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Illustration from (the not yet posted) chapter 3 of my latest Temeraire fanfic, Like Mother, Like Daughter: [link] Laurence meets his son whose existence he has been unaware of.

The scene is the following:

At that moment Jason Roland squealed with delight and ran after the ball that had rolled to the edge of the court and stopped right before Laurence’s feet. Laurence bent down and picked it up, then took a tentative step towards the little boy, offering him the ball.
“Thank you, sir,” Jason said with an innocent smile, his blue eyes, so like his father’s, sparkling with joy.
“You are welcome, Jason,” Laurence replied.
“How do you know my name… sir?” the boy asked, surprised. “We have not been introduced yet…”
Laurence stifled a chuckle. Apparently Emily had done a nice job of teaching her little brother some manners. “My name is Will Laurence, and I have heard you are Jason Roland, so we are now introduced.”
“ Pleased to meet you, sir,” the boy said brightly.
“Hey, Jason, are you coming back, or what?” one of the boys, probably eight years of age, yelled at him.
Laurence expected his son to turn on his heels and run to join the young cadets, but to his surprise Jason did not, instead he flung the ball back to the others and turned to the two captains. “Captain Berkley, is Will Laurence your friend?” he enquired.
“Yes, very much so,” the older man nodded, the twitching of his moustache suggesting that he was trying to hide a grin.
“And do you have a dragon too, sir?” Jason asked Laurence.
“Yes,” Laurence crouched down to be at eye-level with the boy, “I have a huge dragon, almost as big as Captain Berkley’s Maximus, only black and Chinese. He is a Celestial, would you like to see him?”
“Oh, very much!” the boy nodded. “I’ve never seen a Celestial. Never even heard of it.”
Laurence cast a sideways glance at Berkley who looked away, his cheeks slightly redder than usual. Apparently no one had mentioned anything about William Laurence and Temeraire to Jason. But probably that was the best… for if Jason had never heard of them, he surely did not know Laurence was a traitor and did not have a natural aversion to him. Of course, Laurence knew that some day he would need to tell the boy, if he had a chance at all to bring up the subject, but first he had to let Jason get to know him better, to grow fond of him. Not to mention that Jason, at age five, would not wholly understand the concept of treason, only that it was something nasty that only bad people do.
“You have never heard of Celestials?” Laurence gave his son a smile. “I am sure you will think they are beautiful, my Temeraire definitely is.”
“Temeraire?” Jason cocked his head with a slight frown. “What a funny name! I’d like to meet your Temeraire, sir. When can we go?”

***
William Laurence is Naomi Novik's character. Jason Roland is mine.