Avuri

The following several days were an absolute mess of disorganized chaos. Avuri found it actually to be quite funny, given how little really should have changed. She had expected after Talya had given birth that she and Gray would have a few weeks of little sleep while adjusting to being new parents.

The lack of sleep wouldn't even be that much of a problem, given Talya was in the Sky Realm, and needed very little sleep. Gray was still in the Earth Realm, however, so he would likely still struggle a little if Talya didn't want to take over night shifts, but Avuri had assumed she would. That's just the kind of person she was.

What Avuri had not accounted for was how new the whole experience was for the entire family. No one had ever brought it up so it had completely slipped her mind, but this was the first child actually born into the family. And the newness of it all seemed to be throwing everyone off.

Talya and Gray were somewhat expected, of course. It was their child, and they were completely enamored with him. They didn't ever truly let the newborn out of their sight, which Avuri thought was sweet.

But everyone else? Emery and Avuri had adopted twenty seven children. They had had no shortage of learning how to care for little children, so it hadn't occurred to Avuri that Emery would all but lose her mind over a baby.

In retrospect, the youngest they had ever taken in a child was at four years old like they had with Stena, so they really hadn't ever dealt with a literal baby.

And Emery was playing the part of a hovering aunt like her life depended on it. Any time the new baby needed anything, or Talya or Gray mentioned something, Emery was the first to try to get the task taken care of.

Of course, that was by telling whichever of their own children was closest to go fetch the item or do the task. Because she clearly couldn't get up and leave.

And then there was Vale. Avuri found his reaction even more hilarious because it sounded like something out of an old epic. After the initial meeting that night when they returned from their training a little early, Vale had basically disappeared.

The midwife, who had been suggested to the family by Lyn, had come up from Flowing Dragon City to help briefly with the birth itself. She had worked with Cultivators before, and Lyn had sworn the woman to secrecy regarding Talya and her family. Once everyone had returned, and the baby was deemed healthy, Vale had offered to take the woman home to the city. She had agreed, and Vale was gone.

Since then, he had come and gone throughout the following days. He would show up at the house, spend an hour or so with his children and new grandchild, and then vanish again.

It wasn't until Talya finally asked him what was going on - and pressed him on the matter - that he finally admitted he kept having to retreat to Cultivate because he wanted to be sure his emotions didn't overwhelm him.

Talya had simply nodded at the explanation when he told them, but after he vanished yet again, they all had a good laugh about it. Vale had never been the secluded Cultivation type, and was generally pretty open with his emotions. Talya and Emery both found it immensely satisfying and gratifying that the birth of his first grandchild had moved him so much.

Avuri was secretly waiting for Emery to get upset because he had never acted that way with their own children and confront him about it.

Because he had acted that way before. Avuri had caught him sneaking off to Cultivate quietly alone every time he visited after they had taken in new kids. She was willing to bet he had done it when Emery had first shown up with Cierra and Stena, too, but they hadn't noticed.

Even Avuri's cousins were enamored with the little boy, visiting the main house to see him at least twice a day. They were more concerned with being good guests, however, and did their best to make their appearances low stress for everyone, and didn't overstay when they visited.

However, despite the obvious silliness going around, nothing had topped Avuri's enjoyment of watching their younger children meet their newest cousin. Despite everyone in their family regularly being around young kids - Kal and Luc were only barely five years old, now - an actual baby was very new to most of them.

They visited throughout the day in small groups to see their new family member, and Avuri was pretty sure that Talya was enjoying seeing the way everyone's faces lit up when they saw the baby. Gray hadn't even bothered to hide it, bragging to everyone about how cute his new son was as they met the baby, completely fascinated.

Thanks to the relative chaos of it all, Avuri found herself acting as the household head completely solo for a little over a week. There weren't any new tasks or anything to be done that she hadn't done before, but with so many people otherwise occupied, she realized just how much their not-so-little family depended on everyone doing their part to function seamlessly.

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On the plus side, Emery was the only one that wasn't actually doing anything. Avuri let it slide because she knew it wasn't often that your sister had a child, and she was genuinely happy that Emery found the child so enthralling.

Avuri took up some of her wife's slack for the week, but the older kids also stepped up and got a few extra chores done each day, too.

A little after a week had passed, it seemed like things were finally starting to reach an equilibrium of sorts, as the newness of the baby faded into a new normal.

Talya and Gray moved back into their claimed house in the Basin, finding all sorts of new baby-related things waiting for them. There was a nicely padded crib in every room, plus small toys and blankets scattered about everywhere. Despite the chaos throughout the week, Emery and Avuri's kids had gone in groups to visit the city and without fail returned with new baby things simply because they could.

