Nadia blinked.
"Better?"
"Yep, just follow ."
Mika said before turning and walking into the living room.
Nadia followed, confused but obedient, trailing behind him like a child who didn’t understand the ga but was willing to play anyway.
Mika crossed to the large sofa in the center of the room—the sa sofa they had all sat on years ago, watching movies and playing gas and falling asleep during family nights.
It was worn now, a little faded, but still comfortable. Still familiar.
He gestured for Nadia to sit.
She looked at him, puzzled.
"Why, Mika? Are we watching a movie?"
"Just sit, Nadia. I’ll show you sothing better than any movie."
Nadia sat, still confused, still watching.
And then she watched as Mika gently lifted Astrid off his back. She stirred slightly, her brow furrowing, and Nadia held her breath—but Astrid didn’t wake.
She just nestled into Mika’s chest, her face peaceful, her breathing steady.
He then moved toward the sofa, bent down, and then, with infinite gentleness—he laid Astrid’s head directly on Nadia’s lap.
Nadia’s breath caught.
Astrid’s head settled against her thighs, soft and warm.
Her white hair spilled across Nadia’s legs like silk.
Her face—so close, so peaceful, so young was turned slightly toward Nadia’s stomach.
And her tails.
Mika gathered them up, one by one, and draped them over Astrid like a blanket. Seven tails, fluffy and soft and utterly relaxed, settling against Nadia’s sides, against her hands, against her arms.
He stepped back to admire his work.
anwhile, Nadia was frozen.
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think.
Her daughter was right there.
She could feel her warmth.
Could feel the gentle rise and fall of her breathing.
Could sll the familiar scent of her hair—that sa scent from when she was small, when she would curl up in Nadia’s lap every night and demand to be brushed.
And her tails.
God, her tails.
She could feel the soft fur against her hands, could see the gentle way they rose and fell with Astrid’s breathing.
She had dread of this mont for years.
She had imagined it a thousand tis, a million tis, in the quiet hours of the night when the house was empty and she was alone with her regrets.
But she had never actually believed it would happen.
"What is this, Mika?" She whispered, her voice barely audible. "What are you doing?"
Mika smiled down at her.
"It’s obvious, isn’t it? You didn’t just want to pet her tail. You wanted so much more than that."
"You wanted to hold her. To be close to her. To feel her warmth."
He gestured at the scene he had arranged.
"So I set this up for you. Now you can caress her tails. Stroke her cheeks. Kiss her forehead. Whatever you want. And she’ll never know."
"She’s sleeping too deeply to wake up."
Nadia gulped before looking down at her daughter in slight panic and quickly saying,
"But Mika, Astrid is a very light sleeper. Always has been. Even the smallest noise, the smallest touch—she wakes up imdiately."
She glanced down at her daughter, guilt and longing warring in her expression.
"In the past, I tried to do sa. Just once. I waited until she was asleep, crept into her room, reached out to touch her tail. And the mont I did—"
She shook her head.
"—she woke up. Instantly and she looked at , and I saw it in her eyes. That wall. That distance. She pulled away from like I was a stranger."
"And right now, she’s going to wake up now."
Her voice cracked.
"And when she realizes who’s holding her, she’s going to freak out. She’s going to pull away, and she’ll be even more distant than before."
"So, please..."
She reached out to gently push Astrid’s head, to lift her, to give her back to Mika.
"Just take her upstairs. Put her in her bed. I don’t want to wake her. I don’t want to make her angrier then she already is. That’s the last thing I want in this world."
But seeing Nadia be so afraid, Mika’s resolve only strengthened.
"Don’t worry about that, Nadia." He said, his voice firm but gentle. "She’s completely out right now. No matter what you do, she won’t wake up. I can promise you that."
Nadia opened her mouth to protest—to say that it was too risky, that she couldn’t take the chance, that the fear of waking her daughter and facing her anger was too great—
But before she could voice any of it, Mika’s hand shot out.
He grabbed her wrist.
And gently, but with undeniable insistence, he placed her hand directly on Astrid’s tail.
