T/N: I Guess Author forgot that the he had planed for twins.
...
X792, February 28th, 5:42 AM. The moment Jewel arrived in the world.
After Mirajane drifted off and woke again, Rhodes followed Porlyusica's instructions and helped her sit up so she could hold her daughter for the first feeding. Porlyusica had said that this kind of early contact was good for both of them.
The baby, however, was remarkably energetic about the whole thing. Small fists clenched, legs kicking with apparent conviction, she seemed to be putting her entire self into the effort.
Mirajane held her steadily and smiled. "She's very lively."
Rhodes laughed quietly. "Lively is good. We'll raise her into a little Mirajane."
Wendy's expression became pained. Not because she had any objection to that ambition, but because Rhodes had now said the word "good" an extraordinary number of times in a very short period. When the baby was sleeping, sleeping was good. When told she weighed three and a half kilograms, three and a half kilograms was good. When the baby woke up, waking up was good.
Wendy was beginning to feel that if someone mentioned the baby was breathing, Rhodes would find that good as well.
In practice, Jewel proved less relentlessly energetic than advertised. Once she had eaten her fill and Mirajane rocked her gently, she went straight back to sleep.
Elfman arrived shortly after with a bowl of rice porridge. Rhodes took the baby, settled her into the prepared cradle, then took the bowl and helped Mirajane eat.
Everyone present received a bowl, Porlyusica excepted. Everyone else was occupied watching Jewel sleep.
Elfman, after checking on his sister, drifted over to the cradle as well. Rhodes looked at him and said, "Elfman standing next to a baby's cradle. Like a very large, very gentle ape."
Mirajane started to say something in her brother's defense, then looked at Elfman's hand hovering near the cradle, just one of his hands was nearly the size of the baby's entire body, and quietly returned to her porridge.
"We might use him as a threat later," Rhodes added. "If Jewel won't behave, we tell her uncle Elfman is coming."
Porlyusica, preparing to leave, paused to give Mirajane her final instructions. "Finish eating and rest properly. Even if you don't feel exhausted, sleep. With your constitution, once you wake up you should be able to move normally. Gentle activity will be fine. Hitting your younger brother, for instance, would count as gentle."
Elfman, who had simply been trying to touch his niece's cheek with one finger, visibly recoiled.
Lisanna covered her mouth. She knew exactly why Mirajane had said that. Elfman had shouted outside the delivery room that his sister was a real man. Immediately after she gave birth. Mirajane had already announced there would be consequences.
For an ordinary person, postpartum recovery required a careful return to activity. Mirajane was not an ordinary person. So after a good sleep, she could decide at her leisure whether to eat first or address the matter of Elfman first, according to her mood.
Porlyusica glanced at the clock. She had been summoned in the middle of the night. The sun was nearly up. She hadn't noticed the fatigue while working, but now that things had settled, a faint ache had crept into her back. She pulled her red robe on, stretched with careful subtlety, and said, "I'm going home. I don't have your stamina."
Rhodes said immediately, "There's a spare room. You're welcome to rest here."
"I don't sleep well away from my own bed."
"I can bring your bed here. Two minutes at most."
Porlyusica stared at him for three seconds, then turned toward the door. "I'm leaving. If anything comes up..."
"I'll come find you."
"Don't come find me."
Rhodes made a sound that was not quite a laugh and let her have that one. She knew what he was actually worried about, and offered him something on her way out.
"Health questions, ask Wendy. Child questions, ask Bisca. That fool Makarov knows plenty too. There's nothing here that absolutely requires me." She paused at the door. "You've all worked hard. Thank you."
"You worked harder than any of us. Thank you." Rhodes thought for a moment. "Take the back door. Sister Ocean is nearby. I'll ask her to escort you."
Porlyusica didn't refuse this time. Given the choice between Magnolia's early morning crowds and a dragon, she preferred the dragon.
She reconsidered this preference approximately five minutes into the escort, however. Why were dragons so talkative? And why did they have such a fondness for dry commentary? And why was their sense of humor so deeply peculiar?
By the time the half-night's worth of waiting and excitement had wound down, most of them were running on empty.
Mirajane was already asleep. Jewel was sleeping soundly. Wendy and Carla, being children by most reasonable measures, were the first ones Rhodes sent off to rest.
Elfman and Lisanna were another matter. One insisted she wasn't tired and wanted to stay and help look after her sister and niece. The other wanted to go to the guild immediately and tell everyone the news.
Rhodes didn't push either of them. More help was welcome, and news this good deserved to travel.
He said a few words to the others and let them go. He was running short on sleep himself.
That was a small problem.
If it came to it, he could go to the estate and call in some staff. But Jewel had just arrived, and everyone including himself was already deeply invested in looking after her. Outside help wasn't needed yet.
He turned a jumble of thoughts over for a while, then let them go. He sat beside the bed, looked at his wife, looked at his daughter, and felt something settle warmly in his chest.
An unusual scene played out in Magnolia that morning.
The Fairy Tail guild hall stood nearly empty, and Makarov was leading a crowd down the street at speed. The members who had been out training or had left the guild late couldn't make it in time, so the group numbered around twenty or thirty. The residents along the route watched them pass and wondered, as they often did, what Fairy Tail was doing now.
For Magnolia, a city that had long since made its peace with this kind of thing, it wasn't especially alarming. Fairy Tail simply operated like this.
The crowd was kicking up dust and making considerable noise when Makarov stopped abruptly about two hundred meters from Rhodes's house. One arm swelled, and with a single open-handed strike he sent the entire noisy group behind him into the ground.
Then he said, loudly:
"Listen carefully. Mira and..."
Lisanna, who had narrowly avoided the same fate, whispered, "Jewel."
Makarov nodded. "Mira and Jewel may still be sleeping. We go quietly from here. Understood?"
A collection of people in various states of being flattened responded with twitching limbs. "Understood. Yes. Understood."
Lisanna stared at him.
So that was why he'd done it. But surely there was a way to achieve quiet that didn't involve hitting everyone first?
"Guild Master," she said, with feeling, "you were the loudest one out here."
Makarov's face stiffened. He dropped his voice to a murmur. "I. Yes. My apologies."
Rhodes had watched the whole thing from the window.
When Lisanna had decided to head to the guild with the news, he had already sent the Void Crab ahead to keep an eye on things. If Makarov hadn't acted just then, Rhodes would have. Everyone who knew this guild understood that in moments like this, the people most in need of monitoring were the guild members themselves.