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"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire."
-Gustav Mahler
It was one of the quiet nights that the thought came to her. Mithos was curled in the bedroll next to her, head on her lap as she kept watch. Her fingers combed idly through his hair, carefully avoiding tangles. It had been mere weeks ago that she'd had the first suspicions. Her cycle was irregular already, between stress and little food, but she'd had her last one about two months ago. Sensitive to mana as she was, she'd felt it when she reached for her Healing magic. Something different, pulsing gently in her belly.
She hadn't told Yuan yet. She knew the risks so early, could calculate the odds as easily as she did for her patients.
Still, Martel's mind wandered. Especially on nights like this; her boys sleeping, Kratos' light snores a peaceful rhythm, and Yuan sprawled on his back. She poked the fires back from embers. The coldest of times was behind them, but the nights could still bite with chill.
What would the baby look like? Would it have Yuan's nose? His laughing mouth? Or would it have more elven features, like her and Mithos? Long faces and pale hair?
It was easy enough to picture her boys with the baby. They'd never discussed it much—what was the point, in the midst of an endless War? When they talked about their futures, distant and murky, it was always dreams about what safety and peace looked like. Iron stoves and gardens, painting murals on their walls, scandalizing the neighbors. Children had never really factored in—but Martel knew that Yuan had been partially raised by his brother. She'd seen him when children approached him, how he worked hard to curb his natural acerbic tongue, how careful he tried to be.
And Kratos—oh, she could picture his quiet delight. He could be so gentle for a man who'd been forced to be a warrior. But the rare times that he was around children, they loved his stories, loved to tease him for his serious face.
Mithos would like being an uncle, being the older one for once. He'd likely get the child into endless mischief, but there could be no fiercer protector.
Martel was half a mother already, raising Mithos when she was no more than a child herself. She could never regret it, never regret her brother's sunshine smile and the leaps and bounds of his mind. It wasn't as if there had been a childhood to rob her from anyway.
But she was a different person now. She wouldn't be alone now. Martel absently touched her belly, reaching out with her mana to feel that little pulse. There would be no despairing nights, struggling to find food and shelter. There would be no ache for company other than her beloved little brother.
Her boys were all here. They'd been through so much worse together than raising a baby. They'd be fine.
Almost three months into the pregnancy—from her best estimation—Martel told Yuan. She pulled him to the side and said “Let's go for a walk,” and ignored Kratos' teasing whistle and Mithos' grossed out expression.
He didn't look like he believed her at first. He looked like he'd just been walloped over the head.
After a minute, she called his name again, tugging at his hand in hers.
“You're pregnant,” he repeated.
She nodded, watching that brilliant brain try to wrap around the concept. She wasn't ready to be lifted off her feet, swung around as he laughed into her shoulder.
She laughed with him, a tiny kernel of secret doubt in how he would take the news—entirely unfounded—soothed at the joy rumbling through her.
Mithos did not remember much of their parents. Martel had asked, once or twice over the years, but his memories of Heimdall were largely of being run out of it.
“Sometimes I can remember other things. In forests, the smell of it will make me kind of remember something. Flowers, sometimes.” His nose wrinkled. “Or near a swamp when it rains.”
Mithos reminded Martel a lot of their father, the older he got. The boundless curiosity and creativity mixed with a knack for people that had led a professor of botany at a human university to the depths of elven lands. Martel was still in awe that he ever lived to make it past the border. Looks-wise, Mithos was very much their mother with the pale hair and blue eyes characteristic of elves. She wondered if he would grow into their father's strong jaw, or if he would stay as delicate as he was now.
Papa had been the one to take Martel out with him on his field studies, describing the flora to her strapped to his chest. As she grew older, she would help him mark out his notes, her childish drawings right next to his careful sketches. His love had been written in his excited tones when he spoke, in the spontaneous bursts of physical affection in the forms of smacking kisses and tight hugs.
On one such excursion, deep in the Ymir, Papa had said that they were harvesting honeysuckle. Martel could rattle off the information on it; they were seen everywhere around Heimdall. Papa grinned proudly and tugged on her hair.
“Very good. But we have a different use for it today.”
When they were carting their honeysuckle home, Papa asked, “Do you know what elves from Heimdall do with honeysuckle for new babies?”
Martel shook her head. She didn't...participate...much in town. The villagers were wary of her, especially when she walked around with Papa. They didn't say much when she went shopping with Mama, but she still felt the looks.
“They weave a basket for them. To keep them safe.” Already seeing the question on her face, Papa said, “Your Mama and I are having another baby. You're going to have a little sibling.”
“I am?!”
He hummed an affirmative.
“When?”
“About...five months or so. Are you excited?”
Martel swung her hand in his, unable to keep the grin from her face. “I'm gonna be a big sister!”
His laugh boomed. “And I think you're gonna be great at it, sweetleaf.”
