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"C'mon, bud. You got this." Yang encourages, holding her infant daughter's hands as she sits on the mat in front of her. "You can sit up on your own if you believe in yourself enough."
"Sunshine," Blake calls, having been watching from the kitchen archway the whole time, keeping quiet for the sake of seeing how far Yang would take this. "I don't think the baby knows the concept of positive reinforcement just yet. Or if it even works on babies at all."
Their daughter, Lian, has just hit six months old. Although both Blake and Yang are on leave from their Huntress duties until she's a little older, they often split the things they have to do so that one can spend time with Lian while the other does a task, then returns so that they can all spend time together.
Their daughter has a head of raven hair with fluffy cat ears that start with the same colour at the bases but are overtaken by patches of Yang's colour blonde. Her eyes resemble Yang's too, lavender and lilac and orchid swimming in pools of all the good the pair see in one another. Her skin is tan, close to Yang but with a rich, umber tint.
Today, Blake had gone to run some errands, like getting groceries, while Yang had taken Lian to her parents' group.
Luckily, most of their friends live close enough (and have kids within a similar age range) that it means the parents' group mostly consists of familiar faces.
"Oh!" Yang whips her head around to see Blake, Lian doing the same, making small grabby motions with outstretched hands for her mama. "Babe! When did you get back? How long have you been standing there?"
"Not long, and long enough." Blake chuckles, walking forward to join them on the living room mat, reaching her own arms out to take Lian into them when Yang passes her over. "Hi, bee." She coos in a slightly higher voice than the one she uses with Yang, peppering kisses across her daughter's cheek as the baby snuggles into her shoulder.
Then, she turns back to Yang, offering an adoring smile. "How was Parents' group?"
In truth, it went fine. If you looked at it from a perspective besides Yang's, you wouldn't see anything out of the ordinary.
The issue? This is Yang that Blake's talking to. And Yang just so happens to have an unmatched competitive spirit, even for the tiniest of things – it's a part Blake loves about her wife, so long as she's not getting them into trouble for it.
Not so long ago, Lian had stunned the parents' group by being the first of the babies to learn to roll over. It was something that had made Yang burst with pride, sprinkling kisses all over her daughter's face, praising her, and clapping quietly and encouragingly.
Today, however, was different. Anhe, Ren and Nora's daughter, had just learned how to sit up.
Earlier than most babies usually would, might Yang add. Hell, she'd read parenting books from cover to cover – she still rereads them just to freshen up on her knowledge and ensure she can be the best mom ever. But this caught her off guard.
And then there's Lian – who can't.
Every little thing that was sudden or unheard of or unprecedented during Blake's high-risk pregnancy had Yang pushed to the edge, constantly worried and anxious and calling the doctor just to check if the symptoms she was presenting were okay. Hell, Blake probably lost count of how many times she was asked 'Do you want to go to the hospital?' so even the slightest idea that Lian could be falling behind has Yang unmistakably concerned.
Not even in a disappointed way – gods, she could never be disappointed in her. Everyday she stuns her with new things she's learning or improving on. Even just her growing constantly has Yang in tears.
Ren and Nora had chalked Anhe's quick development down to Nora being someone who developed her motor skills first as a baby rather than anything else, and, well, it's weird for that to excuse why Lian isn't doing the same, considering Yang was exactly like that, too. She was running and crashing into things before her dad could even realise she was up and away.
So why not Lian?
By now, Yang has explained the whole ordeal, her cheek smushed into her palm as she recounts the events and lets Lian catch her thumb in a tiny fist.
"They learn to sit up… starting at six or so months, don't they?" Blake recalls, bouncing Lian slightly in her lap.
"Yeah." Yang shrugs, moving a lock of hair that's clearly bothering Lian's ear by the way it keeps flitting as if to shift it. "Maybe I'm just being competitive."
"Maybe." Blake smiles fondly like she doesn't know that's definitely the answer already, keeping one arm around Lian as the other moves to caress Yang's cheek, bringing her sight back to caring, considerate, amber eyes. "She was premature, sweetheart. The doctor says it's natural for her to be a little behind in early development."
