feeling all the shades of indigo

maybe who we were then is shattered, but who we are in the end is what matters

Vai’s warmth is like the sun on her face, and Remi the earth beneath her. Together, mother and son pull the Valkyrie through the mire of her efforts, and she comes out the other side exhausted, beaten, but unbroken. Victorious. And with two children, small and unready for the world, but alive and whole. She cries then, heat against her cheeks and clinging to the bow of her lips, salt upon her tongue. Relief. They live, against all odds.

Her arms feel like lead, but they rise stubbornly as Vai comes to her side with the boy, enveloping him with the grace that comes from years of practice. The child’s eyes are not even open, and yet she is falling into open air from simply staring at his face, stunned and stricken by a love so intense her chest feels like it’s caving in. Turning away would feel impossible were Remi not holding her - their - daughter out in offering. Adjusting her son (her son, her son, only the second she has ever had, and alive - as she will keep him, no matter the cost) so that he may rest in one arm, she reaches for her daughter with the other. They cradle against her breasts, scarcely clothed in sheets, and her heart beats a rhythm that will lull them to sleep for seasons to come.

There’s no way to reach for Remi, but he is there, and Ru turns her head weakly as his skin brushes her own. Her eyes are pink from crying, but there is a light in them brighter than Safrin’s stars. “Thank you,” she whispers. As difficult as this had all been, as many problems as it had caused, she is a mother anew. And he had not abandoned her, as he’d promised. As all the others had failed to do.

Vai is not forgotten, and the Valkyrie’s eyes seek her, disoriented as she is. “Thank you. Thank you, so much.” Because what else can she feel right now but gratitude? “The girl. Her middle name - could I name it after you?” Or would that be too bold and presumptuous?

Vervain

even the darkest night
will end

"You don't need to thank me - you did all the hard work." Vai can't wipe the smile from her lips, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve as she glances between Remi and Hotaru. "Sono bellissime," she whispers to him, leaning in to kiss his cheek before shifting back and taking a long, deep breath as if to centre herself. To see Hotaru with both babies snug and safe and happy, it makes everything worth it.

She's about to move away, to help to clean Hotaru up, to help her through the afterbirth, when her voice breaks through Vai's focus once more. And the witch finds her eyes stinging with tears anew, nodding to Hotaru. "It would be an honour," she murmurs. "Thank you. Now you need to rest - leave this to me, and we'll make sure you're feeling as good as you can be."

and the sun
will rise

REMI

& now I'm all alone in the dark of night

Intimate as he and Hotaru have been together, still Remi lurks like the shadowy figure he is at her bedside as their daughter joins her brother on the Valkyrie's breast. It isn't his place to nudge into bed beside her nor to crouch over her. Kneeling at her bedside, Hotaru's words steal away whatever breath he's managed to secure in his lungs as she offers their daughter's middle name to Vai. It tugs painfully in all the most tender places, and though Remi's muffled sob is one of joy, something within him breaks as well. Pushing down these feelings, the alchemist gives Vai as heartfelt a look as he can, glassy as his eyes are, before turning back to the mother of his twins.

"You did so very well." He whispers to the three of them. Reaching for another cold cloth to lay against Hotaru's forehead, the alchemist beams down at her before turning his attention to the small heads laying against her chest. "They are beautiful." Reaching out just a finger—made shaky with restraint—Remi gently caresses their skin, marvelling at how delicate and soft they felt. "Mateo was not born, and Aoife..." The alchemist shakes his head softly, not wanting to speak of mother's dying just now. "I have never been here for this part." He explains shakily.

The moon is shining but I can't see the light

maybe who we were then is shattered, but who we are in the end is what matters

“You were there,” she refutes with strength she can scarcely afford to waste, and her expression is open and vulnerable, almost girlishly youthful and lost. The witch’s acceptance has a tremulous smile breaking on the Valkyrie’s face, and she sinks back into the pillows, her drive extinguished. Limp and malleable in whichever way Vai needs her to be for the cleanup and the afterbirth.

From her bedside the sound of Remi’s sob turns her head, and Hotaru can’t bear to have him so far, but her arms refuse to uncurl from where they cradle her babies to her skin. Loyal to them first and foremost, as time would prove she will always be.

Pale irises shutter behind tired lids as cold sinks across her forehead and into the delicate nerves of her face. Remi’s voice accompanies her into the darkness, making up for the time between slow blinks where Hotaru cannot see his face. The soft timbre of it envelops her, praise filling empty spaces she didn’t know she had. “And what do you think of it now?” Scarcely a whisper, eyes slitting open a sliver to watch how gently he touches their children.

But there is one more thing she must do before she rests. A ceremonial part of this moment that Hotaru refuses to be denied, even by her own body. “Will you help me name them?” Some time ago he had assured her that unlike previous partners, he would not control or demand anything of their titles, but Hotaru knows now that she wants this to be a joint effort. “Something in your mother tongue. And I can pick the ones I like the most?” And they will carry her own surname, and titles their mother preferred. A piece of both their parents.

