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"Liebling."
The endearment is syrup on the tongue - sugar-sweet, melting, a taste that drives Roa to hoard like a dragon rather than the big cat she is.
Shakira holds her face in her hands, blanket-warm and soft where Roa curls around her, her smile sleepy and delicate as Roa kisses the freckles that splatter and trail across the length of her wife.
Along her ribs, Shakira twitches, and Roa puffs out a laugh against her skin.
"Sensitive?" she teases, glancing up to raise an eyebrow, and Shakira flushes and whines, but smiles all the same.
"Don't be mean. You're not supposed to be mean to your wife."
Roa grins at the word 'wife', as she has done from the moment they were engaged, and Shakira sighs with a fond look because she knows, of course she knows.
"My wife," Shakira breathes, suddenly the sentimental one, and Roa slowly crawls up Shakira's body as Shakira's fingers slide into her hair.
Here Shakira is pink-cheeked, freckled, soft to look at in the morning sunlight, eyes half-lidded and lips curled. Roa can't help herself.
"You're gorgeous," she confesses roughly, as if unwilling to break the quiet of their bedroom, and as Shakira's lips part in surprise, her eyes fluttering in embarrassment, Roa gently, gently captures her mouth with her own.
The kiss is unhurried, Shakira's hands in Roa's hair guiding her as Roa captures that pouty lower lip between her fangs, control absolute as she bites for pleasure, not for pain.
Shakira gasps, then whines, and Roa's lips curl up smugly before she can stop herself.
"Little shit," Shakira curses breathlessly when she feels that grin, but there's affection in the insult, and Roa purrs deep in her chest as their noses bump together playfully.
The moment sits, comfortable and soft as they trade affections - a peck of a kiss here, a gentle stroke of skin there, Shakira's nails carefully running through her hair, Roa's thumb pressing steady against the heartbeat she can feel at the base of Shakira's left breast.
"I love you," Shakira whispers before kissing her again, slow and deep.
Roa trembles for a moment, fingers curling desperately along Shakira's ribcage as the other woman wiggles innocently in contentment and makes Roa feel mad with love.
"I love you, too," she chokes out once she is given a moment to breathe, and Shakira giggles softly against her neck.
Somewhere a clock chimes, maybe at the front of the house, but the only movement either of them make is Shakira's gentle tapping against the base of Roa's ear to the rhythm of the chime.
"I dreamt last night."
Shakira says it like it is a secret, and Roa wonders what dream could sound so sacred on her wife's lips.
Shakira giggles for a moment, untangling a hand to snake a finger in front of Roa's face, booping at her nose only once Roa has gone cross-eyed trying to follow it.
"I dreamt of our baby," Shakira finally divulges, eyes wet and shining and full of love. A cold-hot bolt washes through Roa and her ears and tail both stand at attention.
She licks her lips. "Yeah?" she responds quietly, glancing between Shakira's eyes as nervousness and excitement and anticipation make her voice crack on the single syllable.
Shakira hums in her chest, mouth curling into a wide smile as she traces the bridge of Roa's nose with her finger. "She had your eyes."
Roa tries to picture it - large feline ears atop down-soft hair the color of Shakira's, huge golden eyes and a gummy smile, fledgling wings battling an already long tail. A little Sphinx, Shakira had lovingly laughed one time.
Something in Roa aches, and she presses a kiss to Shakira's fingers to stop herself from crying.
"I love her already," she murmurs against Shakira's skin, and now it is Shakira who is nearly crying.
She makes a noise in the back of her throat and surges upward, using the lingering hand in Roa's hair to hold her in place as she kisses Roa - urgent, fervent, liquid hot and so damn sexy as she takes advantage of Roa's surprise to lick possessively into Roa's mouth.
"Give it to me," she urges after they break apart, running her nails down Roa's back, and everything in Roa suddenly throbs. She knows what Shakira is asking for.
She is more than willing to give it.
"Amore," she breathes as she rocks back to sit on her knees, smoothly grabbing at the backs of Shakira's thighs to spread them around her hips. Shakira helps, arching her back and tilting her pelvis to fall into place, giving Roa a front and center view of her wife's body ready for her taking.
