Diluc refuses to settle down.
His face is a bright shade of red, like the sparse tufts of hair on his head, and screwed up into a tight little ball of anger with an open toothless mouth. He cries when you hold him and screams when he's put back into his crib. You're certain anyone outside the mansion can hear him and will assume that someone is being murdered.
Crepus paces with Diluc on his shoulder, walking around the perimeter of the living room, which looks as though a bomb has exploded within its confines. He keeps patting Diluc's back and gently bouncing his body, skirting nappies and cuddly animals.
"Do you think he's ill? In pain?"
You can understand your husband's anguish. Every cry wrenches your insides, calls on all your instincts to protect and soothe. "I'll warm some milk for him. He might just be hungry. Let's wait for a little while and see if he settles down. If he doesn't, we can always call a doctor, or bring him to the Church."
The first flashes of lightning illuminate the darkened walls of the living room. Great shadows are cast on the walls, and you watch, almost in awe, as forks are sent rocketing to the ground. Seconds later, thunder crashes suddenly, so loudly that the windowpanes rattle. The voiles covering the windows sway a little, as the fierce winds find their way through the minute cracks in the frame.
Diluc gurgles for a second, but then resumes screaming, his cries rising by decibels with every passing second. His bottom lip is quivering, and his breaths have taken on a wet, drowning quality. Crepus holds Diluc to his chest while his son screeches in his ear, murmuring nice things which have little effect on the small, writhing body.
There's a knock on the door, almost inaudible over the storm and the cries coming from your son.
You don't know why this knock is different; why the sound of knuckles striking the door tightens all the vertebrae in your back. But whatever the reason, the grim authority in that sound makes your breath catch in your throat as the fear rises, along with the bile in your throat.
"I'll get it." You say in a carefully calibrated tone, the task of warming a bottle momentarily forgotten.
The edge to your voice has Crepus tensing. His arms tighten around Diluc, and he backs away into the corner, shielding Diluc with his own body. He watches you, almost with a bleak resignation, as you draw out your Catalyst, dusty from years of disuse, but still no less deadly as it was when you were still in your prime as a Harbinger. You've given up that darker part of your life after meeting Crepus, but you won't hesitate to return to it if it means protecting your husband and son now.
The pages of your Catalyst glow a bright, vibrant green, hovering in place . Holding your breath, you fling the door open, your body tensing in a defensive posture, expecting – An assassin? The Tsarista herself?
No. None of those.
Instead, you're greeted with the sight of a wicker basket on the front porch, a bundle of fleece blankets, and a crumpled letter tucked away and out of sight, to be discovered by you later in the warmth of your home. There's a snuffle, and a hiccup, impossibly high-pitched and small. And then a wail.
"Oh. Oh."
Your voice is almost a coo; the tenseness to your form abates instantly as you pick up the tiny bundle in its yellow blankets, cuddling it to your chest, rocking in a soothing motion. Grayish-blue and perfectly round eyes with star-shaped irises peer up at you. Downy blue hair covers his head like the feathers of a wet chick. He's light; much too light, and his body feels fragile, and almost floppy.
You stroke a finger down the baby's cheek, and he stops crying, instinctively turning his head towards the new sensation, gazing at you with wide eyes and pouting lips. "Oh. Aren't you a pretty little thing?"
"Darling?" Crepus calls out, warily, from where he awaits in the corner with Diluc. You're aware of how quiet Diluc is now, and when Crepus bends to look at him in alarm, his cheeks are pink, not red, and he looks calmly at Crepus, as if wondering why his father is making such a fuss.
In response, you show him the yellow bundle. "Look at our new son!"
