FSE

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10

"Kiana?" he whispered so softly he could barely hear his own voice. It somehow felt like any kind of noise in this place, in this moment, would be akin to sacrilege. He stepped inside and eased the door shut behind him, wincing at the click of the latch.

She didn't stir. She simply kept on breathing, slow and steady, her chest rising and falling, her arms wrapped around the bundle of blankets, and a smile... a tiny, exhausted little smile lingering at the corner of her mouth, as if she were having the most wonderful dream.

The distance from the door to the bed couldn't have been more than five or six steps, but to Ander it felt like the distance from one side of the mountain to the other. He just couldn't take his eyes off that tiny pair of ears, the way they were moving like two leaves caught in the lightest breeze. Every now and then the blankets would shift a little, as if a tiny arm or leg was moving around in there.

"Kiana?" He sat down on the edge of the bed and lightly ran one finger down the side of her face, too concerned to wake her, but also too in love to not touch her.

He leaned in close and kissed the corner of her mouth. She was so hot against his lips, like a furnace.

Her eyes fluttered, and after looking around the room for a second in a confused daze, she settled on his face, and her smile lit up the room in ways no candle could ever touch.

"Ander..." Her voice was hoarse after all the screaming, but it was her and she was okay and Ander was so happy just to hear her say his name that he just wanted to hold her and never let go... but...

His eye drifted down to those two ears sticking out of the folds of the blanket. They were the strangest colour, a fusion of earthy brown and fiery orange, like the clay you could sometimes find at the bottom of dry riverbeds. A vibrant ochre, never before seen on Wolf or Fox.

The blankets shifted again, and this time a tiny sound could be heard coming from inside. A stuffy kind of breath, and just hearing that sound was like a punch in the gut, powerful enough to double him over.

Kiana noticed what he was looking at, and her smile grew even wider. "Ander... I think someone wants to say hello."

He reached for the blanket with a finger shaking so badly he could barely control it. He hooked it around the edge and slowly began to pull it back.

More of the ears began to reveal themselves, as well as spiky tufts of hair sticking straight up.

Ander pulled it down a little further, and now he could see part of a forehead as well, gradually changing colour, becoming lighter around the face, and -

Another pair of ears suddenly popped up beside the first. A completely different set. A completely different colour. Dark grey...

Ander froze. He literally could not move. He just sat there, completely motionless, his finger hooked around the edge of the blanket, his eye darting back and forth between the two completely different sets of ears, unable to comprehend any of it.

Kiana laughed. It was the most tired laugh ever, barely more than a quick exhalation of breath, but it was so beautiful in its way. Just like these four ears, so playfully sticking out of the blankets.

Ander swallowed. The happiness was swelling up inside of him so fast it felt like he couldn't keep it in any longer. His heart was on the verge of exploding and his hands were shaking so badly he could barely keep his grip. The whole world was starting to blur in his eye, and he wiped the tears away with his free hand, not wanting to miss even a single detail.

He pulled the blanket down further, revealing their faces one tiny increment at a time, first their foreheads, then their brows, their fur flattening underneath the seam before springing back up again.

Unable to bear it a second longer, feeling like he was about to burst right out of his skin, Ander took hold of the blanket with both hands, and carefully, oh so carefully, folded it back...

Try not to be too surprised, okay?

Something must have shown on his face, because Kiana wheezed laughter, making their tiny ears wiggle against her chest. "You think you're surprised? Imagine how I felt!"

Ander had to take a moment. He covered his mouth and just breathed, long and slow, hoping that the dizziness flooding his head would soon go away.

Right there, nestled in Kiana's arms, snuggled up for warmth on this cool summer night... were their children.

Their children...

A sound burst out of him, muffled by his hands, a cross between laughter and a sob of joy. And Kiana simply watched him, watched him with the happiest, most contented smile on her face, like she had been waiting for this for a very, _very_long time. Seeing the happiness grow inside her husband's heart to such a degree he didn't even know what to do with it all.

Well, Ander _did_know what to do. It was the best thing, the only thing to do with so much happiness, and that was to share it.

With his family.

"Kiana..." he whispered, unable to hold the tears back any longer. "Kiana, look at them... They're..."