Roa can't help it, her eyes roam the length of Shakira - a kiss-swollen lower lip bit by straight white teeth, a growing flush following the same winding trails as Shakira's freckles, arms splayed above her head in coy submission, full rose-tipped breasts that rise and fall with Shakira's increasingly erratic breathing, the sinuous dip of her waist where even Roa's delicate jeweller's hands feel like they might almost wrap fully around, and of course her hips, normally a prelude to an ass you could bounce a gold off of, now a framing device to lead Roa's greedy eyes to where Shakira is flush and open, still damp from the night's attempt at a baby.
She draws a careful thumb up the length of her, spreading her open to see more of the pink flush and gathering arousal smearing under her touch. Shakira keens quietly, back arching, but submits to the gentle exploration, hiding her face with a punched-out cry when Roa strokes over her clit.
"Roa," she pants, eyes glassy with want as they peek out under thick lashes to silently beg up at Roa. "Roa, please."
Roa shushes her softly, leaning forward to mouth along the underside of Shakira's left breast. She laps at the soft skin, sucking gentle marks at random as she teasingly avoids the straining peak, and her free hand comes up to simply cup its twin. Shakira whines softly at the soft sting of suction almost where she wants it, but arches her back, presents more of herself to Roa's attention. The quiet submission pleases Roa, so she takes the opportunity to close her mouth around the nipple under her lips, sucking deeply as her hand around Shakira's right breast squeezes at the same time.
"Yes," Shakira gasps, arms straining above her where her hands clutch desperately at the pillow. "Yes, please, please."
Roa knows Shakira will be dripping now, as she is every time Roa puts a mouth on her tits, and so Roa scrapes the nail of her index finger across Shakira's neglected nipple, while the hand between Shakira's legs begins stroking at her clit in time with careful sucking bites of the nipple in her mouth.
Shakira wails, whole body arching up with a sobbing cry as her composure breaks and her hands come down to clutch at Roa's shoulders. It's too much, far too much all at once for the sensitive Phoenix to take, and Roa knows it's exactly what her wife wants.
"I can't-" Shakira squeals, hips unable to squirm away from Roa's steady strokes, "Too much! Too much, Roa-"
Roa sucks at the nipple in her mouth a bit harder, capturing the other one between her fingers and rolling it tightly as she bites down. Shakira shudders, moaning even as she pounds ineffectually at Roa's back.
"Don't- I can't-" she pants, crying out when Roa angles her hand and allows her middle finger to slide through the swollen wetness of her and lay against Shakira's entrance, her thumb now making circles against Shakira's clit.
Her middle finger doesn't move, simply applying pressure right against nerve and muscle, but Shakira's own bucking hips cause it to slip inside, shallow enough it slips out again when Shakira changes angles to get more pressure on her clit. It's a tantalizing tease that Shakira has total control of, and Roa nips at the nipple in her mouth in satisfaction as Shakira rocks desperately back and forth between the two, pleasure rising but indirect.
As Shakira begins to dissolve into incoherence, Roa finally releases the nipple in her mouth with a wet pop, only to shift up and mouth at the curve of Shakira's neck. The skin there is taut, salt-musked with sweat and flush with blood.
Biting is an instinct that's always come with sex, it's in her feline nature, but now she's trying to get her wife pregnant.
Something deeper crawls out of her hindbrain and latches on to her higher functioning at the idea they're mating.
"Mine," she growls against Shakira's skin, middle and ring finger suddenly knuckle-deep inside her wife with enough force to knock the breath out of Shakira's chest.
Shakira shudders, cunt fluttering around her fingers, and Roa bares her fangs before moving.
Her hips drive her thrusts in and out, relentless, and her whole body pins Shakira to the mattress to make it very clear - she is going to fuck a baby into her wife.
Shakira moans, high-pitched and wailing when she's not babbling for more, harder, deeper, and Roa is lost herself, needing to make her wife come, needing to bite, needing to pin her down and breed her mate.
