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By all accounts, Quinn was a princess. Her mothers adored her in the way every parent should love their little girl, but considering that one of said mothers was actually the queen, that made Quinn a literal princess as well.
Not that the little girl ever let that fact get to her head. No. Much like her mothers, Queen Reyna and The Arcandor, Quinn was much more at home in the quaint, yet expanding town of Tawney than she ever felt near the Magicary or the Grand Palace.
She got uncomfortable when adults around her treated her differently than the other kids, which is why she was overjoyed when her mothers told her she could go to school in Tawney’s schoolhouse rather than being tutored at either of her parents’ workplaces.
The schoolhouse was not new when Quinn began learning there, but it was newer. The schoolhouse was one of the renovated buildings within the first year of reconstructing Tawney’s burnt half. There were three teachers, with the addition of Tawney’s original educator, from other parts of the Realm that convened and worked together in creating a schoolhouse capable of admitting the larger number of children they were anticipating, as well as offering night classes to those adults who would be interested in such a thing.
It was perfect, and Reyna and Kianthe were thrilled that their daughter was admitted into a class with the other Tawnean kids her age.
Kianthe blubbered like a baby herself on that first day. Reyna would have poked a little fun at her for it, had she not had silent tears of her own. They had not thought it was possible to miss their little girl that much even though they could still see her as Gossley walked her to school. They had half a mind to grab her and homeschool her themselves, but they reminded themselves and each other that this was good for her. She wanted this, petitioned for it herself. Stone, Stars and Dragons, they were so proud of her.
A year or two later, the teacher Tawney had pulled from Leonol had organized something called Family Day. Each child was permitted to invite their parents for a day of fun at the school just before the session let out for the summer months. It consisted of a mini carnival, showing your parents around the school and other adorable activities. Fun was sure to be had by all.
Quinn, however, was excited about something else entirely.
Reyna and Kianthe had angled towards the carnival after their daughter’s adorable little tour - her favorite spot was the library, go figure - assuming she would want to win an adorable dragon stuffie or perhaps a plush griffon. Reyna had been excited to show off with feats of strength for her wife, providing both of her girls with prizes.
They were both surprised however, when Quinn grabbed their hands and attempted to drag them both back towards the classrooms.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Reyna asked attempting to stop their daughter, but that only served to make her more upset.
Quinn was a mini Reyna down to the hair, but she had Kianthe’s temper to be sure. She huffed and tried to pull them again, at seven years old, she was unsuccessful.
“Come on! You’re gonna miss it!”
“Miss what, sweetie?” Kianthe asked.
“It’s supposed to be a surprise!” Quinn whined, blinking back what tears had threatened to fall.
“Okay, okay, dearest, we’re sorry, we’ll follow you, okay?” Reyna said softly.
Quinn’s shoulders and breathing eased and she let go of their hands walking back in the direction of the classrooms. Reyna and Kianthe tried not to laugh when Quinn kept turning around, making sure they were following her.
When they got inside, they saw a collection of parents and children and Quinn smiled, telling them they could find a seat in the back with the other parents. Then she jogged off to sit with her friends by the front.
Reyna and Kianthe shared amused glances before doing as their little princess bid them, standing in the back with the other parents.
It did not take long for them to understand why Quinn had brought them back here. One child stood at the front of the class and regaled the room about how much his dad, the only parent in his life, meant to him. How they went fishing on the weekends and how those moments were the most treasured and peaceful ones he could recall.
A chorus of ‘aww’s filled the room as the boy was replaced by a little girl, who talked about her grandparents who had raised her, how much she loved reading with her grandfather and the drawing game she and her grandmother would play where one would draw a line and the other had to make it into something no matter how squiggly and ridiculous the original line was.
After a few more children, it was Quinn’s turn, and she practically bounced to the front of the room.
“Quinn dear,” the teacher said, “would you mind telling us what family means to you?”
Quinn’s blond hair bobbed as she nodded. She breathed in and out once, twice, then seemed to steel herself.
“Everyone knows who my mamas are,” she said without an inch of arrogance. She said it with all the love in her tiny, seven-year-old body.
“I love them more than anything,” Quinn continued, “Mama bandages my knees when I scrape them running. Mom covers me in blankets if I fall asleep reading. They love me, and they take care of me.”
Reyna and Kianthe had tears in their eyes already, but Quinn wasn’t finished.
“But they aren’t my only family.”
“What do you mean, sweetheart?” The teacher prompted, smiling knowingly in Kianthe and Reyna’s direction, they must have practiced this.
“To me, family is a book shop. So many people come and go from our house and it’s incredible! We even have mascots! Visk and Ponder! The best griffons ever! They let me pet them and everything!
