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[ombranera]

WHO: Zevran, Luciano, and YOU
WHAT: Catch all for the month
WHEN: June/Justinian
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Prose or Brackets are fine, roll with what you like most. If you want a specific prompt hit me up on plurk @ here!

[ After the Baptism (Early Justinian) ]

Early in the evening, after some small ceremony in Skyhold's chapel, Zevran can be found surrounded by his Kestrels, sitting quietly in a corner of The Herald's rest as they played music and sang a great many traditional Antivan pieces. There is food and wine and dancing and Zevran partakes only a little. While he may look tired and a little overwhelmed, the night is a joyous one all the same. In his arms, on his lap, or sitting on the table with Zevran's steadying hand upon his back is a small elven child. All wide blue eyes and blonde curls, tanned skin that is marred only by the smudge of ashes in a circle on his forehead as is custom, dressed in a simple cotton shift Luciano Arainai claps and squeals in turn, gnawing on whatever is within reach or patting down Zevran's shirt with sticky hands. He is a child, they are sticky, it is a known fact. To the end of the night exhaustion catches hold for both, leaving the infant cranky and Zevran struggling to soothe him long enough to slip away to their rooms.


[ Garden ]

Afternoons find Zevran lounging in the garden- fresh air is both good for him and supposedly healthy for children- as long as he is able to keep Lucci from shoving things into his mouth that are not meant to be eaten. Which is everything. Which means it is less lounging and more tugging upon a leash and harness he has rigged to let his child roam but not too far- only a few feet from where he is sprawled and sketching upon a blanket. Most of his attention is actually on his son but it does the boy well to assume he has leave to explore. At least until he crawls back to demand food or attention or- whatever it is infants want. Zevran is still learning to interpret his various burbles and shrieks.


[ Courtyard ]

Zevran is, for the moment, trapped under the dead weight of his son- the slightest shifting earns a familiar screwing up of Lucci's face that has him resigned to simply leaning back against the tree where he'd stopped walking to shift his grip earlier and wait out the nap. He dare not doze himself- too tense against the open area, how vulnerable they are, how exposed. Tensing too much causes the same small sounds of upset and thus he is forced to sit, mind that he does not lock up, and wait for Lucci to fall deep enough asleep that he might carry him back to their room or rouse himself enough to make the trip worthwhile.


[ Hot Springs ]

"Your voice does carry, you know." Idle and conversational, Zevran has found a shallower edge of the hot springs when he'd truly rather a deep soak- but elven infants do not swim well and as such he must sit over here. With a shrieking, splashing child rigged safely in some manner of wicker basket he'd lowered into the water to keep Lucci from falling over backward and drowning. And to keep these little floating toys (maker only knows who gave them to him, he cannot recall) from floating away. "Yes, yes, splashing the water is marvelous fun- please hold still."

Not that Lucci is one to listen, wriggling under Zevran's hands as he tries to clean...something...sticky from his son's hair. "What is this, honey? How did you get honey in your hair? When were you near honey?"


[ Training Grounds ]

There are rare days when Lucci is not quite so prone to shrieking and crawling, not quite so intent on escape and Zevran can wrap him in a sling of sorts, tucked up against his chest, and actually train his Kestrels. It is an adjustment, every so often he must away to change the child's soiled underclothes or to feed him and the extra weight is odd and leaves him sore at the end of a few hours- but with one hand on Lucci's back to support him, the other gesturing as he speaks in rapid fire Antivan, directing his Kestrels through their maneuvers.

Comments

[ombranera]

"About a month ago." He massages a bit of oil into the sticky patch- and that seems to be doing the trick. Lucci twists his head this way and that under his father's fingers, sodden curls obscuring his pointed ears for the moment, but even then the resemblance is uncanny.

"His mother is marrying a Merchant Prince and they've no patience for bastards. Should word have gotten around that he is mine..." Zevran shrugs, trying, and failing, to tip Lucci's head back gently so he might rinse out his hair.

[el_tybs]

So it was his child? That is certainly a surprise, but at how easily Zevran just says it kind of takes the punch out of the news. That and Lucci did resemble Zevran in a way - so not that surprising actually. Kind of different seeing Zevran as a father though. A role model certainly, but this was a lot more.

Seeing him struggling to wash Lucci's hair bring a small smile to his face. "You know... when I was that age my aunt held a cloth over my brow to protect my eyes as she poured a cup of water over my head." Least that's what she had told him. He didn't exactly remember that age, and after that he had kind of taken to water.

[ombranera]

"...you know that would work quite well- there is a rag just over-" He stretches and points, one hand still locked in gently cradling Lucci's eyes to spare him the sting. "If you could hand it to me?"

Wrestling with a child while so terribly aware of their fragility is...not terribly comfortable a thing. He wishes to be firm but does not wish to do harm.

[el_tybs]

"Sure," he chuckles, reaching over just a bit to pick up the rag Zevran is pointing to. Handing it over, Sam watches with interest as Zevran tries to handle Lucci, not just struggling with the wiggling apparently.

"How's fatherhood been treating you?"

[ombranera]

The cloth goes over Lucci's eyes who finds it a marvelous game, shrieking given way to soft burbling as he chews on a bit of hanging fabric. Zevran...is not going to complain. He holds Lucci still with all the delicacy he affords one of his traps and slowly rinses the mess from his hair. "As well as one would expect. We are getting along, more or less."

[el_tybs]

The kid was certainly loud, but it was a sign that he was pretty healthy, and in this case happy. Course at hearing 'getting along' to describe their relationship certainly has Sam seeing that the bath isn't the only thing Zevran is struggling with.

"He seems to like you a lot," he offers, giving a small smile. Picturing Zevran as a father is different, but not overly strange, though it probably did come as a shock. "He's very cute."