“So are we making a basket for my little sister?”
“And how do you know you're gonna have a sister, hm? Maybe it'll be a brother.”
Martel pursed her lips. “That's less exciting. But I'll still try to do a good job, I guess.”
“Pff. Well, as long as you do your best. But yes. We are going to make it for your little sibling.”
He led her through the steps of stripping the honeysuckle, setting aside the flowers and leaves, and boiling the vines. Then they lay the strips out in the sun to dry out for two days before they were able to weave them. Around the top rim of the basket that provided shade, they carefully braided the flowers into it.
There were not many good memories of Heimdall after Mithos' birth. The elves could look upon one half-breed child of one of their up and coming village council members as a shameful mistake. Two? When the human father was still living and working in the village? And the mother so blatantly unashamed, breaking traditions without batting an eye.
The scandal was enough to fan the flames. There had been neighbors who defended them, Martel remembered. Who had warned them that the mob was coming.
Martel had tripped over that honeysuckle basket—now too small for Mithos, and instead held his things—in her scramble to grab her little brother. Papa had been so pale at whatever the neighbors had said about Mama—she'd been in town today, but she hadn't come home yet, even though it was late—and he'd hurried his children out the back door.
His hands had felt so large on Martel's shoulders. “Do you remember the mangroves where we found the honeysuckle?”
Martel nodded, Mithos curled into her side.
“Run there. Don't turn around, don't stop and talk to anyone except me. I'll meet you there, okay, sweetleaf?”
She nodded again and with the swiftest of kisses to their heads, Papa sent them off.
Martel would never see her parents again.
There was no honeysuckle to be found in this area. Reyna, one of the local women that Martel worked with in the Healing tents, suggested reeds. “Used to make baskets with 'em all the time with my mam.” Reyna eyed her shrewdly. “This have anything to do with you actually remembering to eat and take breaks now?”
“I did that before!”
“Not without those boys of yours comin' in here.”
Martel grumbled, but she knew that Reyna had a point. She had never exactly been the best at taking care of herself. Not when there were things that needed doing. But she already knew that the odds of carrying this pregnancy full-term were already long for her. At some point, she would need to step aside or risk the baby entirely, but she wasn't at that point yet.
Still, she was trying to give herself the best odds. Eating proper food, more food than before even. The boys had taken to sharing their portions with her. She was eating for two after all. Martel didn't need Reyna's potential accusations of hypocrisy if she didn't follow the instructions she would give her own patients.
Before she went back to their tents that night, Martel made a detour down to the river. The reeds were plentiful here. Wading into the shallow waters, mud squishing between her toes while she chose reeds of suitable length, she could almost hear Papa's voice. He'd been an awful singer, but a joyful one. He'd make whistles out of grass since he'd never gotten the hang of whistling on his own.
Once Martel had what she deemed a suitable amount of reeds, she splashed out, scrubbing her feet clean on the grass. Waiting for her feet to dry properly before putting her socks and boots back on, she took her flute from her pack and played a few wandering melodies, imagining a deep, off-key voice accompanying it.
It had become a nightly ritual between the four of them at some point, helping with each other's hair. Kratos and Mithos were already knocked out for the night, sprawled across their bedrolls. Martel sat with Yuan between her legs, a comb and ricewater by her hip. His hair was finer than hers was, which meant the knots he got were extra finicky.
She could feel him half dozing after the worst of the knots were out, leaning against her knee. “What did Asgard do for babies?”
“Mm?”
She repeated her question, scraping the comb against his scalp in a way that made him shiver.
He was quiet for a long time, long enough that she thought maybe he had truly fallen asleep, or hadn't heard her question at all. Finally, he shifted a little and replied, “Braids. Three strand braids, one for each Sylph. The parents would get three strands of wool, dye them, and braid them together into a bracelet that the baby would wear on their wrist. When they outgrow them, it gets braided into their hair.
“I remember...a lot of parents would put beads and things at the ends. Family symbols, y'know? Or they would add knots to the bottom strands for their names. So the Sylph would always recognize them and protect them.”
Martel had never seen any such braid on Yuan's person. He didn't even wear his own hair in a braid most of the time, choosing just to toss it into a bun or a horsetail.
Her eyes fell to the brand seared into the skin of his forearm. The humans shaved their slaves, she knew that. When they had invaded his home, had they known what they were destroying?
“It was a big deal when a kid grew old enough to wear it in their hair. It meant they'd survived so long, that they were safe enough to be the future of the village. There would be big parties then, with ale and dancing.”
Martel leaned forward, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. With her lips pressed against the damp hair, she asked, “Would you want to do that for our baby?”
His hand gripped her ankle tight. “I don't know,” he said into the skin of her knee, his hand relaxing and stroking her ankle in apology.
Martel wrapped her arms around his shoulders, just holding him for a while. Yuan seemed so confident, so shrewd in his calculations, that it was easy to forget that there were old hurts that had never been soothed. That might never be, no matter how good a Healer she was.
