In Which Nora's Concerns Are Quelled

April 26, 1161

"Well, she's asleep now," Nora declared as she stepped back into her and Jothein's bedroom, "and if she starts crying again, both Ceidrid and Alsina are still awake, so with any luck, one of them will see to her."

With any luck. With 'any luck', her two-year-old daughter would have been able to sleep through a night by now. For some reason, Aldara just could not go more than an hour or two without suddenly waking, screaming at the top of her lungs, disturbing the sleep of whole household. Nora and Jothein both loved her more than anything... but there were several forces at work with the girl's sleeping habits, and 'luck' was not one of them.

Flashing a tired smile, Jothein nodded. "Very well. I suppose it won't be too long before those two are off having babies of their own anyway, so it will be good for them to get used to this sort of thing."

"Babies of their own?" repeated Nora with a raised brow. "Jothein, Ceidrid is thirteen, and Alsina just turned twelve. They still have quite some time before anything of the like; you'll recall that both Falidor and I married at sixteen, and Falidor only because Ailede tricked him. Boys don't usually marry until later, as you would know--you were twenty-three."

"That, my love, is because I never met the girl I wanted to marry until I was nearly that age," he told her as she lowered herself onto the bed. "Ceidrid's good fortune may hit him sooner."

"Or he may meet the same fate as Falidor," Nora sighed. "Oh well, I suppose he is making the best of what he has--he loves the little girl to death, you know, even if she isn't his. In fact... let me rephrase; she is his. She's more his than Ailede's, even, since she couldn't be bothered to look after any of them."

Jothein turned his head slightly, his sparkling, wintery eyes meeting her own. "Your brother is a good man, Nora, and he is nothing if not a father. At the end of the day, I think that boy needed another baby to love, and that baby needed a parent to love her, so it worked out well enough for the both of them."

He did have a way of making everything fit, her husband. He approached life and all of its problems with the same precision and dedication with which he approached his craftsmanship, and with just the perfect touch of artistic flexibility, Jothein's mind could seamlessly weave even the most bizarre of occurrences into the natural order of the universe. For this, Nora was grateful; she herself had never been one to accept that which she could not control with such grace and dignity.

"I suppose you're right. It's just... odd, isn't it? There are men like Falidor who only want more children and their wives aren't at liberty to give them any, and then there are men like Lord Severin who have plenty of children and don't particularly want any more, but whose wives keep having babies like nobody's business."

On the other side of the bed, her husband shifted slightly. "If he doesn't want any more babies, why doesn't he just stop sleeping with her?"

Nora rolled her eyes. "Jothein, if we had seven kids, and you didn't want any more, would you stop sleeping with me?"

"No."

"Exactly."

"I do hope Ceidrid and Rifden both manage to avoid either situation, though," she mused. "I already have one Falidor for a brother, and while I love him to death, I wouldn't wish his fate fate on either of the other two. Nor his lordship's--while I have nothing but respect for that man and his wife, I would not want to be his sister."

Shaking his head, her husband gently took her in his arms, a smile on his face and another slowly swelling on her own despite herself. "Like you said, Nora... they have plenty of time."

"Indeed," agreed Nora. "I just hope they use it wisely."

"If they're anything like their sister, they will."

"If they want their sister to keep talking to them, they'd better."

Jothein chuckled. "That's a little cold, Nora."

"And you, good sir, are feeling rather warm," she teased him with a wink. "Perhaps it would help if you removed that heavy loincloth of yours."

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