Avuri was at least satisfied they hadn't spent too much money on things they could make themselves. Each of the cribs had been put together by Stena, Briar, or one of the other children who had been working with wood Qi, and several of the thicker blankets had been hand-woven.

Admittedly, the really nice silky ones were bought, but that was fine. She did end up having to talk with more than one group of the kids that came back with foodstuffs like pureed fruits and vegetables or other food for small children. She and Emery apparently needed to have a chat with their kids about how babies lived when they were newborns, because most of the kids were treating the new baby like a toddler in their minds.

She supposed none of them really had any memories or workable knowledge of taking care of newborns or infants, so she couldn't get too angry about it.

Unfortunately, it still left the family with a fair bit of pureed food to work with over the next couple weeks. When she mentioned all the food to Talya, though, the woman broke into such a lovely smile that Avuri couldn't be upset over the whole fiasco. And she figured that the pureed food would make for really great simple meals if she blended it all up with other healthy ingredients, too, especially for Talya.

As things were settling into a new daily routine, Avuri and Emery decided to take the opportunity to change some of the ways the family went about things. Afterall, they had been running their household much the same way they had for years at this point. Having their daily routines upended with the new baby gave them the perfect chance to make some changes around the basin.

They reworked the general chores list they split among the family, adding more involved tasks like trips to Flowing Dragon City for the older kids, now that some of the oldest were capable of safely making the trip themselves. Emery wanted to still limit it only to Cierra, Stena, Kord, Elise, Enrik, Fia, Briar, and Karn, all of whom were in the Earth Realm.

Avuri agreed with the choice, but more because the eight of them had also had it drilled into them exactly how to traverse the Peaks alone when they were without supervision. She trusted them to be careful during the trek, despite the Peaks still not exactly being safe for anyone below the Sky Realm without strong knowledge of the terrain.

And even then, they still limited their travel to daytime only. If any of the kids didn't think they would make it back from a shopping excursion before dark, they were told to stay at an Inn overnight before returning the following morning. Emery seconded Avuri on that decision as well.

The next big change to the schedule was the way the family would handle the division of tasks around the Basin. They had spent the last fifteen years basically working on a rotation system to make things fair for everyone while making sure things were split evenly among age groups to make sure every job each day had one or two older kids overseeing the work.

However, now that they had so many hands available, they decided that it might be a better option to let everyone select what they wanted to do and divide up teams based on that instead of doing a fair but uncaring rotation. It also helped that most of the older kids that had any Cultivator techniques picked jobs that aligned with their skills, typically.

It took another two weeks of general disorganized chaos for things to settle into a solid groove. There were teams set up for each of the general 'roles' that needed regular attention every day. All told, the family split into five teams; farming, husbandry, culinary, logistics, and a floater team.

The farming, husbandry, and culinary teams were simple enough to get running as they were all fairly well known and contained tasks that the family had regularly been splitting up until then. Setting up the logistics group had been Fia's idea and the whole family decided it was a good idea. The family had grown large enough that having a small group dedicated to watching the numbers on regularly used food and items would be very useful, not to mention having the same group of people watching over everything the Basin itself produced.

Of course, the task itself demanded that it be worked basically only by some of the older kids, but keeping track of the Basin's logistics would still be invaluable.

The first week of the new plan had gone somewhat poorly before they unanimously decided that a fifth team of floaters should be established. While it was easy enough for the farming, husbandry, and culinary teams to clean up their respective workspaces and related chores, it still left a lot of miscellaneous tasks for everyone to pick up after doing their regularly scheduled activities.

For week two, Emery wanted to try implementing an idea that Wrynn had mentioned off hand. Anyone that didn't have a desire to work on a specific group of tasks was put onto the floater team instead of one of the focused ones. That group then tackled all of the smaller, more random tasks that didn't fall under the other headings. Things like general cleaning or less regular tasks would be handed off to the floater group.

And, of course, if one of the other teams needed help, the floater group would step in.

By the end of week two, things seemed to be working as intended, at least for the time being. Things were once again settling into a steady rhythm, and Avuri was pretty sure that the family at large had settled into their new daily routine.

Which was perfectly timed with their small group of Dragon-Kin hopefuls needing to return to their daily training. With Talya and Gray now occupied with the care of their newborn, general day-to-day training for the family would be overseen by Ieji, who volunteered to stay for another few weeks in the meantime. Emery had thanked them ceaselessly for the help the day before everyone's training truly resumed.

As the whole Dragon-Kin training group gathered to depart roughly three weeks after Talya had had her child, Avuri was just hoping that their training wouldn't take too much longer. She knew it would, of course, but she also wanted to spend time with her family at home.

Mostly, she was worried it would take a year or more before they were prepared to take the next steps. She hoped desperately that it would be more like a few months at most.

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