Work Text:
Three years since the Sword of Heroes met.
Three years since Delores had decided she still wanted a family.
Two years since the adoption was finalised.
Two years of the four of them, a family.
Family. That word felt stale on Delores’ tongue, unused for years, now it slipped so seamlessly off her tongue. Was she even ready, after everything that happened last time? What if it happened again?
Sluggishly, she pushed herself up off her bed, a small, elegant thing, adorned with gold vines woven through the headboard and bedframe, and a hand-quilted blanket Koda and Fernie had made her for Mothers’ Day the previous year. Muffled voices and clattering float through the cottage, followed by heavy, approaching footsteps, announcing Fernie’s arrival as he sticks his head through the doorway. His hulking wooden body is folded into a smaller version of itself, somewhere between Delores’ and Koda’s heights, his face displaying the innocent smile that had always melted her heart.
“Bug and Koda again?” she sighed, tossing her legs over the side of the bed and sliding her bonnet off her long, ashen braid. Fernie nodded, hands folding in the way they do when he doesn’t quite know what to do with them. Delores took her son’s hand, following him silently down the stairs to the kitchen, where they were met with the striking image of a small, blue goblin with a messily dyed purple mohawk, dressed in a wrinkled yellow sleep shirt, clumsily wrestling with a dark-skinned elf, red hair haphazard, dressed in a grey robe that used to belong to Delores’ eldest biological daughter. Plates lay forgotten on the table as pots scattered the floor, both culprits yelling incoherently between scrambling attacks.
Bug glanced in Delores’ direction, immediately sobered, excessively pierced ears sliding back on his head as he scrambled off Koda and back to his seat. His brother looked over too, his annoyance melting into something close to shame, straightening and folding his hands on the table, like a royal caught slacking. Fernie shuffled past Delores, settling on a pink pillow beside bug’s chair and eating the toast left on his plate, half cold with far too much jam on it.
Delores sighed, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl and sitting across from her rowdier sons. “So, what was it this time?” Neither answered, Bug’s hands folding while Koda stayed stock still. “Koda said Bug’s bread looked weird,” Fernie emphasised around his food, unbothered. “It does though, it's all burnt but the inside is still raw, how’d he even manage that?” Koda huffed, gesturing to the mess of a loaf of bread across from Bug. “It’s my first one,” he grunted back, pouting, “it’s not my fault you already knew how to do it.”
“It isn’t as bad as you think, bud.” Delores ruffled bug’s hair, fingers brushing the matted knots. She glanced at the loaf. It definitely wasn’t great, the crust blackened and crisp, and the centre soft and gooey, inching toward the plate it sits on. Still, she’s seen worse. “Most people I’ve met couldn’t even get it to the oven.” The smallest smile twitches on Bug’s face, leaning youthfully into the touch. Koda looked away, face flushed in shame. He jumped slightly when Delores’ hand met his shoulder, an old habit he never quite managed to shake. “Koda, you know how to fix it, don’t you?” He nodded sharply, muttering to Bug and scooping up the bread, shuffling over to the workbench. Bug mouthed a quick “thanks” as he slid from his chair and shuffled over to meet Koda. Quiet conversation ensued as the two fixed the loaf. Fernie finished his toast and scurried out to his garden, his head sliding into the window’s vision each time he leaned to a plant’s level. The midmorning sun trickled through the windows, casting Delores in a soft, warm glow as her sons talked between themselves.
Maybe she was cut out for parenting after all.