It was nearly winter again. Peridot was in her last month of being nineteen, and I still had a little less than half a year. We were outside to spend some time in the cool weather before it got brutally cold. I was watching Turquoise walk about on the beach, occasionally stumbling over her own feet. She hadn't yet mastered the skill, but she was definitely getting better. Topaz was still with us, and we had to teach her that she couldn't always catch Turquoise before she fell because she had to learn a little bit of pain. She was always happy when we did allow her, though.
Turquoise hobbled over to me and stumbled onto my lap, looking up at me with her adorable teal eyes.
"Hey, honey," I cooed, brushing her hair back with my hand.
"Mama?" She responded in her little squeaky voice.
"Yeah, Mama," I said, smiling at her.
I pulled her onto my lap and kissed her cheek, making her smile.
"I love you, my little werewolf," I cooed.
Turquoise clapped her hands and smiled even more. Peridot tickled her chin to get her attention, so she looked over at her mother curiously. Peridot held her hand and began to praise her improvement on walking.
"You're doing so well!" Peridot exclaimed, grinning in that same crooked form.
"Mama!" Turquoise squeaked.
I adjusted her little headband so it covered her ears. She stared at me curiously as I pulled the headband over her ears. The big blue flower on it stood out against the gray sky, and it really brought out the teal part of her hair. I smiled at her, and she began to giggle. Like Peridot's crooked smile, she had her own special thing in my mind. Her sweet giggle that always made me smile. She really had developed a personality within her first year of life. She was always quite happy, but she was still quite shy. She normally hid her face in my chest out in public.
"What flavor of baby food do you want today?" Peridot asked. "Apple? Carrot? Peas?"
"Appa!" Turquoise squeaked.
I carried her inside with Peridot following behind us. The whole time, Turquoise had her eyes on Peridot. She was now starting to pick up on their similarities. Because of that, she was always watching Peridot to see what she did in different situations.
We walked inside, where I placed Turquoise in her high chair. Peridot got the bowl of tan mush for her and put it on the tray. It seemed like within a few seconds, it was all over Turquoise's face and hands. A bath was inevitable now.
Turquoise was surprisingly cooperative in her baths, simply splashing around and playing with her toys while we washed her. She picked up an orca toy that was in the water and lifted it up to her face to examine it. Peridot was washing her body with baby soap at the time, but that didn't stop her at all.
"Fish," she said, looking at me.
"Yeah," I responded, smiling at her. "That's an orca. It's not really a fish." I picked up her goldfish toy and held it close to her face. "This is a fish."
"Fish?" Turquoise asked, pointing to the toy and looking at me again for approval.
"Yes," I answered. "That is a fish."
Her favorite outfit at the time was a little gray hoodie that had wolf ears on it. I found that adorable. She always ran around the house with her little wolf ears flapping about. It only got better when Topaz came into the house from a recent meal, and Turquoise would go rushing toward her.
I placed Turquoise down in front of the door so she could easily reach her friend, who was waiting for her to walk to her.
"Hey, Turquoise," Topaz said, getting down on one knee and holding her arms out to the baby.
"To-pa!" Turquoise called, hobbling over to her.
The moment Turquoise reached her arms, Topaz swept her up and kissed her cheek. The two of them had a very special bond with each other. That was where Topaz had gained her title of "Auntie."
Dinner was relatively normal. Turquoise wore a bib to try to protect her clothes from the mess she always made. Even then, she still managed to get her food past it. How she did it I would never know. She always looked so adorable when she was covered with mush though, and I couldn't ever hold back my laughter when I saw her face.
Bedtime was a different story. That had changed over the year. Peridot and I always told Turquoise bedtime stories, and—thanks to the vampires—there were plenty of them to tell. Turquoise would never go to sleep unless we told her these bedtime stories. Occasionally, Peridot would get a little too graphic in her stories, and we would find the little one curled up between us later that night.
After those nights, we would be woken up by her stumbling onto us, trying to get our attention so we would give her breakfast. It wasn't a very nice wake-up call, but neither of us could resist our baby's adorable little antics.
Peridot and I, on a different note, were still madly in love with no intentions to end anything within the span of infinity. I would occasionally find myself completely wrapped up in her arms and kissing her too deeply for it to be appropriate for Turquoise.
Topaz had spent a little bit of time while Peridot and I were adjusting to parenthood trying to find someone she could love like Jasper but with much less toxicity. Her searches didn't bring up any success. Jasper had ruined her, she had said. She was upset at first, but she eventually came to accept it. She said that she enjoyed being with Turquoise anyway, and that was enough to keep her perfectly happy. Turquoise had just made a new mess with her baby food when we looked back at her.
I laid Turquoise down in her bed for sleep. We had to give her another bath because of her dinner mess. We even had to put that cute little flower headband in the washing machine because she had somehow managed to launch some of her food onto it.
Turquoise reached toward me to try to ask for her bedtime story, so I took my seat next to her. Peridot walked into the room soon after that and sat next to me. Turquoise immediately began to start making noise, practically demanding her story.
"Hush, hush," Peridot said playfully, laying her index finger on the baby's lips. "I can't begin if you're making all this noise."
Turquoise cooperated and quieted down, ready to hear the story.
"Where did we leave off?" Peridot asked.
"I think it was you and the wolves were off doing some extra practice with Topaz," I answered.
"Right," Peridot said. "So the story continues. As the wolves, Topaz, and I were walking through the forest doing our practice, Royal Blue stopped us all because she had a vision. She saw Mama with all of the evil vampires about to bite her and suck all of her blood."
Turquoise's breath hitched. That's when I knew that we'd have an extra person sleeping with us tonight.
