marjory birth

After - /right/ after, in the handful of minutes he gets with his daughter before the fatigue of labor puts him to sleep - Taako cries like he's never cried in front of anyone before.

Exhausted as he is, his body refuses to surrender many tears. It's mostly empty sobs that make his bones feel hollowed-out, but it's okay. Everything is okay now because she's /here/, their Marjory, in his arms.

It overwhelms him; healthy and perfect and /so/ small he can't get over it. He made something good, he thinks, half-delirious. They made her, and she's perfect.

When his arms start to shake Magnus takes her, gently, into his own. If his husband is speaking, he doesn't hear; Taako's eyes stay fixed on her tiny, swaddled body.

She swelled in his belly like he couldn't imagine, but barely reaches from her dad's palm to his elbow.

And now-- more sobs, tears renewed.

Between breaths, Taako manages, "She looks like…" but a million potentials choke in his throat.

She looks like Magnus, in her dark skin and eyes. Like himself, in the pointed ears. His mother-- /gods/, so much of his mother. His father's nose.

She looks like the future. Like what he and Magnus deserve, had fought for, and won. She looks like victory and love and like every bad thing was worth it, now, seeing her little face.

"Yeah," Magnus breathes, quiet, like the tiniest movement might break her, "I see it too."