Page 153 of Sway's Peace
This, laying in the nest his mate made for them, the gentle warmth of his fading pleasure still thrumming through his veins, his female in his hands, was the ultimate peace.
Sway would never be a ‘normal’ farasie again. But that didn't mean he couldn’t be a good one, a good male. He could help his people. He could be true to his brothers. He could be the mate she deserved while accepting who he was.
Yes, this was peace. This was his grace upon himself.
She was his Grace.
Epilogue - 10 years later…
Grace
“Dad, can we have some candy?”
“Please?”
Sway looked down from the mirror and onto his sons. Smiling indulgently before he even saw them. Even before he opened his mouth, Grace knew what he was about to say.
She snapped, “Lucas! Teel!”
The boys jumped before turning with sheepish smiles. Big, innocent eyes. Looking so adorable and pathetic, one might think they were beaten puppies. Grace glared at them, hands on her hips, anger burning in her chest.
“What did I say?” She demanded to know, staring them down.
Neither boy answered her. Their gaze alternating between giving Sway puppy dog eyes and looking, ashamed, down at the ground. They were in trouble, and they knew it, but they were going to try to tug on their father’s heartstrings, knowing theyhad a much better chance of getting away with their mischief with him than with her.
The boys were twins, but only insomuch that they were laid at the same time. Grace, for her pregnancy, had laid two eggs, making them fraternal twins. She wasn’t surprised, considering that had been when Goldie was still learning how to turn ovulation on and off. She had turned it on, definitely, but Grace had produced two eggs instead of just one, resulting in her boys.
They were both bad, but had absolute angel faces. They also had their father completely wrapped around their little fingers.
Lucas was slightly taller than his brother, though he had hatched second. Teel was shorter, though only marginally, and his face was a bit rounder. Otherwise, they were very similar in appearance.
Unlike Sway, they were covered in skin, not feathers, like her, though it was the same pale blue as their father’s palms. They did have feathers, though it was where hair would be. They were too young to have crests yet, but their heads were covered in downy blue feathers, just a few shades darker than their skin. They wouldn’t get their crests until they hit puberty, but they would most certainly be the same color as Sway’s, just like their tails already were. They did have hard, gray skin at their knuckles and from their knees down, like their father, as well as the shiny, all black eyes.
But they also had claws. Which had been a surprise.
Their fingers and toes were tipped with thick, black claws, almost like talons. Sway had fingernails like herself, so it confused them as to wherethatparticular trait had come from. After looking into it with Goldie, researching farasie genealogy and history, they discovered that ancient farasie used to havethat exact feature, but it had long been bred out. Nowadays, if a hatchling began developing claws in the egg, it was classified as a birth defect and corrected before hatching.
Claws were violent, after all, and the farasie people would not appreciate such things. Claws were useless to their modern lives anyway, so it wasn’t a loss. To them, correcting the claws before birth was no different than pre-emptively removing wisdom teeth before they caused problems.
Sway didn't know if claws ran in his family, and they certainly couldn’t ask his estranged father, but it appeared that the hybridization with her human DNA had brought forth that ancient trait and returned it to them.
Neither of them wanted to classify their claws as birth defects. If the boys wanted them removed or altered as adults, that would be their choice, but they wanted their sons to be hatched as they were unless it would affect their quality of life.
But it didn't seem to. The boys still played like normal farasie. They had to keep their claws dulled, since they would get sharp if they didn’t, but many species did that, and it was no different from trimming someone’s nails.
Grace’s little raptor babies. They were adorable.
And so, so bad. They had been getting into things since they were old enough to toddle around, and manipulating their father into getting away with it since they could talk.
Not even five minutes ago, they’d come to ask Grace if they could have some candy, and she said, in no uncertain terms, that they could not. They’d be going to a banquet soon. All the kids were invited, but after the award ceremony, they were going to be watched over by caretakers so the adults could mingle andrelax. But those caretakers came with a buffet of foods, including lots of treats. Grace had already accepted that her boys were about to overdose on sugar and probably no real food. She wasn’t going to let them pre-game candy on top of it.
But when she said no, their immediate problem solving technique was to then go present the same question to Sway and almost always, if he didn't realize she’d already forbidden them, he would give in and say yes.
Grace had followed them, knowing exactly what they were planning when they slipped away after seeming to accept her rejection without complaint. And, sure enough, they’d gone right to the privy where Sway had just left the shower, his feathers still damp, a towel about his waist, while he was cleaning his teeth, and tried to circumvent her authority.
“Go finish getting dressed,” she ordered her boys, pointing back through the suite towards their room. “You two look like feral children.”
“Feral children!” Teel yelled, screaming like it was the greatest of compliments.
