Domnhall made his rounds through the newly built village with pride filling his heart as children played in the fields, some of them running up to him and others standing by shyly. The clan had expanded again, with their population increasing, he had needed to build another village to accommodate them. The adults greeted him as he passed, they were busy going about their daily life, with the men coming home with rabbits and birds for the night’s stew, and the women washing their clothes on washing stones outside the houses.

It had been four whole years since he had wedded Allie, and to show for it he had a prosperous clan, a happy marriage, and two sons: Riley and Rohan. Every year had been bliss, and he had been overjoyed when Allie had given him two boys at once. It had come as a surprise, but then again, they should have expected it as Allie was a twin after all. The twins did not look alike the way that Allie and Adamina had, with Riley looking more like his mother and Rohan taking after Domnhall. The only physical attributes they shared were their height and the color of their eyes, but their characters were very alike. They were both very sweet little boys who cared about their family.

The family in question was made up of himself, his sister, Allie and the boys. Stuart had left them to go to France in the same year that Allie had discovered that she was pregnant. If he had still been in the clan, or even anywhere in the Highlands, he would have stayed to see the twins. They were three years old and had just learned to walk, yet they were already so protective of each other and those that were around them. Due to their new hobby of walking around, Allie preferred to have them outside most of the time, instead of staying in the castle where they could break something or hurt themselves.

Each day was a muddy surprise of a captured frog or a rescued bird which had fallen after hurting its wing. They were compassionate and looked at the world with wonder in their big, hazel eyes.

Allie was a wonderful wife and Lady. When he had been trying to court the young ladies of the Highlands in search of a wife, he had not been optimistic about being lucky enough to marry for love. However, life had found a way to surprise him. Each day was beautiful to him, an opportunity to feel even more love than they had before. When she had been pregnant with the twins, he got to see a more irritable side of her, but he only found it amusing and not difficult. He had been married to Adamina who was not pregnant, but just purposely did her best to make things difficult and be vile.

To him Allie’s behavior was adorable and, in some instances, hilarious. He knew better than to laugh, however, because the one time that he did not hold in his amusement, she had burst into tears. He was glad that he never got to experience what a pregnant Adamina was like. Instead of asking for pie in the middle of the night, she might have demanded a war with all the neighboring clans instead.

He and Allie had both changed a lot over the years. She had gotten rounder after her pregnancy, her curves filling out nicely. Her hands were softer and had less ridges since she no longer did manual labor and took care of herself more. Her skin had gotten fairer too, as she no longer had reason to be out in the sun too long. She had also taken to tying her hair back in a ponytail, something she learned to do because otherwise the boys would pull out all her hair when they tried to play with it. It had become a habit now after the time when Riley had snatched several strands of her hair right from the roots, bringing tears to her eyes.

He too had changed; he had added some extra weight to go with the age of being in his prime, but he exercised with the men every day to make sure that he kept in shape and could still draw her gaze when he was shirtless in the sun. His hair was longer now as well, and unlike Allie he did not tie it back, sometimes teasing Allie about how he had more luscious hair than she did, and she would retort that the boys would snatch him bald one day. He instead played a game with the boys to see if he could unclench their fists from around the strands of his hair before they could rip them off his head.

As he walked through the village, he could not help but wish that he had brought them with him. The air was light, and he could smell the nearby river as well as the faint smell of smoke from someone who had started their cooking early. Allie would love to get out of the castle and see the place and he just knew that the boys would love to play around in the grass with the other children.

The newly built village made him remember the village that had been burned down during his run-in with Bruce, the Laird of the McAlfie clan. The village had been rebuilt very quickly and his people had been able to return to their lives, but thinking of that time was still rather difficult as a lot of things had happened. They all tried to look back at the past with nothing but smiles, but not everything could be smiled about.

It was because he remembered all the pain that Bruce had caused so vividly that he was uneasy with the news that he had gotten the month before. It seemed that Bruce was gathering support from the English for the McAlfie clan, and although he did not do anything else than build business relations for the prosperity of his clan, Domnhall was worried.

He had made a promise to Bruce that the next time he attempted to harm him or his clan would be the last, but Bruce, despite being defeated, had stubbornly refused to back down, claiming that he would get his revenge one day. It was because of this that Domnhall could not help but feel restless. The English were a formidable lot. If they were incited by Bruce to bring a fight to him, who would he call on to help him fight? None of the Lairds would want to risk themselves like that.

The Buchan lands were prosperous and McAlfie had eyes on them for several years, even before Domnhall was born. For Bruce, however, it had become more than a feud over lands, it was personal, and the lands were an excuse at most. He hoped each day that Bruce was just becoming less petty and more mature as he continued to get news of his alliances without there being an attack on his land, but his gut told him that he was most likely wrong.

If he fell behind and ended up with less advantages and strength, he knew that Bruce would attack him. It was because of this that when he got a letter from a Lord in England whom he had done business with once before when his father was still alive, he had been excited. However, the contents of the letter had only given him another thing to be troubled about.

He walked past a tree and balked to find Elspeth sitting there, singing calmly to the little girl curled up beside her. He was rather startled to find her there as he had not come with her, but then again, his sister loved the people and was usually in their midst. He let out a heavy sigh. She was another person that made him worry, but for a completely different reason.

His sister was twenty-four now, ripe for marriage and should have begun entertaining suitors, but she had no interest. He knew that four years ago she had been a victim of his first wife’s abuse several times in the presence of her suitors. After that she had stopped entertaining suitors at all. He had let her be, thinking that she was going to be fine as she was still young, but four years had passed, and nothing had changed yet.

He wanted to make her choose for herself without him giving her a push in the direction he wanted. He thought about the letter from the English Lord again. It had reached him a week ago, but he still was not sure how to respond. The Lord wanted an alliance and remembering Domnhall from when he had done business with his father, thought the best way to make it happen was for there to be marriage between his sister and the Lord’s son.

If he was being honest, it was God sent. He had just begun to worry about getting her to marry and settle down, and with Bruce acting up again, it came at a time when he really needed it. He had been wanting to have the conversation with her for a while, but he had worried that she would be too upset, especially since it meant that she would need to leave the clan and go all the way to England.

She glanced up then, noticing him standing and watching her and her face lit up with joy. She waved at him, motioning that he should join her. He almost felt guilty, knowing that if she knew what he was thinking, she would have been less enthusiastic to greet him. Looking around he sighed. There was no better time than the present to tell her.

He steeled himself as he headed for his sister. Elspeth had to marry as soon as possible.

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