Work Text:
“Finn, get in here!”
I hurried into the room at the strained sound of Dane’s voice, but stopped short.
Dane was standing by the bed, holding a small bundle. Coming closer, I saw it was a baby.
Panic rushed through me. There were two ways for the Fae to have a baby: what might be called the “usual” way, where a man puts his seed into a woman and she grows it into a child.
And another way, for couples like Dane and me, where a child spontaneously appears, made of their love and desire for a child.
And I knew we’d have to have a child eventually: the Lunare needed an heir. But I’d only just got Dane back, and the plans I’d made for us didn’t include this, not yet.
I came nearer and looked at the infant. It was a baby girl, looking neither like me or Dane. A fuzz of red hair covered her head, and her eyes were a deep blue. Her wings, still crinkled at the edges, were the green of a spring leaf.
Dane looked at me with a brilliant smile. “What should we name her?”
Name? I hadn’t absorbed the fact of her existence yet, so I just shook my head.
Dane looked at her for a long moment, then said “Laine.”
Laine? A combination of “Dane” and “Lunare”? I didn’t ask. It hadn’t been phrased as a question, but I nodded anyway.
“Laine.”
“Do you want to hold her?”
He passed Laine quietly to me, and as I looked down at this tiny scrap of life, I realized nothing would ever be the same again.
I was used to living for my father, for my people, and most recently, for Dane, but they all paled in comparison to the eyes blinking hazily up at me.
A hand came up and I reached out a finger. Laine grasped it.
I felt a smile spreading over my face to match Dane’s, and I leaned forward to carefully hug him with our daughter between us.