“...Is there anything you want to do for her, from the elves?”
“I...I'm making her a basket. But...not from the elves.” Yuan frowned, pushing back into her enough to make her lean up, so he could rest his head on her thigh, looking up at her. “My father showed me how, when Mithos was going to be born. He said it's a Heimdall tradition, that he did it for Mama.”
“Did he lie?”
“I don't know. I wasn't part of Heimdall enough to be part of those celebrations. But I'm not doing it for them. I'm doing it for him. And for Mama.”
Martel got a lot of her habits from Mama, she could recognize that. The sharp side of her tongue, the briskness of motion. Sometimes, when Martel moved a certain way, she could remember the snap of Mama's skirt in a turn, the crisp sound of her footsteps. Mama's affection had come from the care in which she prepared meals, in the way she brushed out Martel's hair and would keep it out of her face, in the patience of her answers and the way she stayed awake with Martel when she was sick.
Looking back, Mama and Papa had been...an odd match to be sure. A human botany professor with an elven councilwoman. Martel wished she knew more about them, about how they'd even met—Papa's answers had always been slightly fantastical, meant to make Martel giggle—and how they'd found the courage to live like they had, in the heart of elven territory, day after day.
“...what colors were in your braid?” Martel asked softly, brushing her thumbs across his eyebrows.
Yuan flicked his gaze away, and she thought he wouldn't tell her. Likely no one else knew anymore, not even Kratos. Perhaps it was a secret too painful to tell. “Red. Red, yellow, and black.”
Martel tried to picture it. She hadn't met anyone else from Asgard that she knew of. Were Asgardian braids worn in the front of the hair? Did that matter? Would it have hung by his temple, a bold contrast to his blue hair and brown skin? Or would he have it towards the back of his hair, like a banner, proudly displaying his heritage?
Then she thought of his double-bladed spear. He'd customized it himself, working with the dwarves for his needs. He'd been so excited about it, debating with Kratos about how best to put it together. The gold-plated copper parts, more than simply being decorative, conducted electricity and would resist corrosion. The red was a copper patina mixed with dye to get that vibrancy, and the black had been an iron oxide.
Red, yellow, and black. He'd found a way to honor his tradition in his own way.
Martel shifted to move from the chair to the ground, pressing kisses against his forehead, his eyelids before he twisted for a better angle for a proper kiss.
Yuan broke the kiss, bringing her hand up to kiss her knuckles. That, of all things, made her cheeks bloom. Still holding her hand, he asked, “Want my help with that basket of yours?”
She beamed at him, horrified by the threat of tears in her throat. Damned hormones. “Of course.”
A few nights later, Martel idly played with her husband's hair as he slept. Though sleep tugged at her, and her body was exhausted—in both fun and less fun ways—she hadn't been able to stop thinking of a missing braid in his hair. How, even as much as he complained about his hair, how long it was and how it got in the way, he always refused to cut it.
Yuan never spoke of Asgard. Perhaps he'd spoken of it with Kratos, when they were younger. They'd already been so close when Martel and Mithos had met them. If he had, it had never been to Martel.
Did being so separated from his home, his people bother him now? Did he even think of Asgard? He'd been so young when the humans had come. Younger than Martel when they'd been driven from Heimdall, even. How much did he remember of it?
For years, all that happened when Martel thought of Heimdall was confusion, and anger. That had faded at some point. Hanging onto that anger hadn't been doing her any favors and she had more important things to worry about than bigots hiding in their forest.
She'd tried to say nice things about it when Mithos asked. He hadn't asked in years, and she knew he was more than smart enough to draw his own conclusions about what had happened and he certainly had his opinions about it.
She wasn't sure if anything she missed about Heimdall was because she missed the place, or if she simply missed simpler times with her parents, or playing with Mithos in the back garden.
Would Yuan want a braid for their child? Did he want to carry that on with them? Or did he want to start something new with them?
Martel pressed her nose into his shoulder, curling into his back. In the morning, she would ask.
“Morning!” Martel wound her way down the rocky riverbank to where Kratos had taken the laundry. He'd started early today, gone before the others had woken up. By the looks of it, he'd gotten half the camp's laundry.
“What're you doing here?” Kratos smiled at her, a bandana keeping his hair out of his face.
“It was, ah, suggested that I take the day off.”
“Reyna bullied you into it, huh?”
“She can get so bossy.” She shot him a look when he smothered a laugh. Martel was self-aware enough to know that she could get the same way. It was why she and Reyna worked so well together, two impenetrable wills holding that clinic together. “But—in my walk of banishment through the market, guess what I found?”
Kratos' face lit up when Martel opened up the sack that she'd carried the whole way here. That face—that was why he'd been her first stop since the market.
“You found oranges?!”
