[Haven]

It was dark and warm. A beam of sunlight fell across her face from the opening of the den, her expression one of sleepless exhaustion. Her body was tired but her mind would not rest, and she stared listlessly into the middle distance, head across her forelimbs. The pain in her hip that had ached for weeks was drowned out by the rest of her body joining in the protest. She was very tired, but there was a great sense of relief in her, too, that everything seemed to have turned out alright.

Haven had not been certain of what to expect. There had been congratulations and well wishes for her, the autumn air light with happy voices praising both royal families. Everyone will be happy, the storybooks at always promised, after the heroes found their ending. Heroes and leaders fought evil, fell in love, and started a family as the people cheered and petals fluttered all around them.

Everyone will be happy. Haven looked down at the children by her side. Everyone will be happy. They’d be happy. She’d be happy. That’s how these things were supposed to work. The queen stared at her children. She was thinking about Dragon.

Trice had been by her side during all of this, when he was not hunting or patrolling. Haven had insisted he keep patrolling. He had stayed by her side for the first full day, refusing to leave, but she kept asking - who’s guarding the borders? When do the shifts change? List all the sentries for me, again. She knew it wasn’t reasonable. But she kept asking him if he could check. Asking him to make sure everything was running smoothly. That everything was safe. It was important that everything was safe.

Stakes had always been high. Every small sweet peaceful thing made them higher. Haven looked at her children and sighed. They didn’t know anything. They were innocent and did not know about monsters. Did not know about Eschaton or Saboro, about Renegades or the Fury. War and pain and loss and duty. These small, helpless things that looked like her and like Trice, that looked like Jacob and Tanith, these new, small people were Inarian at their core in every way. They were good and innocent. Haven knew she loved them. Cue finale music. We earned our good ending. Earned our victories, our crowns, our sweet children murmuring in their sleep, clean and warm.

Haven looked away and laid her head back on her forepaws. She knew she loved them. But she didn’t know if she was happy.

[Kashmir]

They'd come a very long way.

It was a challenge to imagine these newborns someday embarking on their own quests (for glory, for redemption, who knew?) and penning their own chapterbooks, most of all when one flicked through the pages of those who came before them. But they were the future, here long after both wolf and jackal returned to dust, pioneering the nation their ancestors had battled and bled to keep. The future looked... a little small at the moment. Mostly only interested in their mother's milk. Infancy was a simple and untroubled time.

On wiry limbs, the spider-king approached the mouth of the den, more soldier's bunker than frillly bedside, if not only for the wariness in Haven's comely face. He'd given her privacy, let the healers come in and work, but had not strayed from the immediate area, pacing in distracted circles through the trees as though he was the worried father here. What a strange thought, yes?

(He'd never thought that he was right for her. He'd never imagined their children together. It still prickled.)

The jackal came gingerly closer, scenting the air. Coppery. Dank. He studied the nursing babies and for a moment did not know what to say. There were eight of them, all royals gold and swarthy burgundy, their eyes pinched shut, their ears useless. Only the smell of their mother kept them close to her. One of them -- the firstborn girl, not that he'd know -- squeaked and tried to push a littermate away from a teat.

"They're beautiful," Kashmir finally murmured, and meant it, despite the fact that they currently looked like fuzzy jellybeans. He looked vaguely lost, as if he somehow was not sure how these puppies had gotten here. Maybe he'd just never experienced this sort of thing before. "I'm happy for you."

(He meant that, too, believe it or not.)

"Have you named any of them...?"

[Haven]

The shadow at the mouth of the den sparked a rush of wide-eyed adrenaline at first - some things are primal and ferocious and older than even Inaria. But it was Kashmir, her friend, and that instinctual fear was flooded over with a gentle comfort of relief. She breathed out all the dark feelings and offered him a smile more sincere than anyone would likely suspect. She was happy to see him. She gestured him into the space, intensely intimate and precious and full of heavy feelings and futures.

Cockatrice might have sent the jackal to watch her, the dire had a knack for knowing what was needed and when. Or maybe Kashmir had come of his own accord, after all, Haven knew in some way that he loved her. Regardless, he had every right to be here with them. He was a part of this. They’d never have been here without him. She watched him stare.

