2-0
Derek kicked his feet back and forth under the dark wooden pew of King William's castle chapel. His mother sat beside him with her back straight as a lance. She looked gracefully on as the bishop baptized William's baby. Her gaze never wavered from His Excellence when her hand snaked from it's clasped partner in her lap to land on his knee and bestow on him a solid pinch. Derek huffed and forced his feet to stop swinging, but made sure to shoot a scowl up at his mother's profile for good measure. Her queenly jaw twitched a little and the corner of her mouth lifted ever so slightly before she pressed her lips together and focused even harder on the Bishop.
That pink little thing in his arms keened bloody murder when His Excellence held her over the basin and pored the baptismal water over her head. Derek gasped and pressed his hands over his ears, his mouth screwed up in a grimace as he turned to his mother.
"It's too loud, mommy."
"Hush dear," was all she answered. Derek recoiled against her side, burring his face into the folds of her dress.
"Shhh." King William took the baby back into his arms and rocked her gently as the princess's screeches echoed across the acoustics of the vaulted stone ceiling. Her little hands reached out and she calmed and quieted once she'd caught William's little finger in her grasp. Derek tentatively lifted his hands from his ears, coming out from his mother's side and peaking at the little baby curiously as her father turned to the congregation. Derek's mother rose to her feet with the rest of the onlookers, patting Derek's small shoulder to direct him to follow suit.
King William lifted the tiny princess up for all to see. "May I present before the royal court and our esteemed guests, Her Royal Highness, Odette Solana Rosetta Anneliese, Crown Princess of Aularouthia."
The multitude of royal and noble witnesses bowed as one in reverence before the king and his daughter, and Derek belatedly copied his mother and bowed down clumsily. Derek peaked up from his stance to see that no one had yet moved, except the Bishop and his retinue who exited behind a great tapestry of the Lord God behind the Ambulatory of the chapel. King William followed His Excellence's suite with Odette cradled in his loving arms.
Finally, once the pair had disappeared, the gathered witnesses rose from their adoring genuflection and Derek sighed in relief as he popped up from his stooped pose and turned to smile at his mother.
She beamed down at him back and opened her arms to him. He leaped up into her embrace with one great bound and she giggled fondly as she scooted into the aisle and carried him out of the chapel and into the castle courtyard, following the other assembled royals of the world's courts. "You were so behaved, darling! I'm so very proud of you!"
Derek lifted his chin proudly and grinned at his mother. "I was a good boy, huh, mommy?"
Uberta hugged her son more tightly to her and kissed his big round toddler cheeks. "You were, my little treasure. You were and very good boy."
Derek smiled contentedly and wrapped his arms around Uberta's slender neck, resting his head in the crook of her shoulder. Uberta carried him into William's throne room and found and good spot in the growing crowd near the front where she knew they'd have a great view of the baby princess. "Do you still have the present you picked out for Princess Odette?" she whispered in Derek's ear, and his head popped back up and he squirmed a bit in her hold so he could put his pudgy hand in his little pocket and pull out a small red velvet bag. He held it up, far to close to her nose for her to see it, and she pulled her face back from him as she lovingly reached her hand up to wrap around his and pull them down between their bodies. Derek put the bag in his mother's hand and fiddled with the drawstrings until he could pull the bag open. Uberta looked on as Derek reached his hand into the sack.