Vervain

even the darkest night
will end

Vai's work is far from done - she's had enough children to know that much - but her participation in these first few moments between the new parents and their children require none of her participation. She makes herself busy at the far end of the bed, bundling the used blankets and towels away to be dealt with later, cleaning up Hotaru, laying down fresh towels and so on.

Still, she can't help but smile to hear the other woman speak, even if she can already feel imaginary stormclouds starting to brew overhead. Things will not remain as precious and picturesque as this domestic little scene within her cottage, but that is a matter for later. For now it is just Remi, Hotaru, and two bright and shiny little souls freshly bloomed into the world.

---

Vai will be busy doing the necessary - she won't reply from here unless she's directly asked a question. (:

and the sun
will rise

REMI

& now I'm all alone in the dark of night

"I think that was perhaps the bravest and most triumphant thing I have ever seen." The Lullaby replies, properly and appropriately awestruck. Leaning down, he softly presses his lips against each of the twins' head, though he doesn't quite kiss them. Instead he simply holds himself there, scenting them like an animal might. Which is in fact exactly what he's doing. It stirs something carnal in him, something deadly and undeniable that rises like stone to imprint these little lives forever inside of his mind.

Rising, he glances with a look of surprise having expected Hotaru to want this part for herself. Strange as it was to think after all of this, but he still felt as though they weren't his in some important respect, not that he could articulate why. "I...hmm.." Frowning to himself as he thinks, Remi recalls names he had heard as a boy. On the road many were named in the travelling tongue, and he was no exception. Many such names were tinged by those who held them, such as his father's. There were some though that still rang sweet in his mind, and it was those he offered now.

"For our daughter...maybe Chiara or Clara? Liana even...or Flora, perhaps? I knew an Alessia once, too.." Reaching out a hand again, he softly rubs the girl's back with one finger before glancing towards their son. "And for you? Perhaps Enzo or Luca...or Nico or Damian." The names sing from his lips, sounding like they were the approximation of music rather than names. Such was the language of the road.

The moon is shining but I can't see the light

maybe who we were then is shattered, but who we are in the end is what matters

The way he hovers close makes sense to her, a chord struck against more primal measures. There is no desire to chase him away - not yet, at least. Had she been in a proper den then perhaps the reaction would be different.

It’s not patience so much as exhaustion that keeps her quiet and semi-coherent in her attentiveness. The names roll on his tongue better than they ever will on hers she’s sure, but some pluck strings of familiarity, and Hotaru’s eyes fall to her children. First to the girl, older by minutes, and already groping with one tiny hand at the skin of her breast in instinctual search for nourishment. “Flora, Flora Vai,” she names with certainty, and presses her cheek to the top of the infant’s head, breathing in the scent of her. Even tainted by blood and afterbirth, the animal inside her finds and memorizes those individual notes that make Flora who she is.

The boy is harder in many ways. She had only ever named Ru’in, and lost him far too early. It feels like a curse out of a fairytale. One she still fears. Only strengthened by the complicated circumstances he has now been born into. She hopes Remi providing the name will somehow make it less binding, if it exists beyond the paranoia and trauma of her own mind. “And Enzo. Enzo Ignatius,” she murmurs, pressing her lips to the thin dark hair on his crown, inhaling his own scent.

It takes some rearranging to let them both feed, sheet bunched around them but otherwise doing little to nothing by way of covering her. Each long moment makes her eyes droop further, but Hotaru soldiers on until both infants are fed. Only then does she shift to angle Enzo out towards Remi, tired eyes beseeching despite the reluctance to part from her children. “Will you lay them in the bassinet to sleep?” Something they’ll all need now, and which will be sparse in the coming months.

REMI

& now I'm all alone in the dark of night

'Flora Vai.' Remi repeats, almosts singing the name as the tears that had pressed against the back of his eyes finally spill down his cheeks. Though his throat begins to tighten and close, he finds he doesn't mind at all, nor does he bother to hide the way he has to gasp for air. The name Ignatius means nothing to him, knowing almost nothing about Deimos. So he just nods, softly repeating the boy's name in the same whispered and awe-struck tones: "Enzo Ignatius." He agrees.

Reaching for Enzo, Remi tucks the boy carefully in the crook of his arm, able to hold him with unfettered ease given both his strength and his strange ease with children. 'Of course.' The boy is already quickly falling asleep, and as Remi lays him down and swaddles him tightly in a blanket, his eyes are closed and his lips open before the alchemist can tuck the final corner. Reaching to do the same with Flora, as he returns he lets his fingertips experimentally caress Hotaru's forehead if only to brush away the sweat-curled strands of gold glued to her skin.

"No bassinet for you, but you need to sleep as well." With a warm smile for the Valkyrie and a last check to see she has all she needs to try and drift off for hopefully an hour at least, Remi nods to Vai as she hustles him out of the room.

~FIN

The moon is shining but I can't see the light