Chapter Text
At first, Dirthamen does not understand the other evanuris’ objections to this arrangement.
It is very practical. He can spare the minimal attention required to ensure his infant’s well-being without being distracted from matters at the meeting, and she behaves well. Generally, in fact, she seems quite content to simply observe events proceeding around her. When she becomes anxious or uncomfortable, she is more apt to simply shift around to get his attention; or else she will shove one tiny fist up by her mouth. In the beginning he had anticipated that she would sleep through most of these meetings. Most of his advisors had assured him that infants spent a lot of time sleeping.
But she seems too interested in the meetings to bother with that.
Gradually, though, Dirthamen understands that the problem is not with his infant at all. It is with her effect on the others. Falon’Din, of course, often complains that his ‘contraption’ is unsightly, and that the infant is a burden and that Dirthamen should not have her, and is overall surly on this matter. This is to be expected. He is very jealous of the attention being paid to her.
Andruil and June are mostly content to at least attempt to ignore her. But the others… Elgar’nan asks frequently to hold her. The few times Dirthamen has complied with his request, she behaved well - she is a very good baby, really, he thinks - but she became surrounded by a tiny cloud of anxiety that none of his father’s efforts could diminish, until he at last handed her back.
“I am surprised she did not cry,” Mythal had observed, and then asked for a turn. She had fared better than her husband. Though his infant had fidgeted more than usual, and had not settled into what he understood to be the typical reactions of babies towards Mythal; there had been no reaching for her hair or jewellery, or napping against her shoulder.
“Did she inherit Dirthamen’s oddness?” Sylaise wondered, and then his infant had been passed along, to her hands - and a similarly neutral reception - and Andruil’s, and more anxiousness. Andruil had swiftly passed the babe on to Ghilan’nain, who had taken a long moment to look into her eyes.
“I can hold her for the rest of the meeting,” Ghilan’nain had suggested.
Dirthamen had been slightly surprised to find himself more anxious at the prospect than his infant seemed to be.
It is this instance, and the continuing attention paid to his child, however, that yields the answer to the mystery. Bringing his infant to meetings is a poor idea, not because it will distract him, and not because she will disrupt important affairs, but because the other evanuris will, essentially, grind said affairs to a halt in order to make a fuss over the baby, and the baby’s reactions. When they realize she is looking at them, they will trail off mid-sentence, sometimes.
There are inadvertent benefits, though. On one occasion, when Falon’Din’s suggestions turned particularly violent, Mythal had promptly interrupted his brother.
“There are children present,” she had said, meaningfully.
“Well perhaps there should not be,” Falon’Din had countered.
In the subsequent argument, the matter had at last been put to a vote. All in favour of keeping the baby at the meetings were himself, Elgar’nan, Mythal, and Ghilan’nain. Elgar’nan, he suspected, was still stymied by the baby’s obvious anxiety towards him, and kept making efforts to win her over. Mythal just seemed to like babies. And Ghilan’nain, he rather thought, wanted to see if he might leave her behind after a meeting one time, and give her an opening to steal away the infant for herself.
Dirthamen will be doing no such thing. He found her first, and she has no markings; the laws are fairly clear on his right to claim her.
His infant also raised her hand, but her vote did not count. Fortunately, though, it did not need to. With Mythal and Elgar’nan’s votes outweighing the rest, the baby was granted leave to stay. Falon’Din’s language and violence have been subsequently curtailed, and so, surprisingly, have June’s; though in the latter’s case, this seems to be some reflexive response on his own part, and nothing enforced by anyone else.
Overall, a success.
Dirthamen leaves the latest war council, and pauses to contemplate the infant strapped to his chest.
“Good baby,” he commends, patting her head.
Mythal breezes past him.
“Dirthamen, my son, if she does not have a name by the end of the month, I am giving her one myself,” she informs him.
“Will she be able to speak by the end of the month? Or write? I have tried giving her writing implements, but her fine motor skills are not developed enough to make proper use of them,” he explains. "It has been a hindrance towards learning her name.”
Mythal just shakes her head at him, a little, and sends a brush of fondness in his direction before carrying on.
He considers, and then gives his infant’s head another pat.
“A placeholder name would not offend you, I hope?” he wonders.
Big eyes blink up at him. She pats his chest, one time - ‘no’, then.
He nods.
“Good.”