Moonshine

Chapter 25- Agápi Mou

αγάπη μου: agápi mou
Greek
My Love
-

Sanya was beginning to be lulled towards sleep again, as she silently revelled in the feel of Edmund beside her after so long.

He wouldn't let anything happen to her, she told herself, as part of her fought the rising drowsiness. He'd make sure no one hurt her again. She could sleep- no one would attack her, she wasn't in peril here...

"Moonshine?"

She lifted her head slightly, to look up at her husband.
He'd been quiet so far, as had she, their arms around each other- all they needed was each other, to know that they were there and they were together. They didn't need to talk.
She didn't know how long it had been- she'd been lost in some far off space, aware of nothing but the man- boy?- who held her. She hadn't even realised when a faun had come to change her bandages and then gone again.
"Hm?"

She saw him chew at his bottom lip, and amidst her sleepiness, came surprise. He was nervous.
"Our children-"

"I'm sorry." She said automatically- it wasn't an answer, she realised, and she had just been able to amend her words and say- say the truth.
That she had killed them.
The images of their corpses- of her babies' dead bodies- floated across her vision again, and she shut her eyes.

But- then she looked at him again, and there was a tightness to his jaw, and tears pooled in his eyes, threatening to fall.

His question had been answered.

"I see." She might not have said anything- but the two plain words of apology had been enough of an answer. They were dead. They were truly dead, and they wouldn't return through some miracle, like she had.
Edmund had outlived his children. They both had.
It felt like someone had punched him in the heart and had kept punching him until it had stopped- and then he had been brought back to life, just so his heart could be punched to failure all over again.
"I'm sorry, too, darling." He wondered how long she had carried the weight of the knowledge with her. "I thought of them every day. All of the past year and a half. Jemmy, Selene, and the baby I never saw-"

"Seraphina." Sanya whispered. It was easier to speak now, and she was able to do so without stammering or dissolving into coughs- but, at the same time, her voice felt like it was nearly dead. "A daughter. Another little girl."
A year and a half. She had known he had not lost her as long as she had lost him- but a year and a half? That was all? She had suffered in this world for twenty years after the disappearance, and then she had suffered in Neráida for thirteen hundred years.
Still, grief wasn't something to be compared.
And she knew he had missed her as much as she had missed him. Wasn't that all that mattered? Not time, but love?
"Her name is- was-" your children are dead "Seraphina. Seraphina Elani."

"Seraphina- like- like Seraphim."

They're called Seraphs...Seraphine or Seraphina would be derivatives?

Even though he hadn't been there- Sanya had somehow made sure he'd had a part in the naming of their third child.

Another baby girl- his heart swelled.
Jem was his little prince and Selene was his stunning star- thunning thtar, she would say, trying to mimic him- Seraphina would've been his angel. Angel-flower, perhaps, if she liked flowers.

He smiled a little, "The night we went star-gazing."

She nodded, some of her hair getting caught in his chain-mail.
"And Elani- it's a form of Helen. Your mother's name. It means the light."