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Dairon wakes to tiny hands patting her face and bony little knees digging into her abdomen.
"Grandda? Grandda, wake up," A little voice whispers, if a whisper could be defined at full speaking volume.
She keeps her eyes closed, feigning sleep. The hands on her cheeks pat with a little more force.
"Grandda, wake up. Mama 'n Pop-Pop is sneepin and I's ungry," The little voice says, again at a not-at-all whisper volume.
The bedsheets by Dairon's arm rustle, and a distinctly amused voice sounds in her mind.
You're the one who wanted to stay over for Winter's Crest Morn, Clara hums musically, burrowing deeper into her quilt. I suggested we come for breakfast.
"Grandda? Grandda, Pop-Pop says you no needs sneepin. It's time to wake up, Grandda."
Yes, Grandda, it's time to wake up, Clara chuckles mentally.
Dairon flicks a single Traitor back at her wife, opening her eyes and springing into motion to wrap her arms around the little aasimar knelt on her abdomen.
Moll Nydoorin's blue eyes go wide and they yelp, tumbled up in a blanket burrito as Dairon pounces on her grandchild and swoops them into a bear hug, eliciting a fit of giggles from the young aasimar. "Gramma, help! Gramma, Grandda got me!"
Well, there goes that thought of sleeping in, Clara grumbles mentally, sitting up with a quiet laugh. "Oh, Grandda's got you, hm?"
Moll wriggles one arm free from Dairon's blanket trap, sweeping their braided hair back away from their face. "Please, Gramma? I's 'ungry."
Clara folds in approximately two seconds in the face of the puppy dog eyes Moll inherited from Beau and learned to perfect from their uncle TJ, shaking her head as she climbs gingerly from the bed. Dairon slowly releases her bear hug, letting Moll flop back dramatically, flailing little limbs until they're free. "Well, come on, little one. Let's go see what we can find in the kitchen to feed your hungry belly, hm?"
Dairon offers Moll a helping hand, biting back a grin when they frown and protest "I can do it, Grandda!" before carefully clambering down from the foot of the bed, little hands clutching fistfuls of the quilt as handholds.
Clara waits patiently at the door to the guest bedroom, raising one eyebrow pointedly as Dairon sprawls back on the bed with a gusty sigh. "Don't be too long, High Curator."
Moll scampers over to take Clara's hand for the trek downstairs, peering back over their shoulder to wave excitedly. "Yeah, Grandda, hurry up! I heard your belly, it sounded 'ungry too."
Clara snorts, leaning down to lift Moll into her arms with a quiet huff of effort. "Let's go see if we can't tempt Grandda and Mama and Pop-Pop to get out of bed with some tasty smells."
Dairon rolls over to pull her tunic off the headboard of the bed, slipping it over her head as Moll's muted chatter sounds up the stairs. The wooden stairs are chilled under her feet as she pads down the stairs, hearing a grumbling coming from the closed door on the second floor that leads to Beau and Yasha's bedroom, smirking.
TJ's head pokes up over the edge of the couch in the den just as Dairon passes by, and she slows to run a gentle hand through sleep-rumpled hair. He hums, leaning against her touch, his acolyte's robes clearly wrinkled after a night spent on the couch cushions. "What time 'sit?"
"Not long past sunrise, I'm afraid." Dairon gently resettles his sash, biting back a chuckle as he mutters under his breath in Zemnian about morning people and the unfairness of it all. "What time did you get back from Port Damali?"
"Late? Early? I don't know, time is stupid," TJ grumbles, unfolding his tall frame from the couch. For all that Thoreau Lionett's height had always been dwarfed by his ex-wife, both of the Lionett children grew tall by comparison -- Beau a few inches taller than Clara, and TJ standing some four or so above his sister's height. "There's a scroll I thought was in Port Damali's Archive, but couldn't find it there, and it turns out the lending records were wrong, and it's all the way at the Cobalt Reserve in Westruun." Huffing, he scrubs a hand through his hair. "Ugh. Bureaucracy is the worst."
"What's that I hear about my name?" Beau's hair is spiked up in a haphazard mohawk, strands falling in her face that she huffs a breath at to blow them away.
"Bureaucracy, not Beauregard. Turn your ears on, nerd." TJ swipes a lightning fast palm through her careful arrangement, sending the same strands falling back over her eyes. "Ioun above, I need coffee." He pads off to the kitchen, where the babble of Moll's voice rises in an excited shout at the sight of their favorite uncle.
Beau rolls her eyes, cocking an appraising eyebrow at Dairon, propped against the couch. "You're up early."
"Moll was up early, your mother and I happened to be their first targets," She says, chuckling at the quick wince flashing across Beau's face.
"Sorry, I shoulda told them not to wake you," Beau scratches the back of her head. "They've been bouncing off the walls all week. Yash and I barely got everything done in time."
Dairon raises her eyebrows. "They're four."
"Well, yeah, but this is like, the first Winter's Crest they're really gonna remember. And with all that crazy stuff with Fjord and Jessie last year, I wanted it to be--"
"Beauregard."
The nervous ramble stalls, and her shoulders slump. Dairon steps forward, ignoring Yasha's hovering figure halfway down the staircase as she takes Beau's shoulders in her hands.
"Beau, Moll's just barely turned four. Right now the primary concerns in their life are making mud castles in the garden and what story you're going to tell them at bedtime. They're excited because everyone's here, but it doesn't have to be some big perfect thing."
Beau swallows and nods. "Right, right, yeah."
Dairon glances over her shoulder, meeting Yasha's exhausted gaze behind as she steps slowly down the stairs, settling her hands against her wife's waist. "You also have friends and family who would be more than willing to take Moll off of your hands for an afternoon or two. You're not required to do everything yourself," She says in a much quieter tone, ears flicking at the increased sound coming from the kitchen. "Parenting is just as much asking for help as it is doing things on your own. You simply need to find the balance."
