Chapter Text
"...so lay me dooooown,
let the only sound,
be the overflooooowwwww..."
A dull smattering of applause poppled throughout the tavern crowd as Rayla and Astrid finished their performance with a synchronized flourish and bow. Chest heaving with exertion, Rayla watched out of the corner of her eye as Suroh passed from patron to patron, hat in hand, only to be rebuffed at more than every other turn. Her heart sank; frustrated, she ran both her hands through her hair as she descended off the stage with her duet partner.
"Not a good haul, then?" Astrid asked their friend, who sighed.
"About as much as we usually get," he said, trying for an optimistic smile. Rayla rolled her eyes.
"Which is another way of saying 'no'," she deadpanned. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "This was a waste of time. It always is."
"I wouldn't go that far," said Suroh as the three of them dug into his hat and divided up their meager earnings. "It may not be much, but at least it's something, right?"
Rayla sighed as she pocketed her coins. "I guess. But Suroh, I can't keep singing and dancing in taverns for loose change."
Astrid opened the tavern door and held it open for Rayla and Suroh as she adjusted her guitar strap. "I don't see why not. You love it. And you're good at it. Just because you're not making heaps of money off it—"
"I don't have time for hobbies, Astrid," Rayla snapped. "I've got a half-broken house, I'm knee-high in debt to a greedy human pig, and I've got three mouths to feed!"
Astrid and Suroh exchanged glances. "How are the ankle-biters?" Astrid asked. "They've adjusted well to the move, I hope?"
"...They're alright," Rayla said. "Tough little bairns. They've never been around so many humans before, though. Or, well, any. They keep staring at the human children and scaring them off."
Suroh shrugged. "Elk Cove has enough elven children for them to befriend. They'll be fine."
"Hm." Rayla didn't bother with a response. He had a point, after all. On the other hand, she didn't want her children to gain reputations as human-haters. Especially not when they lived in one of the only elf-human settlements in all of Xadia.
They moved to Elk Cove a little more than a month ago. The move itself was a long time coming. Rayla missed the Silvergrove and her family dearly, of course. But years of simultaneous pity and condescension from her community for the 'crime' of having her marriage fall apart took its toll. As if she wanted to marry Leto in the first place. Truth be told, a week after the triplets were born, she was nothing but relieved when she woke up one morning and her fiancé was nowhere to be found. He wasn't fit to be a father or husband. She and her sons' lives would be a thousand times better without him in it.
She hadn't expected nearly everyone in the Silvergrove to turn their backs on her and her entire family. Ethari's smithy business took a nosedive; Runaan and her parents were entrusted with less missions. Rayla herself could barely find work doing odd jobs for elves who looked at her less as a fellow elf and more like she was a charity project. And her boys. She had done her best to shield them from it, but even her boys suffered by way of being bullied by the other Moonshadow children for not having a dad.
Rayla could only put up with such mistreatment for so long. A part of her was ashamed for enduring it as long as she had.
Not to say life in the beach village of Elk Cove was proving to be much better so far. In some ways it was a definite improvement. No one looked at her and her children like they were shitstains on their shoes (none of the elves did at least. Most of the humans didn't either). But in other ways life was much harder. She was a new face in the village, so not a lot of elves and humans trusted her with jobs yet. She had to pay a babysitter to look after the boys while she searched for work, which took precious coins away from necessities such as food and supplies to fix up the house, not to mention paying off her debt to Alodia.
She'd find a way to make it work. She had to.
Waving farewell to Astrid and Suroh, Rayla yawned as she approached her house. It wasn't anything to brag about, with its shoddy construction and the hole in the roof, but it was hers.
The door opened. Pairs of feet thundered against the ground. "Mum!"
"Boys!" Rayla stumbled back as six arms struggled to wrap themselves around her waist all at once. "What are you still doing up?"
"We were waiting up for you," said the triplet on her right—Eltanin, her mind registered. The triplet on her left (Rastaban) nodded eagerly while the one in the middle, Thuban, stared up at her with solemn, inquisitive eyes. "How did your show go?"
Smiling weakly, Rayla ran her hand through Eltanin's hair. "It went fine, moonberry."
Rastaban jumped up and down in place, beaming. "Did you get a—a standing rotation, Mum?"
"It's ovation," Thuban said in a quiet voice. He rubbed at his eyes and yawned. "I bet she did. Mum's the best singer in the world."
"I'm not that good, I'm afraid," Rayla said. She was all of a sudden too aware of the coins in her pocket. "Where's the babysitter?"
A frazzled-looking human bolted out of the house. "I'm here! I'm right here, Miss Rayla! I'm so sorry, I swear I tried to get them to go to sleep but they insisted on waiting up for you, and every time I got one into bed the other two would sneak out, and when I got them back into bed the third one would get up again and—"
"It's alright, Wilma," Rayla shook her head. "My boys can be a handful when they set their mind to something." She shot her sons an exasperated look. Eltanin rubbed the back of his neck, Rastaban grinned, and Thuban looked away. "Let me sort you out so you can go home."
With a heavy heart, she fished out all the coins from her performance and handed them over to Wilma, who thanked her with a relieved smile before heading out. Sighing, Rayla motioned for the boys to follow her inside the house and began preparing them to go to sleep.
"Hey, Mum?" Eltanin asked some time later as she was tucking them into bed. She smoothed over the wrinkles in his blanket with a slight hum.
"Yes, love?" She asked absentmindedly.
"You know how our birthday is coming up?"
"We're turning seven!" Rastaban added from his corner of the room.
Rayla smiled. "Yes, I know," she said. "That's a big one, isn't it?"
Eltanin nodded. "Yes, it is! And I know you usually get us each a present, but we talked about it, and this year we decided we want one big present we can all share."
She cocked her head. "Oh, really? What's that, then?"
Eltanin, Rastaban, and Thuban all looked at each other before turning to their mother with varying levels of nerves and hope.
In unison, they said, "We want a dad."
She choked on thin air. "You want a what?" She asked, hoping she misheard them.
The brothers shared another look. "We want...a dad?" Eltanin repeated weakly, and no, she hadn't misheard them. Damn it.
"Loves..." She bit her lip. "We've talked about this. Your father left when you were wee bairns. I don't know where he is."
Eltanin scowled. "We're not talking about him, Mum."
"Yeah, we know he's a bampot," Rastaban said, pouting angrily.
"Grandpa Runaan says he's an ass," Thuban added.
"We want a new dad," Eltanin said. "Someone nice who won't leave." His brothers nodded in agreement.
"Boys..." Rayla sighed. "It's not that simple."
"Why not?" Rastaban whined. "All the other kids have dads!"
"Yeah, how hard can it be to get our own?" Eltanin asked.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I promise you guys it would be extremely hard."
"But Mum..." Thuban said softly.
"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Rayla said sharply, then immediately regretted it upon seeing her sons' stricken expressions. She sighed. "Moonberries...I'm sorry. I know how much it must hurt, not having a father—"
"You've got three dads." Rastaban sulked.
Rayla ignored that. "—But I don't have time to find you guys a new dad, alright? I've got my hands full as it is with the four of us. Another person would only complicate things."
Eltanin scrunched his eyebrows. "What does complicate mean?"
"It means you'll just have to make do with your old mum for awhile." Rayla leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. She got up and did the same for her other sons then walked over to their bedroom door. She smiled warmly at the three of them. "I'll see you in the morning, okay? Love you."
"...Love you, Mum." The boys mumbled back.
Rayla's smile grew bittersweet at their lackluster response, and with a final goodnight, she left them to sleep in peace.