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Infants.

Two infants. Tiny twin girls soon to join the world.

The thought was as daunting to Lithian as it was thrilling, and his mind felt as though it were on a Ferris wheel, up and down and around, moving from one thing to the next but always back around again in circles. They needed bedding, blankets, pillows, a crib, feeding supplies, cleaning supplies, toys, something to carry and transport them in if they intended to take them anywhere while small, and clothes. It was the last option that brought Lithian and Casseth to where they were currently: a local tailor in the midst of Taliuma’s market. The same location he had been some time earlier while shopping with Araceli for suitable attire for his and Casseth’s mating ceremony. A drastically different purpose, but linked in a way that made Lithian flush, and smile, at the thought of how far he and Casseth had come.

Over the course of several weeks since their first meeting with Takhi in the orphanage, she had visited much more frequently, the three of them — and occasionally Drannath — discussing and arranging for things. Lithian also performed routine check-ups on the girls’ progress and health, though there seemed to be no issue there. Both were growing at an astounding rate, healthy and energetic. ‘Ready for the world’ in Takhi’s words, though they still had several months to go, and she seemed only to grow bigger by the day.

Lithian flushed, another smile taking over at the thought, and he reached, thumbing over a set of pink ribbons and wondering how long it would be before the girls had hair long enough to braid and fashion. “Casseth…” he said, smile stretching into a small grin as he lifted a bright pink ribbon and spool of lace, “…how do you feel about the color pink?”

Lithian studied the shifting expressions on his mate’s face, but at length, joined him in smiling. A slow, warm, and lingering smile that he tucked into a chaste kiss to Cas’ lips. “We are,” he said, giddy at the thought alone and simply to voice the confirmation aloud. “We really are.”

They spent quite some time in the tailor shop, Lithian flitting from one thing to the next and musing aloud as he did about sizes and colors and questions: How fast would the girls grow? Ought they purchase things in a range of sizes just in case? What if they bought things too small or too large in anticipation before knowing how big they’d be when they did arrive? Would they need shoes when they couldn’t walk? Or winter wear now, or ought they wait to see about how much they had grown when it came time for the cold season?

Casseth seemed only to be mildly distressed, though, to hear the questions and not know any answers, so eventually they kept their purchases modest and left with Lithian giving him a showering of encouragements before pressing on to the library. Though they had a wealth of live sources — parents and friends who had direct experience in the matter of child-rearing — far be it from Lithian to skimp on the details or shortchange himself a wide berth of resources. So, he got books on the subject. Scouring for them was an adventure in and of itself, but he found, in the end, more than enough to keep him busy for many a night, and by the time they made it home, their arms were full.

Baby clothing joined the growing pile of items in the girls’ room-to-be — still fairly empty, for the most part, but gaining a rapidly expanding repertoire of preparative supplies — and the books stacking up beside his and Casseth’s bed. Lithian drew his fingers lightly over the cover of one, half his attention on it and the other half elsewhere as his eyes wandered to the open floor-to-ceiling doors of their room overlooking the ocean beyond.

“Casseth,” he said, musing aloud, “when do you want to inform your father?”

“Mm, no,” Lithian agreed, “I don’t suppose he would, and…” He hesitated only a moment, dipping to remove his boots before crawling onto the bed and settling himself atop his mate, “…yes, I would.” He leaned in, resting his arms loosely over Casseth’s shoulders and stealing a quick, lazy kiss before humming at the thought. “I’ve been in contact with my father fairly heavily, if only mostly through letters, but…I definitely intend to inform him, and I suspect he will be pleased with the news…”

Lithian hesitated, a brief frown pinching across his forehead as he thought about his family. His mother, in particular, and how much he would have loved for her to come see his children when the time came, but uncertainty over whether she would want to. After a time, though, he shook his head, dismissing the thought and forcing himself back to the present.

“He always encouraged me, even if teasingly, when I was very small and would go on about the family I wanted with ‘as many children as he had’ so that they would all have siblings like mine…I…think he thought I gave that up, when I made my choice to be with you, but…I do think and hope it will please him.” Leaning in again, Lithian touched his nose lightly to Casseth’s, lashes shutting for a moment as he thought about it — first his father, and then Casseth’s father. His cheeks flushed a fraction at the thought of the latter, and the corner of his lips edged up. At least he knew that Kilian’s reaction will be positive. “We should tell your father he ought to invite us to dinner…” He reached out, tracing the pads of his fingers up the front of Casseth’s chest and feeding them gradually through the stiff curls of chest hair there. “Or invite him here…ask him if he has any brilliant advice on constructing a crib for twins…”

“The lady Bhardvaris will hear of it, I am sure,” Lithian said. “I will inform my father that both he and she are welcome to come see the children should it please them…” Lithian frowned, however, tensing in spite of himself at the mention of Casseth’s estranged mother. Perhaps it wasn’t an entirely fair thought, given that he knew nothing of the woman herself, but it came to him just the same: a distinct clench in his gut and pinch of his brow, reactive and defensive.

