[Wild Roses] Sun Queen
Title: something new to learn
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Aifiric, Phoebe
Prompt: 22D "mother"
Word Count: 504
Notes: After point to him, before winter quiet.
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He knew something was off when he found his wife--and that was still odd to think, to frame in his head--sitting curled up in one of the study's window seats, wearing only two layers of fabric above her underpinnings. The chemise layer was an old gold, barely touched with rose-pink, the diagonal bodice and sweep of overskirt russet-brown. She hadn't bothered straightening out the layers to lie nicely across her legs, so one of her ankles showed and the gold and russet fabrics were tangled together in a mess that looked more like the contents of a cooking pot than any of her usual waterfalls or ice-layers.
He knew she had white and grey tucked away in the back recesses of her clothing stores, so it wasn't that she was mourning something. She wasn't angry about something either, he thought, though as far as he knew she owned neither black nor red and so she'd give no coloured warning for fury.
So he leaned one of his shoulders up against the sturdy wooden shelves of the case nearest her feet, and asked, too softly to carry anywhere but to her, "Would company be welcome?"
She raised her head, half-startled, and he noticed that her hair had tumbled from its pins and braids, spilling into a red, springy cushion for her head against the glass.
"I--yes," she decided suddenly, instead of finishing the sentence she'd begun. Pulled her feet in to make space for him on the padded seat, flicking her skirts' jumbled sweep out of the way with a half-hearted glare towards her knees.
He sat, tucking one knee up against the glass, the other foot planted on the floor, his back against the chilly wall, as she'd stolen both the cushions to prop behind her own back.
He was about to ask if there was anything he could do when she looked up at him, gave him a half-smile unlike anything he'd ever seen on her face, and said "Come next year, you may be dealing with two leRoux, instead of just one."
He blinked. Blinked again, then looked involuntarily at where one of her hands lay low across her belly in her lap. When he looked up again and met her eyes, whatever she saw in his face made her smile, a quick flash like sun breaking through clouds, before it faded and she looked at him questioningly.
".. How far--" he started to ask, and faltered, because he'd never had to do this before. None of the four children he knew about had been presented to him younger than ten; Joveta and Aleron had been skinny striplings of fifteen, Mahieu nearly thirty before his mother had presented him to king and court. Even Pierre had been long years after he'd been carried around under his mother's heart.
"Two, three months?" Phoebe guessed, and he half-startled, remembering the question, as she explained "It's been a long time since I was last carrying a babe, either my own or someone else's."
He nodded, slowly, thinking, but reached over with his free knee to brush the fabric-outlined bottom of one of her feet companionably anyway.
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Aifiric, Phoebe
Prompt: 22D "mother"
Word Count: 504
Notes: After point to him, before winter quiet.
---------
He knew something was off when he found his wife--and that was still odd to think, to frame in his head--sitting curled up in one of the study's window seats, wearing only two layers of fabric above her underpinnings. The chemise layer was an old gold, barely touched with rose-pink, the diagonal bodice and sweep of overskirt russet-brown. She hadn't bothered straightening out the layers to lie nicely across her legs, so one of her ankles showed and the gold and russet fabrics were tangled together in a mess that looked more like the contents of a cooking pot than any of her usual waterfalls or ice-layers.
He knew she had white and grey tucked away in the back recesses of her clothing stores, so it wasn't that she was mourning something. She wasn't angry about something either, he thought, though as far as he knew she owned neither black nor red and so she'd give no coloured warning for fury.
So he leaned one of his shoulders up against the sturdy wooden shelves of the case nearest her feet, and asked, too softly to carry anywhere but to her, "Would company be welcome?"
She raised her head, half-startled, and he noticed that her hair had tumbled from its pins and braids, spilling into a red, springy cushion for her head against the glass.
"I--yes," she decided suddenly, instead of finishing the sentence she'd begun. Pulled her feet in to make space for him on the padded seat, flicking her skirts' jumbled sweep out of the way with a half-hearted glare towards her knees.
He sat, tucking one knee up against the glass, the other foot planted on the floor, his back against the chilly wall, as she'd stolen both the cushions to prop behind her own back.
He was about to ask if there was anything he could do when she looked up at him, gave him a half-smile unlike anything he'd ever seen on her face, and said "Come next year, you may be dealing with two leRoux, instead of just one."
He blinked. Blinked again, then looked involuntarily at where one of her hands lay low across her belly in her lap. When he looked up again and met her eyes, whatever she saw in his face made her smile, a quick flash like sun breaking through clouds, before it faded and she looked at him questioningly.
".. How far--" he started to ask, and faltered, because he'd never had to do this before. None of the four children he knew about had been presented to him younger than ten; Joveta and Aleron had been skinny striplings of fifteen, Mahieu nearly thirty before his mother had presented him to king and court. Even Pierre had been long years after he'd been carried around under his mother's heart.
"Two, three months?" Phoebe guessed, and he half-startled, remembering the question, as she explained "It's been a long time since I was last carrying a babe, either my own or someone else's."
He nodded, slowly, thinking, but reached over with his free knee to brush the fabric-outlined bottom of one of her feet companionably anyway.