Arrow Lake in the wind that remakes all that time has worn away

The mother in question had spent the days following her delivery in a manner not unlike those of her children: napping as she’d liked, eating when she could, and pampering for what would seem like forever. There were two things that made her restless, though.

One — as much as she welcomed all this bedrest, she was impatient to wander this new claim. Aure longed to shed the sugary heft from mothering that she’d lumbered with for the past two months; longed to show Diaspora that she remained as limber and virile as ever.

Two — Aure fidgeted for the fortnight to pass, when copiii iubirii ei would open their dewy-blue eyes. What colors would they meld into in the months following that moment? Argent flushed with sapphire, like the gaze of her dearly beloved? Or mere silver, like her own? Those that now opened at the worrying of someone doing their best to gnaw her lip off?

Lashes drew up and up, lustrous eyes alighting on a stretching, sleepy Dragomir reaching for the spring arches of their thicket. Before she could greet him, though, Aure’s attention was commanded by Isilmë; the instigator who’d awoken her and was now squirming her determined way under a lean bicep to head for her throat. With a soft almost-purr of ”Belea,” the new mother crescented Isi into the crook of her jaw, bringing her close and laving her tongue about the creamy babe as if to begin a bath.

Eyes flickering up to Drago... but could not find him in his previous location. Curving her wriggling daughter at her wispy breast — daughter, heart humming at the sleepy realization — Aure wobbled into a heady sit, sighted him, and was reaching for Dragomir with a cinch of thin shoulders. ”Come back to me,” she breathed, dimpling at the pudgy mauve of her son, now wrangling with her pale thigh.