"I know," Yang sighs, just the mention reminding her of the days prior to her birth, cooped up in a hospital room stressed to death. "Just– something Ren and Nora said about it bugged me. That Anhe is probably learning early 'cause Nora was on her feet quick as a kid, but… I was the same."
Blake listens, a forlorn expression pushing away her initial smile as she nods to Yang's words.
"I mean… I didn't develop my motor skills very fast." Blake reasons, adjusting herself so that she's sitting cross-legged, her daughter in her lap. "My mom's the whole reason why we gauged that Lian would come early, because I did too." She dips her head slightly to peck a kiss to the first baby cat ear, then in-between them, then the second, before lifting her head to face Yang again. "My dad always used to say how slow I was when it came to learning to walk and such, but I could do those games where you put block shapes in their respective holes no problem."
Yang just hums acknowledgingly at that – so Lian's taking after Blake in that department. Got it.
And at that moment, she tries to vow that she won't get competitive if anything else crops up.
But fuck… she can't. Gods, you can't just tell a competitive person not to be competitive. It's like telling a right handed person not to be right handed. It's in Yang's blood.
She keeps trying to help Lian develop her motor skills, but for the most part, nothing really works. Until…
"Babe!" Blake shouts out into the garden from where she'd been in the living room with Lian, "Come quick!"
Yang's heart plummets into the pit of her stomach, dropping her trowel and shears to the grass as she gets up and makes a mad dash up onto the porch and by the glass doors, catching herself on the opening to look into the room and assess what's going on.
She's so sure, in that moment, that something bad had happened. That Lian was unwell or that just– anything. Anything bad. She doesn't even have the time to consider what.
But she didn't even need to panic at all.
Lian's sitting up on her own.
Joy overwhelms her at the sight of her daughter giggling and clapping her hands alongside the teary, cheery face of her wife.
"Lian!" Yang gasps, rushing forward to sit on the mat beside her admittedly misty-eyed wife. Her arm curls around Blake's back, pulling her into her side as she reaches out to ruffle Lian's hair gently so she won't topple over.
Blake lifts her into her arms, peppering kisses all across her face. Gods, Yang had known Blake had been worried about it too, but she'd been better at dealing with it and keeping it at bay. But now, seeing the pure, unfiltered relief this just brought her is priceless for Yang.
She immediately cuddles into her side, one arm around Blake and one around Lian as they whisper soft praises through beaming smiles to their daughter, who giggles happily at the ticklish sensation of butterfly kisses and ruffled hair.
The prospect of taking Lian back to parents' group after that was, honestly, a lot lighter of a weight to carry.
Well, for a short period of time, at least.
The moment she made it through the door to the meeting and was starting to unbuckle Lian from her buggy as Blake went in to greet the other parents, Yang felt a tap on her shoulder.
Today, it was just Weiss here due to Ruby being away on a short huntress mission – Scarlett, their daughter, is slightly older than Lian.
Both couples had otped to wait a number of years since the war to properly decide whether or not to have kids – Weiss and Ruby just decided a little earlier.
"Hey," Yang smiles warmly, half-hugging Weiss as she takes Lian into her arms, "You sure you can handle Scarlett on your own?"
Scarlett was a small kid who, too, is rather fast on her feet. She takes immensely after Ruby in terms of how she developed as a baby, as well as her steadily showing personality. Thing is, she's practically a picture painted of Weiss. White hair, silver eyes, pale complexion with only a few of Ruby's freckles to speak of. Still, you can definitely see Ruby in her face, and Weiss in her personality at times.
"Please," Weiss rolls her eyes, beaming as she greets Lian by letting her curl her fist around a finger, shaking her tiny hand gently. She coos a small 'Hiya, Li.' before turning back to Yang. "She's fast, but she knows I'll pull out my glyphs to slow her down if she tries anything."