Shakira bucks so hard on a particularly well-timed thrust that it nearly dislodges Roa and something inside her roars in anger.
In a flash, her fangs are deep in the meat of Shakira's shoulder where it meets her neck, fingers curling to roughly rub against Shakira's G-spot, and Shakira is coming all over her hand with a primal scream, cunt squeezing so tightly Roa has to purposefully keep her fingers buried inside, lest they be forced out.
Shakira clenches and clenches and clenches, body trembling as aftershocks continue to roll through her, and Roa purrs in wicked satisfaction as she turns her attention to continuously stroking that rough patch deep inside Shakira.
"Oh fuck!" Shakira squeals, hips twitching mindlessly as Roa drives her mad with pleasure. "Roa, I'm gonna- Oh fuck, I can't- I can't-"
But Roa knows she can, and more to the point, Roa isn't asking.
Shakira's cries grow higher and higher as her body tries to get away from the pleasure quickly edging into pain, until with a snapping arch of her back Shakira crests with a silent scream, gushing onto the bed and nearly up to Roa's elbow.
Shakira slumps, chest heaving with breaths, and this time Roa simply eases her through the orgasm, instincts satisfied, releasing her bite from Shakira's neck to lick at it carefully.
"Oh… my god…" Shakira pants, hands and legs trembling where they wrap around Roa, and Roa rumbles contentedly, tail curling around Shakira's leg where it sits wrapped high around her waist.
"Well, if that didn't do the trick…" Shakira jokes breathlessly, and Roa snorts out a laugh but painfully remembers the nights spent with the roles reversed, Shakira giving everything to try and get Roa pregnant with nothing to show in return.
"We try again," Roa promises lowly, lifting her head to meet Shakira's gaze as she brushes back fringe from Shakira's sweaty forehead. "We keep trying. Yes?"
Shakira looks at her for a moment before her mouth lifts in a grin.
"We keep trying," she whispers, before kissing Roa once more.
We keep trying, Roa thinks as she holds Shakira as she sobs when there is, yet again, no baby.
We keep trying, Roa thinks as Shakira's eyes light up when they both hear of Mordon's fertility cake.
We keep trying, Roa thinks as she holds hands with Shakira, feet dangling off the edge of the fountain they're perched on, their friends laughing and calling joyously from below.
We keep trying. Shakira coughs wetly, as though something inside her is liquid and roiling, and Roa watches the woman she loves start to fall.
We keep trying. She hits the water like stone, and Roa scrambles to dive after her.
We keep trying. The first and only time Roa has seen fire burn underwater as Shakira's body dissolves to ash.
I keep trying. Shakira does not return.
Time slows. The universe remembers. And in some small pocket of it, someone hits the play button on this particular song again.
The day is saved. The details don't matter. Little does at this point.
Justice - for whatever definition of it anyone is bothering to follow - and defeating the villain don't change the fact that she is still a widow, and the fiercest, brightest love she's ever known is gone.
Fia, Iphania, whatever her name is, promises a true Libestal - not the distant past, not the far-flung future, not a simulation from anyone's mind, just the kingdom as it was meant to be and the ability to live out the rest of their days.
Many are excited at the prospect: Gonathon, NinoIna, and Immerkind can return to their knighthoods, Juliet and Lady Bloodflame look set to retire into the countryside together, Tam and Bijou plan their rise to Queen and Princess once more, and even those with no real plans are content to let the final pages of adventure trail off into the obscurity of time.
Roa is silent through the jubilation, staring into the distance as if it can offer answers to her. A goal had given her direction in grief, and now the yawning chasm of loss she'd outrun is underfoot. The only break in her contemplations is to wonder at the splatter of silt and water that appears alongside their group when Fia finally sends them off to the "true Libestal", but even that is swiftly ignored in the face of her friends' happiness.
The edge of the small village they'd appeared in is pastoral and picturesque, with the sun dipping artistically over a treeline so perfect it seems planted. But no, that's just the beauty of the place, and Roa tries to find comfort in that as she watches the sunset. The sounds of music and laughter and the occasional shout echo behind her, and the corner of her mouth lifts in a bittersweet grin.