The girl’s enthusiasm spread throughout the room, her classmates’ eyes starry with awe, the parents’ soft in adoration.
“The dragons too! Blue Spruce, Pill Bug and Gold Coin! Ponder takes me with her when they play some times!” Quinn locked eyes with her moms and dropped her gaze a little. “But that’s a little dangerous so we don’t do it that often at all really. The dragons and Ponder are getting a little too old for it anyway…”
“What about everyone else, honey?” The teacher prompted, which lit the spark of Quinn’s excitement all over again.
“My cousin Gossley is the best! He walks me to school! He trains with me and Mama, and I beat him when we spar sometimes!”
Reyna fondly remembers those morning drills. Where she switched out Gossley’s sword for a wooden one that matched her daughter’s. She was fairly certain Gossley lets the girl win most times. He’s gotten a little too good to be bested by even this excitable seven-year-old. Kianthe went far enough to tease him for it, but he’d confided to Reyna that the joy on their little girl’s face was worth it. He and the carpenter’s daughter had only been married for a season and change now, but she could see a twinkle in his eye. It wouldn’t be too long if his lovely wife were of the same mind he was.
“Sometimes he takes me to see Uncle Tarly too! He’s the blacksmith,” Quinn said, as if most of the room didn’t already know that, “the forge is really cool! Sometimes, Uncle Tarly lets me dip the metal into the water! And steam goes everywhere!”
Quinn paused to mime an explosion of steam, with sound effects.
Kianthe had tried to interest their daughter in similar reactions with her control over the elements. She’d shown her cooking hot lava into rock for Stone’s sake, but for some reason, Quinn was fascinated by the forge process. Tarly had been smug for weeks.
“His wife, Aunt Matild helps me when I’m sick! I get candy if I’m really good too! There was one time, while we were waiting for some medicine to start working that she taught me this really neat board game! I didn’t really get it but we had fun anyway!”
Reyna suppressed the groan that tried to work up her throat upon remembering the time their best friend attempted to teach their ill five-year-old how to play Cocoa & Capitalism. She had said she wanted to take the girl’s mind off of things at the time but surely she could have picked a different game? I Spy, surely?
Kianthe nudged her with an elbow and a snort and Reyna smiled, shaking her head.
Quinn spoke fondly of her uncles James and Fauston and their growing collection of cats. She talked about all the things her aunt Tessalyn taught her every time they visited The Capital and the aforementioned cats (and uncles too, she added as an afterthought).
Then, Quinn lowered her voice and got to the really exciting part.
“Captain Dreggs is amazing! She only ever told me to call her Captain, that’s why she’s not technically an aunt. Pirates are different like that,” Quinn explained, with an informative air she had to have mimicked from Tessalyn which Kianthe thought Dreggs and Tessalyn would both appreciate. It was rare Quinn got to see Tessalyn and her parent in the same place, so she may not have worked that relation out yet, but away from this child’s sight, those two had moved well beyond the awkward phases of their renewed familial relationship. It was still different than most, but it worked for them, and that’s what mattered.
The teacher artfully steered Quinn away from regaling the children with pirate stories, leading her instead to two other aunts.
“Aunt Bobbie makes all kinds of plushies for me when we visit or she visits us! Sometimes the twins get to them first but I don’t mind! We share them!”
Reyna and Bobbie both made big shows of not sobbing as they’d watched their kids play together at the estate. Quinn and the twins rolling around together on the floor with an army of crocheted animals, laughing, sharing, and just being kids together.
“Aunt Serina made a game for us,” Quinn continued after informing everyone about Bobbie and Serina’s status, “It’s called River Pirates! She set up one of Aunt Bobbie’s stuffed Octopuses on a stump in the forest near the house and you had to sneak around and take it before anyone noticed!”
Kianthe had petitioned to play once she’d learned of the game’s existence. She’d used the wind to get back to base faster to the protests of the children but in the end they’d all had fun, collapsing in a laughing heap in the grass.
Quinn got really quiet, almost conspiratorial, causing the kids to all lean in. However, in the time honored tradition of whispering children, the adults could all hear her perfectly.
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you about Grandpa Locke, but he’s really cool! So I’m going to anyway! Shhh! You can’t tell anyone!”
Reyna’s smile got wobbly as Quinn talked about her chosen grandfather.
“We don’t see him very often but a lot of the time he happens to be where we are and I sometimes think he’s checking on us, you know? He says it’s a coincidence, but he also says he has a wife, and I’ve never seen her! I don’t think he’s lying but I don’t have proof either.”
