All Chapters of Alpha Draco And His Omega Luna : Chapter 71 - Chapter 77

SofiaThe baby arrived in spring.Not dramatically nothing about it was dramatic, which surprised everyone who had spent the previous months expecting drama. It arrived quietly, in the early morning, in the specific way of things that had been building toward a moment for a long time and simply arrived.A girl.We named her Maren.Draco had said it first quietly, in the early morning, holding her for the first time with the specific careful quality of someone who had never held something this small and was treating the holding as the most important thing he had ever done and he had looked at me and said:"Maren."I had looked at him."If you want," he said. "Your mother's name."I had held his gaze for a long moment.Then I had said yes.Maren Fletcher-whatever-Draco's-surname-was which was a conversation we were still having and which Mila had opinions about.Maren.She had my eyes and Draco's jaw and a quality of attention even at three days old, even at one week that made Elara loo

SofiaWe talked about it properly for the first time two weeks after Maren arrived.Not because we had been avoiding it, or not entirely. There had been too much to hold in the first two weeks. Too much arriving and adjusting and the specific absorption of new parenthood, which consumed attention in the specific way of something that required everything and gave everything back in a different form.But the conversation had been there.I had felt it sitting in the space between us not uncomfortable, not weighted with dread, just present. Waiting for the right moment the way important conversations waited when they were not urgent but were real.The right moment was a Tuesday evening.Maren was asleep. Actually asleep, the specific settled sleep of a baby who had been fed and held and was genuinely down for the night rather than the preliminary doze that preceded waking forty minutes later. Elara had checked on her and confirmed it with the satisfied expression of someone whose assessme

SofiaIt happened at dinner, the planning was Xavier's and Xavier planned things with the specific quiet efficiency of someone who prepared thoroughly and then executed so smoothly that the preparation became invisible. The result was that it seemed to happen spontaneously when it had, in fact, been thought about for a while.We were at the full table.The full table had become the default since Maren's arrival not because anyone had decided it should be, but because the specific gravity of the estate had shifted slightly in the two months since she arrived, pulling everyone toward the same room at the same time with the reliable consistency of something that had found its natural arrangement.Maren was in Elara's arms because Maren was almost always in Elara's arms at dinner, which Elara had established as her specific grandmotherly right within approximately forty-eight hours of Maren's arrival and which no one had argued with because Elara with Maren had the specific quality of som

SofiaThe wedding was set for the last Saturday of spring. Mila had chosen the date with the specific, reasoned precision she brought to all decisions, she had presented three options at the Thursday meeting with supporting rationale for each, and the last Saturday of spring had won on grounds that included the light quality in the estate at that time of year, the specific warmth of late spring evenings, and the fact that the wild-edged garden would be at its most honest, which was Mila's phrase and which everyone at the meeting had understood immediately.Kara had looked at the date and said yes. Xavier had looked at Kara and said yes.Mila had noted it.Entry seventy-four: The date is decided. Last Saturday of spring. The light will be right.The weeks between the decision and the date had the specific quality of weeks that were being lived fully because they were leading to something worth leading to. Not the anxious quality of anticipation, not the specific performance of exciteme