Hectic wasn’t a strong enough word to describe Ranvir’s life over the next couple days. He was still within the last week of the third trimester, despite his status as a new father so he had to manage his classes while learning to take care of Frija.

He had to get up a little earlier in the morning to help Hjara, the wet nurse Himir knew, and get started with Frija. She herself was the mother of a four year-old, so she had experience of her own and lessons to teach him. Then he was off for physical classes, after which he would quickly stop by the parentage to see Frija and say good morning to his parents, before heading off for his next class.

He skipped tether classes in favor of help from Pashar. While she herself wasn’t a mother, she apparently had some training as a nurse—or something similar—and had a few tips for him as well. Then onto his evening classes after which he skipped after period to be with Frija and his parents who came over to help him.

On the last day of the trimester, Ranvir hurried up the stairs to his apartments. The parentage was odd to him. It didn’t feature the massive lobby of the regular dormitories, though it did have outdoor privies connected to it and a cafeteria, it lacked other features he’d come to expect. No lounges, or common rooms. No big hallways designed for hundreds of people to pass through.

The building lay out of the way, where as the dorms were as close to the center tower of the complex as you could get. The hallways were irregularly lit with fewer bright-torches for the passages. Most of the five floors appeared to be dedicated to three-room apartments. One for the parents, a living room, and a children’s room.

Ranvir couldn’t guess how many such apartments were within the parentage, but enough that they could house a fair few new families. While the building didn’t feel empty, he’d on more than one occasion heard his neighbors managing their own children, he hadn’t actually run into them yet.

For which he was kind of thankful, his life was busy enough as it was.

The rooms themselves were bigger than he’d expected, the master bedroom featured a decently sized bed, with a sturdy frame, and a dresser. The living room was empty except for a well-used table and an empty cabinet. The children’s room featured a crib that was currently in his room and a thick blanket of sheep’s wool. The suite came with a cold box that was fueled by a glyph on the inside.

Ranvir needed to get it charged every few days, otherwise the energy would run out and the milk Hjara stored in it would go bad. Luckily for him, he had a good friend with ice powers. Sansir couldn’t charge it as well as a master, or even a second-stage, and it needed to be topped up more often, but it was far easier for Ranvir to have Sansir visit for five minutes every day than to find the half an hour it took to go to the Masters’ Tower and get someone to fuel it.

He had considered getting some snow or ice from outside and use that, but the box was just wood with a square ten by ten centimeter bronze plate with the ice glyph on the side. It had only taken Sansir a minute or so for him to figure out how to fuel it properly without letting any cold escape.

Looking at that, Ranvir could understand why ritual circles weren’t in wide-spread use anymore. Just the expense in rime oak would be enough for it to be prohibitive for him.

Needless to say, for the last three days of the trimester, Ranvir would’ve thought he’d be sleeping like a baby. Which was true, it turned out. Babies didn’t sleep a lot. He woke up multiple times each night to heat up some of the milk Hjara… harvested.

Ranvir was very much looking forward to the trimester break.

Ranvir sat on his table feet on the chair he was supposed to be sitting in, while gently rocking Frija. He wasn’t really paying attention to his daughter as Pashar had showed up with an armload of wood and small iron stove.

While the stove looked tiny, it weighed much more than Ranvir’d thought it would. Iron was dense. She was showing him how to heat up the milk, as he couldn’t afford to hire Hjara on as a full-time wet nurse. She would visit a few hours every day. Harvest her milk, then leave only to return on the morrow.

“Now,” Pashar said looking over her shoulder, “I know this isn’t too difficult, but the important bit is that you can’t get it too hot. Otherwise, you’ll scald her mouth.”

Ranvir reflexively tighten his arms around the slowly awakening baby.

“Come feel this,” Pashar continued. “It should be around this heat when you take it off and transfer it to her feeder.”

The feeder was a small leather sack with a leathery ‘protrusion’ that Frija could suckle on to get her milk. As Pashar showed him how much to fill the bottle and the general motion of feeding, Frija woke up fully.