"They're our kids..." she finished for him, laughing and crying at the same time, just like him. "They're our kids, Ander."

The one on the right was a boy. Fur of ochre, broken by undertones of cream, and short, spiky tufts of hair as fine as gossamer growing from his head. He was looking around with a pair of light brown eyes, curiously blinking up at the giant staring down at him, his left hand up near his nose, moving in the random, almost jerky way of newborns.

The other was a girl, the most beautiful baby girl. Despite being so much smaller than her brother, she had the bigger ears, a testament to the Fox blood running through her veins. There was a fineness to her features as well, a sharpness around the nose and a beautiful pair of dark blue eyes, so dark they were almost black, like polished agate. Her fur was the darkest grey, broken by lines of silver.

Ander watched, completely transfixed, as she reached up, grabbed one of her ears, and pulled it down over her face. She only managed to hold it there for a second, though, before it sprang back up again, swivelling this way and that like it had a mind of its own.

"This one was quite the surprise." Kiana bent forward and kissed the top of her head, perfectly framing her face betwixt those wily ears. "I thought I was done. Heck, even Mother thought I was done. And then suddenly the pain came back and, well... one became two."

"You're not hiding any more in here, are you?" Ander teased, gently touching the now oddly flat surface of her stomach and trying not to laugh at Kiana's subsequent eye-roll, which was so massive she had to move her entire head just to accommodate it.

"You big doof."

"I love you, Kiana."

"I love you, too."

He leaned in closer, wanting to feel that smile against his, but a small, shifting movement from the little lives in her arms made him look down and...

The breath caught in his throat. His eye went wide.

"Kiana, look."

"Hmm?"

She bent forward, following Ander's gaze, and uttered a little gasp.

For the next few minutes all they could do was stare, neither of them daring to make a sound.

"How long have they been like that?" Ander finally asked, barely above a whisper.

"I don't know," Kiana said, equally flummoxed. "They've been under the blanket most of the time, so... Is this normal, Ander? Is this something that just happens?"

"I don't know..."

There, down in the safety of their mother's arms, still partly wrapped up in a light blue blanket - the two lives they had created together, the two little miracles...

They were holding hands, the girl's resting on top of the boy's, their fingers lightly curled. Fiery ochre and shadowy grey.

Just seeing those two hands like that... one big and one small, it made Ander feel like he was looking at something more. Something beyond mere chance.

The boy, evidently the more curious of the two, was craning his neck this way and that, trying to look everywhere at once, and yet the grip on his sister's hand never lessened. It was a constant between them.

Ander reached down and lightly touched their clasped hands, amazed by how soft, how warm they were.

"They're so small..." he whispered, still unable to believe it.

"Do you want to hold them?"

His heart jumped in his chest, and that was exactly what it felt like, no exaggeration. It really felt like a vital internal organ just suddenly shifted inside his body.

"I... I don't think I can. I'm all frazzled."

"Of course you can. You're their father."

It still felt so unreal, hearing it said out loud like that, and so casually. 'Father'. He was a 'father' now. It was a fact. These were his children, and he was their father...

Ander swallowed the lump in his throat and reached out, but they were so unbelievably small, and his hands looked so big and ugly and scarred. He knew it was a ridiculous thought, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he would only hurt them if he tried anything other than the lightest, briefest of touches. These hands were used to holding tools like hammers and saws. He didn't know how he could possibly handle anything so small, so delicate, so fragile as a -

The boy reached up with his free hand and lightly curled his fingers around Ander's pinky.

Everything stopped.

Those tiny fingers. Those tiny, surprisingly strong fingers, each one tipped with a tiny, white claw.

Ander couldn't even speak. It already felt like he simply couldn't handle any more, that he was receiving so much love so much faster than he could give it back that his heart would just explode inside his chest.

But this night of miracles wasn't over yet. Far from it.

The girl reached up, her dark blue eyes flashing in the candle light, and grabbed hold of his thumb.

"Oh my gods, Ander!" Kiana squeaked in a barely audible voice, tears streaming down her face.

Unlike her brother, this one wasn't content with just holding Ander's finger in place, and she actively began to tug and pull, trying to bring him in closer, apparently fascinated with this great big wiggly doodad of muscle and fur.