Shakira would have really liked it here.
The wind blows warm from the east for a moment, swirling her hair around her shoulders before dying down to leave a gentle quiet behind.
A few seconds later, multiple people are shouting her name, and she turns from her seat on the stone wall to see Mordon sprinting towards her.
"I can't believe I got taken out by a fountain."
It's a new house, a new bedroom, a new bed - none of it is familiar but who cares?
What is familiar is this, is them.
Shakira runs her nails along the base of Roa's ear, and it twitches, flicking back before bending forward once more to vie for Shakira's touch.
"No swimming," Roa grumbles, voice muffled from how her lips press against the skin of Shakira's sternum, and Shakira ruffles her hair.
"C'mon, you don't mean that," Shakira cajoles, smiling as Roa turns stubborn eyes and angry eyebrows towards her.
"Finito," Roa pouts, half-heartedly baring her fangs as Shakira laughs, but Roa can see the painful love in Shakira's eyes as she tries to joke around the tragedy.
"It's not fair!" she whines, flopping her arms at her sides as Roa nuzzles into her chest. "It wouldn't have even happened if I hadn't been-"
Shakira cuts herself off abruptly, jaw nearly snapping shut with the way she presses her lips together and Roa tilts her head up to look at her again, eyes sympathetic, squeezing her arms where they're wrapped around Shakira's torso.
She rumbles soothingly deep in her chest and drops a kiss, cherishing the strong heartbeat she feels under skin, "I know. The cursed cake. You don't have to explain."
"No, that's not-" Shakira starts, distracted when Roa rubs her cheek against her. "Roa, the cake wasn't what kept me from being reborn."
Roa frowns. "The water, then? Everyone told me you only reborn after you dried out."
"Roa." Shakira's voice is so soft in the way she forms the word, and Roa tilts towards her once more, drawn like a sunflower to the sun.
"Roa," Shakira repeats, almost hushed with how her eyes blink widely, and yet so steady when she speaks. "My body wasn't waiting to expel something. It was trying to protect something."
She understands the words, but she doesn't understand what Shakira is trying to say.
"Eh?" she questions, ears swiveling back as her eyes narrow in thought.
Shakira blows out a long breath, cradling Roa's face with a skin-warmed hand.
"Roa, I'm pregnant," she reveals in a single, blunt rush.
Roa shoots up, body moving before her mind can, and she perches hovering over Shakira, eyes wide with shock.
"Are you serious right now?" she demands, voice shaking, and it isn't until Shakira holds her face once more that she realizes she's trembling.
"I am so serious," Shakira confirms with a tremulous grin, tears spilling over as her eyes crinkle with happiness. "We're gonna have a baby."
Roa can't comprehend it, her mind just can't quite wrap around it, and Shakira laughs at her as she stares down at her wife.
"Oh my god," she whispers, eyes darting over Shakira's face to try and find some lie, some joke, but there is none, just pure joy radiating from amethyst eyes.
"Oh my god," she whispers again, excitement starting to bleed into the edges of her voice as her mind slowly begins to understand that yes, Shakira is being honest. They're going to have a baby.
Shakira huffs, lower lip pouting, "Is that all you can say? I tell you I'm pregnant, and you-"
Roa doesn't bother to let her finish, too concerned with pressing kisses to any bit of skin she can find on her wife. Her wife, her wife, her wife. Who is alive.
And they're having a baby.
"I love you," she cries, fluttering kisses over Shakira's belly, "Shakira- Karia, I love you so much."
Shakira cracks at the use of her full name, a sob hitching in her throat as she pulls Roa up to kiss her.
"I love you," Shakira swears in return, clutching Roa to her, "I love you, too, Roa."
And somewhere, very far off, in a quiet, quiet corner of the universe, a record finishes its song.
But no hand reaches out to reset it, no finger nudges the needle back into place.
The disc is allowed to spin freely, and the silence makes a new song.