Elysia had thought that after pushing a baby out of her body, she might get a few hours of peace.
Apparently not.
Because as she sat propped up on what felt like a fortress of pillows, Kaelith tucked gently against her breast, feeding with single-minded intensity, Malvoria was doing that thing again.
Staring.
Not in a romantic, oh-I-love-my-wife-so-much way. No.
In a full-on, wide-eyed, not-blinking, hungry-wolf-in-the-forest-watching-a-lamb sort of way.
Elysia narrowed her eyes, adjusting her grip on their daughter who had just started making little greedy snuffling noises like she was the hungriest being in all creation. "Malvoria."
Silence.
Malvoria didn’t even blink.
"Malvoria," she said again, dragging her voice this ti with warning laced in every syllable.
"Hmm?" ca the far-too-innocent reply.
Elysia rolled her eyes. "You’re staring at my boobs."
Malvoria looked scandalized—well, as scandalized as soone could while also clearly trying not to look back at said boobs. "I am not."
Elysia looked down at herself, then back up at her wife with a very unimpressed brow lift.
"One: you’ve been staring for five minutes. Two: I saw your pupils dilate. And three—Mal—I literally just gave birth. Can you not ogle while I’m acting as a divine milk goddess?"
Malvoria, seated on the edge of the bed like a statue carved from embarrassnt and barely contained thirst, tried to compose herself. "You’re making this sound far worse than it is."
"You moaned."
"That was a... happy sigh."
"You moaned when she latched!"
"I was appreciating the beauty of the mont!"
"You’re appreciating the size of my boobs," Elysia snapped, cheeks flushing, though she couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up her throat. "They got bigger, didn’t they?"
Malvoria’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
Elysia tilted her head. "Don’t lie to ."
"...They got spectacularly bigger."
The room erupted in a groan from Elysia and a soft coo from Kaelith who, unfazed by her parents’ nonsense, simply continued to drink in lazy gulps. Elysia covered her face with her free hand.
"This child is going to grow up hearing stories of how her other mother couldn’t stop ogling boobs in the first hour of her existence."
"She should know the truth," Malvoria replied, entirely unapologetic. "And it’s not just about the boobs. It’s the... the glow."
Elysia peeked through her fingers. "Glow?"
"Yes." Malvoria nodded sagely. "You’re glowing. It’s probably the milk magic or whatever."
"Milk. Magic."
"Exactly."
Elysia bit down on her laughter. "Mal. Please. For the love of all things sacred, stop making breastfeeding sound like a pornographic rite."
"But it kind of is," Malvoria muttered under her breath.
"I heard that."
Kaelith gave a tiny burp and released with a soft pop, imdiately curling into a sleepy little burrito against her mother’s chest.
Her cheeks were round with fullness, her grey eyes fluttering closed as the purple flas around her shimred gently like candlelight.
The room softened with quiet.
Elysia adjusted her robe and held their daughter close, letting the warmth of her tiny body seep into her skin. She looked down at Kaelith and smiled. "She’s perfect."
Malvoria leaned forward, brushing a stray strand of hair from Elysia’s damp temple. "She is."
Their foreheads touched. A pause. No teasing now.
Just silence.
A mont.
Then Malvoria, never one to leave a quiet mont unruined, added, "I still stand by my earlier assessnt."
Elysia let out an exaggerated groan and gently shoved her with her shoulder. "Get off the bed, you degenerate."
Malvoria laughed, her body moving with the rare, unguarded joy that made Elysia’s chest tighten in the best way. She hadn’t seen her like this—truly relaxed, truly open—in a long ti.
Maybe ever.
Malvoria stood but stayed close, watching as Elysia shifted Kaelith onto her lap, draping a soft cloth over her now-snoozing form.
A curl of the baby’s snowy white hair slipped free, streaked with soft red at the tips. It caught the golden light filtering in from the high windows. Little horns nestled barely out from the waves.
She looked like the beginning of sothing.
A story not yet told.
"Can I hold her?" Malvoria asked quietly.
"You’re the other mother, Mal. You don’t need to ask."
Malvoria approached as though handling the moon itself, sliding her arms around the tiny bundle. Kaelith didn’t wake but murmured in that tiny newborn way, soft and rhythmic.
And Malvoria just held her.
There was sothing about the way she did it—like this child, this tiny fla of chaos and love and future, was a blade she would gladly throw herself on without hesitation.
Elysia leaned back into the pillows and watched.
And for a while, the teasing, the chaos, the pain of the last hours it all faded.
Until a knock ca at the door.
"Your Majesties," ca the voice of a timid maid, "the staff brought soup and a selection of fruits. They said Queen Veylira insisted."
"Of course she did," Elysia muttered under her breath. "I swear, if she tries to force-feed again—"
"I’ll handle it," Malvoria said, placing a gentle kiss to Kaelith’s forehead, then Elysia’s. "Rest. You did the hard part."
Elysia’s smile was sleepy. "We both did."
As Malvoria opened the door, the warmth of food and the flurry of helpful, gossiping staff poured into the room.
The scene shifted from serenity to dostic chaos in the blink of an eye. Maids shuffled pillows, placed soup on golden trays, and one of them whispered sothing to Malvoria that made her eyes widen and her hand instinctively cover Kaelith’s ears.
"Please tell she didn’t just ask if we want another one," Elysia groaned.
"She did."
"Tell her I’m bleeding. That’s how much I don’t want another one right now."
But even as she grumbled, Elysia couldn’t help the grin tugging at her lips as she looked at her little family.
The Queen who once threatened to murder her father now doting on their daughter. The child with too-powerful magic sleeping peacefully. The palace maids fussing and teasing as though everything was normal.
And maybe, it was.
Or maybe, for the first ti, this was their version of normal.
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