don't know how it gets better than this, tarte

[cirilla]

When the duo had made up - and finally professed their love for one another - Cirilla hadn’t expected herself to suddenly blurt out, ‘what will we do if we want children?’ Adopting from the Den was always a possibility, but Ciri had always dreamt of carrying her own children inside of her womb and being a mother that way. Her innocence - and naivety - hadn’t even considered the prospect of appealing to one of the many magicians in Beqanna, or even begging the gift of the fairies themselves, until Tarte had suggested one morning while they were laying together, a tangle of limbs and skin.

When they had gone to the genie to facilitate a pregnancy, Cirilla hadn’t expected that the genie’s magic would implant two embryos inside of her body. Maybe it was a bit of a prank - Djinni has a reputation of being a bit of a trickster, after all - or just some heightened sense of fertility; Ciri’s mother is a dragon who had ultimately lain a clutch of three eggs, though her future children were only singletons. Despite knowing that she herself is a triplet, the thought of herself giving birth to more than one had never even crossed her mind.

Then, suddenly, the twins were here - nearly opposites but the same in so many ways. Renfri, the girl, and Cross, the boy, both perfect in every way they could have imagined. Being new to parenthood was more than either parent expected, leading to sleepless nights and pointless bickering that led to quiet makeups in the wee hours of the morning.

Eventually, the light came back and the monsters faded once more into the bowels of the hell from whence they came, and Cirilla had been able to relax for the first time in what felt like decades. Her grip on the twins is beginning to slip, she has noticed, and she wants them to be able to finally take on the world. They are young, but strong and capable.

She won’t mind having Tarte all to herself again, either.

The day starts out like any other, with the four of them waking quietly in the glen that they call their home. Spring is already beginning to fade into summer and Cirilla rolls her shoulders as she stands up, the heat already pressing onto her like a blanket. With a smile she nudges Tarte with her nose. “Would you like to go for a swim?”


@[Tarte]

[Tarte]

"

I've seen devils, i've seen saints
I've seen the line between them fade

It was strange the way life had taken hold, and charted the course beneath their feet. Strange, and still difficult to accept some days, though the electric night mare had been working on it. 

It was just that, she had never once thought growing up that she would have a family. Of any sort, let alone the kind of beautiful sanctuary she'd found in Cirilla's heart. Even still, she forgot sometimes that she didn't have to fight every day just to earn the right to survive. Didn't have to walk on eggshells or jump straight to the defensive as soon as anything tense came up. 

It was a long road, one she was thankful she didn't have to walk alone. Then again, she probably wouldn't be on it in the first place if she hadn't found a reason to choose redemption. And chosen it again when they'd discovered that having children didn't have to be impossible. 

It had meant so much to Ciri. The girl from the big family, who had dreamed of having one of her own. Tarte had never had such dreams. She had never planned on reproducing at all, because it seemed so very far fetched that she'd ever be able to parent them adequately. How could she? She been suckled on venom, both literally and figuratively, and had very little idea of how else to go about things. Any way that was different from her mother's, certainly. But that left so much else open ended. 

So much that could go wrong. 

How close she had come to running then. Turning her back and closing her heart until it ached its last. How relieved she was that it had been a different route she'd landed on. That fear and self-loathing hadn't won out and that Cirilla had stood by her through it. Where would she be without her wife, their children? As much as she was not a perfect parent, she made herself content that she was at least a better one than she'd endured as a child. 

She'd always been quick to anger, but she was learning to be quick to forgive, too. She was armored, but she could let others in, could trust them not to damage her intentionally. 

She was, she realized with slow wonder, happy. 

It was hot, but that was a kind contrast after the constant cold of the eclipse. Rising to her feet, she returned her lover's smile, her coat alive in the daylight. "That sounds like a wonderful idea," she agreed, her own muzzle reaching to caress the fire-silvered skin on Ciri's jaw, along her throat. 

Her own skin was already damp with sweat, begging for relief from the air that would only grow warmer as the hours went by. Yes, it was the perfect day to spend in the surf, worshipping the sun and each other.

TARTE

@[cirilla]

[cirilla]

Cirilla had once thought herself blessed to have the family that she was given - a mother who doted on her, a father who called her perfect, and plenty of siblings to play with and get into trouble with. Everything should have been perfect - was perfect, so she thought, until the day that Gar had broken in front of them, explaining Father’s cruelty and showing them the wounds that he had inflicted upon his firstborn son. That had torn the ground out from under Cirilla’s hooves that day, and since then absolutely nothing had been the same.

Fleeing to Nerine had been a mistake, because Gar had never met them there. There, she had been separated from Tarte and even her mother for a time, who had joined them once she had discovered the cruelty that he had hidden even from the angel-mare. Asphyxea had never really understood what had driven Cirilla to leave, and Virgil had been too young to be anything but loyal to their father. It had broken her, to be separated from everyone that she had ever loved, and by the time she returned home, it had been too late.

Ghaul was dead.

She had always talked about having a family as a child, because in her childhood, so briefly, her family had been the perfect thing. But after Ghaul’s death… everything had changed. She had withdrawn from everyone, from everything. She had wanted to befriend her young half-brother, Sepulcher, but instead she had found herself pulling away from everything that had once mattered so dearly to her.

So when she found Tarte again, and life had fallen into place, even though the words had blurted from her lips she hadn’t believed in them until the day she felt the twins first stirring in her womb. And since then, the rest is history.

All that matters is the here and now, and that here and now is her wife and their children.

Cirilla trembles when Tarte’s nose brushes against her scars, but it is not trepidation that fills her mind as it once had. Instead, it is contentment. Her wife had shown her how to be comfortable in her own skin, scars and all, and Cirilla is at peace with the flames that she had once bathed in. Playfully she nips at her lover’s mane and giggles as she races away, her hooves carrying her over the familiar path to the waves. When her feet touch the water, she feels free.


@Tarte