Chapter 108 - Three Fathers

A thread is easy to produce. Cloth is made from hundreds of thread fibers after all. 

And the needle is made of metal. It's just much harder to make for someone who had big hands. 

But with perseverance, anything is possible. As well as the overbearing sense of doting, any man can do anything for a child. Even to make thread and needle itself. Even to sew itself.

Yet once all the materials are ready.... They don't even know where to start.

"Uh..." Leron looked at his long ball of thread.

"Hmm..." Sangfroid mulled over, staring at his newly constructed needle.

Vladstin, who was just sitting in a boulder right beside little Ofelia's narrow river and watching, couldn't help it anymore. He burst out cackling, making the little girl look at him with a raised an eyebrow.

"Hahahaha! You Ilvedians are just so endearingly oblivious! You know what is needed to make clothes yet not how to do it yourself!" Vladstin clutched his stomach, and wiped a tear from his eyes.

Sangfroid groaned. "You don't know either."

"Hehe....I didn't say I don't know how. I'm just saying that it's too tedious and I cannot sew." Vladstin grinned. "But I know a thing or two about how to construct a simple shirt. I'm surprised even the little prince doesn't know how, but then again, he spent most of his days locked up in the library reading books, fencing, or mulling over his betrayal while seducing me and my family into trusting him."

Leron meekly looked to the ground, extremely flustered. "I know it's common for Crescentians to make their own clothing, not just the peasants, but..... well.... I just never had the time to learn."

"Or you simply did not want to and found it uninteresting, since people adore you so much to give you any piece of clothing you want." Vladstin stood up from the boulder, and grabbed their needle and thread.

"You know, I used to find it so difficult to insert this thread into the needle's tiny hole." The vampire closed one of his eyes, demonstrating how to put it. "But now with my keen senses..... Oh, there you go!"

He tied it properly, and handed it to them. "Now you just take that for later while I take the measurements."

The human's eyes widened. Right, the measurements! Why didn't they think about it before!?

This made Vladstin grin even wider as he approached little Ofelia. "We don't have a measuring stick with us. So I will just estimate. Which of you has better memory and precision to cut the garment?"

This time, Leron's eyes lit up. "I-I can do that!"

Vladstin ignored his enthusiasm and turned to Sangfroid. "Then that leaves you to be the one to do the actual stitching. Your aim in arrows is impeccable, surely aiming the needle in the right position would be easy, right?"

"I'll....try." Sangfroid said, very serious and earnest to do his best work on the task assigned to him.

"Alright then. I'll shout the measurements and instructions, and you humans just follow. We'll get a nice shirt for Ofelia in no time."

The three worked together, with the siren just observing what they are doing with curious eyes. To her, it seems that the yellow-eyed friend is the leader of the group, the one who's in charge. Like Mommy. She always knows what to do and tells Ofelia and her friends.

So she thought, 'Yellow-eyed friend is the mommy.'

But then again, the blue-eyed not-friend also seems to be the most gentle looking, even when the wary siren doesn't want to admit it in her little heart. And Mommy is the most gentle-looking, besides Ofelia, of course. Does that mean not-friend is the mommy?

"19 pinches on the width from shoulder to shoulder, 32 dots for around the shoulder!" Vladstin yelled as he examined Ofelia closely, approximating her measurements. "Oh, and Sangfroid, don't forget to leave out extra space when you sew. It can't be too tight."

"Mn." Sangfroid answered seriously as Leron cut while giving it an extension he can sew. 

Out of them, this purple-eyed friend has the prettiest hair. It is long, and braided to the side, like Mommy's. So is he also the Mommy?

Unable to decide for a long time, the little siren mulled it over, picking between all the criteria on which fits the role of a Mommy best....

And decided that purple-eyed friend wins. He is the Mommy, Mommy has beautiful hair styled so perfectly like him.

Just as she came upon this very important and valuable decision, the upper garment is finished, thanks to the work of the three men.

"It doesn't look bad!" Leron smiled as she put up the tiny little canary yellow shirt dress for him and his companions to observe. "Sangfroid, your stitching is wonderful! I never would have guessed you haven't done it before, it looks like the work of a professional tailor!"

"Pfftt!!!! You got compared to a tailor! Oh, what an honor this is, great King of Ilvedia, Chief of Noble Huntsmen!" Vladstin held back his head in maniacal laughter again. "Truly, the greatest of feats is to be comparable to a professional tailor!"

This made Sangfroid groan, but he was more than used to this Vampire Lord's teasing. Before, he might have clenched his fist, now a small groan would suffice.

"I.... I didn't mean it in a demeaning way." Leron became easily flustered as he always does because of Vladstin. But now, it was also slightly because of Sangfroid, as Leron was turning to him to explain himself. "I was merely complimenting you, Sangfroid, please don't take offense!"

Sangfroid did not expect to be the cause of the prince's vexation, and he strangely felt warm about it. That Leron would be so afraid as to offend him.