They take Lian into the room and sit down in the space Blake had already claimed for them, Yang setting Lian down on the nursery mat to let her do her thing.
She sits up on her own, happily watching the other babies and parents from where she sits. The other parents – Ren and Nora, Weiss, Velvet and Coco, Neptune and Sun are all delighted to see her progress.
It's an understatement to say Blake and Yang are proud. Gods, their hearts are bursting with joy for their little one. Just as Lian reaches out for Blake to take her and she situates her back in her lap, Yang takes the time to look out at the rest of the group.
Weiss is tickling Scarlett while chatting with Sun, meanwhile Neptune keeps an eye on their son who's playing with Velvet and Coco's little one… And then there's Anhe.
And she's crawling.
Little Anhe crawls over to Lian and they end up babbling nonsense, playing with their respective toys for a bit – Blake's busy chatting happily with Ren and Nora about fast progress, meanwhile Yang just… looks.
Oh. Oh. It's on.
Back in the house, Yang sits Lian down on her nursery mat and backs up a few paces.
She sits herself down on her knees, and then eyes Lian encouragingly, her arms open wide as if she'll run into them.
Lian's fluffy cat ears flutter curiously for a moment, her eyes dancing between her two mothers (because Blake is there right beside Yang, unsure of this whole plan) before eventually fixing on Yang.
"C'mon, buddy. Crawl to mom!" Yang encourages, her voice a slightly higher pitch than normal, that cutesy 'baby voice' they both have to admit they do. "You can do it, kiddo! You can do it!"
Baby Lian blinks a couple times, setting her hands forward on the carpet beneath her legs. Yang is so sure – so, so sure that she's about to witness her crawl. She even gets on all four for a second, but…
She flops over, and rolls. Fucking rolls.
When she gets close enough to Yang, Blake can't hold back any longer. The unbridled, adoring laughter that bursts forth is music to Yang's ears.
But still, even if it wasn't exactly what she was expecting… It still technically got her where she needed to be. With her moms.
At that, they call off the attempted crawl-teaching.
Hell, Yang even takes her to the doctor to check everything is going okay with her development – they have regular ones anyway, so pushing it forward was no issue, especially since Blake was now displaying mild concern at the prospect, too.
And yet…
Some babies just roll before they crawl.
So Yang ends up rereading a ton of baby books to make sure she hasn't missed anything – cover to cover, front to back, and at this point Blake's pretty sure she's going to go back to front next.
"Look!" Yang crawls along the nursery carpet, gesturing to Lian, "It's fun to crawl. Awesome to crawl. It gets me places super fast, right, Mama?" She's talking to Blake, since they'd agreed to use the names Mom and Mama for each other if Lian is involved, just so that she gets into the rhythm of using them and doesn't get too confused with the added Yang and Blake in the mix. Baby steps and all that.
But Blake looks at her rather silly display and can't help but giggle, baby Lian mirroring her mama as she sits on the floor in front of her.
So Yang sits back defeatedly, sighing.
But before she can get up or call it quits…
Lian plants her hands on the carpet, and then pulls herself forward on her bum, giggling as she does so.
Yang and Blake just watch, then look at each other, then watch again as Lian makes her way to Yang from across the carpet, their jaws practically hitting the floor.
"Oh my gods." Yang says, her hands covering her face to hide the bubbly grin she can't stop from forming, "Oh my gods. She's a bum shuffler."
And Blake is just laughing, leaning forward slightly with her hand covering her mouth just to muffle it. Lian reaches Yang and she hoists her into her lap, unable to hold back her own laughter anymore as she praises Lian, peppering her little face, hair and cat ears with prideful kisses.
Yang's beaming when she does it, but gods, it's so funny.
By now at parents' group, Lian is bum shuffling across the carpet to play with the other babies. Mars, Sun and Neptune's son, is crawling alongside Luxe, Coco and Velvet's kid.
Meanwhile, Anhe is pulling herself up on furniture, which is the step right before walking.
While Lian is happily bum shuffling around the playroom.
