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“Come here, darling,” Edelgard says. She’s kneeling on the floor with the bell of her skirt tucked under herself, hands stretched out in front of her. A few feet to her right is Dimitri in a similar position, down on one knee, hunched forward to make up for his great height. Across from them is a soft colorful carpet and their son, a rolypoly baby who is currently wobbling on his feet. He has his tiny hands on the blue wooden rocking horse he loves, with the white silver yarn mane and glossy cobalt eyes. He stares at them both with interest, bobbing on his little knees in excitement to play with his mother and father.
They often spend time with their children but they are both ruling monarchs. Being together like this is special. Of course Dimitri and Edelgard make it into a competition.
“Lambert,” Dimitri speaks this time, catching his attention with his name, motioning him closer with his outstretched palms. “I know you can walk, come here.” It feels extra special to Dimitri; he is often away in Faerghus while Edelgard lives with their children in Enbarr most of the year. Being here for such an important milestone in his son’s life feels somewhat like a dream.
“He’s been walking along the furniture,” Edelgard tells him. “So I know it’s time. But he’ll walk right to me, I know he will.” Her tone is teasing, it’s not exactly a serious competition, but she can’t help it anyway. She smiles brightly at her son and pats the fabric of her skirt over her lap eagerly. “Lambert, sweetheart. Come to mommy.”
“This way,” Dimitri counters right away and the baby laughs as he looks between them both. He doesn’t quite understand his parents and their game but he’s more than happy to be involved. The horse rocks when he moves and he wobbles a bit more before regaining his balance back. Slowly his hands come off of the horse’s yarn mane and he claps joyfully in a way that’s almost like he’s copying his parent's hand motions. “ Oh , El, he’s standing on his own!”
“Papa!” He giggles but doesn’t move toward either of them yet.
“No, mommy ,” Edelgard insists, looking sidelong at her husband before her gaze falls back to her son. He looks more like Dimitri than ever with his blond hair cut straight around his little face but his violet eyes are undeniably her own. His fat little cheeks are pink with effort and excitement, how cute he is almost overwhelms her. But she can’t let it, she has to beat Dimitri. Lambert had already said papa first, this time victory would be hers. “You can do it, Lambert!”
Strewn around the nursery are the lives of the three children who live there. Lambert is the youngest, all of the toys currently laying outside the cedar chest for infants and toddlers. His favorite is his horse, though he’s not yet learned how to crawl onto it himself. It was something from Dimitri’s own childhood, taken from the nursery in Fhirdiad and gifted to his son. They may have been royalty but Dimitri and Edelgard both cling to such memories. They both want to give their children the life full of love they had experienced before tragedy had taken it from them.
“Mommy,” he says this time and Edelgard smiles brightly.
“That’s it! Come on now…” She looks at Dimitri again, “he’s been trying to take steps around my office all week. I’m so glad you came home a bit early, I didn’t want you to miss this.”
He had when their daughter, their first born, had taken her first steps. Dimitri tries not to show it but she knew how broken up it made him to miss these things.
“I couldn’t be away from you all any longer,” he says in return. His smile is crooked as he meets her gaze with his lone blue eye. He’s come so far from the starved, half beast of a man he had once been. Despite the stubble she couldn’t keep off of his face he looks so handsome with his blond hair pulled back halfways and the embroidered patch across his right eye makes him seem so rugged. Shaking the thought from her mind she looks back to their son, refusing to get distracted.
“Dee! Look!” When Dimitri takes his eye off his wife, he watches their son take his first shakey step forward. He doesn’t fall onto his hands and knees or his bottom like he has been through the week, this time he knows to stretch his arms out and pause to hold himself up. He looks surprised with himself, turning his head to look back at his parents for their reaction. They both clap their hands together and he shrieks with another giggle, so happy he was figuring out what they wanted him to do.
“Good job!” His father is beaming across at him, “that’s it! Just a few more of those, Lambert.”
Edelgard can’t help but laugh too, “that’s wonderful! You can do it, come to mommy.”
Lambert claps his hands together too and almost sends himself back on his butt but catches his balance in time. The look of shock on his face is adorable. After a moment of preparing he takes another step. Both of his parents clap and cheer and he copies them, before hesitating as they beckon him closer. He looks between his mother and his father in question, unsure of who to toddle toward. Suddenly, from behind his coat, Dimitri takes out his trump card.
It’s a little lion stuffy, a handmade gift Mercedes had given to him for his son before he had left the capital. It was suede and soft with a blond mane made of coiled yarn. Dimitri had been flustered when the kind woman had insinuated it would remind him of his father when he had to be away in Faerghus, but he has to admit she was probably right. She always is. Lambert’s eyes light up at the sight of it and he gasps aloud, reaching out toward him.
“Cheater,” Edelgard hisses, eyes narrowing at him immediately. Dimitri just grins.
“I forgot to give it to him, it’s from Mercedes,” he tells her innocently and she believes none of it.
“You didn’t forget to give the girls their toys.”
Dimitri defly ignores her accusations, shaking the toy in his son’s line of sight and beckoning him closer, “come and see, Lambert! He’s a new special friend.”
He takes another step, toward his papa this time instead of straight ahead. As he babbles for it Edelgard takes drastic action and lifts her hands to press against the front of her dress. Their son is still so young, still dependent on her. Her breasts are swollen and sore beneath her clothes. Despite being emperor she has breastfed all of her children, too clingy and paranoid to let anyone else care for them at their most vulnerable ages. She couldn’t, not after what had happened to her youngest siblings. Lambert takes his gaze off of the lion at the motion and stares at her for a moment. Eyes wide and needy, without any further hesitation, he starts to walk. Both his parent’s breath catch in their throat as he walks , for the first time, across the soft carpet in his little blue socks.
Dimitri’s bribe isn’t enough. He comes right to his mother, hands outstretched. Edelgard holds her own out to hug him when he’s near enough,
“That’s it! Good boy, you’re doing such a good job! You did it—!”
Instead of falling into his mother’s embrace his fingers curl into the fabric of her soft casual dress and, with the unmistakable chime of a crest, he pulls at it too excitedly and it rips the front away like tissue paper. Edelgard gasps in surprise, eyes wide as her buttons fly across the room and her son giggles excitedly with the red fabric in his fingers. Then he surges forward one more step and pushes his face into the middle of the exposed curve of her chest barely contained in her bra beneath. She can feel him suckle at her skin, searching for what he wants, and the wetness of his drool bubbling excitedly between his lips. It’s nothing compared to the shock of her baby, not even two yet, using a crest for the first time.
Face splotching with color despite her husband being the only other person in the room, she wraps her arms around Lambert’s little body and holds him against her to cover her modesty. Finally she tuts her tongue against her teeth and shakes her head.
“ Well . I would say I won.”
Dimitri stares dumbfounded at the both of them, mouth slack. Seeing his son walk for the first time was enough, but to be there for his crest developing… and for it to be his own, unmistakably… He can’t keep the smile from creeping over his face, heart beating fast. Then he laughs,
“I think we both have!”