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The night brought its thick blanket of peace and tranquility to Kishiar’s home. While in the countryside, the looming darkness might promise the end of the day, in the capital, that only promised the change from one trade to the other, often just as loud and boisterous as merchants during the day. Thankfully, the Cavalry headquarters has taken to respecting the silence of the night, if only in deference to its newest occupant, who needs all the sleep he can get.
Kishiar leans against the cool window, his eyes never leaving the sight of his son sleeping soundly in his crib, a gift sent to the capital all the way from the palace of Nelarn as soon as his son took his first breath. The child was born much too early, and Kishiar among the ever-rotating group of people unwilling to let the child out of their sight for fear he might stop breathing once they did.
His son already harbors powers similar to Kishiar, but his vessel is perfectly fine. All that ails him is the consequence of a risky pregnancy that couldn’t be extended any longer. Kishiar would be lying if there hadn’t been brief moments when he regretted this careful choice, worried over his beloved and the strain put on his body.
How terrible that Kishiar needed Yuder to assure him of his health when Yuder was the one in such a precarious state.
Their son sleeps soundly, hopefully for another hour, his chest rising and falling, his eyes closed. They were blue when he was born, but already they are changing color, turning darker. They’ll probably be as red as Kishiar’s and Yuder will have the satisfaction of winning that particular bet. Kishiar wanted their son to look like Yuder – it only seemed fair since Yuder did all the work, but the child is keen to please his father and has the coloring expected of an imperial family member.
It has, at the very least, prevented people from attempting to stir up false rumors about his son’s legitimacy. Hardly any royal can avoid them, but their son is determined to be the perfect picture of la Orr blood.
Observing his son’s face, Kishiar is sure the child inherited Yuder’s nose and his temper too. Despite his age and small stature, their son’s outbursts can be heard even through the soundproof door of the Commander’s office. It is understandable; life is incredibly difficult when you are young, and you have no way of expressing it.
Kishiar reaches out to his son, longs to hold him, but he cannot bring himself to cross that final distance, feeling like a thief in the night. He interrupts this serenity as an interloper, a danger to this frail life—
“You never hold him.”
Kishiar glances up, and finds Yuder standing in the doorway of the nursery, leaning against the frame. Yuder’s voice holds no contempt, no accusation or anger. It cuts deeper than any rage would have.
“Have you been watching me?” Kishiar asks instead, resigned to submitting to a conversation he has been dreading all week.
“Yes.” Yuder walks forward and comes to a stop only next to Kishiar, not yet touching him. With ease, Yuder lifts their son out of his crib. The child sleeps on, unbothered by the change. If anything, he appears more comfortable in the arms of his father.
Yuder is taking to fatherhood much better than most expected, Yuder himself included. Kishiar never doubted him. He knows Yuder’s attitude can come across as cold and uncaring to strangers, but it hides an ocean’s depth of love. When their son was born, Yuder had only let go of him when Enon told him he needed to take a proper break if he wanted to go back to work any time soon.
Of course, his beloved couldn’t even be stopped from working while sitting in bed with a nursing infant, seemingly mastering every new experience with enviable ease.
Kishiar closes his eyes and rests his head on Yuder’s shoulder, hiding his expression as he collects his thoughts. His behavior is shameful, unworthy of someone who’s promised to always support their spouse.
“Do you remember what I told you of my childhood?” Kishiar asks without looking up.
“I don’t forget a single thing you tell me.”
Kishiar has to smile into the thin fabric of Yuder’s sleep shirt. It is true, even when it seems like Yuder isn’t listening at all, he often brings up Kishiar’s remarks at a later time.
“Being close to others was a double-edged sword and if I wasn’t careful, I could hurt people with just a touch.”
Those days are long gone now, and Kishiar relishes every time he can hold Yuder in his arms, trace his features with his bare hands, but the strength within Yuder is grander than that of any other Awakener on the continent. Kishiar trusts that if his vessel were to fracture again, his powers break out of alignment, Yuder would be safe.
Their son, however, has to be watched for his every breath.
The Empire had been less stable during his father’s reign than it is now under his brother’s, but not so that Kishiar isn’t afraid of the harm that could befall his son. The Cavalry headquarters isn’t the Imperial Palace, but why should Kishiar fear poisoning attempts when he alone is enough to steal the life of this dearly wanted child?
“What a fool you must think me to be,” Kishiar finally whispers. “A father caught in a web of terror, rendering him utterly useless and undeserving of the title.”
Yuder raises his head so he can look at Kishiar. He isn’t sure what expression he anticipates, loathing perhaps. Yuder’s tolerance of the weak and pathetic has always been low.
Instead, he finds tired understanding.
“I wondered whether it was my fault,” Yuder tells him bluntly.