She talked about all the cool tricks he’d taught her like some kind of magician, things like walking coins through your fingers or pulling them from behind ears.
Locke was still bad at being retired, he still showed up in their life by surprise, but Reyna had watched him with Quinn. He always had a special smile on when he was talking to her. She always wondered if he was reminded of talking to her when she was younger. She’d told him that Quinn referred to him as Grandpa Locke and he’d been genuinely stunned for a moment. A soft smile crossed his face but he quickly found some other piece of information to impart to her. He’d never responded in words, but sometimes, Reyna thought, you didn’t always have to.
“Then,” Quinn said, “there’s Uncle Wylan and Ancle Feo!”
Kianthe laughed out loud from the back of the classroom.
“Dearest, please,” Reyna said, struggling not to laugh as well.
“What’s an Ancle?” The girl who’d gone before Quinn asked.
Before Reyna could say ‘Don’t say it,’ Kianthe had snickered, “That part of your foot.”
“Arcandor,” The teacher chastised, though she still wore a smile.
“Sorry,” Kianthe said, “Go on ahead, sweetheart.”
Quinn smiled, nodded and continued, “well Ancle Feo doesn’t use he or she style words, so they’re not an Aunt or an Uncle. They’re an Ancle!”
Through a chorus of children’s “ohhhh”s, Kianthe’s snickers could be heard. The ‘Ancle’ thing was a joke on her part, said to Feo during a visit when Quinn was six. She hadn’t expected Quinn to overhear, but she was overjoyed that she did because Quinn latched on to the title and wouldn’t let it go. Feo hated it, but tolerated it for the child’s sake, which honestly was a great credit to them.
“They’re always together, but when I asked, they got all red and sputtery,” Quinn whispered this next part, “I think they’re in love! I don’t know if they know, but I’ve got this big plan to help them!”
The teacher smiled and cut the girl off, “That’s wonderful, dear. Thank you for sharing your family with us.”
Quinn picked up the edges of her skirt, curtsied like Uncle Wylan had taught her and said, “Thank you for letting me.”
The teacher caught her mothers’ eyes before whispering, “You did great, dear!”
Quinn brightened like the rising sun and ran to her moms, hugging their legs. The two ruffled her hair, and shared slightly tearful glances.
As Kianthe whispered her praises to their daughter, Reyna caught the teacher’s eye as everyone gathered their children and left the room. She mouthed a ‘thank you’ as they moved to leave as well.
They still managed to win everyone a stuffed animal before family day was over. Kianthe and Reyna held their small, matching griffons in their hands, while Quinn lugged the massive stuffed dragon - the floppy purple one that was nearly twice her size - on her back as they trudged up the hill to New Leaf as the sun set.
“Darling, we can help you carry that if you want,” Reyna offered.
“No! I’ve got it!” Quinn said amiably, just as the dragon started to shift and teeter, her along with it.
Kianthe asked the stone for a bit of help and a gentle breeze gathered around the stuffed dragon, easing The Arcandor’s daughter’s load just enough that she could carry it and not notice the aid her mother had offered.
Kianthe thanked it and caught her wife staring at her. They shared a grin as Quinn called out, “GOSSLEY! LOOK WHAT MAMA WON FOR ME!”
Gossley, who had just locked up the front of New Leaf Tomes & Tea, gasped the appropriate amount for the reaction the little one had been expecting.
“Look at how strong you are!” Tarly exclaimed. He and Matild, always the last ones out. “I bet you could start helping me at the forge sometime soon!”
“You think so?!” Quinn nearly dropped the dragon in her excitement.
“I know so!”
“Yay!”
“Not until she’s a little older, I’m afraid,” Matild said, to Kianthe and Reyna’s relief. Doctor Aunt’s orders couldn’t be argued with.
“Awww!” Quinn, Tarly and Gossley groaned together.
“Midwife’s orders! That’s it,” Matild said, shooing everyone away from the door. “Goodnight ladies,” she called over her shoulder.
“Goodnight!” The little family said, accompanied by some squawking from the roof.
Lazily lounging on the roof, Visk and Ponder watched them enter their house and lay their feathered heads down for rest as well, father’s wing draped over daughter.
As the mothers helped their daughter get ready for bed, Reyna said, “You know, love, I think you should tell the rest of the family what you said about them today.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s never a bad time to tell your friends and family that you love them.”
“Especially Ancle Feo,” Kianthe snickered.
“Dearest.”
“What?! I was agreeing with you! Wasn’t I, Sprout?” Kianthe said, using her favorite nickname for their daughter.
Quinn nodded and the family dissolved into easy laughter at the end of another great day.
Family was a book shop indeed.