she’s settled for resting her head against his shoulder as she leans against his side.
But she smiles all the while, watching their son splash about in the calm shallows of low tide. Felix has never been one for beaches, but their son seems to love the sand and water. Happily, he chases the shore fish around on wobbly chubby legs as he laughs and tosses glances back to his parents before his swiveling head and wide eyes go back to following the hoards of tiny minnows that swim and shift much like starlings in the sky. Still it stuns her, more and more as he grows and gets older. He doesn’t look like her, not at all. He has Felix’s eyes for certain, but…The red-blonde hair and long nose…It was too early to see the rest of his features but already he looked so much like her own father.
She’s so content there, feeling a peace she’s not sure she’s ever truly felt before. She closes her eyes for a moment, just breathing. Focusing on the smell of the salty ocean air, of the soft linen shirt Felix is wearing…She couldn’t stay in one place forever or she’d go crazy, no. But she could stay like this for a while…
Or for about ten more seconds, before suddenly his shoulder is ripped out from under her and she falls over straight onto the sand with a gentle thud. Her eyes snap open to see Felix rushing into the water, quick enough to soak the bottoms of his breeches despite them being rolled to the knee. She’s alarmed for only a moment before she sees him pull a snail out of their son’s hand (and mouth, pretty much). While snails were a delicacy on these islands she’s seen, she does agree that perhaps their toddler shouldn’t be trying to eat them straight out of the ocean without most of his teeth.
Byleth smiles at them from where she sits up, trusting he has the situation under control. Though she should probably keep her eyes open going forward. She can’t help but make a comment, though.
“ i see he’s taken a liking to the local cuisine .”
And, queue the exasperated look from her husband. Still so handsome.
But she’ll just smile. How can she not, seeing the two of them. Having the two of them in her life. Her family…
Her family that she loves endlessly.