Little Moonlight
The tiny infant was quiet, a soft yawn melting his mother's heart as she watched him rock quietly in the cradle, falling asleep to the overlapping tones of her voice. Her humming yet made the wood and stone thrum, but the child hardly seemed to notice - or to care, as the case may be. Enambris brushed strands of her scarlet hair back from her face as she leaned over the pram to press her lips softly to his forehead.
Though she trembled, her body weakened from labor and the war between the light and dark that had somehow meshed to give life to such a tiny thing, she yet stood. The "queen's guard" that stood watch beyond her tower bedroom's door would be irked with her refusal to rest, but in these quiet nights, there was little they could do to stop her pacing her room. She rarely rested, these days, and they ever chided her for it.
Her humming grew in a gentle crescendo as she paced to the frost-rimmed window, gazing out over the sleeping city, curls of white smoke drifting up betwixt witchlight lanterns that dotted stonemason streets yet in the throes of reconstruction. Those who had lent their efforts to the Reclamation had long since returned to the sanctuary of their homes as the snow fell, a quiet blanket that shrouded her home.
Enambris smiled and sang.
♪ The sky is dark and the hills are white, As the rose-queen speeds from the north to-night, And this is the song the rose-queen sings, And over the world her cloak she flings: "Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep," She rustles her wings and sweetly sings, "Sleep, little one, sleep."
♪ On yonder mountain-side a vine, Clings at the foot of a mother pine, The tree bends over the trembling thing, And only the vine can hear her sing: "Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep, What shall you fear when I am here? Sleep, little one, sleep."
♪ The queen may sing in her warrior's flight, The tree may croon to the vine to-night, But the little moonlight at my breast, Liketh the song I sing the best. Sleep, sleep, little one sleep, Weary thou art, a-next my heart, Sleep, little one, sleep.
The crystal set into her sternum gleamed as she sang, chasing the dark and cold from the room, and from within the light in her heart burned bright. Oisin slept through the night.
