A Growing Family

It had been six years. Zylvia sat happily watching the children play, her current youngest on her lap. It was getting a bit hard to hold the eleven-month-old kid as her stomach had gotten swollen with her current pregnancy. Her eldest son sat on the floor next to her cross-legged reading a rather large tome that seemed a little deep for his age.

She snuggled her young son in her arms, feeling content as she sat with Fayre talking to her. Fayre seemed to enjoy herself when Zylvia's two-year-old climbed into her lap to play with the necklace she was wearing.

"Give that back!" Alarmed Zylvia looked towards the source of the commotion. Vestyl had his sister's doll she had been playing with and was holding it over her head, grinning impishly.

As she almost stood up to take care of it, before Althea burst into tears about her twin brother bullying her, Amrunela calmly walked up behind her younger brother and took her sister's doll to hand to her. She scolded her brother as she did so.

Vestyl frowned and then muttered underneath his breath, "But she was not playing with me…"

Caldron looked up from his book with a frown, "Play with someone else then. You are being rather noisy, and you can always play with Mila."

Vestyl noticing the almost glare on his slightly older brother's face blanched a little and then gave up and went over to where his four-year-old sister sat, playing with blocks and began to help her.

Althea hugged her doll to herself, said thank you to her eldest sibling and ran off to go play with her twin and Mila.

Zylvia settled back into her seat. Even at the age of seven her daughter was already a blessing. Being pregnant sometimes messed with how easily she could deal with her children. But her eldest daughter was very responsible for her age. Whether it was just in a desire to compete with the young prince or not was not something Zylvia was sure of.

She glanced over at where Jaekel was sitting, quietly with a book in his lap. He was not actually reading but had his head propped in his hand as he watched the other children with a small hint of a smile on his face.

Amrunela satisfied with the fact that her siblings fight had been broken up, skipped back over to where she had been sitting with Jaekel and leaned against him as she continued reading the book he was holding. It was pretty normal seeing the two of them together, as they were practically connected at the hip.

It was a few hours later that the two menfolk came in. Jayesh had a huge smile on his face and looked utterly excited. Kaldrek was smiling softly as he walked over to where Zylvia was sitting and dropping a kiss on the top of her head.

Jayesh had also went and kissed Fayre's cheek. And then he straightened up and told them what he was excited about, "We are having a picnic!"

Zylvia smiled. That did sound like fun. It seemed to excite the kids. Well, most of them anyway. Caldron had not even looked up from his book, and seemed to be utterly uncaring at the prospect of going outside for some fun.

Even as all the other kids were ready, he stayed where he was. Before Zylvia could deal with it her husband muttered softly to her, "I'll get him."

She watched as he walked over and knelt beside of him whispering to the boy quietly. After a while Caldron nodded and then set aside the book and followed.

She leaned towards her husband, "What did you say?"

Kaldrek gave her a mysterious look, "It's a secret between us Wyrd sorcerers."

She rolled her eyes at her husband. It was true that Caldron obviously shared his father's bloodline. Caldron was very similar to his father in many ways.

It was not often they got to take time like this to just enjoy everyone's company together. Zylvia was rather happy as she watched her two oldest female children attempt to help Fayre set up for the picnic. Amrunela was much more helpful than Althea but watching the five-year-old attempting to make herself useful was heartwarming.

Jaekel also volunteered himself to help. Which was not too surprising. He always tried to do anything Amrunela was doing.

Zylvia was not helping because no one would let her when she was this far in her pregnancy. She sighed and leaned back against the tree Kaldrek had had her sit beside of.

The younger children, other than Cael who was sitting on his mother's lap, were playing on the green grass. Zylvia watched as her husband started playing with them, and smiled to herself. Kaldrek had been a good father, if a bit apt to spoil his children.

When they had finished setting up, Kaldrek brought her some food and sat next to her, placing a kiss on her cheek as he did so. She leaned slightly into him, enjoying having the love of her life beside of her.

As she ate she watched her children as they got food and spread out in groups of two or three. It was after she had finished eating that she heard the argument going on between the two oldest children.

"You do know that my parents are not really your aunt and uncle don't you?"

"Jaek. Don't be mean!"

Zylvia looked over when she heard this. It was not usual for those two to fight. Amrunela looked about ready to cry, while Jaekel had been smiling brightly but it was dropping from his face as his best friend looked on the verge of tears.

"I was not meaning to be mean. It's just true, we ain't related." He patted her head, attempting to get her to stop crying, "At least not by blood."

She turned away from him, a pout on her face, and left in a fury.

"Rune!" He quickly chased after her, "Please don't be mad. I don't know why I said that!"

He managed to catch up to her, and hugged her tightly refusing to release her till she forgave him. Seeing this though made Zylvia think of the fact that Jaekel was not a normal kid.

At times he was way more mature than he should be and it sometimes seemed to clash with how childish he could be at times. It had been three years ago that they had found out just how special he was, and why he sometimes seemed to have that unnatural wisdom. His visions disturbed him at times greatly, but he never once complained.

He seemed actually pretty content for someone who dreamed about terrible things. As long as his best friend was near him he seemed perfectly fine. But he hated being separated from Amrunela for very long. His bond with her daughter seemed to anchor him, and keep him content about his lot in life.

It was late afternoon when they headed back to the inside of the castle. The rest of the day seemed to pass by quickly and night had fallen quickly.

Zylvia cuddled up next her husband that night and reflected that her life had become more than she had ever quite dared to hope it would. She fell to sleep blissfully happy and looking forward to the rest of her life with her sorcerer.