"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
I am quick to reply to Eva’s question, blinking through the tears forming as I smile down at her and nudge her again. “Oh! I like them. I just wanted to make sure I got them right.” It just wouldn’t do for me to mispronounce my own children’s names. Could you imagine the confusion that would cause? They wouldn't know which was their real name! “I don’t know how you come up with these cool names. Had it been left up to me, they would have been named after the first pretty things I saw - which would be ‘Eva’ and ‘Flower’ or something like that.” I realize that I’m word-vomiting a little bit so I clamp my mouth shut and tug at her mane with a small laugh. “Which are pretty names but not very creative for a new generation.”
I smile in agreement when Eva points out that we have our hands full again - and I have to say, I wouldn't have it any other way. I adored helping to raise our first set of twins, and I was anxious but so excited for these two new young lives. “We do.” I chuckle alongside Eva, though maybe now that Donny and Millie are a little older they’ll help out now and then the way Loire and Aeolus would when their other twins were young. “I’m so happy to be…” That’s as far as I get before I choke on the emotion in my throat. “There’s no one else…” Nope that’s not going to work either. I shake my head as if that’ll stop the swelling emotions, but of course it does not.
So I try to keep it simple with a very bashful smile lighting up my dark eyes. “Thank you, Eva.” I had thought that I had reached peak happiness when our other twins had been born but now with our family swelling by a couple more members I don’t even know what to do with all of the happiness inside of me.
