Tu Es Ma Lumière

67 - Picnic

"Run, James!" the young girl cried out, allowing the white lace hem of her small brown dress drag against the wet dew of the bright green grass. "Run!" she giggled, squealing as the little form of her eldest younger brother rushed towards her, his small hands covered in remnants of strawberry jam. The girl giggled loudly, her small, six year old feet, barely touching the ground as she sprinted away from the little five year old who attempted to cover her in the remnants of his jam sandwich that they had made for lunch that day.

"Quickly, Anne! Quickly!" her elder brother yelped out, reaching out his long arms towards his sister as he ran backwards. "He's coming!" the eldest child yelped, taking his little sisters' small hand in his own, running away from the little blonde boy who had been chasing them for many minutes.

"Careful, Anne, James!" their grandmother called to them from the epicentre of perfect domesticity. "Don't fall!" Catherine de Valois-Medici stated, slinging a hand up to her head to keep her new straw hat from becoming one with the wind as a small breeze swept past them. She had a small smile upon her face, however. Nothing could make her smile as much as her children did. Or, in this case, her children's children.

The children's mother looked up from her youngest child, smiling fondly at the two dark haired children and the fair haired little one who chased them around, sticky hands and all. At such a horrid time, such happiness was such a rarity. 

"Francis!" Anne squealed out, pointing her small fingers at her younger brother. "Run! Eddie, run! The monster's going to get you!" she squealed out. The monster took the form of Henry de Valois, and the man roared at the two boys, making them yell out and run upon the lush greenery. They yelled their dismay as their grandfather caught them with ease and threw both little boys into the air. The boys -no older than five and almost four- screamed out in delight as they became one with the air, before yelling out in dismay when they were caught and thrusted onto the dewy grass, and proceeded to be tickled unmercifully.

Their mother laughed gently with her sons as they screamed out as Henri used his large paws to tickle his grandsons. Her father in law, a veteran from the last great war, had been through such hardship with his wife and youngest children, running from the Nazi menace when she tore through Paris. All had nearly met their ends on multiple occasions as they made it from France to Scotland, where both of his eldest sons lived with their respective wives -cousins in their own rights. 

The welcome in the Stuart estate had been anything but welcome, for their had been a great deal of bad blood between Mary de Valois -nee Stuart-de Guise- and the Valois-Medici clan. Catherine hadn't approved of Francis marrying a foreigner, no matter how rich she was or how much they clearly loved each other. They hadn't seen each other since Mary had announced her first pregnancy, and since then, the owner of the Stuart corporations and a great number of machinery factories all over Scotland had birthed seven children to her husband. A husband named Francis, the eldest son of Henri and Catherine, who had been away at war for over two years at that time, only returning to his wife and children when injured upon the field, and never for long. He had been gone for over a year now, and had never set eyes upon his three month old daughter who had been conceived just before he left to go back to the field of battle with his brother. 

However, Mary knew how awful things in France had to have been for the matriarch and patriarch to try and find refuge with her and her children in Scotland. So, she let them and their youngest children stay in the Scottish estate that her father had left to her, and in which she had taken when he had died in the start of the second great war. James had been so kind to Francis, Mary had told them, on their first night at the home. Treated him like one of his own children. It was a shame a man so good was gone to this world.

With them, Catherine and Henri brought news that Elisabeth had died, along with her daughter, in the third month of the bombings. Claude long since married off to an Italian businessman, they didn't know if she was happy or safe or even alive. Catherine worried about her eldest son, of whom had always been the favourite child, even if he had been estranged for the last few years at that point. She had been so grateful to meet his own children. James, Anne, Francis, then the twins, Henry and Edward, Genevieve and then little Vivienne, of whom Catherine had the honour of helping birth the child, for Mary had been a few months pregnant when Henri and Catherine had shown up with a barrage of offspring and no home.