N oelle smiled as she carefully maneuvered a little plant on their tree. It was home and had been home for a decade now. Hashi sometimes visited with Amanda, who demanded that she stop calling her Kastle within minutes of the first visit, and even William and Samara stopped to see her from time to time, though the respective duties of their mates frequently kept them busy. As for the camp and Darvel’s mission, they happily abandoned it altogether. The promise of citizenship that would give them control over their lives seemed pointless now when they literally had everything they wanted.
With the assistance of Gwyr science, they even had the option to have babies. Samara had no less than three little ones following her around whenever she visited and Noelle didn’t know how she had the energy to keep up with kids with wings—in multiples of all things. She was content with her one little daughter who, at four years old, was excitedly exploring her grandmother’s swamp with the same abandon Noelle had felt when she was young.
Sitting back, she smiled at the sight of her daughter slipping through the safe water of the pond, her little head bobbing cheerfully as Pyria, Gwum’s mother, laughed from where she sat on the rocking chair Noelle made for her.
“Just look at her go!” Pyria exclaimed as she glanced back excitedly over at her. “She is swimming better than anyone I have seen in her age group.”
Noelle chuckled in agreement. “She certainly didn’t inherit that from me. I can swim but you’ve seen it. I mastered the dogpaddle at best.”
“You swim fine, saroongna,” Gwum assured as he leaned over a shahessa flower he acquired recently from the Gwyr that could boost their nutritional needs and kissed her. “Besides, you have me to help you in the water if you need to move faster.”
“You’re always looking out for me. You’re even trying to grow this temperamental plant for me,” she teased as she nodded toward the delicate, tiny flowers.
Gwum glowered at it as he frequently did whenever it wilted or behaved in any other way that didn’t suggest abundant thriving in the manner of other plants on his tree. She tried to reassure him that it was okay if it didn’t produce as well as it did in the mountains. She didn’t need it as regularly as the other humans since the saroong spores within the swamp kept her healthy, but it was a useful supplement that kept her energy at peak levels in the winter. But he still took issue with it as if its refusal to thrive was a personal affront to his abilities as a healer.
“I would grow a dozen more if I had to,” he assured her, but as heartfelt as his oath was, he couldn’t quite hold back his grimace of distaste. “Please do not ask me to.”
Noelle chortled mirthfully and pressed another kiss to his lips. “As long as I have you, our little Bianca, our pond, and the saroong, I have everything I need. Except for maybe one little thing.”
“Name it, saroongna, and it is yours,” he hissed devotedly as he pressed a warm kiss to her hand.
“Another baby?” she suggested with a meaningful wiggle of her brows that had her mate crush her to him with an excited growl.
“Ooo, are Mommy and Daddy making another baby right now? Cousin Deahry said that mommies and daddies hug and wrestle when they make babies!” Bianca piped up curiously.
Pyria laughed merrily and shushed her. “Nonsense. Do not listen to Cousin Deahry. We all hug, and some hugs are long and deep because, like the lush beauty of our pond, love just grows and grows.”
“Okay, but if it gives me a baby brother or sister that would be good too,” Biana replied so wistfully that Noelle’s lips curled against her mate’s smiling mouth. “Then that means more love to grow!”
There was no faulting their daughter’s reasoning.
Love definitely did grow and grow. It sang through their swamp and their family. It bloomed richly with an unending beauty that was always changing but became a deeper part of her with every passing of the seasons. A life of freedom, love, home, and family was all that she had ever wanted and what had brought her across the star systems, and now that she had it she wanted nothing more than just to watch it grow.
Grandma, I wish you could see me now. I reached the stars and found everything we ever wanted.