"Brush it." He commanded softly. "Feel her fur."
Nadia’s fingers touched the soft fluff.
Instinctively, she tried to pull away—her old habits, her fear of overstepping, her terror of offending her daughter surging up to stop her.
But Mika’s grip held firm.
He looked down at her with a grave expression, sothing in his eyes that said he would be genuinely, truly angry if she pulled back now.
And for Nadia, the thought of Mika being angry with her was sohow worse than the thought of Astrid waking up.
So she stopped resisting.
Slowly, hesitantly, she began to brush her daughter’s tail.
Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!
Her fingers moved through the soft fur, feeling the familiar texture, the familiar warmth, the familiar softness that she had missed so desperately for so many years.
A look of nostalgia washed over her face.
It was just as soft as it had been in the past.
The softest fur in the entire world.
A surge of happiness flooded through her chest—so intense, so overwhelming, that she almost forgot where she was.
But then fear returned. She quickly looked toward Astrid’s face, expecting her eyes to snap open, expecting the familiar coldness, the familiar rejection.
Nothing.
Astrid didn’t move.
Her breathing remained steady. Her face remained peaceful. Her eyes remained closed.
Nadia stared for a mont, hardly daring to believe it.
Her hand moved again, this ti with more confidence.
Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!
She stroked the tail once. Twice. Three tis.
Astrid didn’t wake.
She stroked faster, more fervently, her fingers moving through the fur with increasing enthusiasm, and still her daughter didn’t stir.
She looked up at Mika, her eyes wide with wonder.
"See?" He said, his voice soft. "I told you, didn’t I? You can do whatever you want. She definitely won’t wake up at all."
Sothing inside Nadia cracked.
All the years of restraint, of holding back, of forcing herself to keep her distance—it all crumbled in that mont.
She didn’t say anything. Words were beyond her now.
She just threw herself into it.
Both hands dove into Astrid’s tails, her fingers pushing deep into the fur, feeling the warmth, the softness, the life.
Fluff! Fluff! Fluff!
She fluffed them, stroked them, ran her hands through them from base to tip.
She moved from one tail to the next, her movents growing more enthusiastic, more joyful, with each passing second.
Her eyes were shining.
She was glowing.
For the first ti in years, she was touching her daughter.
She even bent down and buried her face directly in the fluff of the largest tail—the second one, the one that had always been the fluffiest.
She took a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scent, the familiar warmth, the familiar comfort that she had thought she would never experience again.
She could have fallen asleep right there, right in that mont, wrapped in her daughter’s tails.
Mika watched for a mont, a soft smile on his face, before speaking again.
"You don’t have to stop at her tails, you know. You can do anything you want with her."
He paused and mischievously added,
"You can even play with her cheeks, if you want."
Nadia’s eyes drifted to her daughter’s cheeks.
Puffy. Soft. Round in the way that cheeks got when you were completely relaxed, completely safe, completely at peace.
She rembered those cheeks.
She rembered squeezing them when Astrid was small, watching her daughter giggle and squirm and try to escape.
Her hand moved before she could think about it.
Her fingers found Astrid’s cheek.
She squeezed gently.
Squish!
The flesh was soft, yielding, exactly as she rembered.
She squeezed a little harder, gathering up the little fat that was there, pulling gently, the way she used to when Astrid was small enough to fit in her lap.
And Astrid didn’t move.
So, Nadia squeezed again, more confidently this ti, and felt her lips curl upward—a real smile, small and hidden, but real.
Her eyes were shining with a happiness she hadn’t felt in years.
She looked up at Mika, and for once, her voice didn’t co out flat.
"Thank you, Mika."
Her words were barely a whisper, but they were filled with more emotion than she had expressed in years.
"Thank you so much. You have no idea of how long I’ve dread of this mont for so long."
"To be able to touch her like this again. To feel her. To be close to my baby again."
She looked down at her daughter, her hand still resting on her cheek.
"I never thought I’d get this chance again. I thought I had lost it forever. But today—"
Her voice cracked.