Rations had been tight for so long. The temporary ceasefire while negotiations started on both ends had brought tentative merchants out to where they hadn't been before.
Martel sat cross-legged beside him and dug her nail into the orange skin to start peeling it. Kratos kept scrubbing at the shirt in his hands. Martel had heard the gossip around camp, about the women who were too polite to talk about Yuan in front of her—she heard some of their comments anyway, and never ceased to be more than a little smug at the fact that that was her husband. She'd been asked about Kratos' romantic status more than once, and had heard them wax poetic about his strength, his manners, his thoughtfulness.
Those women would lose it to see Kratos like this, Martel thought, with his sleeves rolled up and the front of his shirt nearly transparent from the water soaking through.
Objectively, Martel could say Kratos was an attractive man, and anyone would be lucky to have him for a partner. At the same time, he was her best friend who was happy to talk about books at the drop of a hat, and who snored at night if he slept on his back. She'd seen him spit water out of his nose when Yuan had carefully timed a joke, and had seen him full of protective rage over the three of them.
She held out some orange wedges to his mouth since his hands were still busy. He ate them with a happy hum.
They continued like that for a while, sharing the oranges while he washed. She helped him pin up the clothes to dry on the line he'd hung up between some trees. He'd had the clinic's laundry too, judging by the state of some of those sheets. They overturned the washbasin in the rocks before Kratos stretched out on his back.
Martel sat beside him, leaning on her hands. Her back was grateful for the change in position. She didn't have a large belly yet, but it had been growing and she'd noticed the soreness in her back and feet. It was a nice day, though clouds were gathering at the horizon. If it didn't storm tonight, it certainly would tomorrow.
“I need these negotiations to work,” Martel said. Her mind had been running through the initial drafts she and Mithos had sent. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about it, about the potential rebuttals and refusals. What would they have to sacrifice to keep this peace?
“They will,” he said, his tone too casual for the bedrock faith she knew was underneath it all. “If the humans agreed to a ceasefire, they're as tired of this War as we are. It might take some back and forth, but I think we'll get there. Especially if you and Mithos are at the head of it.”
“You are too,” she reminded him. He'd been the one editing their work, knowing the best ways to phrase it for his people. Not that he had claimed the humans as his people in over ten years. He'd been functionally exiled and wanted since he and Yuan were fourteen.
Even if half-elves didn't usually accept him either, he'd found his niche with them. And if other people didn't want him, well Martel, Yuan, and Mithos certainly did.
Still, it was nice to know that the gossip Martel heard about Kratos now was so different to what it had been a few years ago. Before it had been whispers of fear, of wariness around this human in their midst. About whether he was a spy or something worse.
At least as far as their regular battalions went, they didn't fear Kratos anymore. There were still a solid amount of people who didn't fully trust him, but it was moving forward.
Maybe, by the time that her baby was grown, the world wouldn't look at things like race. There would always be a place of acceptance for that. Martel liked the sound of that. She didn't know what that kind of world looked like, but she hoped it was something like the life she'd shared with her boys.
The baby wouldn't grow up in the same world she had. Martel was determined to make sure of that.
“What do humans do for babies?” Martel asked Kratos a few days later. There had been word that human messengers were on their way with the reply to their first treaty proposal. She'd been full of restless energy, enough that Reyna had finally kicked her out of the clinic for the fussing and snapping. She'd been pacing half room today before Kratos had yanked her to sit and stuffed a needle and the pile of ripped sheets in her hands. She was kind of annoyed the busywork was working at keeping her energy from exploding.
He paused in the middle of writing. Kratos had been writing letters to people in other camps for the many half-elven soldiers who couldn't read or write well enough to do so. Now it was just writing the addresses on the envelope and waiting for the mail crew to come by. “In terms of what? Like, naming them?”
“That, sure. But also to celebrate the birth.”
He put the pen down, not really looking at her. “...I'm not sure for either of them really. I know we tend to have a big celebration on their first birthday.” He remembered overhearing some of the other kids talking about it at the military school for their younger siblings and cousins. “But I don't now the specifics of it. If it's special food or the like.
“For naming...I was told my mother chose my name for a warrior god in some book. I never found out which one. But I'm not sure if there was a ceremony or something.” He gave her a wry smile that sat wrong on his face. “I'm sorry I'm not more helpful.”
She frowned at him and gave him a firm kiss on the side of his shoulder that she could reach. “You're wonderful just the way you are.”
Kratos and Yuan were very alike in that neither of them spoke much of that time in their lives. Martel knew the broad strokes of it, of Kratos' shy and thoughtful nature making him a target for more outgoing people; of the way his passiveness was seen as a weak point to be ironed out. She knew that Yuan had been a slave assigned to him, and that Kratos taught him to read and write. They grew up together in that way, with Kratos' father's legacy—a respected general—looming over his son. That they ran away when they were teenagers when Kratos was due to be drafted and never looked back.