He did not want her anywhere near either of his children-to-be.

Having never met her, and thus knowing only what snippets he had gleaned from Casseth and his father, Kilian, Lithian’s knowledge was sparse. A threadbare sheet and perhaps even a caricature of the actual person, but for all the years between Casseth’s history and his present he knew she had abandoned her young son and mate, stolen away her other child and absconded to the gods knew where. He didn’t speak to Casseth of her and Casseth and Kilian virtually never touched on the topic themselves, but the thought of it, vague and displaced as it was, made Lithian’s chest tight with anger for a woman who had hurt his mate in ways he knew would never wholly mend.

He bit back words on the subject, though, frowning and only shifting back a fraction before nodding and pushing a half-smile onto his lips. “No, of course not,” he said in answer to the latter question. “That…I would love that.”

Lithian blinked, startled — though he suppose he oughtn’t have been — that his mate had picked up on the small flux. He shook his head, trying to keep his smile, but his brow pinched again anyway, his thoughts turning back despite his best efforts to what had upset him. At length, he sighed, slipping off of Cas and then the bed altogether, standing and moving to stand over beside the double doors leading to their ocean-view porch.

“It is…not often you mention your mother,” Lithian said, debating and wanting to hold the words in but eventually speaking them. “For all the time that has passed between this day and the last you saw her, I…do not know I would feel comfortable having her around our children.”

Lithian stiffened, the rebuttal entirely unexpected, and — in his opinion — grossly unfair. “My mother?” he responded. “My mother isn’t even on the same spectr—” He bit his tongue, folding his arms in on himself and shaking his head sharply. “Yours abandoned a child. One. Of two children. Took the other and left her mate without warning. Mine disagreed with me. She argued with me. She was angry with me, but she still speaks to me. She didn’t steal half my siblings and leave me for naught as though I were—”

He breathed out and found that it shook on the exhale, resulting in him closing his eyes.

“My mother raised all of her children with love. Some degree of strictness, certainly, and I disagree with her…I am hurt by her, but she…” Lithian trailed off. “It’s not the same…”

“No, I—” Lithian winced as Casseth moved past him.

He hadn’t meant it as an attack on Casseth’s wishes, and he almost voiced that, but eventually let it pass, Casseth already out on the beach. It wasn’t Casseth’s fault to want more than he’d gotten, or imagine that things might have happened differently, but Lithian’s words — which he ought to have kept to himself — were an expression of his anger at the woman his mate’s mother was, not who she might have been. And to have her compared to his own felt unbalanced. She had abandoned a child, and her mate, without reason. She had robbed Casseth of a sister, and Kilian of his daughter. She had torn a family apart without cause or word on the subject, and damaged everyone in the process.

Lithian’s mother…

He frowned. She had hurt him, yes, and her reasoning was flawed, but she had some expression of reasoning. She expressed it, communicated it with him, and — most crucially, in Lithian’s mind — he was an adult. He was an adult, making his own adult decisions, and she had disapproved of those decisions and stood up for her beliefs on that front. She had not torn the rest of his family asunder, had not forbidden that he see any of his other siblings. She had not cut herself off from him or his father or any of his other family. Her damage was narrow, and to him alone.

Watching Casseth, though, Lithian’s shoulders sank, and he followed his mate out to the beach, stilling and curling his toes in the sand as he hesitated, a step behind Cas. “Casseth…I am sorry…” He hovered, fingers a half inch above his mate’s back before he let them come down, feather light, on his dark skin. “It was improper of me to bring it up. If…your mother did walk back into your life…and if you did want it, then I would have her see our children…and see the man you have become. For she has only all the reason to be proud.”

‘Even if I do not believe she deserves that privilege.’

Lithian watched, opening his mouth, and then shutting it again. Encouraged, at least, that Casseth had not pulled away from his touch, he stepped around, moving until he faced his mate and then brushing his fingers up his skin before tugging in lightly. “Let me hold you…?”