When Kishiar opens his mouth to protest the utter ridiculousness of this statement, Yuder merely shakes his head, signing that he is not yet finished with his account.
“Pregnancy was not comfortable. My body became foreign to me, I was unable to fulfill my duties, and I had to spend the last months on tiresome bedrest.”
The latter, Kishiar knows, was especially testing for Yuder. Gakane acted as Yuder’s hands and eyes in the Cavalry for the most part during that time, bringing him reports and delivering his orders. Their friendship hadn’t suffered from it, though Kishiar is certain that is mostly the result of Gakane’s willingness to forgive Yuder for making him the target of his frustration.
“I was afraid of losing our child, and all the ways the delivery itself could go wrong still.”
Pregnancy and childbirth are both much more dangerous for male omegas than for anyone else. The knowledge Yuder possesses of the last game only helped to a certain degree. All of this, Kishiar has heard before, listening to Yuder when they laid next to each other in bed, counting down the weeks until they’d see their child. Even before that, when they discussed if they even wanted a child together. Kishiar had been able to picture them as a family so easily, free of titles and obligations, but he’d been unwilling to risk Yuder’s life for a dream. Their discussion had been one of mutual understanding, but Kishiar would lie if the greatest credit belonged to Yuder for convincing him.
They’d agreed to have this child together, which now leaves Kishiar feeling even worse for being unable to bring himself to touch his son.
“But you were always there to assure me,” Yuder finishes his monologue. “Will you let me be there for you now too?”
“They should praise you for your eloquence more often,” Kishiar murmurs. “You know just which words to calm my racing mind.”
“I’d make for a poor husband if I didn’t,” Yuder replies, his voice as dry as the southern desert, but with an affliction that can only be love. “Now hold out your arms.”
Left with no room to argue, Kishiar does as told. Under different circumstances, he’d be speaking to ease the atmosphere, settle the nerves of an awkward new trainee. This time, he is the one who needs to be soothed like a wounded animal, gently coaxed into accepting a matter that seems more terrifying than even the moment he first unsheathed the divine sword.
Despite the birth being hardly a week ago, Yuder’s self-control is already at a standard he considers passible, but is perfection to everyone else. He is slow when lifting their son from his chest. It has the benefit of giving Kishiar time to prepare himself, while also keeping the baby from waking up. Kishiar would hate to disturb his son’s sleep any more than he already has as a result of his own insecurities.
When Kishiar finally holds their son in his arms, Yuder’s hands merely resting on his arm, Kishiar suppresses the urge to hurriedly transfer their child into Yuder’s arms again, somewhere he would be safe.
“He must have exhausted himself from crying earlier tonight,” Yuder muses.
Their son yawns, but shows no discomfort at all in Kishiar arms. He sleeps soundly as though he’s never rested anywhere else. Kishiar keeps his breathing steady to avoid shaking him; inhale, exhale, his eyes trained on his son as though wondering if he is just pretending, just hiding his pain.
What a fool Kishiar is making out of himself, tricking himself into believing some outrageous fantasy, instead of simply trusting the truth in front of him.
“It is not dissimilar to holding Nipollen,” Yuder suddenly says, momentarily breaking Kishiar’s concentration.
He frowns at Yuder in confusion. “What?”
“Carrying him around is not so different from carrying Nipollen. They’re about the same size too.”
Nipollen is a rather slight teenager and that is no different as a cat. “Did you tell anyone else that?”
“No,” Yuder answers. “I tried telling Enon when he handed me our son for the first time, but I think he was too stressed at that moment to understand.”
Kishiar smiles softly and kisses Yuder’s temple. Of course Yuder would focus on others even in a situation like that.
“Do you agree with me?”
Kishiar looks down at their son. “I do,” he says after a while. “It is similar to holding Nipollen. Now I feel even more foolish for being so afraid of it.”
“There’s no reason to feel foolish. I was told that parents act strange in many situations when it concerns their children. You can’t always remain rational in front of who you love.”
Yuder’s words seep underneath Kishiar’s skin, settle in the fingers brushing over their son’s light hair. Kishiar does love him more than he’s ever believed himself capable of loving anyone at all. He fears to someday discover the limitless of that love, the boundaries he might be willing to cross to protect this child in his arms.
“I’ll return to bed now,” Yuder announces after a while. “Are you coming with me?”
Kishiar considers it, but he doubts he could sleep now and beyond that—
“I’ll stay here a little longer,” he tells Yuder, content to hold their son in his arms as he should have from the start.
Yuder’s expression softens, and he leaves Kishiar and their son with a kiss on the cheek.
Outside of the window, stars illuminate the night sky, and constellations tell stories older than the Empire itself. Kishiar settles in the rocking chair next to the crib and begins telling his son fairy tales his mother passed down to him.