Pale morning light streams in through our open window. After a night that felt like it stretched on for eternity, it’s a pleasant thing to wake up to, even if my body is sore all over and covered in superficial wounds. I blink my eyes open slowly, turn and cuddle into this soft, lovely thing in my arms.

A whine rumbles inside Arcadia's throat as my arms squish her, making me grin and pull her in tighter against me. I place a kiss in her hair, and nuzzle at her forehead a little.

“Hey beautiful,” I whisper.

A blush blooms on her cheeks, and that goofy grin returns to her face as her eyes open a sliver. Then they close again, and she looks away from me. "Shut up."

I have more kisses for her. The first makes her squeal. Then she falls into a series of giggles under my next few kisses all over her face. Finally, my lips touch that sensitive spot I previously found beneath her ear. Arcadia gasps out and her entire body trembles. She can't keep from rubbing her ear against my shoulder like a cat, to alleviate the overstimulation. It’s very, very cute.

We paw at each other, cuddle and kiss and make each other laugh for a few moments longer. But with wakefulness comes memory. It settles over Arcadia like a cold blanket, makes her turn her eyes away as a stricken look forms on her face.

I had a feeling this would happen. She’s been troubled by things like this before, regardless of what I had to say about it. Magic, as it turns out, is a formidable weapon. But that’s not what she wanted to do with it.

She lets out another little whine as I squeeze her against me, nudging her face up with the bridge of my nose so I’m looking into her eyes.

“Are you alright?” I ask.

Arcadia frowns and looks away. After a moment she gives me a slight nod of her head. “I’m just glad you’re okay,” she says.

That makes me smirk. “You really shouldn’t worry about that. I was made for the battlefield. I’m fairly sure that’s why you hired me.”

She’s still looking away, but something about what I said makes her blush and smile. “I hired you because you’re beautiful.”

Something in my chest expands and fills with warmth. I crook a finger, use it to lift Arcadia’s chin up so I can kiss her, and the instant our lips meet that warmth floods down my spine as well. The kiss feels like it lasts forever, even though it’s only a few minutes. But they’re minutes of the purest bliss I could ever have hoped to experience.

The feeling doesn’t fade after our lips have parted. It relaxes with us instead, into a wonderful sense of relaxed contentment. But I notice a worried expression cross Arcadia’s face for a moment, and I answer with a raised eyebrow and a peck on her nose.

“Did you see Metellus?” she asks.

My expression darkens, which only brings more worry into her eyes.

“He fell,” I say.

This may not be the time to tell her that I was the one who struck him down. Or that a magic owl flew by and turned me into some kind of beast. At least that’s what it seemed like. Now that I’m thinking about it, remembering it all in detail, I can’t help but feel troubled by the strangeness of it all.

My eyes turn to Arcadia, find her staring off into the distance. A teardrop stands in the corner of her eye. Seeing it makes my heart a little heavier, as I lean in to brush it away.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Arcadia shakes her head slightly, slides onto her back to gaze up at the ceiling. “You don’t have to be sorry.”

“I know he was important to you.”

“He didn’t understand. He would have shipped me back to Ecea, to mother. And you…”

She can’t finish the sentence, but she doesn’t need to. I’d be executed for treason. And I’d be lucky not to have to endure several sessions of torture before they’d be done with me. The Empress would want to interrogate me, to extract confessions. She’d want the satisfaction of hearing me beg for a swift death.

I wouldn’t give it to her. But that wouldn’t stop the torture from happening.

Arcadia rolls back toward me, burrows her face into my chest, and I slide my hand up into her hair to scritch on it. There’s an undercurrent of sadness in her silence, I can feel it, but I can’t think of anything to say to lift her spirits. All I can hope for is that my presence, my closeness, is enough for now.

Some time passes like that, before she whines as her little arms squeeze me tight. Then she peeks up from my chest, my breasts hiding the lower half of her face as she mumbles. There's something she wants to tell me but she's having trouble speaking up. It puts the beginning of a smirk on my face, as I extend a finger to poke a spot above her waist I know is ticklish.

Her body goes rigid and she throws her head back with her eyes closed. "Haaa! Stop!"

“Now what were you trying to say?”

Her face is redder than a tomato as she presses her chin toward her chest, her eyes gazing up at me. "I-I don't want to sound strange, but when this is all over, when my body is the way it’s meant to be, permanently… I've always fantasized about going off somewhere with you and—” she looks away, fidgeting with the sheets. “You know, starting a family together."

That came out of nowhere. But it isn’t the first time I’ve heard her talk about such a thing. I think back, realize when she said it and who she was talking to, and I feel a little heat in my face when I remember the pang of jealousy it made me feel. A few more moments of thought on the matter make my eyebrows climb in surprise. There’s a way we could do that. But it would involve…

I stare at her awkwardly for a moment. “You mean, do it without that?” I lift my hand, and pantomime removing a ring from my finger.

She shakes her head no. Then her hand reaches down and rests over her abdomen and she smiles sadly. The blush soon returns to her cheeks and she looks away. "I want to be the mother of your children one day."

My head cants to the side, confused. “How would we do that?”

The glow on Arcadia’s cheeks intensifies, as her voice gets quieter. "There are ways."

“Ohho. There are ways, are they?” I ask, putting a little music in my voice.

She slaps my shoulder and rolls away, blushing even harder somehow. “Yes. Shut up.”

There’s a grin on my face as I slowly crawl over to her, grabbing her shoulder and rolling her flat onto her back. She pouts up at me as I come down for kisses, my body sliding up onto hers, my hands roaming down her waist to grasp those child-bearing hips. Arcadia’s eyes slowly close as she sighs into my kiss, in an alluring kind of a way. A way that makes me bolder.

I am dimly aware that we fought a battle last night, and won. And that there’s certain to be much celebration and revelry and bestowing of honors and what not. I also know that Sigrun is most likely lurking around here somewhere, and she’ll want to speak to Arcadia and I as soon as we’re available. But we’re not. Not this morning. Not until well after lunchtime, at the very least.

We have our own celebrating to do.

Yo Readers!

Thanks again for being patient with Catgirl and I while we were dealing with hurricane stuff. After tomorrow I can go back to my regular schedule of writing and uploading every other day.
Meanwhile, I talked an old friend of mine, and fellow writer, into sharing her work here on Scribblehub. They call her Ravenblayde (rad name tbh), and her stories are The Last Daughter of Lilith and The Puritan.

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/165544/the-last-daughter-of-lilith/

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/166904/the-puritan/

Hope you enjoy! Give Ravenblayde a proper Scribblehub welcome!