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24
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
There was a custom among Khetar on the birthdays of their children. My scions had been training me to adhere to the custom, but I was still worried I’d do something wrong on my babies’ first birthday.
I wasn’t allowed to talk about certain things. It was another one of those “bad omen” things, but especially for the first birthday—of the First Children especially—speaking of certain types of things were said to imprint their bad omen onto the coming year.
So, today and today only, I resolved to follow the tradition. To put all negative thoughts from my mind. To achieve that, I invited Weapons Sojourner and Emissary Eve to the birthday party.
Unfortunately, Emissary Eve couldn’t come due to—no, I wouldn’t think about outside things like that today.
Weapons was coming though, even though both Thuliak and Tschenkar had told me not to invite her. Because of what she did.
I had to invite her. Especially because of what she did. I had to make it very clear to everyone: I forgave her. We all needed to forgive her.
Auntie Julia and Midwife Cleopatra had both RSVPed, and I knew they’d be arriving any minute.
The boys were sparring in the yard. I never thought my one-year-old boys wouldspareach other, but they started crawling when they were one-month old, then they were walking at three months, and they started some random scuffling shortly after that. Now, on their first birthday, it was already a focused kind of fighting. Organized. They couldn’t speak yet, at least not outside the family Hivemind.
“Mommy,” Tschenkarion said in my head. “Are you watching?”
I shifted some of my focus to his eyes. “Yes.”
I watched as he charged headfirst toward Thulius. He faked like he was aiming to the left, then darted right just as Thulius dodged. They always blocked each other over the family Hivemind when they sparred, otherwise no one ever got a hit in.
Tschenkarion’s head slammed into his twin brother’s stomach. Thulius grabbed hold of him, and both boys fell to the ground. They rolled around a few times, then started giggling. A lot of times their sparring turned into playing. They were—thankfully—still little boys, just ones who were very physically coordinated ahead of where a human one-year-old would be.
While the boys sparred in the courtyard, little Julia and Cleopatra were playing in the garden behind the palace. Julia was intently focused on tying together as many little ice-willow roots as possible—the string was already over four meters long—while her sister crawled back-and-forth through the bushes to gather more and more roots. Her hands were absolutely covered in dirt.
I projected some of my focus into both of them, just enough to remind them I was watching. I didn’t bother telling them to be careful, or to not mess up the ice-willows too much. Usually just pinging them and reminding them I was still there was enough to get them to reign it in.
“How’s the cake?” I asked, walking into the kitchen.
I’d lied to them. I’d had to do so much extra work and mental preparation to avoid bad omens today, so when they asked me if I had any human customs to follow, I’d lied.
I’d told them that back on Earth, the father had always made the cake.
That had gotten them both to start arguing about which of them got to have the honor, when I’d made the mistake of suggesting they do it together.
The cake was on the counter. It was dripping icing. Each layer was at a different angle. The top layer looked ready to slide off the cake entirely.
Thuliak shot me a grave, ashamed expression as I looked at the cake. Tschenkar tried to give me a flash grin, presumably attempting to charm his way out of admitting failure.
“Fuck,” Tschenkar said, “who am I kidding? It’s shite, innit?”
“I will follow this custom,” Thuliak said, voice strained, “but there must be certain things a scion cannot be good at. I fear this is one of those things. “
“I’m…” I said, beginning to smile. “Honestly, it looks edible. It’s not pretty, but I bet it will taste good? I’m actually astonished that you two were able to bake a cake. Period. I was worried I’d come in here to see blood on the floor, but you two actually made a cake together. Isn’t that something?”
They glared at each other, but then each cracked a little smile.
