The Death of a Bachelor

Chapter 69 or Epilogue - whichever floats your boat.

"I can still see the look of the one who really loves me."
- Shania Twain, Forever and for always.

**

It was a warm spring afternoon in the compound of Hammedatha Manor - perfect for target practice. In the archery grounds were the two contenders for the position of General of the Prince's Guard, which would be decided in nine years time. Their trainer happened to be the current General as well as their father, Kieran Hammedatha.

He watched over the twins as they practiced archery and as usual, they bickered. Aurora and Levi liked to turn everything they did into a competition and so far, Aurora was ahead of Levi by 5 points.

At nine years of age, the twins were quite the stubborn pair, and caused mischief wherever they passed. If they weren't fighting with each other, they were fighting with their father. And if not with their father, with their younger brother, Prince Lukas' son, or their cousins. Well...play fighting, anyway.

Elena watched the twins argue about the extent to which Lukas' son was stuck-up, and shook her head. Lukas and Kieran were best friends, but their children were anything but. Aurora usually complained to Elena how mean he was to her.

One of these days, she would bring the twins - and Lukas' son before Lady Justice Mara's court for a conciliation hearing.

At the moment, she was settled on a bench with Maruja as they sorted some herbs together. Suddenly, Elena felt something move within her belly.

"Oh!" she chirped, placing a hand on her bump. "The baby moved."

"I noticed you stopped using pronouns," Maruja said from beside her. There was a large bamboo tray stacked with herbs in between them. "You and Kieran halted your fight about the gender?"

Elena smiled. "We decided to wait for the surprise."

Both of them had thought their second born after the twins would be a girl, but it turned out to be a boy. And three years ago, they'd argued about the gender of the third born - it was a girl. It was only a week ago that they finally decided to leave the next gender to fate.

"I want mine to be a girl," Maruja professed, looking at her own bump.

The two of them had gotten pregnant at around the same time, and were both 5 months along. Maruja's first born, a son, was now six years old. He was the spitting image of Aaron.

"And I want her to look like me," the redhead added. "Estelle looks so much like you, it's spectacular."

"Does she?" Elena put the herb branch in her hand onto the tray and looked up at the bright sky. "She has Papa Rory's ears, though."

Maruja sighed. "They all have Kieran's ears. What are you, a sorcerer?"

Elena giggled. The one thing she'd hoped and wished with all her heart for her children was for them all to inherit Kieran's bush baby ears, and they all did. Everyone in Hammedatha Manor knew how obsessed she was with his ears, and found it miraculous how her dreams came true.

"I just had unshakeable faith," Elena replied. She looked down and flinched with shock when she found a tiny human girl staring up at her.

She sighed as her heart calmed down. "Estelle, you scared me. Please do not show up out of nowhere like that. I have told you this many times!"

Maruja scoffed. "At least you know what it feels like. You still do that too, Elena. You and Estelle are a lot more alike than you believe."

Elena looked down at her three year old daughter, who was wearing a cute little floral print dress. Her hair was black and shoulder-length, her eyes a deep blue. Her skin was fair, and her cheeks and arms chubby. In her hands were three daisies.