Still, the doctor insisted there was nothing to worry about.
Some babies just bum shuffle before they crawl.
Eventually, Yang was getting worried about it again, with Blake not far in tow. So the blonde set her sights on trying to teach her how to again, except more direct this time around.
Carefully, she sets Lian down on her hands and knees. "See, feels good, doesn't it? Feels like you wanna crawl, right?" She urges softly.
Blake watches from the sidelines, her ears pinned against her skull in concern. They knew she'd get there eventually, but they can't keep dealing with Lian's rug burns. It's keeping her up at night, and therefore her mothers, too.
Yang gently relaxes her hold, letting Lian hold herself up. And…
She puts one hand in front of the other, one leg in front of the other, and she crawls.
Backwards, admittedly.
But hey, she still crawls!
The two mothers breathe a sigh of relief in tandem just at the fact that she's crawling alone before rushing into upraurious praise and adoration, scooping their daughter up after she's had her fun to dance about with her and bounce her in their arms just to celebrate.
By this point, Yang doesn't care about the baby race or competing to see if Lian will come first; just the fact that they know Lian is developing, that she's growing and healthy, is all she needs.
Just in case, they take her to the doctor again.
Some babies just crawl backwards before they crawl forwards.
Yang listens to Ghira's talks when they visit with Lian about how his parents had actually applied olive oil to his knees to help him get his footing. Obviously, Yang recoils from the idea and Ghira makes mention that he and Kali never carried on the practice due to them wanting Blake to go at her own pace. And, like a ton of bricks, the guilt comes crashing down on Yang.
Had she been rushing Lian before she was ready? She's a small baby. She remembers holding her in her newborn days and just wailing at how tiny she was in her hands. The doctors had told them that her development would be a little behind the other babies due to her needing time to catch up after being born… had she been pushing her before she was ready?
In truth, no, no she hadn't. Lian was ready, but there are some things babies just need to figure out on their own – no amount of unintelligible babbling from their parents or random, incomprehensible encouragement is going to help. Hell, most babies can't even fit the right shape block into its respective puzzle hole at this age.
Still, the guilt weighs on her.
But it doesn't matter. By now, Anhe was walking at parents' group. She'd won the baby race by miles.
The pair continued to take Lian to parents' group, Yang sometimes opting just let Blake go. It felt like she just… handled it better.
One day, while Lian was playing in the shade of the tree in the garden, Yang opted to watch from the porch steps. She sighs, letting the smell from whatever tea Blake is preparing for them take over her senses.
It isn't long before she joins her, and Yang immediately sets her tea down at the side, not one for drinking it when it's piping hot like Blake is.
The ravenette's head lolls onto her shoulder, an arm wrapping around her waist after she's set her own tea aside.
"You're doing great, you know?" Blake speaks softly, the two of them content to just watch Lian play. "And so is she."
"I know." Yang admits, "And it's no one's fault that I'm feeling this way except my own." She shrugs defeatedly, resting her own head against the top of Blake's, not peeling her eyes away from Lian for a second. "I was the one who got competitive with this– this baby race thing when there was no competition at all to begin with." She heaves a sigh, taking Blake's free hand in her own, "This is her thing. She'll figure it out."
"Mhmm," Blake hums, proud of Yang for settling. "Just like I did… and just like you did, eventually."
"Yeah." Yang nods, a smile blossoming on her face as she meets Blake's eyes, her head tilted against her shoulder so that she can lean in and press a loving kiss to her lips, "We'll run our own race."
From then on, they always followed Lian's pace. Sure, if she got close to something – crawling or more – then they'd encourage her to see if she would. But if she didn't, it was never a big deal or something to be bummed out about.
Yang starts attending the parents' group again, and while Lian is off playing with a couple of the other babies with Blake supervising, Yang notices Anhe wobbling towards her.
She stumbles and Yang catches her, taking both of her hands. And gods, Yang beams at this little bundle of joy.
"Well done, Anhe," She praises tenderly with a sunny smile, "You clever girl."