"We ran as fast as we could to this abandoned furniture store," Peridot continued. "When we went in, she was there. I knew none of us wanted to deal with extra fighting, so I tried to convince the lead vampire to give Lapis to me if I gave her my life in return."
"Mama..." Turquoise said quietly. Peridot held her tiny little hand and squeezed it, letting her know she was okay.
"The vampire didn't listen," Peridot responded. "She bit Mama."
Turquoise gasped and squeezed Peridot's thumb. It was about time we had gotten to this part of the story.
"Then everything went bad. I tried to pull Mama away from them, but within all of the chaos, she got flung into a pillar that was holding up the shop," Peridot said. "Her head was bleeding really badly. That only created even more chaos because now all the vampires were going crazy. Topaz and I rushed over to her to keep her safe when we realized that the venom from that vampire was starting to change her. We knew we only had so much time."
Turquoise looked over at me, almost as if to see that I was indeed okay.
"So I told Topaz that she needed to save your mama," Peridot continued the story. "She had to suck the venom out of her. She didn't trust that she could do it at first, but she knew it was our only option, so she did it. She got all of the venom out of Lapis and saved her."
Topaz walked in quietly and sat down on the end of the bed, smiling sweetly. "Well, I also created some extra problems," she said. "Like we had to go to the hospital so Lapis could get blood transfusions. She passed out, too."
"But you saved her from transformation," Peridot replied. "It's not like doctors and nurses could correctly identify that."
Finally, after three good night kisses from Topaz, Peridot, and I, Turquoise fell asleep. Peridot and I walked back to our bedroom and fell asleep cuddled close to each other, leaving only breathing room.
Later that night, that breathing room was filled by our baby girl, frightened by a dream about Peridot's story. After a bit of reassurance that everyone was okay and she didn't need to be scared, she fell back asleep between us.
The next morning was a wonderfully cool day. I put a hat on over Turquoise's ears after she had her breakfast and took her outside. Peridot and I decided it was a good day to go on a walk as a family. She took Turquoise's other hand and led us to a trail she had created in the forest to make it easier to find the way back to the beach. Turquoise was scared to be someplace new. I could see the discomfort on her face. I looked down at her and smiled, and she calmed down a little bit. She trusted us.
"Remember this place?" Peridot asked.
"Of course I do," I answered. "It's been very important in our lives. Our rush to get to the battlefield, the path to your forest cabin...it's always been here."
"And now we can make memories with our family," Peridot said.
Turquoise held my hand even more tightly as she tripped over a rock. Peridot and I helped her balance again so she could keep walking.
"Where's Topaz?" I asked.
"She said she has some business to take care of," Peridot answered. "She said she'll be back later though."
"Alright," I said.
A few hours later, Peridot and I helped Turquoise over a log that was in our path. A lot more of the forest was coming into view now. Turquoise squealed when she saw the creek flowing in front of us.
"No getting wet," Peridot said.
"Fish!" Turquoise squeaked.
"No touching fish, either," Peridot responded to her. "They're yucky, and they're not toys. You'd have to take another bath."
Turquoise was cooperative enough as we let her explore the creek. She dipped her hand in to feel the water and yanked it out when she saw a fish wiggling toward it. She was so excited to see a real fish. I laughed. We lived next to an ocean, after all.
"Mama! Mama!" Turquoise cried. "Fish! Fish!"
Peridot and I knelt down by her and saw the fish she was pointing at. It was a shiny black fish, and it was quite long. It reminded me of Turquoise's orca toy in a way.
"That's a nice fish," Peridot said.
"Fish!" Turquoise squeaked.
"Yeah," I said. "It's a fish!"
Turquoise reached for me, and I picked her up. Her warm body relaxed me. I could feel myself slipping away into the realm of sleep. I wanted a nap.
"You wanna go home?" I asked.
"Fish," Turquoise answered, pointing back down the path. "Pway."
"You want your toys," I said, realizing what she was saying. "Alright. We can go home."
Turquoise closed her eyes and laid her head on my chest. She was tired from the long walk. Peridot wrapped her arms around both of us and let me lay my head on her chest.
"My warm family," I murmured. "My two wolves."
"My amazing, beautiful family," Peridot responded. "I don't think I could ask for any better."
I closed my eyes and let myself relax further. This was a feeling I never wanted to leave. Turquoise shifted in my arms and sighed, letting me know she was relaxed again. I couldn't hold back my giggle.
"Let's get sleepy baby home," Peridot said. "Both of them."
"Hey!" I exclaimed. "I can't help that she climbs into our bed every night because of your stories."
"I'm not sparing details!" Peridot cried.
I found myself laughing at that. A few snorts came out of my mouth, too. I didn't care as much as I used to. Peridot and I had seen each other at our very worst, anyway. I looked back at Peridot to see that she had stepped to the side. Her face had turned completely red, but she was smiling, and she wasn't trying to hide it.
"I love you, you know," I said, taking her hand.
She smiled at me. "I know," she responded. "But not as much as I love you."
"Yeah, right! Try me!"
"Alright, I will!"
The rest of the walk home rang of the competition to see which of us could best sweep the other off of her feet.
Needless to say, it was a tie.
Author's Note: Yep, it's over. Not quite, as there are a couple of spinoffs, but the main saga is done.
Long Author's Note: Daybreak has been my love and my life since September when I started working on it, and I regret nothing.
I love Daybreak, I do
I love it so much, and I love the entire fanbase it's gained, all of its support, and its entire adventure of characters
It started out as an idea, and it became a three book saga.
What happens next is up to you.
(Let's keep it happy tho, mk, I love my Lapibabies)
Thank you all for all of your continuous support, and thank you all for joining me on this journey. Daybreak's last page has been turned.