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Part 2.
IP: 76.28.225.70
Posted on March 17, 2014 at 00:54:45 AM by BIRCH

"Daddy!" Roo squealed the word and Birch froze, looking around with something not unlike panic. Daddy? But, if she were Roo's mother, than that would mean...

A long-legged figure, his face shadowed by the sun behind him, swooped the girl up as she ran to him. He spun her around then, without warning, flipped her upside down and began tickling her. The girl shrieked with amusement, wiggling and kicking but not putting up much of a fight. It was clear this was a familiar game to the both of them.

"There you are, my sweets, I was starting to worry," the male said. His voice was low and deep, a voice Birch knew she had never heard and yet, somehow... He flipped Roo rightside up again, put her back on her feet, and turned to Birch and Ahi. Birch's heart flipped over in her chest and then, abruptly, settled. Him, it whispered, as if she hadn't already known. His face was sharp and defined, a Fyren through and through, with amber eyes and a wicked smile. He swept down, pressed a kiss that was soft and yet, somehow, intense against her lips. Him, that blasted heart murmured again.

"Ahlkai, are you going to stand around kissing my sister all day? I thought we were going fishing!"

Birch jumped at the voice, whirled around to find Denahi watching her. He was older, with hints of gray in his hair and beard, but his eyes were as bright and playful as ever. It was all she could do not to gape at him, her mind reeling as it struggled to reconcile her memory of his death with what she saw before her.

"Denahi?"

Her brother's gaze fell on her and his grin was instant but, seeing her expression, he frowned and chucked her gently beneath the chin.

"Why so glum, darling?" her brother asked.

"It's as grandpapa said, Uncle," Roo said. The girl was all but climbing up her uncle now, as eager to play as Birch had been at her age. "Mama doesn't remember us yet."

"I know a way to remedy that!" Ahlkai said, his eyes twinkling with mischief. He swept down, pressed a lingering kiss to her mouth while Roo and Denahi both gave mock groans of disgust. The kiss would have been distracting, her heart was beating so, if Ahi hadn't chosen that moment to kiss both of them as well. The sweet boy pressed his sticky mouth to their cheeks, beaming at them both when they looked at him, and the group laughed. Ahlkai nudged Birch's face up, his eyes meeting hers, and what she saw in those amber depths was enough to stop her from breathing. There was such love in those eyes, such passion, and somehow... somehow she it would be alright. "I'll see you tonight, love."

Birch, too caught up in all that was happening, nodded and swallowed and forced herself to recall how to breathe again as Ahlkai and Denahi, nudging each other like overgrown boys about to get into a wrestling match, gathered their fishing poles and headed out of the village.

"My girl," rumbled a voice. Birch's father was so large he had to pull his arms together and hunch down just to exit the cabin. Birch set Ahi down gently, waited until Roo had taken his hand and steadied him, then dashed to her father. He wrapped muscular arms about her, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and Birch inhaled his familiar, earthy scent. It comforted her on some primal level, made everything that had happened thus far that much easier to believe. "There, there, my sweet. It'll all be alright. Come in."

And so Birch sat with her father in the family kitchen, while Roo's namesake plied them with treats. They talked, and laughed, and cried. Roo and Ahi played outside the window, romping about in their human and Fyren forms interchangeably. And when night fell again, Ahlkai and Denahi swept them all out into the center of the village where the festival was to begin. After a short speech - Birch's father was not known for being long-winded - the games and feasting began. When the music started, Ahlkai swept Birch into his arms and twirled her around the bare dirt that served as their dancefloor. As they danced, and kissed, Ahlkai told her of their life. He spoke of fighting on distant shores together, of their first kiss beneath the full moon. Of arguments and laughter and, above all, love. And as he spoke, Birch remembered...



Years passed, each one ticking by faster than the last. Five, then ten, then fifteen. Birch experienced the wonder of swelling with child, a joy that was somehow both foreign and familiar to her, her first and somehow third child grew beneath her heart. They named him Crimsos, for her father. And they were happy, so happy, in their little cottage by the sea. Life was not always easy, of course, but they found a way to persevere and, more than that, to thrive. Birch and Ahlkai watched their children become adults, maneuvered as parents were entitled to do until all three had found their Mates and settled down. Birch and Ahlkai grew older, but their love never dimmed.

It was on the fifteenth anniversary of Birch's "re-arrival" that Ahlkai swept into her mother's kitchen, looking exasperated.

"Your cousins are at it again, my love," he growled, pinching her bottom as he passed.

"What did you expect, Ahl? You know how they get," she answered, checking that the roasting deer to see how it was coming along.


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