[ombranera]

"Yes, well. He knows his father." Or. Something like that. He knows who feeds and holds him, who gives him the chilled rags when his gums pain him, who sings him to sleep when the nightmares wake him. If 'father' is what comes to mind then...

Zevran does not know what it means. But it means something that twists in the chest and he is fairly certain that he will break.

"Ah, but he is my-" There will always be that little hitch, that barest moment of hesitation before he finishes. "son. Of course he will be cute."

[el_tybs]

He can only imagine what is going through Zevran's mind. Suddenly a father and having to take care of another life. Not just showing them the ropes or teaching, supporting, but actually taking care of someone who was not able and fully dependent on you.

Of course he was cute. Sam chuckles lightly at that, even if Zevran does pause slightly in his words. At that he finally slides into the hot spring, and taking a seat on one of the grooves in the side - he was here to soak and wash up himself after all. "Lucci, you're going to grow up to be just as attractive and trouble-making as your papa, aren't you?"

[ombranera]

"Handsome, yes. Trouble making? I hope not." What he would not give for a well behaved child- and suddenly he has a rush of sympathy for the women that tried to mind him in Antiva before the Crows purchased him. How difficult did he make their lives, sneaking about? Once or twice they muttered the old adage 'One day may you have a child as difficult as you'.

Not even a year old and Lucci was proving to be just that.

[el_tybs]

"Single-handedly giving an assassin order trouble certainly counts as a trouble-maker I would assume." Not to mention taking members of the Crows and taking them under his own wing - so to speak - and making a better life for them. Calling Zevran a trouble-maker wasn't said out of ill will, but rather out of some affection and amazement of what the man had accomplished. That wasn't to include everything he did during the Blight.

"Course hopefully he decides to do less dangerous stuff than that at the time. Sticky honey in hair seems to be the right amount of trouble for his age."

[ombranera]

"May he grow up and wish to be a baker." Or a painter. Or...anything that does not involve weapons, magic, demons, assassins, darkspawn- Zevran shudders where he sits for a moment, combing his fingers through Lucci's curls. So many things that could lead a man to death. So many of them terribly easy to fall into.

This is a new fear- and he does not much care for it. "We weren't even near the larder, I do not know where he found it."

[el_tybs]

With a father like Zevran it was unlikely that Lucci was going to aspire to be a baker. Course a baker got just as easily caught up in war and the like - look at the people who worked in their kitchens now.

"Do you perhaps have anything in the room that has honey in it? That or he's already good at sleight of hand and took something while you were walking around?"

[ombranera]

"We were in the kitchens earlier finding mint for his gums- his teeth bother him. Perhaps then." Just as well he did not try to eat it- that would be a mess he'd lose hours cleaning.

[el_tybs]

"Well the kitchens do have honey," he agrees. Course why was it in his hair and not in his mouth? "Bothering him? As in he's teething or something else?" Sam doesn't get much closer, but he does lean in to get a bit of a better look from where he's at.

[ombranera]

"He is teething. It is an ordeal." At the moment all seems well, the child happily leaning back against Zevran's chest, burbling. More bubbles, more splashing, more- whatever these floating things are. Zevran nudges a boat in the water and watches Lucci make it move about.

[el_tybs]

It's obvious that Zevran was not enjoying the bath as much as Lucci, or Sam for that matter, who's having quite the time just watching the whole thing. Sorry, Zevran.

Seeing the boat come his direction, Sam reaches out and pushes it back. "Have you tried giving him something that's cold or frosted to gum on?" Nothing that he can swallow of course, but he's heard that the cold helps.

[ombranera]

"Pel has enchanted some stones I wrap rags around to keep them chilled. They are coated with mint and elfroot- Lucci finds them quite soothing. It has cut down, somewhat, on the crying and the screaming." None of which is happening now and for one of the rare moments in the day, Zevran watches his son with a faint undercurrent of fear and awe. He is going to ruin this child terribly, he knows this, it is inevitable. But such life. Such joy.

[el_tybs]

"Enchanted stones, mint and elfroot. Doesn't someone have it made." Sam grins more at Lucci when saying that, but of course the child can't understand him. Not everyplace had such things available to them, especially enchanted stones.

"Do you get any sleep?" Besides the honey, Lucci seemed rather well behaved, but then again behind closed doors things were pretty different.

[ombranera]

"Some." About as much as he would were he in the Deep Roads, ten years ago. Which..is not enough for his older self. Especially when he must keep up with the infant. The noisy, messy, demanding infant. "Enough."

[el_tybs]

This is neither the Deep Roads or ten years ago. That's rough. "Are you the only one watching him? No one else able to do so, so you can take a nap or anything?" Look he doesn't have a kid or really work with children that don't already know how to walk, so this is a bit new for him as well.

[ombranera]

"Mia helps as best she can. Pel when she has time. I am merely adjusting." It takes a bit of work, honestly, learning how to interpret Lucci's cries for attention or food or what have you. "We are managing."

[el_tybs]

"Sounds like you've got quite the team helping you." Luckier than a lot of single parents out there he supposes. "So this is why I haven't seen you around much, huh?"

[ombranera]

"Because I was not certain if I was going to keep him, I am a wanted man, not everyone is terribly fond of me outside skyhold and the fewer people that knew? The better." It was safest that way.

[el_tybs]

He couldn't imagine giving up a child was an easy decision. Course in this case keeping one was probably even harder judging by the reasons that Zevran gave. But now Lucci was being brought out, so-

"So then. You're keeping him?" Zevran had said everything in the past tense - something must have changed then?

[ombranera]

"Yes." For the moment. Until he can find something better for Lucci. Until-

For now. Yes. "I cannot think of anyone else I might trust him with that is not already here."