But they didn't speak much of specifics. Martel could imagine it though. The alienation of Kratos—quiet and scholarly—versus the culture of his family, boldly militaristic. Had Kratos ever even felt like he'd belonged among his own people? He'd never been particularly bothered by the way the half-elves treated him, and the few times they'd interacted with humans, they'd certainly been a different kind of venomous.
Kratos had never said a word about it. Like it was normal.
“Have you and Yuan talked about names yet?” Kratos asked, nudging her to get her attention.
Martel shook her head, sticking the needle in the little stuffed tomato. “Not in any kind of serious way.” She tilted her head at him, grinning. “Why, wanna put your name in the ring? Little Kratos Jr? Named for his uncle?”
“Wha—that's not—don't be ridiculous!” he sputtered, as she'd known he would.
“You're right, it sounds weird.” Martel gave a theatrically big sigh. “Ah well, I'll have to start from scratch.”
He shoved his shoulder against hers, sending her swaying away and back. “Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?”
“I've raised one boy already, so I kind of hope for a girl just for something different. But you all would be insanely protective over her.”
“We would not!” He couldn't even keep a straight face for the lie. “Yeah, you're right. Okay, so what name would you want for a girl? Something flowery?”
“Is that traditional for humans?”
Kratos shrugged. “I think so. At least for nobles and upper class. I remember a lot of women that would come to the house would have names like that.”
Humming, Martel shifted, stretching out a leg. “I don't know. I'd have to think about it. I'd have to meet them, y'know?”
“Ha, yeah that makes sense.”
It had looked almost ridiculous, her little brother, standing next to the human king to sign the treaty on agreed-upon neutral ground. It was easier to breathe here; even weakened and withering, the Giant Kharlan Tree gave off a fresh mana that reminded Martel of the air right after a storm, still charged with ozone and smelling of petrichor.
Yuan had been nervous about her accompanying them for the treaty-signing. Her pregnancy was very obvious now, and it might mark her as a weak link in the humans' eyes if they decided to double-cross them. Even now, he stayed somewhat in front of her, and she could occasionally feel his own mana rising in reaction to his stress, swelling against her senses before he soothed himself. He'd fought her about the decision to come until she'd reminded him he could either come with her, or risk her getting out there by herself because like hell would she be letting her baby brother do this alone.
He'd given in. Reluctantly.
Kratos had played Mithos' bodyguard today. Not that Mithos needed one, exactly, but the human king had his guards, so Mithos would have his own too. And Kratos' presence was unsettling to any human who recognized him. The son of a human general, on the side of the half-elves, and at the kind of quiet attention that any seasoned soldier worth their salt would know was meant as a warning.
Even after it was all over and the treaty was signed, Martel's mind wouldn't let her rest. Despite the exhaustion tugging at her body and the comfort of her husband lying right next to her, sleep wouldn't come. She carefully edged out of Yuan's embrace.
He snuffled a little, and rolled into her warm spot of the bedroll. One eye creaked open. “Y'okay?”
She smoothed his hair from his face. Even though they'd braided each other's hair for bed, his was so much finer than hers that it would always be slipping out. “Yeah, I'm fine. Just gotta stretch my legs. Your baby won't stop kicking.”
Which wasn't a lie exactly. The baby kept her up plenty of nights. Just not this one.
Yuan snorted a little, but went back to sleep.
From the empty bedroll across the fire, Martel wasn't the only one that couldn't sleep. She glanced at Kratos, who's watch it currently was, and he just inclined his chin in the direction of the Tree.
When she picked her way across the landscape, Mithos was sitting at the top of a nearby hill, still close enough that their fire was visible. His pale hair was like a beacon in the darkness.
“Hey,” she said, scratching familiarly at his scalp as she came to stand beside him. His head came to her hip when he sat like this
Mithos hummed in greeting, pushing his head into her hand like an overgrown cat. “Couldn't sleep either?”
“Nope.” She let her lips pop on the p as she sat splay-legged. “Was gonna stay up and keep Kratos company, but then I saw you'd gone off wandering.”
“Alas, Kratos must stay all alone.”
“Eh, he's got Yuan's snoring.”
Mithos snickered, leaning his shoulder against her arm. He was so bony still. Maybe, now that the war was over, rations wouldn't be quite so tight and he'd actually be able to put on some fat. As of now, he was nothing more than lean muscle stretched over bone.
Her mouth still remembered bleeding gums and cracked lips from giving him her portions of food growing up. On cold nights, she could sometimes still feel the hollow place where her stomach had been, bloated and empty.
It had been worth it. Everything had been worth it to have her brother here, alive and safe.
She wrapped her arm around Mithos' shoulders, yanking him close and kissing the top of his head. He squirmed under the attention— teenagers— but he didn't pull away.
“Is this about your hormones again?” he asked, long-suffering.
