"That…" Amare spoke with a stunned tone. "That is a deep shift in your life."
She hadn't expected him to so smoothly change the nature of what drove him in such a straightforward and discrete manner. Project Water had been the very center of his life, and now he declared that he was dedicating all of it to sobody, as if Project Water was a token of his love for his daughter.
Rui gazed deeply at a dozing Ria as his finger touched her little hand, earning a reflexive gripping hold from her. A gesture he found heart-warming, even if it was rely a reflex.
"This is a change that has been a long ti coming, in hindsight," Rui remarked. "In hindsight, the importance of Project Water in our lives, even over family, isn't just because of the fact that it is an ambition that spanned two lifetis. Project Water is important because it is the only thing that we have truly created. It was our first child in many ways. But now that we have had a true child of flesh and blood born from our love…" He gently placed her little hand in his as an affectionate smile ca on his face. "…We have finally created sothing even more valuable to us than our ambition."
That was at the root of why he loved her more than even Project Water from the very mont he laid eyes on her. They were both creations of his, but one was born out of an act of love while the other was an ambition born out of desperation. One was truly alive and stirred his heart more than anything inert, as a project could ever hope to.
His resolution to dedicate everything he had to give to his daughter was one that felt right to him in his soul. Instinctively, it clicked in place like the final piece of a puzzle falling in the right spot.
This was how things were supposed to be.
Project Water was never ant to be selfish.
He had simply never found anybody worth dedicating it to.
Until now. Amare smiled at him gently before turning her gaze back to the Ria. "…She's going to grow up being a daddy's girl, I can already tell. It looks like I'm going to have to be the tough parent around here when the circumstances demand it because I don't think you can bring yourself to do it, from how smitten you are."
She huffed lightly, throwing a mixed glance at Rui. She was surprised at how deeply affectionate and attached he was to their daughter, but she had already grown endeared by it. "Tough parent?" Rui scoffed lightly at her. "Ria deserves nothing less than boundless, unfettered love from both her parents."
Amare folded her arms. "Being tough is a necessity. I don't want to turn my child into an undisciplined and lazy girl who will never grow up because she's constantly babied by her parents."
Rui heaved a deep breath. He knew that she was right, of course. Excessive pampering would only create a spoiled child who was unequipped to live in the real world, even if she was the first princess of the Kandrian Empire.
But alas, he found that hard to square with his urge to drown her in endless love and affection. "We should iron out our parenting thodology, I suppose," Rui remarked with a sigh. "We should tailor our parenting of our daughter precisely to her needs and her strengths. If she turns out be a highly extroverted and active child, then we should try to channel all of that into her growth. If she turns out be a child with certain shortcomings, then we should be sure to make her feel comfortable, and hold her hand as we help her overco them."
His ethereal eyes lit up with realization. "Indeed, to be a parent is to adaptively evolve to your child's needs. To be water."
He closed his eyes as he indulged himself in his little enlightennt, taking one more step closer to the Transcendent Realm.
"Now's not the ti to be dreaming away in enlightennts," Amare remarked with a huff. "But I agree with your words. We should tailor our approach to who she is."
Rui smiled.
"Then that is what we'll do."
And indeed, that was why they did. Days passed as Rui began to grow accustod to the presence of the new most important thing in his life. It was not easy to get used to the shift in his mindset.
The throne, the Kandrian Empire, and the Panama Continent, all things he had assud responsibility over, felt less important compared to spending ti with his daughter. He lanted every mont he had to spend away from her, resorting to any and all thods he could to keep Ria at his side at all tis.
Mysteriously, around that ti, the stock prices of publicly traded companies that sold baby carriage products shot up by one thousand percent as they received mass orders of their entire catalogues from the royal palace, as well as nurous grants and investnts from the Ministry of Finance.
His days were characterized by trying and testing new baby carriages to keep Ria with him at all tis during work. His only regret was that he couldn't take her with him to training, since Amare absolutely forbade taking Ria into the manifold.
She doesn't need to burn any of her life in that place, Amare would insist. Leave her here when you go train.
The initial days after her birth were hectic. She would cry frequently, sleep frequently, wake up shortly after, and cry to demand their attention once more. Rui was more than happy to completely take over the duties of looking after her, giving Amare peaceful nights of sleep as she recovered from her post-natal exhaustion.
Rui had eliminated the need for sleep entirely, happily taking any and all ti he could get his hands on to spend with Ria, short of training. Perhaps it was for the better, for Rui couldn't properly focus on anything when Ria was around.
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