Seren held out her finger, entranced. The tiny baby, her and Blythe’s baby, grabbed it and began to chew on the tip. “What are we naming them?” She and Blythe had come up with a list together, but the final choices were Blythe’s. 

“Fionnuala and Fiachra,” Blythe decided. “Strong names.”

“Fionnuala,” Seren whispered. She touched her daughter’s cheek, then the scrap of feather-soft hair, and looked over at Blythe holding the little boy. His legs kicked in his sleep, running already. “Fiachra. They’re perfect names, love.”

Blythe smiled, but looked very tired. “I know. They were your choices, if you’ll recall.”

“And if they ever need different ones,” Seren murmured, brushing her thumb over one of Fionnuala’s tiny, perfect ears, “we’ll get to see what they choose.”

BONUS

"If music be the food of love, play on."

-Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare

For Seren Cantores, love was stored in music. It was in the lyrics, yes, such as the songs she'd written for her wife. Romantic words, soft and sweet and shy, speaking of how much Blythe meant to her.

But it was in the melodies too. Soft howls punctuated her songs, calling Blythe's voice to intertwine with hers. Her fingers learned how to play notes like birdsong, or like the falling of leaves, or the specific cadence Blythe always called at the beginning of a howl. She learned how to convey motion, or the behavior of a specific animal, and how to play the tones of different voices.

In one of her compositions, the music told the story of her and Blythe's first hunt together: the wolves represented by Seren's guitar, and the deer they'd caught by Blythe playing oboe. The lyrics, though, retold an old tale about a mage who locked his life away so he could never be killed.

Another song was of an ancient goddess whose mortal lover died. With his last breath, she placed him in the moon so the world would value him like she did. In that one, Seren drew from her earliest compositions, her love songs to Blythe, and wrote in some of the same sequences of notes in the goddess's lyrics.

Although Seren's songs drew on many sources, from myth and legend to sorrow and rage, her favorites were her love songs to her family. Heart's Truth and Joy, her courtship and proposal songs to Blythe, in particular. And now, this melody, though she didn't yet know the words.

She touched Blythe's stomach and hummed the melody to the pups inside. Twins, most likely, Blythe's mother had told them.

"What are you thinking, star?" Blythe murmured, sleepily nestling closer.

Seren nuzzled Blythe's hair and sang softly back, "Rest well, and goodnight, for when the stars a blanket are I'll keep you safe til light."

"Wha's that?"

"A lullaby and a promise." Seren pulled her wife closer. "I want to welcome our little ones to the world with something made special for them."

"You're sweet." Blythe's hand found its way around to pat Seren awkwardly. "Sleep."

It wasn't until well after the pups came that Seren finally finished her lullaby. With no younger siblings, and so many years since her cousins had been babies, she'd forgotten just how much work babies took.

The little ones needed to be fed so often. Their diapers needed changing. They needed to be rocked to sleep, and though they responded well to any soothing melody she sang, Seren didn't have any thoughts left over for lyrics. And by the time the twins fell asleep, she and Blythe soon followed, grateful for whatever rest they could get. Though her sister, Blythe's parents and siblings, and their friends all helped care for the twins on occasion, it never seemed quite enough to keep up with sleep, let alone bathing and songwriting.

And then the twins started crawling. And shifting.

Natural shifters, werecanis and feliviri, shifted by instinct from a young age. They had to be taught to control it when they were old enough. So began a cycle of holding the little ones and shifting form with them, letting the adults' shifts guide the babies' shifts.

Pups were so much less trouble in human infant forms, when they could only crawl around on their stomachs. As wolf pups, Fiachra and Fionnuala raced around on tiny, strong legs, testing their new limits, leaping at each other and at their parents. Tiny, sharp teeth nipped thick wolf fur and thin human skin alike.

"Was I ever this much trouble?" Blythe demanded of her parents.

"More," her father said.

Seren shifted to wolf form and yipped to get the pups' attention, then flopped to the floor to let them climb on her, as was their nighttime routine. They hadn't yet figured out that when they were both on her, she'd shift and they'd be taken with her– they couldn't yet control their shifting on their own.

Still on the floor, Seren wrapped both babies in her arms as they tried to figure out what had happened to their steady wolf-pup legs. Fiachra tried to eat his toes. Fionnuala started to cry.

"None of that now, my loves." Seren admonished them. "It's time for little pups to sleep, my darlings, sleep…" She trailed off.

Blythe gave her a worried look.

"Sleep, my darlings, sleep," Seren sang softly. She nuzzled Fionnuala's hair and kissed her forehead. "For when the day is done, little pups, small and sweet, must rest til morning comes. That's you, loves. So much energy all day, but it's time for sleep."

Blythe knelt by her and took Fiachra from her arms. He fussed briefly, until he was allowed to return to his attempt at gnawing on his own foot.

"Little cannibal," Blythe laughed, then sang the chorus that was all Seren had written for months. "Rest well, and goodnight. For when the stars a blanket are, I'll keep you safe til light." Her emerald gaze flicked up to Seren.

Seren gave her a tired smile. "Little ones, so tired now, from all your restless day." She smoothed Fionnuala's hair. She'd stopped crying, and was now staring up at Seren with those golden eyes she and her twin shared, that seemed to know all too much for such a small child. "Sleep until you wake again, and then once more we'll play."

"Rest well, and goodnight," Blythe sang again, and Seren joined her. "For when the stars a blanket are, I'll keep you safe til light."

Fionnuala's mouth opened in a big yawn, showing two teeth. Though she was younger than a teething human baby, shifter children hit those milestones earlier.

Seren smiled at Blythe in relief as both twins dozed off in their mothers' arms. It worked, she mouthed.

Blythe just smiled back.

"Of course it did," she whispered. "They love your voice, just as I do."