Rudolph had never been so happy as the day Clarice told him she was pregnant. He'd nearly flown from the ground he was so delighted; he was going to be a father! There were going to be children around, his children! Three was no bigger blessing, no better gift. Everything was going to be perfect.
And it was! It was perfect.
And then the children...began to talk. And walk. And run. And yell. And cry. And just...be so, so loud.
Rudolph could not remember the last night he'd slept. Not all the way through the night, anyway. One of them always needed something, and Gods bless it, there were more of them than there were of himself and Clarice. They were outnumbered. Every time one of them went to bed, the other one woke up with a nightmare, or had to go potty, or wanted to know what a tree was made up of, and did not accept 'I don't know, tree stuff???' as an answer.
Rudolph loved his children so much. If he didn't get some sleep soon, he was going to run away and join the circus.
And then...one morning, when the little family woke up...suddenly, they weren't outnumbered. One, two...
Rudolph blinked in tired confusion. There were supposed to be three of them. One, two...where was the third one? There were supposed to be three. They were supposed to be outnumbered. One, two...where was Olive?
"Olive?" Rudolph said, staggering to his feet, all trace of exhaustion forgotten. "Olive? Where's your sister?" Rudolph demanded of his other children, but they had been just as asleep as Rudolph and Clarice were, and they had no idea. They whimpered and shook their heads, and Rudolph dashed out of their little cave, into the falling snow.
"Olive? Olive!" Rudolph bellowed, as loud and deep as he could make his voice carry. "Olive, where--"
"Daddy?" Olive called, and Rudolph galloped toward the sound. He found his daughter perched precariously on the rocks above their cave, little baby legs wobbling nervously as they pranced from one patch of icy stone to the other. "Daddy? I think I'm--I think I'm stuck. And I'm really really cold..."
Rudolph's heart was still thundering in his chest, but now that he at least had a visual on his daughter, common sense was beginning to return to him. How had she even gotten up there? Why had she gotten up there?
Rudolph shook his head. Questions for later, when he was scolding her, when she was safe on the ground.
"Daddy's coming, baby girl," Rudolph promised, trotting around the cave wall to the back, where - yes, there were her tiny little hoofprints in the snow. He couldn't follow her path exactly, but it was a good enough guideline. He backed up a few steps and made a mighty leap, his feet miraculously finding flat enough stone to support him as he made his way to his daughter. She had clearly been sniffling, fighting against tears, for who knew how long she had been up here.
"Daddy's here," Rudolph said, carefully picking his way over to her. He nuzzled his nose against hers and let her cry into his shoulder, apologies and repeating how frightened she was and how she just wanted to look at the stars and other unintelligible things, and Rudolph waited until she calmed down to speak again.
"We can't go back down the way we came up," he said, "so we'll have to find another way. Follow in my hoofprints, okay?" Olive gave a bleary nod and the two of them, carefully, slowly, made their way back down the side of their little mountain.
When they returned to the ground, when Rudolph returned Olive to her mother and siblings - he found that he couldn't even be angry, like he'd planned to be. He was too relieved. For a moment, he'd thought he'd lost her for good - that a Shifter or some other animal had come and that he'd find her lifeless body miles away. The fact she was still alive...
Even when they were loud. Even when they were annoying. Even when they were children who made foolish mistakes...his children were the greatest blessing Rudolph had ever - would ever - receive, and there was nothing they or anyone else could do that would change that.
...But all the same.
"Olive. Promise me you'll never do that again, okay?"
"Okay, Daddy. I promise."
Never again would Rudolph complain, even to himself, about his children. There was no downside to them, even when they scared him half to death.