He tried to smile as reassuringly as he can. "I know, Your Highness. Thank you for your compliments, I highly appreciate it."

"It's nothing, I'm just telling the truth. You put a lot of effort into whatever task is in front of you and does it so meticulously." Leron put a hand on his shoulder. "You deserve the acknowledgment. Thank you for your help to make this with me."

Sangfroid felt even warmer, holding the hand on his shoulder. "Thank you to Your Highness' efforts as well. Without you cutting the precise measurements, it cannot be done."

Vladstin stopped laughing and yawned at this lovey-dovey pair. They're always like this when they do favors for each other. It's an endless cycle of 'thank yous' and 'you're welcomes'. Very tiring to watch.

But that's also what draws him to their relationship. It is so bland, filled with formalities and basic interactions. How can they fall for one another at this rate if there is no excitement? Sangfroid couldn't even let go of the Your Highness yet, so how can Leron see him as anything more than a loyal comrade?

Something needs to change, or else even when Vladstin dies and gets out of the picture, these two will still remain nothing more than bosom friends, but never truly in each other's bosoms as a darling.

One of them needs to be more daring, and since it is Sangfroid who is pining, he should be the one to make a bold action to have his feeling reciprocated.

"But knowing him, he wouldn't do so much as to pin Leron on a tree or something..." Vladstin mumbled. "He might even ask permission first to do so."

"What are you saying?" Sangfroid asked, his eyes narrowed.

"Nothing, I said you should dress Ofelia since you're the one she could understand."

Vladstin stepped aside, silently scheming with his sharp-toothed grin.

Sangfroid went over to Ofelia. "Ofelia, I need you to raise your hands so I can put this on."

"What is that?" The siren tilted her head slightly.

"It's 'clothes'. Like what we humans have." Sangfroid gestured to his own garments. "It's to keep out the cold while you're above the surface."

"But Ofelia doesn't feel cold."

"Not yet. You will at night. " Sangfroid racked his brain for another way to convince her. "And I suppose.... Uh..... It will make you look prettier?"

"Really?" Ofelia's eyes brightened. "Mommy does many things to make Ofelia prettier, like run her fingers through my hair to clear out tangles or put shiny things on it. She used to do that a lot when she is with me."

She raised up her hands, letting Sangfroid dress her up. It fits perfectly, and she does look prettier with it, though it's a shame for the pretty dress to immediately get wet.

"Thank you. You really are like Mommy. Ophelia will call you Mommy now, friend."

Sangfroid blinked, thinking he must have misunderstood. "Say that again?"

"Ofelia calls both you and him...." She pointed to Vladstin. "As 'friend'. And it's confusing Ofelia. So Ofelia will call you Mommy while I call him friend, and the other person is not-friend."

"Uhhh.... What did she say?" Leron asked, noticing Sangfroid's change in expression.

Sangfroid couldn't dare lose face in front of Prince Leron like this. "Nothing, Your Highness. I just remembered that I haven't introduced ourselves to Ofelia yet. Which a huge mistake for me."

Vladstin raised an eyebrow at this, since he can sense the copious amount of stress and perplexity within Sangfroid. "Why won't you tell us what she said, Sangfroid---"

"Ofelia, you don't have to call us 'friend' all the time." Sangfroid said. "We have names, like you. I am Sangfroid. The one with white hair and yellow eyes is Vladstin. The one with black hair and blue eyes is Leron."

"Ohhhh!!!" Ofelia nodded profusely, trying to remember while pointing at them and associating with them their names. "Sangfroid, Vladstin, and Leron. Ofelia will remember."

Sangfroid breathed a sigh of relief. "She now knows our names. Can we continue traveling now---"

"Mommy Sangfroid, Mommy Vladstin, Mommy Leron."

Vladstin sense the shock in Sangfroid, and Leron saw a hint of it too. They both asked. "What did she say?"

Sangfroid turned back to Ofelia, definitely put on a spot that he was not used to nor like being in. "Ofelia, like I said, you should only call us by our names. No 'Mommy'. And Mommy is for women, we are all men."

"What do you call a men Mommy then?" She asked innocently.

Sangfroid breathed in like a martyr who had already accepted his fate. "Father. But I heard some aristocratic children say Daddy..... I don't know what the translation would be in Gargen---"

"Okay!" Ofelia clapped, and mimicked the word from Sangfroid, with a thick accent. "Daddy Sangfroid, Daddy Vladstin, and Daddy Leron! Ofelia's daddies who will bring her to Mommy!"

The two who don't speak Gargen could only blink in disbelief that they heard this little siren girl call them 'Daddy' just now.

And that is how they suddenly became three unexpected fathers of a siren girl. Though a temporary title, it is a very strange thing indeed for all three men to be the father of the same child that they aren't even related to by blood.. The Thirteen Kingdoms is yet to hear about such a weird tale, which they will probably would disregard as some folktale giving them the morale of the story: To think very carefully before you speak, so as to avoid misunderstandings.