“Oof.”
Krolia is very suddenly awoken the sudden pressure of 45 pounds of toddler on her kidney.
“Sorry,” Keith whispers when he sees she’s awake.
“Maybe let’s not stand on my internal organs,” she wheezes, and Keith scrambles off of her sheepishly.
“Sorry,” he repeats when he’s sat safely on her legs. He sticks his thumb in his mouth. “Didn’t mean to, Mama.”
Krolia carefully moves Tex’s arm of her midsection so she can sit up. She places a gentle hand on Keith’s cheek, and he leans into her palm with a sigh.
“What’s wrong, baby? Nightmare?”
Keith nods.
“You wanna sleep here? Or should I tuck you back in?”
He shrugs, but cuts such a nervous look to the door that Krolia can guess which one he really wants. She shifts over a little, making enough space between her and her husband for one little monkey.
“Come here, diallo.”
Keith doesn’t hesitate, diving in the space and curling up immediately. Unfortunately for Tex, their son’s mad dash for the safety between them included a pretty solid (although accidental) kick to the ribs.
“Jesus fu —”
“Language, Tex,” Krolia warns, desperately trying not to laugh. “We’ve got little monkey ears listening in.”
“‘M not a monkey,” Keith protests, giggling.
Tex is still a little wheezey from the assault to his ribs, but manages to smile and tease anyway. “I dunno. Krolia? I think he’s a monkey. What about you?”
Krolia taps a finger to her chin, pretending to think hard. “I think you might be right, Tex. I mean, he’s got his little monkey ears.” As she says it, she reaches forward and playfully tugs on the fluffy purple ears at the top of Keith’s head, that appear when he’s tired or emotional.
Keith bats her hands away. “Nuh-uh! They’re my Galra ears! Not monkey ears!”
Krolia’s grin gets so wide she feels it might split her face.
Her son is so cute.
“I know I’m right,” Tex continues to tease, “because he’s got little monkey paws!” Tex grabs on of Keith’s chubby hands and blows a raspberry on the palms, making him shriek with laughter.
“No, Daddy, no! That tickles!”
Tex continues to tickle the poor boy, until he squirms around enough to grab his father’s face with both hands, holding him still. “Stop, Daddy. You’re making me laugh so much I’m gonna explode.”
“You are the cutest — little — thing,” Tex says, punctuating each word with a kiss on Keith’s cheeks. Keith giggles, but his eyelids are beginning to droop.
“Alright, I think it’s time to tone down the sillies and go to sleep,” Krolia says.
Keith pouts. “But I’m not tired, Mama.”
“Then why are you yawning, baby?”
Keith shrugs. He can barely even keep his eyes open. “It’s awake yawning.”
“Oh, I see,” Tex says softly. “That makes sense.”
Keith makes a little humming sound. “Not tired,” he mumbles, eyes fully closed.
“Of course,” Krolia agrees, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Love you, munchkin.”
Keith’s out before he can respond.
Tex chuckles softly, looking at Keith with more softness than she ever thought capable of him. Not that he’s a rough man by any means (well. Maybe by one or two means, if you check her drift, but she has no problem with that), but to see his jagged edges so smoothed out… Krolia is more and more grateful, every day of her life, that she decided to stay.
“I love that little squirt so much,” Tex says quietly. “I never thought I wanted kids, before. Always seemed like too much to handle. But there’s nothing I wouldn’t handle for him.”
“I know,” Krolia says.
“I hope he knows how much I love him,” Tex continues.
“He does. He knows, Tex. You tell him all the time.”
“I worry,” Tex admits, brushing Keith’s fluffy hair off his forehead. “I can’t explain it. But I’m always worried that I won’t always get to tell him, and that he’ll forget.”
Krolia is familiar with that anxiety. Despite knowing how far away Earth is from everything — truly, in terms of distance, the planet is almost untouchable — there’s always a low thrum of terror in her veins. What if Zarkon discovers a way to track the lions? What then? How will she protect her family? Will she be able to?
“You have to trust him,” Krolia whispers. “We do what we can. We tell him every day, we make sure he’s as safe and loved as he can be. From there —” she shrugs, looking at her husband a little helplessly. “From there, it’s up to the universe what happens. We have to trust that he’ll remember that to us, he’s the most precious thing to exist.”
Tex doesn’t look — comforted by her words, exactly. But he does look calmed.
“I do trust him,” he says.
“Then everything will be fine.”
Krolia can’t promise that, not really. But she knows that she will do everything in her power to keep that promise. And she has to trust that it’s enough.
———
other part of this au
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Okay okay okay, so. There was a lot going on in the last ep, like holy shit, and I loved it a whole lot, but aside from all the Vox Machina stuff, and abt to fight Delilah Briarwood stuff, I want to take a minute to talk about Orym.
Friends, the halfing is not doing well.
Which is, yk, given his whole character and backstory, maybe a little bit of a duh, but it was showcased in this ep in a way that it hasn't been in the last couple bc there hadn't been a fight and I am Concerned, and at the moment I'm actually a little more worried about him than I am for Imogen (partly bc everyone's worried about Imogen, understandably, and Orym as always is more than content to let himself and the stuff he's dealing with fade into the background completely.)
Everyone's committed their whole selves to finding Laudna and doing this dangerous thing, yes, but Orym expended every single one of his superiority dice in that first fight by doing goading strikes and bait and switch with Imogen and only once giving himself the ac bump once.
He's fighting with intense protectiveness and a heavy whopping of survivor's guilt and being reckless enough about it that if everyone else doesn't cotton on on be careful abt it in genuinely worried that he's gonna get himself killed, again. Thankfully, I'm pretty sure that at least Laura's cottened on to something going on, but whether Imogen's gonna be in a place to say/do sitting about it is a whole other can of worms. And I guess we'll just have to see what just happens (and holy shit I'm excited for the possibility that Laura Bailey's gonna kill Delilah Briarwood for the third time) next Thursday
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