Welcome to Gaia! ::

After dinner and an evening filled with many practice rounds of Lithian and Casseth attempting to convince their daughters that even though the soft leather feeding bottles filled with sweetened leklan milk were not technically mother’s breasts, they were still perfectly acceptable means of attaining sustenance, Takhi eventually gave both girls a ‘home cooked’ meal herself to help offset the leklan milk and get them relaxed for sleep. Both were put to bed in their crib, side by side but with plenty of space between them, and their fathers followed for an early sleep themselves.

As though to christen the new parents, of course, Tanarah and Talanah felt the need — not long after their fathers began the process of enjoying each others’ company and ‘celebrating’ the additions to the family — to remind them of their existence. Loudly. Fussing interrupted one, then two, and finally three attempts at lovemaking before Lithian and Cas gave up for the time being (though, some time later, very quiet persistence lead to a fourth-try success). After that run in, however, the girls were markedly well-behaved until sometime in the wee hours of morning, perhaps three or four hours past the stroke of high night. Lithian, light sleeper as he was, tended to that.

In the darkness, he was not sure which of the two girls he held, only that all but immediately upon being lifted, she ceased her crying, but when set back down, started promptly back up again like a switch. Two or three bouts of that taught Lithian his lesson well enough, and he conceded to carrying her out instead, holding and rocking her lightly as he moved from their room to their back porch to observe the moonlight on the ocean and attempt to coax his cooing infant back to sleep.

Lithian startled, half-hopping at Casseth’s surprise pinch. His cheeks flushed, though and his body relaxed — in most areas — as his mate moved in close, and he hummed in agreement, smiling. “They are. And you…” Lithian trailed off, lashes flitting low and breath hitching softly at the brush of Cas’ lips to his throat. While they had eventually gotten around to each other previously in the night, Casseth’s ability to rouse his body’s interest seemed infinite, and he would have been lying if he’d said that he didn’t feel a sliver of disappointment when their second child’s fussing reached them.

He tucked it away though, making a mental note to make the most of it the next time they did have an opportunity to themselves, and turning his attention instead back to Tanarah, now drowsy and dozing again in his arms. When Casseth re-emerged, Lithian nodded, expression warming at that the thought.

“We should, definitely, come morning…I am sure they’ll be thrilled to meet their grandfather.”

Unfortunately — insofar as hope for more sleep was concerned — upon hearing her sister’s fussing, Tana became suitably interested in wakefulness again to wriggle herself and gurgle out a ‘greeting.’ Eventually, Lithian and Casseth found themselves in a similar position to the previous evening, seated on the deck with their children in their lap, cradling them, attempting to soothe them back into sleep, and talking quietly between themselves until the girls tired. By the time they both did, the edge of the horizon was already warming, and — not wanting to rouse the newly-sleeping infants — Lith and Cas more or less maintained their positiongs, Lith making the most of their closeness to shift and lean, resting his head against the prop of his mate’s shoulder.

The words, “I love you, you know…” came in a breathy, drowsy yawn, tucked between Cas’ neck and shoulder as the first hints of dawn lit the distant edge of the ocean. “So much…”

What Lithian could say he genuinely didn’t expect in that moment — but got anyway — was the sound of another sliding door from further down the long deck, and company in the form of their houseguest. Fully nude. And, apparently, in the mood for a morning swim. Lithian was barely through processing the situation, a slow, building heat quickly gaining momentum and taking over his face, before Takhi was darting out, off the lip, and into the ocean, evidently about as concerned with their presence as she was with — well, most anything else, Lithian supposed.

Sputtering and shifting his position a half-fraction further behind Cas, he gave an incoherent mumble of something that might have been, “Is it…timetogoinsidenow?”

Much as he didn’t mind her company on the whole, Lithian would be the first to concede that there were some extensions of Takhi’s free spirit that managed to ever catch him off-guard.

Face still hot, Lithian nodded in silence as he stood, careful not to disturb his bundle before speaking beneath his breath. “Yes…I wish.”

After both girls — now solidly asleep again — had been tucked back into their cribs, Lithian, still tired despite usually being wakeful in the morning, thanks to their long and ‘eventful’ night, crawled back under the sheets. He stole a glance in Casseth’s direction, waiting for him to join him before tucking up close against him and nesting his nose in the niche of his mate’s throat and chest, just beneath his chin. He kissed the scruff of Cas’ beard.

“Do you…think they will be like her? Running out naked into the morning without a care, or…travelling halfway across the world without a word as soon as they get the chance…?”

“Mm.” Lithian shut his eyes, a smile edging at the corner of his lips, and he relaxed into Casseth’s hold. “You’re a magnificent role model,” he murmured, the words half-muddled against Cas’ skin. “You did it each time because you saw more in someone than everyone else did, and you wanted to find that goodness in them and went out to seek it…”

He brushed his fingers up Cas’ side, coming to a gentle rest and then yawning as he shook his head.

“Whatever happens, I suppose we will deal with it as it comes…and I could not ask for better company in that endeavor.”