Then she started crying.

“What’s going on?” Ranvir asked wide-eyed with blaring red panic. “What do I do? What’s wrong?”

“Ranvir,” Pashar said in a stern teacher’s voice which immediately got his attention. “Here let me show you. She’s probably just hungry.”

“Oh,” Ranvir said. “That’s was why you prepared the…”

“Yes,” Pashar took Frija into her arms and started feeding her. Frija was just hungry. “Make sure to support her neck,” she reminded him as the baby silently suckled.

Ranvir watched with worried eyes as Frija started squirming and wiggling in Pashar’s arms. “What’s wrong now? Is she sick? Is the milk bad?”

Pashar glared at him as she gently pulled the feeder out of Frija’s mouth, “Relax, she isn’t going to fall apart over nothing,” she lifted his daughter up to her shoulder and started hitting her on the back.

Wide-eyed, Ranvir stepped toward the ankirian before his brain caught up with what his eyes were telling him. She wasn’t hitting Frija, just gently tapping her on the back.

“She just needs to be burped, it happens to babies.”

Ranvir didn’t voice his discomfort, instead he just looked on with worried eyes.

“You’re gonna—“ Frija burped interrupting Pashar, “need to learn how to relax around her. If you’re this worried for too long she’ll grown some poor habits from it.”

Ranvir took in a deep breath, trying to still the seemingly ever-roiling emotions inside himself, “You’re probably right.”

Pashar smiled at him before handing Frija to him, “Now you try.”

Ranvir watched as his father showed him for the third time how to wrap Frija up so she wouldn’t freeze in the winter air. “Now you gotta make sure her arms aren’t sticking out as you make this fold, otherwise she’ll be able to get them out of the rest and she’ll freeze,” Gunnor narrated as he went through the motions again, “not too tightly, though, otherwise it’ll also hurt her.”

“Not too tightly? How do I know I don’t do it too tightly? Will she cry if I hurt her? Will she cry if she gets too cold? What happens if she—“

“Relax, son,” Gunnor interrupted him with a gentle smile. “She’s a baby, but she’s not made of glass. She isn’t going to just fall apart in your hands. You’ll know when you’re doing it too tight, look at this,” he gestured at the finished bundle. Frija was cozily wrapped in the blankets, looking like she was just about to fall asleep. “Look at your daughter when you’re wrapping her. If you’re worried sit with her for a minute or two after you’re done. If she’s wiggling and uncomfortable then do it over. She’s not going to break.”

Ranvir took a deep breath and smiled at his father, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, son.”

Ranvir’d just returned from walk around the campus, showing his parents some of the buildings, even though it was really dark. They’d also stopped to watch his friends exercise for a little while before returning inside.

Now, he’d unwrapped Frija and fed her on his own for the first time. Well, his mother was supervising him, but mostly on his own.

“See my hearthfire, you’re a natural.”

Ranvir smiled feeling a little more at ease around. Tonight, his mother would be sleeping in his bed and he took a bedroll in the living room, so she could help him with the various duties throughout the night, though he would soon have to manage those on his own.

“Thank you, mom.”

Ranvir gently rocked Frija into a sleep as he paced the room under his mother’s watchful eyes. “How did you actually get here?” he asked after a few minutes. “I thought the roads were impassable during winter.”

“Not when your town lord is a… what did she call it? Sword? Ice sword, or something like that.”

“Of course, I’d forgotten in the rush,” Ranvir snorted at himself. He gently stroked Frija’s red hair, he’d been told she might lose it over the next few months and not to worry about. Which was good to know, because he would’ve definitely worried about it.

He paused, feeling a slight something on the top of her head, a soft spot. “What’s this?” he asked his mother.

“That’s her soft spot, babies have that for a while,” Frey explained. “You probably shouldn’t mess with it, the skull’s not all healed together.”

Ranvir tried to keep the smile on his face. He failed horribly, “The what?”