"—today you gave it back to . You gave her back to . I don’t know how to thank you. I don’t know what to say. I—"
She couldn’t finish.
She just looked at Mika, her eyes overflowing with a gratitude she couldn’t begin to express.
Mika waved a dismissive hand.
"There’s no need to thank for sothing as small as this."
He then leaned down, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"But I should tell you—you still haven’t unlocked the full potential of this mont."
Nadia blinked. "What do you an?"
Mika pointed at Astrid’s sleeping face.
"She’s completely asleep. You can do anything you want. That includes—"
He tapped his own forehead.
"—kissing her."
Nadia’s breath caught.
"You can kiss her as much as you want. There’s no need to hold back. Your daughter is right here in front of you, and she’s not going anywhere."
"She won’t wake up. She won’t pull away. She won’t get angry."
He smiled warmly.
"So go ahead. Kiss her as much as you want."
Nadia stared at him for a mont, sothing breaking and healing inside her at the sa ti.
Then she turned to her daughter.
She looked at her face—that beautiful face that she had watched grow from a chubby-cheeked toddler to the striking woman before her.
The sa eyes, the sa nose, the sa little quirks that had been there since the very beginning.
Her daughter.
Her little girl.
Her baby.
And she couldn’t hold back—
She leaned down and her lips pressed against Astrid’s cheek.
Kiss!
Soft. Warm. Familiar.
She pulled back quickly, afraid that this would be the mont Astrid woke up.
Astrid’s brow actually did furrowslightly—and Nadia’s heart stopped.
But then it smoothed out again, and her daughter let out a soft sigh, settling deeper into sleep.
Seeing that she wasn’t waking up—Nadia’s heart filled with so much joy she thought it might burst.
She leaned down again.
Another kiss. On the other cheek.
Another. On her forehead.
Another. On her nose.
Another. On her closed eyelids.
She couldn’t stop.
She kissed her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, her chin, her temples, the soft spot just behind her ear that she rembered from when Astrid was small.
She kissed her hair, her brows, the little crease between her eyes that appeared when she was worried.
She kissed her until she was breathless, until her lips were tingling, until she had lost count of how many kisses she had given.
A hundred, at least.
Maybe more.
And still, it wasn’t enough.
It would never be enough.
But it was a start.
When she finally pulled back, she was panting.
Her face was wet with tears. Her lips were swollen. Her hands were trembling.
But she was smiling.
The biggest, brightest, most genuine smile she had ever worn.
She looked at Mika.
And in that mont, she understood sothing that she had always known but never fully appreciated.
Mika was the one who truly understood her.
Her daughter, her sisters, her nieces—they all struggled to read her emotions, to understand what she was feeling.
But Mika? Mika always knew. He always understood.
He always saw past her frozen face to the woman beneath.
And when he had left—when he had distanced himself from everyone, becoming cold and unreachable—it had felt like a part of her heart had been torn away.
The one person who understood her had vanished, and she had been left alone with her emotions, unable to express them, unable to share them, unable to do anything but let them build inside her until the world shook with the force of her feelings.
But now he was back.
And in the short ti since his return, he had given her sothing she had thought was lost forever.
He had given her her daughter.
Not all the way, not completely—there was still so much distance to cover, so many walls to tear down.
But he had given her this mont. This impossible, miraculous night where she could hold her daughter and kiss her face and stroke her tails without fear.
And if Mika could do this—if he could work this miracle with Astrid—then maybe...
Nadia looked around the old house.
She imagined Charlotte’s laughter echoing through the halls.
Anya’s quiet presence in the library.
The other two chasing each other through the garden.
Yelena and Fauna arguing over so trivial matter, while one would train in the garden and the other would be trying to decipher the mysteries of the world.
All of them, together again, filling the empty spaces that had been hollow for so long.
It had seed impossible.
For years, she had thought that part of her life was over.
That the family was broken beyond repair.
But now, looking at Mika, she thought that maybe, just maybe, the impossible wasn’t so impossible after all and that bright future she was thinking off wasn’t too far away.
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