“Not this time,” Martel laughed. She squeezed him again before loosening her grip. She gazed out at the Giant Kharlan Tree. Even this late at night, well away from civilization, even withering as it was, the trees of the Kharlan Forest still glowed faintly with mana, like the stars themselves were hung from their branches. The human camp was on the other side of the rise, their torches still flickering.
Peace. They'd agreed to it.
Did peace always feel like this? Her boys safe nearby, a warm fire, no threat of being woken by bombs falling from the sky, or a surprise attack?
If that was the case, the baby would grow up in a world like that. Would come of age in a nation full of people who led free lives, lives with dignity. Would grow up playing with Kratos' children maybe, with no fear of being branded and carted away in irons for the crime of talking to a human.
“It doesn't feel real,” she said.
“...No, it doesn't. I think maybe that's why I don't wanna go to sleep. Like, I'll wake up and this—this will all have been a dream.”
“Yeah...” Martel leaned away from him, propping her weight on her right arm. “Hey—what do you wanna do now?”
Mithos' brow crinkled. “I dunno—get some decent sleep tonight?”
“Not like now now. We just got world peace. What's next for you?”
“There's still so much work to do with infrastructure and logistics—”
“Yes, yes. You're brilliant, we all know it. That, I trust to work itself out with us at the helm. But you have a world of open possibilities now. What do you wanna do?”
He'd looked so confident and in charge today, glimpses of the man he was becoming. Now though. Now, he looked all of fourteen again, every inch her baby brother, confused and sleepy and sweet.
“I want a garden—”
“Of course you do—”
“Hey, don't interrupt.” She whacked him lightly. “Anyway, I want a garden, with trees so tall they grow over my roof. And a rocking chair. And it'll be on a hill, kinda like this one, so that if I were to climb to the top of the trees, all I'd see was so much sky. And you and Kratos will nearby, of course, and we'll have family dinners all the time.”
“Obviously we will. The baby's gonna need their favorite uncle.”
Martel grinned. “How do you know it's not gonna be Kratos?”
“Kratos?!” Mithos shrieked, offended. “I'm way cooler than him. They're gonna love me.”
“If you say so...”
“You'll see!”
She snickered into her hand. The competition would be fierce, no doubt. Once Mithos stopped playing at being insulted—which was only half in jest, but what kind of sister would she be if she didn't tease him—he brought one knee up, resting his chin on it.
“...I think I'd like a room full of books. Floor to ceiling. And windows everywhere so that it's always full of light.”
“That's a good idea. I think I'd want a room like that too. And a big kitchen with an iron stove.”
“And a long table,” Mithos added. “So that there's room for everyone.”
“You're absolutely right.”
Big family meals, proper beds, a garden of her own, full of roots that she'd planted. A place to watch the world turn from. A place to watch her family grow. It was no longer such a distant dream. Now...now Martel could practically reach out and touch it.
She woke up to pee one night and found Yuan sitting up by the reed basket they'd made. On her way back, she'd sat on the bed behind him, nudging his back a little with her foot.
“Gald for your thoughts.”
He turned, smile not quite reaching his eyes. “Still trying to wrap my head around it.”
“Which part?” It had been an eventful month, traveling back to the city, already drafting potential trade agreements and emancipation laws. The treaty celebrations had gone on for a week, music and dancing and ale passed around.
“...I believed in Mithos and this treaty, all of it. I still do.”
“I know that.” Yuan wouldn't have put up with all of this if he hadn't.
“And I'm so excited to be a father.” Yuan turned in place, reaching for her hand. His grip was steady as always; the man was a buoy in a storm. However much things might try to go against him, he'd find a way through.
She squeezed his hand. “I know that too.”
“But...there was a place in my head that wouldn't let go of the bad things. I don't think I fully believed it would all work, that we would actually do it. It was just—there no other options. The treaty or die trying.
“And in the same vein...I think maybe a part of me never actually thought this would keep happening. I don't want to jinx it, but...you told me the odds. With the baby. I think I didn't fully believe that we'd ever get this far. I guess it's all starting to hit me.”
“Oh...” Had they both been thinking the same things? Always braced to lose everything, even while hoping for the best? Martel had been trying to build herself up past it, but she hadn't checked in properly with Yuan.
They would need to be better about that.
She tugged at his hand. He followed the action, moving to sit beside her, a warm line connecting them through their thighs. She interlocked their fingers, squeezing him tight enough that their fingerbones ground together.
“I was thinking the same things. This whole time.”
Yuan laughed softly. “Birds of a feather, huh.”
“And I think I was so focused on trying to convince myself that things were going to be okay, that it was real, that I forgot that you and I are way too alike sometimes.”
“You did seem to have it pretty together,” he admitted, thumb stroking her. “I—I didn't want to bring you any disturbing thoughts like that on the chance that you were really okay.”
“So you figured you'd suffer in silence?”