“They’re beautiful.” The jackal said at last in that creaky voice that still made the queen ache more than her own wounds ever had. So much loss had been suffered to get to this point. It was a bittersweet story, but sweet now, nonetheless. Everything sacrificed, it had to have been worth it, for Inaria. For each other. “I’m happy for you.” He said. (She smiled but it was thin). “Have you named any of them…?”

There had been eight of them, more than she’d expected, and all were healthy and whole. She sighed, it was too early to know who they were, what they were like. But here they were, and they did have names. “Eight altogether.” She replied with a gentle, crooked smile. “Four girls and four boys. We almost ran out of things to call them.” She said quietly, leaning forward to run a pink tongue absently across a golden-brown face. “Trice wanted to name one of them after his brother.” She gestured down to the child, not addressing the implications of that statement - “She might prefer to go by Basil rather than Basilisk, I’m not sure.” She gestures to each child as she mentions them, sharing them with her closest friend, awkwardly revealing pieces of her heart that she wasn’t sure how to fit. “Pareidolia and Azrael are…also a bit of a mouthful, name-wise.” She says with a wry smile and a sigh. “A girl and a boy. Pareidolia was first.” Doli’s squeak had announced a foot in Azrael’s face, while Basilisk growled softly and innocently in her sleep.

“We’d talked about perhaps using some of my family’s names.” She said, her tone slightly halting. “We decided against it in favor of things that sounded more Inarian. Griffin, Prosper,” A paw swept across the pile to gesture at them - a golden boy curled quietly and dutifully around a mottled girl whose eyelids flickered in a dream. “Yale and Sybil.” She continued with a gentle brush against a smiling patchy son halfway squished beneath a dark, speckled daughter. They both turned towards their mother at the touch. "And Cassian." She concluded with a wry glance at the last boy. "Who was very nearly late." 

She looked up to the jackal, the usual stoic mask threatened by a shadow of confusion. “That’s…them.” She concluded, pinning her ears thoughtfully at the browns and golds. She pauses before laying her head back down on her paws, still tired, eyes rolling up to look at the wiry soldier who she trusted more than perhaps anyone. “I’m glad they’ll have you to help them along their journeys.”

Because I don’t know how her furrowed brow said. Because no matter how strong I’ve been, I’ve never done it alone. Because Inaria has always been about families and friends trying to make stories together that spun towards happiness somehow. “Trice and I hoped you would agree to be their godfather.”

[Kashmir]

He smelled that sudden rush of fear, that deadly mother’s instinct to tear through anything between she and her babies, and so Kashmir slowed his movements upon entrance, lowering his head in a submissive, nonthreatening gesture. He would never hurt an Inarian child, much less these ones, but the part of Haven that was buried deep somewhere primal and irrational could never be too sure. The world was a whirling blade; the nursing pups were soft little sprouts in its path.

His queen was efficient; of course she’d already named all eight. They were nice names, supposed Kashmir, who was not the sort to split hairs or be fussy about things like that. He’d left an old name behind years ago and returned to the one his mother had given him; that the jackal had bothered was significant.

“All nice,” supplied the king of swords dutifully. Almost as an afterthought, he then opined, “I think... Sybil may be my favorite. But they’re all nice.” If it seemed he had nothing bad to say to or about Haven, well... that’s probably because he didn’t.

It occurred to him that he was the only one of the royal four without offspring. Would he pass his crown to one of these, then? He’d doubted for a long time that it was anything resembling a good idea to inflict himself upon a child. Of course, that was before Acheron... and Cappella... and Imelda... and Kid... well then.

“I would be honored,” was what he replied to her magnanimous request. Kashmir looked Haven in the face as he made his promise, but soon his eyes were back on the newborns, watching and observing. “I’ll protect them with my life. Thank you.”

Kashmir was silent a moment, absorbing this... and then he smiled. It wasn’t his normal smile, if one could even call it that... it was relaxed and warm. As rare and precious as a four-leaved clover. He didn’t know it, but a piece of darkness, small but poisonous, peeled free of his heart and fell away.

Welcome to the world, children of my champion. Welcome to Inaria.