Vern
I never expected to be a father. Heck, I never expected to have a mate.
Yet, I ended up with both a mate and children.
Two children who rarely stopped moving. For the first couple weeks, they slept in between eating the special beaver mush Rauh had provided the recipe for, food that would give them all the nutrients they needed to help them grow and fill their little bellies.
Their naps gave Falco time to sleep in between as well.
I didn’t spend as much time away from home during that time, trying to finish up the birthing center in between helping my mate with our babies.
But as our two little ones grew, they started to refuse their kit food, wanting to eat in the forest or at the pond instead.
And their nap time disappeared. We were lucky just to get them to sleep at night.
Yet, neither one of them had shown any indication of being ready to shift.
Though Falco had nicknames for them both, we struggled to keep their real names a secret until they were finally able to absorb the magic of our land and take human form.
While at the pond, Holden and his children offered to watch our two kits to give us a moment to ourselves, or time to sleep, but we were afraid we would miss their first transformation if we did.
So, in our exhaustion, we waited. Some of my brothers even stopped by on occasion, surprising me more than Falco.
They no longer held any animosity toward me for being the first to have a mate but hoped to be the uncle who caught the first shift in order to brag to the others.
And it just so happened that Bucky stood at our front door, having just knocked when one of our little ones changed form for the first time. Though I didn’t know it was him.
I was on the floor, in my beaver form, playing with the boys while my mate slept, when I heard the rapping.
I immediately shifted to my human form to answer the door, but I didn’t expect one of my children to rush past me, looking very much like a little human boy.
No cry of pain during his shift. No getting stuck in between forms as I had my first time.
Just a beaver one moment and a human boy the next.
It made me wonder if he’d shifted on his own and neither Falco nor I had noticed.
My boy brushed his dark-brown hair away from his blue eyes, the same color as my mate’s. Then he reached for the door handle. “I got it, Papa.”
“No, wait.” I didn’t want him opening the door when I didn’t know who stood on the other side at that time. Plus, I needed to wake Falco and show him that one of our boys had shifted. “Hang on a minute,” I shouted to the person on the other side of the door.
Our other son remained in his beaver form but stood on his hind legs and reached up for me like he wanted to be picked up.
I patted his head. “You hang on, too. I must go wake your daddy.”
Rushing into the bedroom, I contemplated the best way to wake my mate.
He was always so tired and needed rest, but he would be hurt if he didn’t see either of our boys in their shifted form before someone from outside our household saw them.
I didn’t want to jolt him awake, instead running my palm across the side of his face. “Falco?”
“Mmm?” He squinted at me and turned onto his side. “Did I sleep for too long?”
“No,” I whispered. “Probably not long enough, but I thought you might want to see our boys in their human form.”
His eyes widened and he shoved off the covers before sitting up. “They’ve shifted already?”
“One of them.” I stood, anxious to get back out into the main part of our house.
“But there’s someone at the door, and I wanted you to see our boy first before anyone else.
” I didn’t care if the person at the door left.
The moment was too important for our family for either of us to miss.
And if one shifted already, the other shouldn’t be too far behind him in learning the ability.
At least, not according to what the other parents told me.
“Let me grab my robe and I’ll be right out.”
The only time Falco went without any of the human clothing was when sleeping or when we mated, so I wasn’t surprised he wanted to cover up. But the sight that greeted us upon leaving the bedroom made both of us falter.
Both of our boys were in their human form, with wavy and fluffy dark hair, blue eyes, and golden-beige skin. And they grinned while sitting on either side of Bucky, my brother and their uncle.
“We let him in, Dadda and Papa,” one of them proclaimed with pride while the other nodded his head.
“I guess today was the perfect day to visit.” My brother ruffled the hair on their little heads with a big grin on his face.
Falco gasped and fell to his knees beside me. Our boys were off the couch and in front of him before I had the chance to comfort my mate.
“Dadda, are you okay?” One of them held his hands that had been over his mouth. The other boy wrapped his arms around him from the side.
“My boys,” Falco whispered. “It was one thing to see you as beaver kits, but to see you as little boys… This makes it feel so much more real.”
Though it had felt very real for me the day they were born, I could understand my mate’s sentiment.
Being from the outer-world, he’d only seen human babies.
All the rest were what his world called animals, which were seen as less by some.
And though he treated our boys as precious even in their beaver form, that mindset was still ingrained in all outer-worlders.
Plus, Falco couldn’t shift and communicate or swim with them as I could.
So, he missed out on some parts of their early days.
My mate hugged them both tightly and kissed their foreheads. “I love you both so much and I’m happy you’ve learned how to shift. Did it hurt? Are you okay?”
Our son to his side giggled. “We shift when you sleep.”
As Falco gasped once again, I tried to comprehend how I’d never noticed any signs that they’d learned to shift. They must have been very careful about when they changed form and what they did as human boys.
Bucky chuckled and slapped his lap. “Didn’t expect all this when I left the dam this morning. So, what are their names? Since I’m here, I can be your witness.”
The one holding Falco’s hands turned around to face my brother. “I’m Tommy,” he proclaimed, placing his fisted hands on his hips. He seemed so proud of his name and so confident. Much different than I felt at his age.
“Yes.” Falco rubbed his back. “You heard us using your names, did you?”
Tommy faced my mate and nodded. “Yep.”
“And what about you?” Falco ran his thumb along the cheek of our son still clinging to him. “Do you know your name?”
He stuck his fingers in his mouth and mumbled. Though I was sure he, too, knew his name, I couldn’t tell what he’d said.
“Are you named after me?” Bucky asked.
He shook his head then buried his face in Falco’s side, reminding me very much of myself at his age.
My mate smiled and ran his palm over his head. “No, you’re our precious Artez, aren’t you?”
He looked up at Falco and smiled. “Yeah.”
Bucky clapped his hands together then stood. “Well, let’s make their names official, then.”
Though we didn’t have Ahmed, the wizard, or Banir, the head of the council in attendance as we did for our mating ceremony, Falco and I stood behind our boys, and when Bucky asked what each of their names were, we both placed our palms on their heads and called out their names to make it official.
My brother stayed for a little longer, but then left to brag he had been the first of my brothers to see them shift and had attended the naming ceremony when the others were left out.
Tommy and Artez no longer hid when they shifted and asked to play with the other children since they knew how to change forms. Though they were still smaller than the older boys, they still ran hard. And they slept hard, too, which proved a relief for Falco and me.
Finally reaching this milestone, I felt what Falco had insisted on all along, that we were meant to be.
That Fate had somehow put me alongside the meadow at the exact moment that my mate crossed over into our world.
Though still not sure why they chose me, I accepted once and for all that Falco and I were always meant to be.