“I mentioned a bit of it to Kratos once or twice. But he's as much of an optimist as Mithos is, you know that.”
Unfortunately, Yuan was right. While Kratos could logic anyone out of a situation in his head, he had a bleeding heart. It was a good thing, always was, but Martel knew it had hurt him in the past. She'd been there for some of it. He and Mithos were quite the pair when they got their heads together. They had the same problem really. Too much heart, and smart enough to try to calculate for it.
It was she and Yuan who were the colder ones, the ones would do what needed to get done. She hated it. She'd done horrific things that still kept her awake at night. And every time she looked at Mithos, she would remind herself that it was worth it for her little brother. She was fairly certain it was the same for Yuan with Kratos.
“I'll make you a deal,” Martel said, looking at his wedding band. “We can't keep things like this from each other. It'll eat us alive. So I promise to try to tell you about things that are worrying me—even big existential things—if you promise to tell them to me too.”
“That'll be a hard one,” Yuan confessed. “But I'll try. We—have to be better.” If not for themselves, for their child. So that maybe their child would never have to even think of horrible things.
Martel lay on their bed with stacks of paperwork within reach on the side table. This late in the pregnancy, there weren't many days when she could go in the clinic for very long; she had to be careful about how much mana she used, so she only went in as a Healer for actual emergencies.
Thus, she'd been relegated to paperwork. With the treaty and the immediate release of prisoners of war, there'd been a lot to go through. Treatment plans, budgeting, inventory ordering.
It was mind-numbing, but Martel needed to be involved in the clinic still somehow. She'd go visit every few days at least, to stop in and see the patients and check in with Reyna.
Kratos came to give his gift with a shyness that belonged to a Kratos from ten years ago. He held out a very awkwardly wrapped package. Unwrapping it revealed a book, bound in dark blue leather. The cover was meticulously painted in stars and moons. Martel's breath caught upon opening it. Inside, in Kratos' most careful hand, were drawings of each of the constellations, and the stories that went with them. He'd been collecting those stories in his ragged notebooks throughout their journey. To have them all together like this...
“Please don't cry!” Kratos yelped, horrified as her eyes welled up.
“Shut up!” Martel rubbed her tears away. “You can't give such a thoughtful gift and think I wasn't going to get all emotional about it.”
“Hormones,” he said, citing her reason that she'd been using for most of her pregnancy.
“Exactly. Now help me up so I can hug you.”
He obliged her, offering her a strong anchor and arms up. Her stomach was positively rotund now, making her waddle everywhere. She couldn't hug him head-on like she liked to; Kratos gave excellent hugs. She was looking forward to some proper ones once this baby was out of her. Instead, she had to do an awkward kind of side hug to get around the belly problem.
She was still of a height with him, so leaning in to kiss his cheek was still easy. “Thank you.”
He didn't have traditions to pass down, even if he wanted to. But he had still thought of something so viscerally important to him, and to Yuan, to give. Something they'd risked imprisonment and death for when they were younger than Mithos was now.
A new tradition. Of stories, and sharing, and closeness. Martel liked that idea. And from the kicking, so did the baby.
Reyna's gift was a soft blanket, woven in the Triet traditional geometric styles. She brought it on one of her visits so that they could touch base more easily about the clinic, as well as do a check-up for Martel. They both sat with tea and toast. Martel spread the blanket over her lap, marveling at the bold colors, the fine weave.
“...How was it for you? Having children?”
Reyna was quiet for a long moment, eyes distant. She'd lost two of her children when her town had been bombed. The other was a soldier; she didn't know if he was still alive.
“It was scary, at first,” Reyna said finally. “I was fortunate in that my husband wasn't a soldier. He was home to help me, as often as he could be. But bringing a child into this world of ours—I wondered if it wouldn't be better to stop the pregnancy.”
“What made you choose not to?”
She tilted a smile at Martel. “Did I ever mention that you remind me of him? My husband?”
“No?”
“You're both the same kind of stubborn optimists. I must have a type. But he was of the opinion that however horrible the world is now—it can get better. It can be made better. Potters—always wanting to make and shape things the way they think it works best.”
“He wasn't wrong though.”
“I know! He'd be saying 'I told you so' if he were here right now.”
Martel rubbed her belly, feeling the gentle nudges of the baby's rapt attention. It didn't miss a beat, always happy to be listening to whoever was talking. “I...am less scared now than I was at the start, I guess. I was always thinking of all the things that could go wrong, y'know? I didn't think I'd even be able to carry it to term like this.”
“Well. You and your brother were certainly motivated to move up the timeline for the treaty.”
Martel laughed a little. “Yeah, I guess so. Didn't think about it like that because we've been working for it for so long.”
“So why are you not afraid anymore?” Reyna took a sip of her tea, rolling a sore shoulder.
