Gray closed her eyes and resettled the warm bundle in her arms, leaning back into the headboard of a mattress that had not seen use for too long a time. The room smelled old, of warm, dry dust, the smell of feathers in sunlight or trees in autumn. She lent that sort of feeling to everything, even now, even so far removed from the past...
"Good evening, good night. With roses adorned,
With carnations covered, slip under the covers," she sang, her voice a soft, uneven croon in the silence of the HQ. She wasn't much of a singer, but it was a soothing sound, and the form nestled in her arms breathed gently in reply.
Of all the things, Raven. A baby. And you said you hoped my bloodline was never passed on... A smile, as she thought to herself, pale fingers stroking an ear that poked out from over her elbow. Even if she looks more like one of Deer's children. Spots and hooves and everything.
Oh, Raven, you would love her... you really would love her...
"Good evening, good night. By angels watched,
Who show you in your dream the Christ-child's tree~"
Gray smiled to herself, gently touching the babe's split hooves, her little puff of a tail, the long ears that swivelled towards the sound of the lullaby. The new mother touched the two stumps of antler that poked from her daughter's--the term came so naturally, she never bothered to question it; the child was her own--shoulders, and hummed to herself.
She isn't a god, Raven. But I have seen no child like her. Raven, she will have wings, bones for wings, and she will never fly. But Gray giggled, tapping the nose of the drowsy baby, watching in quiet awe as the slender forelimbs reached out and brushed her hand.
"Sleep now peacefully and sweetly, look into dream's paradise.
Sleep now peacefully and sweetly, look into dream's paradise..."
Thank goodness for Brahm and his lullabies. The little one was asleep. "For at least a few minutes," Gray whispered to herself, still rocking the baby slowly, reluctant to put her down in a crib. She would, eventually, but... she knew how quickly little ones grew up. How quickly before she would not be small enough to hold.
Odnako burbled in her sleep, forelimbs snuggling against her chest, little feet tucked up so that she lay curled in a loose ball. It was strange, how quiet she could be in sleep--Gray had seen her awake, been treated to the ear-splitting joys of a wailing baby who will be placated by nothing, and she had almost gotten a solid kick in the jaw for her trouble. But asleep, she was quiet, peaceful, as still as a faun that waits for her its mother.
"I won't leave you, little Odnako," the crow-god murmured, her voice low and husky, her eyes closed, her breathing a deep rythm in the sensitive ears of the reindeer child.
Home sweet home.