Two little hands on top of his. Two perfect, beautiful little hands.

He looked up, and Kiana was wearing that contented smile again. She leaned forward and kissed him, her smile never wavering.

"Do you think you can do it now?"

Ander looked down at his kids, still holding his fingers, lightly pulling his hand like a miniature tug of war, and nodded. "Okay, but I don't want to pull them apart."

"Then we'll do it together." Kiana scootched over a little and Ander slid in beside her, shoulder to shoulder, looking down at the latest additions to the valley.

"You ready, Ander?"

His legs were shaking and his arms felt like half-melted sticks of butter, but he nodded anyway.

"Okay. A one... and a two... aaand..."

Kiana raised them up, the both of them together, and Ander carefully, oh so carefully, wound his arms together with hers, feeling the weight of his children settling down and trying simultaneously to remember everything Bethany had ever told him about how to handle newborn pups.

"Support the head," he muttered to himself, shaking like a leaf, "not too tight, not too stiff..."

The boy simply looked up at him, his mouth slightly open and his head cocked to the side, giving him a rather nonplussed look, like he couldn't figure out what this great big Wolf was so worried about.

"You're doing it, Ander!" Kiana said. "Look at you!"

"They're... They're so -" That was one sentence Ander never got a chance to finish, because the little tyke in his arms chose that exact moment to reach up and give his father's nose an experimental honk. "Ow!"

Kiana bit down on her bottom lip to keep from bursting into wild peals of laughter, but it was a close call. Luckily her willpower was just strong enough to keep it down to fits and sniggers.

And through all of this, they were still holding hands. The two impossible little lives Ander and Kiana had created together. Moving, breathing, living.

The boy finally let go of Ander's nose and he pulled back, blinking the water out of his eye and fighting the urge to sneeze. And when all the blurs came back into focus, he noticed that the girl -

(Not 'the' girl, but my girl... our girl...)

• had pulled one ear down over her face again, and was peeking out at him with one of those gorgeous blue eyes. A tiny life, so small, so beautiful. Ander lowered his head and lightly pressed his lips against her forehead.

She squirmed a little beneath his kiss, but just as Ander was about to pull back, thinking that he might be hurting her, or even smothering her, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his muzzle as far as her short little arms could go, hugging his face with her entire body.

Ander kept completely still, feeling her breath against his brow, and even the beating of her heart against his cheek. She was so warm... warm in a way he couldn't even describe.

His daughter...

Ander held her a little bit closer, and although it might have just been his imagination, he was sure she was doing the same, squeezing back as hard as she could, saying hello in her own special way.

"Oh!" Kiana exclaimed. "Hey there little guy, don't go pulling on - Ow!"

It was happening on his blind side, so it was a little hard to tell what exactly was going on over there, but from what Ander could see, their little boy had just grabbed a big handful of Kiana's chin fur and was slowly pulling her down.

"He's stronger than he looks, isn't he?" Ander whispered as Kiana's face came brushing up against his, cheek to cheek.

She couldn't answer him, but that was okay. The trembling of her lip, the shine in her eyes, the uneven rhythm of her breathing. All of them were a declaration of love for her family, without the need of a single word.

She kissed their boy on the tip of his nose, and Ander was able to feel a line of warmth travel down between their touching cheeks. Two different tears from two different eyes, flowing together as one.

They stayed like that for a while, the four of them sharing a single embrace. Most of Ander's vision was taken up by his daughter, and up close like this, everything seemed to stand out in vibrant detail, from the tiny movements of her breathing right down to the lines of silver in her fur, winding between the darker greys like the veins of a watermelon, or-

A storm cloud, with the sun shining just behind, on the verge of cutting through...

Ander's eye drifted down to where she was still holding her brother's hand, their little fingers wrapped around each other so tightly, and suddenly it all fell into place, so much so that Ander had to stifle a gasp.

Right from the very first moment, when he first saw those ears sticking up from beneath the folds of the blanket, he had thought there was something familiar about them, even though he was certain he had never seen anything quite like them before. He had dismissed it as a nonsensical thought, nothing more than the product of nine months' worth of nerves, but now... now he knew.

He knew because his father had described this exact same colour to him on a night filled with nothing but hatred and regret.

