Princess Sweetpea
First posted in 2016
Set after The Dragon’s Egg
Summary: Newborns (er, the newly hatched) are exhausting and baby names are not to be taken lightly. Gen. m/m
According to Kate, who had watched small children for money when she’d been a teenager, when she’d been content and Arthur had been in school, some babies were naturally happy babies. They were calm and they smiled, and no one knew why. The same parents could have a happy baby and a fussy one, no matter what they did. And even then, a fussy child could grow up to be happy, calm, and friendly, and a happy baby could grow up to be shy or nervous. There was simply no way to know with children.
Once upon a time, Bertie had liked that notion. That infants were beyond magic. That they were all special.
But he could admit the idea dimmed somewhat after the end of long day, when he was exhausted, and worried, and reminded that all babies, special or not, were vulnerable and fragile. He walked in the front door and noticed that the fire in the fireplace had gone out. Of course it had died; Bertie had been gone for hours and poor Arthur was too tired to deal with it.
At the thought of his pearl, Bertie dropped his briefcase and his coat on the couch, making only a brief detour to light the fire again so their house would be comfortable for the baby. He skipped a stop in the kitchen for tea, and kicked off his shoes before heading upstairs.
Hours without his darlings. They could have forgotten him. Or worse, needed him and he hadn’t been here. And all for a lecture Bertie hadn’t been able to get out of, and a long call with his publisher, who was sympathetic, truly, but had pointed out that Bertie had already been behind schedule before the baby.
His precious darling hadn’t been planned. Bertie had tried to explain, but he knew when he told Arthur, Arthur would insist his publisher was right and would try to take on more to give Bertie the time to finish.
Arthur, wonderful, supreme being Arthur, who was so sleep deprived, because he worried, because this was all so new to both of them. New to the world, really. They had no one to rely on for this, as Arthur wouldn’t hire a nanny. He wouldn’t dream of it, not for their special girl.
For their first special girl, he had said, with pieces of shell strewn across the nursery floor and an iridescent bundle of joy in his arms. Although now that he had gone several days without real sleep, even Arthur might have changed his mind about that.
The child of a human and dragon was not fully any one creature, as Bertie and Arthur had discovered to their dismay when she’d opened her mouth to wail with hunger and they had realized that the formula human babies drank would not be suitable on its own.
But at the moment, Bertie could hear no wet screams or happy, well-fed chirps. He heard no sounds at all as he crept down the hall. Once in the doorway to their bedroom, he stopped as his fires raged with a sun’s worth of passion.
His Arthur was utterly adorable and completely asleep, although he had undoubtedly not meant to pass out with his back to the headboard of their bed and their daughter in his arms. Arthur was in a stained t-shirt and the same boxers he’d been in when Bertie had left that morning. He was unshowered and unshaven, and had been for a few days now, which meant even Arthur had stubble on his chin. The shadows beneath his eyes were pronounced, and his head was at an awkward angle that would hurt when he woke up.
He was beautiful, and only more so with the pearly white glow cast over him from the exquisite creature cradled in his arms.
Their lovely gem. Their sweetpea—or so Arthur had called her once in a moment of frustration when she wouldn’t eat. That was before frantically calling a hundred doctors, before Arthur had fed her sugared milk in desperation, as though she was a fairy.
She had loved it. The formula worked, but apparently the taste did not agree with their little lovebird. Not until they sweetened it. Then she lit up with happiness.
She was lit up now, tinged pink as she woke. The color gave Arthur’s skin a pleasant warmth. Bertie wanted to collapse next to them more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, excluding the first time he’d looked at Arthur and thought I could keep this human forever if this human would only say yes .
Bertie took in the pleased tint to her color and then smiled when her wide eyes met his.
“Shh, Boudica, let your father sleep,”
he whispered to her in his mother’s tongue, the way he had spoken to her when she hadn’t yet hatched.
Arthur snorted softly. “That isn’t her name.”
He had either mysteriously learned Mandarin as Bertie’s mother spoke it, or noted the odd word in that sentence and nothing else. He frowned as he blinked to wakefulness, still managing to look half asleep.
“Zenobia?”
Bertie suggested with a cluck of his tongue. He shrugged off his dress shirt and then knelt gently onto the bed, doing his best not to disturb either of them.
“She’s not a warrior queen.”
Arthur might think he was stern and forbidding, but his sigh as Bertie stretched out on the bed was anything but angry. “There might be throw-up somewhere over there. On a towel, I think.”
He didn’t specify where ‘over there’ meant, poor exhausted darling. Bertie stretched to kiss his warm cheek and Arthur’s eyes fell closed again.
A chirp made him look down. His mighty princess stared back, mercifully peaceful—for the moment.
“Shi Yang?”
Bertie cooed at her, eyebrows up.
Arthur barely twitched. “Not a pirate queen either.”
Bertie shared a moment with the rarest of rare jewels as they silently discussed Arthur’s stubbornness when it came to names. Names granted power. Obviously, a child like theirs, glowing with life and beauty, with a voice like no other—when she wasn’t screaming—must have a name worthy of her.
She chirped, almost inquisitive. Bertie gazed at her and felt his fires build with the need to protect . “I would set worlds on fire for you, my darling,”
he told her, and she let out a bubbling laugh of delight.
According to Arthur’s parenting books, she was too young to laugh. But Arthur’s books didn’t account for a once-in-a-lifetime child like their luminous songbird.
“Pearl?”
Bertie sighed the question as his body grew heavy. He had to finish undressing before he fell asleep, or he’d wake up with four legs, a tail, and torn trousers. But he didn’t want to move. Their daughter, their glorious beautiful daughter, was awake and was calm, and Bertie had his two treasures together.
Arthur didn’t answer.
“Pearl?”
Bertie tried again, and glanced over to see Arthur, fast asleep. Bertie let out an envious breath and then looked back at the greatest gift his pearl had ever given him—a thought Arthur thankfully would never hear and tease him about.
“Margaret of Anjou?”
he suggested, but took her silence as a no. It was just as well. The name was a mouthful. And the Yorks had defeated her anyway.
He wriggled down to put his face to hers, reveling in the soft puff of her breath. “Sweetpea,”
he agreed—for the moment. She could be sweet, and a force to be reckoned with. She was special. She was theirs .
One nickname would not diminish her greatness.
The End