Beau slumps back into Yasha's frame with a tired sigh, her features finally losing some of the exhaustion they were carrying. "Okay. Okay, yeah."
Dairon leans forward to knock her forehead against Beau's gently, craning up on tiptoe to complete the same motion for Yasha seconds later. "You'll figure it out."
"Yeah," Beau croaks, clutching at Dairon's tunic for a brief moment before she sniffs and straightens up. "Thanks, Dai."
"Of course." Dairon flashes a quick smile to Yasha, stepping back and nodding towards the kitchen. "Shall we go see what chaos Moll has conned your mother into?"
"I heard that," Clara's voice murmurs from the doorway to the kitchen, and the three of them glance over to see her leaning with her hip propped against the doorframe. "And I resemble the implication that I'm the one who's whipped when it comes to giving their grandchild everything."
Beau snorts, tilting her head. "She's kinda got a point, Dai." She breaks away from Yasha's hold to give her mother a light kiss on the cheek, pulling the shorter woman into a long hug. "Hi, Mama."
Clara pulls Beau tightly in, her hand already starting an absentminded scratch at the shaved sides of her daughter's head. "Good morning, sweetheart." Blue eyes meet gold over Beau's shoulder, and Dairon shakes her head, indicating it's a discussion for later. "Bacon's nearly done, and the plunder should be ready soon. Why don't you and Yasha go sit down and relax? We've got this. I'll send your brother in with some tea as soon as the kettle's done."
Beau's shoulders tense and then relax just as quickly, and she sighs into the crook of Clara's neck. "...Okay, Mom. Thanks."
Dairon watches as the woman she's adopted into her heart as a daughter rejoins her wife at the foot of the stairs, both of them leaning on each other as they walk to the den. She turns back towards Clara, drawn like a magnet into her wife's arms, humming a pleased note into the gentle kiss Clara lays on her lips.
"Thank you," Clara murmurs, drawing back to cup Dairon's face in her palms. "Thank you, for loving them."
Dairon grins. "Always."
"So are you two gonna continue to stand in the doorway like weirdos, or…" TJ pokes his head over Clara's shoulder, one eyebrow arched high in an expression he seems to have picked up from Marion Lavorre. "Bacon's done, and I put the plunder in the bread box for now to keep warm."
"Hush, you." Clara swats at his shoulder gently, turning to peer back in the kitchen. "Where's Moll?"
"Fell asleep in the window nook, I took the pillow and blanket Beau hides in the cabinet and covered them up. We'll probably get some peace and quiet for a little bit."
"Famous last words," Dairon mutters, slipping past her wife and son on silent feet as she pads into the kitchen in search of tea. The kettle is mere seconds away from whistling when she removes it from the stove, settling a metal lid on top of the stove's opening to stifle the flame there.
She stopped asking the exact provenance of the tea blends Caduceus supplies years ago, merely dishing out small sachets of loose leaf into the mugs waiting on the counter, before pouring hot water over each one.
Clara's gets a teaspoon of honey and a small glug of cream, stirred thrice and left to steep. Beau's gets doctored with a probably unhealthy amount of sugar, while Yasha's larger mug takes the same amount of sugar to Beau's plus a healthy dose of cream. Dairon leaves her own with only a small drizzle of honey, hooking the mugs on her fingers as she pads back to the den. Clara and TJ are curled together on the second couch, talking in low tones as Clara runs a comb through his hair, a common treatment with his ever-unruly curls.
Beau lays stretched full out on top of Yasha, head resting on her wife's clavicle, both women snoring softly in their sleep. A quilt is pulled over both of them, just barely long enough to cover Yasha's feet propped on the arm of the couch.
Dairon smiles, setting the mugs in her hands down carefully on the low table. Clara murmurs a soft phrase in Sylvan, her eyes flashing with arcane energy, and Dairon watches as runes glow in midair above the mugs for Beau and Yasha, a simple stasis charm to keep the tea warm.
"Why don't you go get Moll, just in case they wake up?" Clara sets the comb aside, tugging at TJ's robes until he lays down with his head propped in her lap with a grumbling sigh, his eyes falling closed as she begins to hum a low tune.
Dairon moves quietly back into the kitchen and over to the little window nook that had enamored Beau from the moment she and Yasha looked at the house just outside the Tri-Spires, with a perfect plot of land behind for Yasha to garden. The young Expositor could frequently be found perched in the nook with several books and scrolls scattered around her, ink-stains on her fingers and tea long cold by her side. Moll loves the space just as much as their Pop-Pop, the window now covered in drawings in a childish hand and their third-favorite stuffed animal Professor Thaddeus resting on the windowsill.
She crouches to carefully lift the sleeping child into her arms, freezing as Moll snuffles before turning to nuzzle further into her shoulder. Soft steps take them back to the den, where Clara's magically rearranged the furniture to bring a large leather armchair over from it's space by the window to sit next to the couch she and TJ are stretched out on. The fireplace crackles with a fire burning merrily in it's bricks, accompanied by the gentle rise and fall of Clara's voice as she sings a song in Zemnian. Dairon settles into the armchair and cautiously adjusts Moll until they rest sprawled out against her front, flicking the blanket out to fall over both of them.
Twenty years ago, Dairon never thought she would have this -- family, a partner, children to celebrate Winter's Crest with, but then Beauregard came into her life, and brought her entire chaotic family with her. As Dairon cuddles her grandchild close against her chest and lets the soft tones of her wife's singing send her drifting into a light doze, she wouldn't change any of it for the world.