"No Such Thing As Faeries"
by Ardelle
To my sweet cousin Sara- for being different
Part 3:  "She's ugly and strange"

        "So, Naomi, would you like to go see your new cousin now?" 
Samantha Wildman knelt down next to her daughter.  She'd been sitting in
a corner playing by herself.  That worried Sam sometimes, but she
supposed every child at that age had imaginary friends.
        "I guess so," said Naomi a little hesitantly.  "I keep hoping
Tlyn will come back, but she never does."
        "Who?"
        "I told you already, Mommy.  Tlyn.  My fairy friend."
        "Oh.  Right.  Tlyn.  How could I forget?"
        Naomi shrugged.  "I dunno.  C'mon, let's go see Uncle Tom and
Aunt B'Elanna's new baby!"  She said it as if it had been her idea all
along.
***
"Every mother's child is the sweetest and the best."
-Marilla, "Anne of Avonlea"
***
        Naomi leaned over to see her little cousin in her cradle.  She
was a little hairless thing, with blue eyes like her father's and darkish
skin like her mother's.  Amazingly, she was peaceful and hardly every
cried.
        "What's her name, Uncle Tom?"
        "We named her Delia.  Her name's Delia Paris-Torres."
        "Cousin Delia," Naomi said softly.  "Can I hold her?"
        "Sure," said B'Elanna, lifting the child out of her cradle. 
"Mind her head."
        "She's soo tiny," said Naomi.  "Was I really that little?"
        "It wasn't that long ago," said Samantha.
        Naomi giggled when Delia clamped a hand around Naomi's pinkie. 
She cooed and giggled, then after a bit fell asleep.
        "How long will it be until I can play with her?" Naomi asked.
        "It might be a while.  Delia was born a month early, you know, so
she is really too little to do anything.  Maybe in several months she'll
be able to play with you."
        Naomi frowned.  "That's too long."
        "Sorry, kiddo," Tom said.  "Maybe you should go now.  Delia and
Aunt B'Elanna need their sleep."
        Samantha nodded and led Naomi out the door.  They weren't the
only ones who overlooked the baby that day.
        Puck watched and laughed.
***
"Little one, little one,
Sleep, sleep.
Little one, little one,
Sleep, sleep."

"Sleep, sleep,
Beside my bosom, beside my bosom,
Sleep, sleep,
Peacefully serene, peacefully serene."
-"Fiona's Lullaby,"(translated from Irish) The Secret of Roan Innish
***
        "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
        "Your turn to get the baby," B'Elanna mumbled in her sleep.  "I
just put her down fifteen minutes ago."
        Tom groaned and got up.  Captain Janeway had given them a few
month's leave of absence when Delia had suddenly become colicky.  Nothing
could shut her up.  Neither of the parents got much sleep anymore.  The
Doctor had noted the strangeness of her behavior, since Delia had been
such a peaceful baby in her earliest months, but he'd said no more about
it.  No one had dared to comment on the strangeness of her eyes.  They
seemed at a slant, and a bit more sharply shaped than most people's eyes
were.  Once they had been blue like her father's, now they were now blue
like her father's sometimes, shifty and odd all the time.  When she was
enraged her eyes grew moss green, and a startling shade of lilac when she
was in mischief, and many other colors.  The strangest one was when they
got reflective and dark in a cold rage or defense.  Over the months Tom
and B'Elanna had been able to read their baby's eyes for emotions, just
like Samantha Wildman had learned to read Naomi's cries.  They didn't
know where Delia had inherited those eyes.  The weirdest person in either
of their families had been Tom's crazy great-aunt Wilhemina, whom Tom had
only *heard* about.  Then again, Tom pointed out, it could be all that
Klingon rage that caused Delia to cry as she did.  B'Elanna didn't think
that was funny at all.  But she had to agree that a change had certainly
come over her.
        She'd grown hair, too, a little fluff of haystack hair, pale as
new butter.  It looked strange, for her skin was still the same warm
brown that she'd inherited from her mother.  Quick to explain his
daughter's odd looks, Tom reasoned that when he was a small child, his
hair had been quite blond as well.  Surely her hair would darken, and her
eyes would settle out in time.  No one, however, even dared to wonder why
the child had no ridges on her forehead.
        Just the other day Naomi Wildman had come over to visit her, but
though B'Elanna had asked if she'd liked to hold Delia, Naomi refused. 
She seemed oddly uneasy around Delia now- a change from her first visit.
        "I don't like her anymore," Naomi said in a pouty voice.  "She's
ugly and strange."
        Samantha had told her not to be so rude, but she did not deny
what her daughter had said.  Both had hurried out after, though Tom had
invited them to stay for lunch.
        Sighing, Tom picked up Delia in her little crib and rocked her,
though she still cried loud enough to wake the dead.  He hummed a little
song, did everything the Doctor had suggested to quiet her, before he set
her back down in the crib.  The Doctor had warned against this cure, but
it was the only one Tom and B'Elanna could find that shut Delia up.  Tom
replicated a spoon full of honey and gave it to the child to suck on,
which she did greedily.  She then fell asleep with blue-eyed happiness. 
Rubbing his head, Tom went back to bed.  Surely the trouble would end
soon...it had to!

TO BE CONTINUED...

Stay tuned for the next installment of "No Such Thing As Faeries" when
Delia and Naomi face tragedy...and make some shocking discoveries...

Everything belongs to who it belongs to, you know who you are, I mean no
offense...does anyone have deja vu?  Anyhoo- don't post this story
without my permission, heck, you know the drill...

Deirdre/Ardelle