Work Text:
She had all the time in the world.
No age could touch her, the blood in her veins flowing cold and bright and eternal. She wondered, just once, how old her imperial predecessor had been when she died. No one cared or knew, save possibly their shared lusus, and Gl’bgolyb wasn’t telling. She was too young, just a few sweeps at her ascension, to think seriously of such things.
She was the Empress, no other title necessary, and she let her hair grow wild and long because Aradia liked to braid it with twigs and seashells and the bones of long dead things.
Aradia.
Her blood was dark and warm and red, and Feferi liked to tell her that only a hint of blue saved them from being just the same. She had proved it — they cut curved lines into each other's breasts, matching scars in the shape of their symbols, their horns, and held each other close so they could compare, and they were in truth, not so far apart.
They loved each other with a fierce joy, scimitar smiles gleaming in the dim warmth of Aradia’s rooms in the new-built palace by the sea. When Aradia was near, Feferi felt only peace, no vast empire, no tiara, just herself and the troll to whom her heart belonged. Secure in her arms, she hid herself in the warmth of her not-precisely-consort's skin and wrapped long fingers around her curling horns, breathed tides into her smoky hair.
Aradia would never consent to a title, no matter how often Feferi offered her an official place in her court. Reforms might have been instigated with regard to the hemocaste system, but they were not yet fully in place and it would be many sweeps before mutants and warmbloods would no longer fear culling and the rust would mingle peacefully with blue. Until that time, she would merely be her matesprit, as if that were so small a thing.
Feferi was also a ruler, and rule she did, keeping her peace with claw and fang and the tines of her trident, and any coldbloods who protested her reforms were remanded to desk jobs in outlying colonies post-haste. She had advisors and adjutants to help her, layers of bureaucracy and paperwork and armies between the front lines and her gilded throne. She ceased expansion and began to return some few of the colonized worlds to their indigenous populations, with promise of greater reparations in time. Though she sought peace, she grew accustomed to the necessity of war, and Aradia counseled her through it all, sometimes with animated gestures and shrieks of glee and more often with deep red text on a screen. She felt tied to the dirt and history of Alternia, no matter how much Feferi protested that space was “Pretty GR—EAT!” and that other planets possessed beauty and age of their own.
Three, five, seven sweeps fell beneath the Empress’ feet, and she grew taller and fiercer and sterner, more preoccupied with ruling than with returning to her birthplace. She chatted with Aradia nearly every day and told her she loved her and if sometimes Aradia urged her home instead of supporting her reforms as she used to, it was only a small matter. She would return soon; she missed her lusus and the sea and the scent of Aradia’s hair and skin.
Ten sweeps after she had last set foot on Alternia, she returned in secret, no entourage, no fanfare, her small shuttle splashing down alone outside the palace. She noted that the stones were no longer quite so bright, their edges dulled after several winters of storms and endless beating waves. Aradia stood on the dock, her eyes shaded in the dim twilight, and Feferi's heart trembled. Her lusus' grumble echoed in her mind.
At last, she was home.
--
She stepped out of the shuttle with grace learned aboard countless starships, but all her authority dissolved with a wordless shout as she ran to fold Aradia into her arms.
She was smaller than Feferi remembered, though her stocky frame still felt reassuring and solid. Her hair smelled of ash and dust, and not a little of fresh dirt, and under that, a slight tang of sweat. She smelled definitively of this world, and her eyes were bright and clear and welcoming.
"Fef, you've gotten too tall."
The words came with a firm grip on her bare shoulders and a toothy grin, and were followed with a kiss like a hammer blow.
"Much too tall."
Another kiss.
"But your hair is amazing. My god, I could drown in there and no one would ever find the body."
Feferi looked down at Aradia, ready to kiss her again or return the quip, but she stilled. There were lines at the corners of her matesprit's eyes. There were creases by her mouth, the ones that had always been there when she smiled, but now they were deeper, carved into her face as if she were made of stone. There were pale lines running through her hair that Feferi had thought were dust, but were not.
Aradia caught her staring.
"It's been ten sweeps, Fef. What did you expect?"
Her tone was gentle, and she punctuated her words with a gentle tweak of Feferi's nose.
"I'm a rus- warmblood. Of course I'm going to get older faster. Time keeps flowing and all of that. I'll be bones and dust when you're just getting comfortable on that fancy golden chair. You can dig me up every so often and carry my skull around if you want. Might be more aesthetically pleasing if you wait a sweep or so. Oh! Or a fingerbone in your hair! That'd be--"
Feferi cut her off with a kiss.
"You didn't say anyfin, Aradia! If I'd thought, if I'd reelized, I'd have--"
"No, you'd have done the same thing. I'd have made you! You're so much more important than me, you're the Empress and you have actual responsibilities. So don't give me that sort of face. I've still got a dozen or so sweeps left. It's long enough."
She smiled broad and white and Feferi could see that she'd lost a tooth. Fighting? Accident? Decay? Her chest hurt, the old lovescars throbbing in time with her pulse. Her heartmate, her beloved, her matesprit, her Aradia, was dying. Her life and vitality failing slowly and there was nothing she could do. Witches couldn't extend life; they could revive those killed before their time and heal any wounds, but to extend one life, the essence needed to be siphoned from another, and that was the sphere of a thief.
"Hey!" Aradia smacked her shoulder. "I see you getting caught up in your thoughts! Quit fishing around and come inside."
Feferi gave her a pained grin.
"You're reely terrible at that, Cod, Aradia. I shell you what, if you keep that up, I'll have to--"
"Come in before I pap you so hard we flip pale and I end up cheating on my moirail. It's been too long for all this fuss. Seriously! Look at you. Look at me! And Fef," she took her hand and kissed it, "Fef, really, it's okay if I die. I'll just haunt you afterwards." She beamed up at the Empress as though they were wigglers again, as though they were just ordinary trolls in ordinary quadrants, as if they had all the time in the world to live and be in love. For her, it was enough. She rattled on, "Of course, you have long enough that you could bury me until I actually fossilize! That would be the very best, probably."
And Feferi laughed, letting Aradia's infectious presence lull her back into warmth and security. But she made herself a promise that she would never again forget for even one moment that their time was limited and precious, that each passing second was a mortal enemy to be fought by hook and claw and any magic she could discover.
But only if Aradia allowed it.
She let the thought pass and followed her matesprit into her long-abandoned palace by the sea. They had a lot of catching up to do, and so little time left in which to do it.