Work Text:
The noon sun that had provided reprieve from unusually chilly breezes was now setting behind, the dying light painting the forest clearing canary. He and Feyre had set out before lunch, wishing to make the most of their day before heading back to Rosehall.
They’d ridden east, the pool of starlight their first destination, spending hours lapping its surface, then hours more simply resting on its bank, his head in her lap as she painted, occasionally feeding him the boysenberries they’d packed. They started back on their route after she’d finished, her spry hands quickly hiding the painting from his seeking eyes. Later, she’d murmured into the kiss she’d used to distract him.
Tamlin, leaning against the tree he’d tied his horse to, stared at her now. She was still astride, her silken hair glowing burnished gold under the sunset, the strands not tied back falling in her face as she reached to pet her panting horse. The white, brown-spotted mare turned her head basking in the praise after helping Feyre win their impromptu race.
She gave a few final strokes to the mare’s mane before making to get off, and he winnowed to her side, hands reaching to help. Feyre looked down in surprise and smiled at his antics.
Mother, she was beautiful.
“What?” she whispered, cocking her head, blue-gray eyes roaming across his face.
He swung her up and over, arms tightening as he didn’t set her down completely, not wanting her any further away. “You’re beautiful.”
Her smile became mischievous. “So are you, m’lord.”
He decided to play along, resting his forehead on hers. “Oh your beauty is incomparable, my lady. You possess the face of a poet’s muse, the softness of your hair is an owl’s envy.” Tamlin looked down. “Your lips…”
He heard her breath hitch, all traces of mischief dashed as the space between them became heavy with desire.
“My lips?” she prompted, tilting her head as she leaned closer.
Tamlin suddenly thought his actions far superior to words and closed the minute distance between them. They parted when breathing became difficult, and he finally let her down but kept his arms banded around her hips. Feyre beamed up at him, looking every bit the incomparable marvel she was.
“I have a gift for you,” she said.
Tamlin perked up, itching to see what she’d made this year. Their outing was an annual one, a day he always made time for after Feyre had reminisced about a mortal holiday for love, named after a saint of some sort. He’d found it peculiar at first, not understanding why a specific day was needed for love, as if it was not to be celebrated every day. The pure joy on Feyre’s face as she told him how she and her sisters, before misfortune struck their household, would be each other's saint of love for the day, though, was all he needed to make sure she could keep the tradition, the gift giving along with it.
Tamlin’s gift this year had been extending her painting room. He’d noticed the room getting more cramped with completed pieces the times he’d been invited in, whether to model or admire, and had started calculating what it would cost to expand the space. With the Court still in recovery from the five decades of desolation, it was a project Tamlin knew could take years. The seven years of planning, though, had been worth the expression on Feyre’s face when he revealed the renovation at dawn. There were many times he wished he had her talent and ability to visually capture moments, and the sight of her then had been no exception.
Tamlin had been looking forward to her gift since he first saw her mixing her paints. Flora sprung beneath their feet as his magic leaked with his excitement, anthuriums and azaleas covering the ground in a blanket of red and pink. Feyre shook her head and laughed. “You’re so impatient, like a puppy.” Besotted like one, as well, he thought.
She tried to move his arms away and, instinctively, his body refused to budge from hers. “Tam, the painting is in my coat pocket.”
Oh, right.
He released her, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head in slight embarrassment. Verdant eyes watched in hawk-like fashion as Feyre brought out her canvas and magically resized it to its original dimensions — she’d shrunk it when she’d finished the piece; a smaller size allowed ease of movement and concealment. Her hands shook as if in fear and worry spiked Tamlin’s heart. Before he could even move to open his mouth, Feyre quickly turned the painting around, and the sight rendered him speechless.
The background was a setting he’d seen a million times: Rosehall in all its glory. His mother’s gardens were so vivid, that he absentmindedly wondered if Feyre had found a way to seal them on canvas. What truly caught his breath, however, were the five people in the foreground.