Dark grey, laced with veins of silver... like storm clouds...

A life cut short, ended before she could even earn a name. A gift given. A debt he thought he could never truly repay...

"Lenka..." The name slipped from his lips before he even knew he meant to say it, a breathless whisper echoing through twenty four years...

"'Daughter of Life', right?"

Ander turned his head just far enough so he could see Kiana's face out of the corner of his vision. She was positively beaming at him, her cheek being pulled in all directions by their boy's grabby hand.

"I think it would make for a beautiful name, Ander."

For a moment Ander was completely overcome. There were so many emotions welling up inside of him, boiling over with such force he didn't even know what to do. "Are you sure?"

Kiana nodded, rubbing her cheek against his. "I'm sure."

Ander looked down at his little girl, his daughter, tears streaming down his face and landing upon her brow.

"Little girl..." Ander said, struggling to get the words out. "From now on, your name will be 'Lenka'. Do you like it?" He kissed her and she squirmed beneath his touch, making a bubbling sound with her mouth that was probably just spittle, but to Ander sounded a lot like laughter.

"I think that means 'yes'." Kiana giggled and nuzzled Ander's face, her breath washing over the fresh tracks of his tears and inflaming them with rhythmic pulses of heat. "But we've still got this little troublemaker, don't we?" She gave their baby boy a little bounce and he responded by blowing a bubble from his nose.

"His name should be yours to give," Ander said, reaching over to wipe the line of snot dribbling from his nostril. Already it was starting to feel like second nature.

"Our boy..." Kiana said, looking down at the baby in her arms. She looked so tired, but at the same time, happier than Ander had ever seen her. Happier than he had ever seen anyone. "Our boy..."

Kiana stayed like that for a while, her left cheek lightly pressed up against their baby boy's, her eyes closed. Ander was beginning to think that maybe she had fallen asleep, but then...

"Ander... do you remember the promise you made to me, back in the mill?"

Of course he remembered. He remembered that promise every time he looked upon her face and saw the twin scars running beneath her eyes like tear tracks, and he would continue to remember that promise for as long as those scars remained.

"I do."

"You promised to give me a 'tomorrow'..." she said, a smile spreading across her lips, half obscured by their baby boy's reaching hand. "You promised a tomorrow where me and my sister and Mother and all the other women would stand around outside, yelling criticisms at you and the menfolk trying to add a second story to our little house, and that happened."

"I remember. Sarah made lemonade for everyone, and Hezzi damn near chugged the whole pitcher in one go."

"You promised I'd get so big that I'd have to balance my tea on top of my stomach, and _that_happened, too."

"I remember the way you'd glare at me whenever you tried to get out of a chair."

"You promised that, once the baby was born, we'd get Nilia to hold them, and you damn well know that's going to happen the moment she and Mateo get back from their little trip up in the mountains."

"'Aunty Nilia'."

"Ander, you promised me a tomorrow, and a tomorrow was exactly what you gave me. The most beautiful tomorrow I ever could have hoped for... A tomorrow with you... and our two beautiful children... a tomorrow as a family... that's why... that's why..." She opened her eyes, tears streaming down her face and tracing the faded lines of the scars left behind, slowly healing with every passing day, and asked something that knocked Ander's breath away. "Ander... what is the Wolven word for 'tomorrow'?"

Ander couldn't speak. He could only look down at their children, still holding hands, as if afraid that something might happen to the other if they ever let go. Two lives, bound together by more than just their birth, taking their first steps on this grand road of life, together.

"In the Old Wolven tongue, the word for 'tomorrow' is..." Ander smiled, and in a voice choked with tears, he said: "Kadai."

The moment that name left his lips, a shard of sunlight fell across their faces, illuminating their smiles, their sleepy eyes, their clutching fingers, as if the new day itself wanted to have a look at these sniffling, yawning little lives, shifting and squirming in their parents' arms.

Ander and Kiana looked to the window, at the first rays of sunshine streaming between the rocky cliffs of the mountain, skirting the tops of the tallest pines, and flowing over the rolling green hills of the valley, marking their first day together as a brand new family.

Their first tomorrow.

The first of many.

THE END

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This was for Kestral, who gave me the courage to try something a little different.