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Normally he hated her. Wherever she was and whatever she was doing he found it loathsome and wanted nothing more than to put an end to it, but lying there in dirty sheets with no powder, no frills and two very small newborns in her arms she was beautiful to him somehow. Her chest, swollen with milk, heaved a little with exhausted breaths as he approached. So he approached cautiously, beginning to hate himself for just a moment -- before remembering that these were special circumstances and it was alright to be kind to her.
She had just had his sons, twins who would prove later whether or not they were identical. Knowing the hot hate-love flash they'd been conceived in well Arthur already knew that their personalities would have to be different from one another. One French and one English, perhaps (but both English if he had anything to say about it). Besides, it was so terribly rare that their kind had offspring that at least three others had already sent letters informing the new parents of a visit, whether they liked it or not. Neither of them really knew if they wanted any of the others to see, lest they begin to covet the two treasures, but for now the warm morning sun just peeked over the horizon at them, and all was well.
His sons, neither of which looked a thing like him, were born screaming as the sun had risen over the new world. Perhaps it was fit.
"Their eyes are blue," Arthur said, unable to find any other words, poignant or not.
Marianne's eyes, also blue, opened just a little to look at him, not an ounce of sting in them. "Your eyes were," She replied with a deep sigh, which the boys responded to with tiny curling hands, "When you were small."
"They'll turn green then," He said, looking at them curiously. A man such as himself never took a moment off of inspecting the value of things. And what were two sons worth if they were both French?
"That is unlikely," She said.
"They don't look at all like me."
"Perhaps they will someday," And ah, there was the sting, warning him to keep his hands off as he reached to pat the head of one of them. The younger, Matthieu, (with that insufferable ieu that Marianne had applied without his permission) began to cry, and Arthur recoiled as if bitten. "But for now they are what they are," Marianne interjected.
"And they are mine," Arthur stood, hands clutching air, a little lost, "Right?" Blue eyes that would never, ever turn green narrowed. Marianne looked positively ready to hiss like the snake she was and perhaps she would have lunged to smack him, were her hands not full of upset newborn.
"What are you accusing me of?"
"You have no commitment to me, it's hardly adultery,"
"Adultery is not nearly the sin of denying who your sons are."
And again, they were crying, Matthieu dragging his brother into the fuss until both their parents had stopped. Somehow, they had a power to do that -- and even a thousand-year old squabble will hush itself for a moment if it means the little ones will rest.
---
They even lacked the strong British brow, but from the moment they started walking Arthur simply lacked the time to question things like that. Both of them were blond, blue-eyed cherubim, completely Hellbent on tearing apart anything that got near them. Alfred, especially, had been granted some degree of strength beyond his means, which meant the day he met his first horse (Arthur's most prized hunter mare) and gave her leg a 'hug' that horse was lamed and had to be shot. Alfred, being himself, did not notice his father's mourning and made up for it by sprinting around the house so quickly Arthur felt the need to declare himself lame and in need of a shot to the head as well.
As per his predictions it turned out that one of them had become English and one French. Matthieu had gone to live with his mother in the northern colonies, where he had shown a supreme resistence to the cold weather. Marianne, meanwhile, constantly huddled herself up in furs to the point where Alfred had once asked if there was a coatrack waiting for them at the sprawling New France estate.
Arthur probably couldn't have been more proud.
"How have you been," She bowed for them at her door. Alfred, knowing his manners well (because good manners always meant sweets and the boy had more of those in his belly than any one shop in town had) took a big bow in return and reached for her hand to kiss it. Arthur snorted and threw his jacket at her. "In case you have forgotten, Arthur," She grumbled, "You are a gentleman, and a guest in my house."
"A gentleman is kind to ladies, not witches," Arthur replied. "Where is my son?"
Out of the candle-lit dining room shuffled a boy much smaller than Arthur, a boy who bumped into a chair in his excitement and ran with his arms extended. The boy approached him babbling in French. Arthur turned. "What have you taught him?"
"We don't speak English in my house," Marianne responded, rolling her tongue through their own special little language, perhaps a dialect of Latin (but no one could tell any more).
Matthieu knew that language by heart and switched over to it awkwardly, which delighted Alfred. The two conversed shakily for a few moments before Alfred turned back to his father. "Where did my name come from?" He asked.
"Alfred the Great was a king of mine," Arthur said proudly, chest puffed out like a rooster in a henhouse. "He was a masterful tactician and a great scholar. You are named after him." The two boys nodded, seeming thoughtful. "Matthieu, your name is a Biblical name."
The boy shook his head, smiling wide, "Maman said Matthieu was the man she was thinking of when you were making us with her."