Five. He immediately recognized himself and Feyre, both of them were standing as she rested her head on his chest, his left arm around her waist, and his right… His right hand was placed on the shoulder of a girl in the middle of the painting. She looked to be on the edge of adulthood by Fae standards; soft cheeks that were shedding that child-like roundness, the blunt points of her ears that were just starting to form the sharp peaks of mature High Fae ears.
On both sides of her were a boy and girl, who upon further inspection were twins. They were true younglings, their heads barely reaching the older girl’s knees. All three had glaring similarities: golden brown hair, though the boy’s was the darkest of the trio by a shade or two, the older girl and boy’s sparkling blue-gray eyes, while the youngling girl’s were a bright evergreen, and finally the shape of their mouths, a shape he could trace blind.
Tamlin’s head snapped up to Feyre standing resolutely, trying to gauge his reaction.
“Are you-” he rasped, voice suddenly hoarse.
“N- no,” Feyre stammered, “but-”
She cut herself off, and fidgeted, anxiously shuffling her feet. A moment later he felt a brush against his mind, Feyre’s daemati magic kindly asking for entrance. He let her in, knowing she only resorted to mentally speaking when physically overwhelmed. The act had been a crutch before, when they were both horrible at talking to each other and Feyre had found arbitrary conversations far easier. Tamlin thought them past it now, so he knew the severity of her emotions at the moment if Feyre was reverting to old habits.
I’m not pregnant, she started, but I want to be.
Oh, he thought
A month ago, one of my older archery students, Aria, you know them.
He did. Over the last three decades, Feyre had founded monthly art and archery classes that quickly gained enough students to make them daily. She no longer taught as often as she did before but still went every other fortnight or so.
“Yes I do, they’re half-peregryn, right?” Tamlin said aloud, giving Feyre an anchor, an offering back into the real world and away from the corners of her mind.
“They are,” Feyre murmured.
His offer taken, Tamlin used it as an opportunity to take and set aside the painting. He pulled her into his arms as he slowly bid her to sit down with him. Her legs in his lap and head on his shoulder, he waited, slowly brushing her hair with one hand, letting her take her time to keep talking.
“Last month, they came with a child,” Feyre whispered, “their child. And I was hit so hard with this longing , my eyes watered.” Tamlin could imagine it, Aria’s child, Feyre’s sudden at her lack of one, like he was there — Feyre’s magic must not have fully rescinded yet.
At the risk of sounding idiotic, Tamlin asked, “Do you want one? A child that is.” Children, by the looks of it , his mind supplied unhelpfully.
A small nod, and then, “Do you?”
It saddened Tamlin that he could not answer immediately, this request of hers was not one he could fulfill with no hesitation. Tamlin hadn’t the faintest idea on how to raise children, and the only inkling of knowledge being “don’t make them feel unworthy of living” didn’t inspire confidence.
Through the small link between their minds that Feyre still hadn’t severed, Tamlin felt her hopes lowering. He’d been quiet too long.
“I don’t not want them,” he said, then winced. That was as reassuring as a no. “I wouldn’t know what to do”
“New parents usually don’t. It’s always their first time.” She had a point there, and because she knew the first fear that would come to him, she said, “You’d never be like him, you know. Your father.”
“You’re sure?”
She raised her head and turned to face him, eyes holding such emotion he was tempted to ask why she thought of him deserving of such devotion. “I’m sure.”
She shifted to fully sit over his lap, arms coming around to hug him, head back on his shoulder.
“Can I think about it?” he asked.
Feyre nodded vigorously. “It’s only fair, I’ve had a month.”
Tamlin gazed around the clearing, his stallion still tied to a tree and Feyre’s mare lying down in its shade. The sun had set fully, the moon slowly on the rise to take its place. He wrapped his arms around his lady and breathed her in.
“I love you.”
“You’re sure?”
“Thorns and all.”