Finally the day has gone, and he slumped down in a chair by the kitchen table. The kitchen, a load of work still ahead; the kids had been baking honeybread so naturally all the walls and all the counters were covered with patches of unbaked dough. Even Oreo, the mabari, had dough in his fur, massaged in by chubby hands who always found a moment to pat the dog enthusiastically.
“Ay, mi querida,” he sighed, “I think so.”
She laughs, very silently, and hands him a glass of brandy. He tugs her down in her lap and kisses her with a gentle firmness, fingers travelling through her unruly curls as his lips curve up in a smile.
The kiss is broken as they hear songs of little feet, tapping above them. A flutter, almost.
Two heads poke out from the corner by the stairs, giggling.
“Not asleep,” Zevran resigns.
She looks at him, whispers. “I have a feeling they are riled up because their father,” she pokes a finger into his chest, “tells them the best tactics to sneak around, instead of stories!”
“If I did, mi amor, they would sneak around much better than this, no?”
The giggling from the stairs grows a bit bolder when Alva, the little sister at the age of two, starts sliding down the stairs on her rump.
Galain steals a final kiss, a small nip at the curve of Zevrans shoulder, before she steps out to usher the two wildlings back to bed.
“Mamae,” Theus tugs on Galains dress, guiding her into the master bedroom to point to the big bed. He looks up at her with that glimmer in his eyes; the one that made him look exactly like his father. She gave in with a toothy grin and tucked them in under the massive cover.
Zevran chuckled behind her as she climbed into bed with them, leaning on the doorframe, still swirling his glass of brandy.
She starts singing a song, an old dalish one, and the gentleness of her voice makes his eyes tear up, a throbbing in his throat he nearly feels reluctant to welcome.
Zevrans walks a bit closer, setting his glass on a shelf without even taking a sip and climbs into bed on the other side.
He hums along to the soothing lullaby, soon they all blink and yawn. They fall asleep blissfully, a nestle of intertwined limbs and tiny breaths on tired skin.
The kitchen is still a mess, but the patches of unbaked dough, the same as the bread ready to bake in the early hours of the morning; these things, the tiny little things, a gift of life; it makes them sleep all the better.