SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

A few days had gone by since the birth, and Trafalgar had spent nearly all of them in this room. Mayla had monopolised him, and neither of the other two had said a word about it, because there was nothing to say. She’d earned it. Each of them would have her turn eventually, and this one was hers.

Aaron had come out with black hair, which was his father’s, and brown eyes, which were his mother’s, and he was still far smaller than he had any business being. He fit in the crook of one arm with room to spare.

Right now he was asleep, Mayla was propped up in the bed, and Trafalgar stood at the window with his son against his chest, watching the snow come down over the gardens. It was a quiet day, at least for the moment.

The rest of the house was doing the work. There were maids in and out at all hours, and a healer out of the Morgain troops had taken a room downstairs and stayed there, on hand in case anything turned, because Aaron needed a great deal of watching after the way he’d arrived. Space was one problem the house didn’t have.

Cynthia had gone into the city to see Bartholomew and give him the news in person, and she was meant to come back with Vivienne and Xavier in tow. Zafira had sent word that she couldn’t make it, and had made her regret about it fairly plain. She was of the Eight, and being of the Eight meant other people owned her days, which was something Trafalgar understood better than most.

”I don’t think I can take another day of this,” Mayla said from the bed.

Trafalgar turned. ”Do you need something? If you want anything, just say it.”

She smiled at him, tired. ”No. This is fine, honestly. Nice and quiet with only us in here.” Her hands moved on the blanket. ”I just feel useless. I can’t get out of this bed without somebody hauling me up, and there’s a queue of people coming through that door all day. I’ve barely had a moment to myself since he was born.”

”You’ll get it back.”

”I’d better.”

She’d changed a little since the birth, and he’d been quietly enjoying it. Mayla had always been the gentle one, and lately she was blunt as a hammer, and she’d started swearing in a way he had never once heard out of her before. Whole new sides of a woman he’d been married to for years, and it had taken a baby to shake them loose.

”You know,” he said, ”if you keep talking like that in front of him, his first word is going to get you thrown out of a temple.”

Mayla laughed, and had to press a hand over her own mouth to keep it down. ”I still can’t believe we’re parents,” she said after a moment, looking at the small dark head on his chest. ”Honestly, none of this is what I thought my life was going to be.”

”Regretting it?” Trafalgar tilted his head at her. ”You married the good-for-nothing of the Morgains. You’d have had a far quieter life with me nowhere near it.”

Mayla’s face changed. ”Come here.”

He went to the bed, and she reached up and pinched him hard on the arm. It should have done nothing. He had the body of a Primordial and she was one of the least physically dangerous people he knew, and he felt every bit of it anyway. He swallowed the noise he wanted to make, because there was a sleeping baby six inches from his collarbone.

”Don’t joke about that,” she said. ”I don’t like it when you do.”

”Understood, Your Majesty.” He rubbed his arm. ”Your wish is my command.”

That got her laughing again. ”The others are coming today,” he told her. ”To see him. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Xavier and Vivi.”

”I hope Barth doesn’t have a panic attack.”

”He’ll be fine.”

”He almost fainted at his own graduation.”

”He’ll be fine.”

A knock came at the door, and Aubrelle let herself in with Pipin on her shoulder. ”How are you feeling?”

”I’d say the same as yesterday, but I’d be lying,” Mayla said. ”It’s been getting better. Slowly, but it’s getting better.”

Out through the window, something moved in the gardens. Trafalgar looked down and found Silas out on the snow in his dragon form, with Arthur standing a good distance off in a heavy coat, arms folded, watching him. Silas was working through something, dark scales steaming faintly where the snow melted against them, and whatever it was he stopped halfway through it the moment he felt Trafalgar’s attention on him.

The enormous head came around and up toward the window, and Arthur trudged over through the snow after him with the resigned air of a man whose afternoon had just been rearranged.

Trafalgar unlatched the window and pushed it open, and the cold came into the room like a slap. ”The baby,” Aubrelle said at once.

”Take him.”

She had him before the words were out, and moved him back toward the fire and away from the draught, and Trafalgar leaned out over the sill.

Silas had already dropped back into his human form by then, horns and all, standing in the snow beneath the window and looking up with his hands twisting in front of him.

”Is that him?” he asked. ”Can I see?”

”You can see. Not today though, it’s too cold to have the window open long.” Trafalgar looked down at him. ”You can meet him properly inside, when the healer says it’s all right.”

Silas’s face fell, and then something worse crossed it. ”What if I break him?”

”You won’t.”

”I might.” His hands were still going. ”I’m strong. I don’t always know how strong. What if I hold him wrong and something happens?”

”Then we’ll show you how to hold him, and you’ll do it exactly like we show you, and nothing will happen.” Trafalgar kept his voice level. ”You’ve had a hand on the back of my neck before and I’m still here. You’re better at this than you think.”

The boy chewed on that, and eventually nodded. Trafalgar looked past him. ”Arthur. What were the two of you doing out there?”

”Testing a few things he wanted to try, my lord.” Arthur brushed snow off his shoulder. ”Nothing that’ll cost you a wall this time.”

”That’s a first.”

Arthur glanced up at the window, at the man leaning out of it in shirtsleeves with a room full of firelight behind him, and something amused went over his face. ”He looks a great deal like you, from what I saw of him. And if you’ll forgive me, my lord, it’s strange seeing you like this.”

”It’s strange being like this.”

”It suits you well enough.” Arthur straightened his coat. ”I’ll leave you to it. I’ve the captains waiting on me, and if I keep them standing about any longer they’ll start making decisions on their own.”

He crossed back through the snow toward the gate, and a moment later a maid appeared at the edge of the garden and called Silas’s name in the particular tone of a woman who had already called it twice. Silas’s shoulders dropped.

”I have to go and study.”

”Then go and study.”

”It’s numbers today.”

”I’m aware. Go.”

The boy went, dragging his feet the whole way, and Trafalgar pulled the window shut and latched it, and the room was warm again.

The three of them had it to themselves for a little while after that, which turned out to be the last quiet stretch of the afternoon.

Footsteps came up the corridor outside, more than one set, and Cynthia’s voice with them, saying something to Bartholomew that had a definite edge of an older sister to it. Barth’s answer came back too low to make out. Behind them both, further off, two more voices Trafalgar hadn’t heard in a long time.