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His Mate and his brother were building a sandcastle. It started when Feyre tried to build a little sandcastle with Nyx, with his toys. Nyx sat in her lap as Feyre tried hard to bite back curses everytime it fell apart. Nyx found it hilarious. Cassian joined them a while later and they started building up a sandcastle together. When it became boring for Nyx, he crawled over to Rhys and now he played with him as Cassian and Feyre giggled behind them.
They planned to visit the summer court but because Cassian was banned there, they went to a Night Court beach. It was a lot smaller than the ones in the summer court but it worked.
Mor sat down opposite from him with a huge grin and stretched her arms towards Nyx. "Come to Aunt Mor." she cooed. Nyx giggled as she wiggled her fingers. Rhys helped Nyx standing, holding his hands as he bounced up and down.
"Yes! I know you can walk, Nyxie." she said. Nyx laughed and it was the most beautiful sound Rhys could hear. He'd always treasure moments like these. Where they were all carefree and he could watch his son growing up.
He felt Feyres eyes, watching Nyx as he was close to taking a step. He held up his leg, as if he was about to walk.
Mor clapped excited "Yes, baby! Come here!"
Nyx leaned back, about to take the step. Feyre let out a small gasp but then Nyx slumped back, sitting in Rhys's lap again. He wiggled out af Rhys's hands and crawled to Mor. Both Nyx and Mor giggled as he reached her. Sometimes it was hard to believe that it was all real, that Rhys was here with his family. Happy, content. Like it was all a dream but then Feyre kneeled down beside him, like she did now, and smiled brightly at him. "He almost walked!" Feyre said proudly. She took his hand and intertwined their fingers, kissing the back of his hand. Rhys chuckled and kissed her cheek. He took a quick look behind him and it took a few seconds until he realized what he saw. He looked back again, murmuring. "Cauldron."
Feyre grinned at him as they looked at the sandcastle. "It's great, isn't it?"
"It's huge." Rhys laughed.
"What did you expect?" Cassian asked. Rhys didn't see him before he stood up, smirking at him. "Feyre is an artist, obviously it's great."
Feyre stood up and pulled Rhys with her. "Look, there's a bridge!"
"How did you do that?" Rhys asked. The more he looked at the sandcastle, the more details he made out.
"It took a bit of maneuvering." Feyre said.
"And a little breakdown." Cassian added and Feyre nodded.
"Is that the Night Court insignia?" Rhys asked.
Feyre jumped a little and giggled. Rhys smiled, Nyx and Feyre shared so many similarities in their movements and gesticulations, like this one. "It is!" she said.
Rhys chuckled.
"It was supposed to be the moonstone palace." she said. Cassian snorted. "It didn't work out."
"What is that?" Rhys asked, pointing to a weird, cylinder like form.
Feyre stood beside Cassian, smiling. "That's going to be a tower." she said, starting to work on it.
Cassian snickered when Rhys raised an eyebrow. "It's going to be a big one."
"Huge!" Feyre agreed.
"Double the size of the castle." Azriel suddenly said beside him. He did not hear his brother coming, or see him for the last hour at all. "You're helping them?" Rhys asked.
"He volunteered." Cassian said, as he helped Feyre building the tower. Rhys looked at Azriel who sighed. "I lost a bet."
Rhys snorted and went back to Mor and Nyx. Mor held him up and Nyx laughed, his wings twitching in excitement. Rhys smiled, pride filling him when he looked at his son.
Mor sat him down again and smiled at Rhys. "I bet he's going to be flying soon."
Rhys grinned. "He can't even walk."
Mor shrugged. "You learned it not long after you learned to walk."
That was true. Rhys loved to fly since he was a little boy, loved feeling the wind. His favorite memories were when he and his mom sneaked out at night and flew together.
Feyre squeaked behind him. "Cassian!" Rhys looked at them. "Cassian!" Feyre giggled as she tried to hold the breaking tower. "I'm trying!" Cassian said, trying to fix it. Keeping the tower from falling down. "You're making it worse." Az said and pushed Cassian away, who let out a cry of outrage. As Azriel tried to fix it, it was a chaotic mess of arguing and squeaking and laughing.
Nyx began giggling while he watched that chaos. "Mam!" he said, pointing at Feyre.
"Good Nyx, that's mama." Rhys said grinning.
"Okay, let go." Cassian said now.
Feyre looked between Azriel and Cassian. "Are you sure?" Cassian nodded and Feyre slowly let go, the tower stood. Nyx clapped when they high fived. Feyre smiled and ran to them, cuddling their son. She smiled up at Rhys.
"Thank you." she said down the bond.
"For what?" Rhys asked.
Her eyes were silver lined as she kissed the top of Nyx head and answered. "That's the kind of memories I want to have with Nyx, that I want to show him someday."
Rhys's heart hurt remembering that Feyre herself couldn't make memories like this in her childhood and he hugged Feyre and Nyx. Grateful for his family.