“Oh, I still am,” Martel assured. “But it's just not as anxious as before. No, I—I realized that—I was tainting my vision of the future with memories. Mithos and I...it was just us. For a long time. No one to help, no one to even look twice at us. It wasn't a kind way to grow up. And somewhere in the back of my head, I guess I thought that's how my child's life would be too, for some reason.
“But I have so many reminders now. My life is nothing like what I could have imagined. I have a husband, friends, a community. This child will not be raised adrift. They will have so much attention and love, and I cannot think of anything more that I would wish on them.”
Reyna's hand, bony and rigidly scarred from fire, landed on Martel's shoulder. “You're right. The world is very different than it used to be. And it will continue to change if you and those boys have anything to say about it.”
“Well, I can guarantee you we do. And if you ever want to take the baby for a bit, I'd be happy for them to spend time with their Auntie Reyna.”
Reyna snorted. “Auntie? I'm entirely too old to be their auntie. They can call me Nana.”
Martel did not remember her grandparents. She did not think she'd ever met them properly. Maybe her mother's parents, briefly. They had probably still been living in Heimdall, but her mother had been functionally disowned after the continuing willful disgrace of pursuing a romantic relationship and having children with a human.
She didn't know if Yuan and Kratos had had the honor of meeting their grandparents either. Somehow, she doubted it.
Reyna's endless no-nonsense attitude, advice, and remedies had been a balm since Martel first met her. They'd struggled a little at first; with two such strong-willed women, it was bound to happen, but they'd found their flow. And Reyna didn't have to help Martel personally so much, but here she was anyway.
Nana. It wasn't a word that Martel had ever heard used around Heimdall. They were more formal there. But perhaps in the Triet region, it was a more common term.
Nana. Her child would have a Nana. Would have a grandparent figure, to be doted on and confide in, and whatever else people did with their grandparents.
How wonderfully strange.
Their buddies from the battalions they'd worked the most with would stop by and bring little stuffed toys for the baby. Some bring carved wooden toys that they'd proudly worked on while on watch. One or two bring little lopsided hats that they'd learned how to make.
Once, they sang a lullaby. Very badly. In unison. And loudly.
Martel's face burned at hearing it, and she told them that the best present she could ask for was to never hear that again.
They laughed, and told her they couldn't promise. How did she get saddled with such thoughtful war buddies?
The day after the baby was born, when Martel could stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time, Mithos came to visit. He'd been there for the birth, obviously, but he knew she'd be tired, so he'd stayed away to try not stressing her out.
It was Yuan's turn to sleep now, snoring in the chair beside her bed. Beside his chair on the ground was the wicker basket they'd made together, woven with a ribbon.
Mithos crept in, waving a little, but he had one hand behind his back.
“Hi.” Mithos squeezed her hand before leaning over to look at his new niece. She had a full head of wispy pale blue hair. Her features were still too squishy to properly look like anyone yet—Yuan joked about having a lizard for a daughter—but Martel liked to pretend she could recognize their mother's nose, the same one Mithos had.
“I came to give her her gift.”
“I knew it. Baby's born and I'm chopped liver.”
Mithos shot her a look, unimpressed by her sleepy grin. His arm comes out from behind his back. Wrapped in a square of cloth was a braided metal bracelet. The engraved protection charms caught the light. What a practical gift, coming from Mithos.
He carefully fastened it around her tiny wrist, which she relented to with little fuss. He bit his lip when he saw it. “I had to eyeball the size, but—it's too big. I didn't know she was going to be so...small.”
Martel smiled. “I remember thinking you were tiny too, the first time I saw you. But it's okay. You could try double-wrapping it?”
Mithos tried, and the baby gave a huff as she was manhandled some more. “There.”
“It's beautiful,” she said, tilting her daughter so that she could get a better look.
“Yuan helped me out with the idea. I wasn't sure what to give.” Mithos ran a finger over the braided metal on her wrist. “He picked out the colors for it.”
Martel looked closer. The strands of the metal braids were yellow, green, and blue. Martel ran her fingers over the engravings, recognizing Mithos' meticulous handiwork. She thought of a red, black, and yellow braid that never left Yuan's memory, thought of the charms and things that Mithos had learned to make when they worked with the dwarves, of the way he'd carved personal ones for each of them. She thought of her nervousness of the future, and of how she'd been gazing at the holes in her memory for traditions, and she hadn't even thought about speaking to Mithos about it.
She pressed her trembling lips to the bracelet, and tugged Mithos closer by the hand to hug him as much as she was able without jostling the baby much.
“It's amazing,” she told him. “You're always coming up with some brilliant solutions.”
He flushed. “Shut up.” Oh there were so many new opportunities for teasing now. He'd never been one to shy away from compliments, but apparently that was a different case with his new niece.
“Did you figure out a name for her?”
“Mm. I've got some options. Wanna hear 'em?”
Mithos settled in at the foot of the bed. “What do you got?”
“Well...”