RWBY: Child of Grimm - Reloaded

1: The Father/2: The Sacrificial Child

The crying of a newborn baby echoed in a small village. A woman took hoarse, deep breaths as she held the baby boy in her arms, comforting it to the best of her abilities until finally, its cries stopped. The baby boy gazed up with his bright, crimson eyes, staring deeply into his mother's own sky blue eyes. "He has your eyes." The tired woman spoke quietly, unable to tear her sight away from the adorable newborn. "And your everything else, hopefully." A male voice chimes in, eliciting a short, exhausted chuckle from the mother.

The new mother slowly raised her head to face her husband, smiling weakly. Long strands of black hair fell in front of her face, as if they were trying to hide the bags under her eyes. The man, brushing his own surprisingly long, blonde hair away from his crimson eyes, darkened by near constant tears of joy, smiled without a hint of regret.

The two sat there, barely moving as they watched the tiny human giggle before he stared directly into his father's red eyes. The giggles stopped but the child wasn't scared, no it was more like he was intrigued by this existence smiling down on him known as his father. "I think he likes you, Xūn." The blonde man didn't know what to say, lost in his own child's adorable expressions.

"Are...are you having a staring contest with our newborn son?" The mother asked her husband with an exasperated tone, as if he'd done this kind of thing before. "I'm gonna win, Lán." "He's just a baby. Of course you're going to win. We'll be lucky if he can keep his eyes open long enough to recognise who we are at this point." Lán, the tired mother, jokingly stopped her excited husband from competing with their newborn.

"Ah, fair enough." Xūn proceeded to gently poke the wrapped up baby's forehead, eliciting a short, high-pitched sound. "So, what are we going to name him?" In response to her husband's question, Lán shifts her attention back down to the baby boy. She spied a few small strands of black hair on his head and an idea popped into her head. "How about...Hēisè?" Xūn smiled when he heard the name. "I think it's a great name." The baby boy let out a squeaky yawn, as if in approval of the name he received.

~~~~~

A month later, the family had finally settled down in a small house inside a growing village. Their neighbours had been incredibly friendly and offered help wherever and whenever able, leading to the little family growing attached to their new home. The family of three sat inside, marvelling at the refurbished home. "So?" Xūn spoke up with a questioning tone as Lán fed Hēisè. "So what? You're going to have to be a little more specific, honey." Xūn chuckles, watching as the food his wife had just fed Hēisè was now making a mess of his bib.

Lán soon noticed and let out a short sigh before cleaning it up. "No, Hēisè, the food goes in your mouth. In." The small boy giggled, only making the mess worse as bits of liquid food sputtered across the table. "I mean the house. I really know how to pick them, huh?" Lán sighed, wiping the food from her shirt as she continued attempting to feed the baby. "If you said that before today, I'd have slapped you."

Xūn chuckled nervously, remembering the horrid state their house was in when they bought it. When he showed his wife, fresh out of the hospital, the rundown, wooden shack he called their 'new home', he thought his life had come to an end. The look on Lán's face said as much, at the very least. If she wasn't holding their child at the time, she may have given him a piece of her mind. However she was tired and they had finally gotten Hēisè to go to sleep, so she had no intention of waking him up. Indeed, a name that meant 'Black Dragon Soul' was perfect for a child who could match a dragon's ferocious roar with his cries.

Shaking his head of the terrifying thoughts, Xūn jovially responded to his wife. "And now?" Lán sighed, knowing what her husband wanted to hear. "It's not winning any awards..." Lán smirked as Xūn's expression soured. "But it's a perfect place to start a family." Xūn's expression brightened immediately. Were he in possession of a tail, it would be wagging incessantly.