Luxe comes and steals her attention to go and play with a doll's house no more than a few seconds later.
In the end, it takes quite a while longer for Lian to learn the next steps in her mobility. Crawling forwards isn't long after, but things like pulling herself up on furniture take a while. And walking… well, that takes even longer than a while.
Blake's following a crawling Lian into the kitchen where Yang is putting some of the dishes and cups away into their cupboards, humming happily to herself as the sun dances in through the window above the sink.
Yang glances over her shoulder and smiles lovingly at her wife. "Hey, hon. Li okay?"
"She's here." Blake gestures onto the floor where Lian is sitting by a cupboard, gazing wondrously up at Yang. "She was looking for you, I think."
Lian has a smile that's so much like Blake's with little etches of Yang within (like her dimples) that it's almost uncanny.
"Mo– Mmo," Lian babbles, reaching her arms up and making grabby motions. She'd made attempts to speak here and there, but they hadn't gotten close to a full word yet, just a syllable here or there… the progress still astounds them every time, the two mothers sharing a proud glance.
"Ah." Yang looks down at her baby daughter, unable to hide the sunny smile that's painted across her face. "Hiya, bud." She speaks with that same cooing voice, "Gimme a sec and we can go play, yeah?"
Blake hums at the way she talks to Lian. Little Lian, bee, bud (like a flower bud), buddy, baby, kiddo… each little term of endearment makes a wave of warmth wash over, starting at her heart and branching out as though her love runs in her blood.
Lian blinks up at Yang, seemingly confused on why she isn't just coming over and scooping her up like she usually does.
Her little hand finds the handle of the cupboard and latches onto it. Two tiny baby feet find the tiles, her soles gripping it enough to give her the strength to get into a little squat.
From there, she pulls herself up, like she sometimes does.
Blake sees this, crouching down by the kitchen entrance. "Clever girl!" She praises with a couple soft claps so her still-sensitive baby cat ears won't be hurt. Lian looks at her briefly with a gigglish baby smile before returning to Yang, who, by now, is also watching her with fondness.
"Good girl, Lian!" Yang says, spending a few moments just happy to see her progress before she returns to inserting the final plates and cups into their cupboards. "I'll be one sec, okay?"
Lian, however, notices the lack of attention from Yang, something she's craving right now.
And, much to the shock of Blake, her tiny hands let go of the cupboard, and she lightly pushes off of the surface, taking a wobbly step.
Blake gasps loud enough for Yang to whip her head around, both of their hearts jolting – Blake from pride, and Yang's from fear… soon followed by pride, too.
Lian's walking. Lian's walking towards her.
Immediately, Yang gasps and crouches on instinct, opening her arms – the floodgates open too, a couple of shocked, stray tears carving paths down her cheeks as she focuses all of her attention on her daughter wobbling unsteadily towards her, but she doesn't move. She doesn't close the distance. She lets Lian move to her.
The moment she reaches her, Yang wraps her up in her arms and falls back onto the tiles, sobbing as she envelopes her daughter in a warm embrace and sprinkles kisses across her face and hair and ears, whispering soft praises and terms of endearment to her as she takes in all she just witnessed.
There's a sob from across the room, and Yang looks up to see Blake, a hand pressed over her mouth, crying hard from pure relief and pride – she'd done it. She'd finally gotten there. After all the worry and stress…
Lian had ran her race.
And Blake and Yang held her hands as she crossed the finish line.
Like it's instinct, Yang scoops Lian up and rushes to Blake's side, bringing both of her girls into her arms as they all hold one another, the pair of them beaming as they hug and praise and let their daughter know just how proud they are of her.
It was a race so long you could call it a journey – because that's exactly what it was.
At first, Yang couldn't understand why it was her. Why she was the thing that encouraged Lian to walk.
"Did she really want to come to me, or did she just see something she wanted?"
But it wasn't long before Blake shushed those worried questions with a single obvious answer.
"She did." Blake had told her as Lian slept in her arms, "She saw you."