Work Text:
Kamilah smiled at the familiar feeling of her wife of thirty-seven years cradled in her arms, her rhythmic breathing warm against the side of her face. They’d fallen asleep spooning with Anastasia as the little spoon — or the Perfectly Almost Average Height Spoon, as she’d taken to calling it as not to trigger her height complex… despite the fact she somehow always wound up being whacked in the face with a pillow when she called it that — but they’d rolled over in their sleep and Anastasia was now nestled against her side.
She almost didn’t want to open her eyes. As when she did she’d have to face the fact that she’d reached the grand old age of 2100 years old— and though she’d felt younger than she had in centuries since meeting her wife and wasn’t the sort to freak out over reaching a new milestone… 2100 was really very old.
It was decrepit, even.
It was positively ancient.
And it was exactly why she’d informed the rest of the family that all she wanted was a break to Lake Como with Annie, and that they could only come if they entirely ignored the fact it was her birthday. Which meant no presents. No well wishes. And most certainly no parties. She could not tolerate their teasing and would have rather staked herself than have to socialise at any sort of birthday party that Serafine would inevitably insist on throwing her unless her wild ways were reigned in.
She was much too old to be stumbling out of a nightclub mere moments before sunrise with a gaudy birthday badge pinned to her chest— never again would she tolerate a birthday celebration thrown in her honour. In her opinion, it was just plain rude to force her to go to a party where she loathed the vast majority of the attendees entirely on what everyone insisted was her ‘special day’.
And as much as she’d have loved to keep her eyes closed and spend the day lounging around in her naked wife’s arms, she was rudely drawn out of her near blissful state of relaxation by a sound that may as well have been a cat being strangled— even worse, whatever it was disrupted Annie’s sleep… and that was just bloody unacceptable.
“What the hell?,” Anastasia groaned. “God! Make it stop!”
“I’ll kill whichever fool dares wake us at this hour!,” she grumbled as she sprang out of bed and marched towards their bedroom door, not caring a bit she was stark naked. Clothes were unnecessary when it came to stabbing an enemy in the eyes. “The audacity! It’s just rude!”
When she threw opened the bedroom door Serafine was sat on one of the comfy chairs in the airy open plan library that was just across the landing from the master bedroom suite. She was holding some sort of string instrument in her hands with her laptop sat beside her playing some sort of instruction video.
“What the bloody hell do you think you are doing!?,” she demanded.
“I am seven hundred years old," Serafine said, paying no mind to the fact she was standing there in the nude, and she scoffed indignantly, as she knew the fool was much closer to eight hundred and changed her exact age to suit herself every few days. “It does seem about high time for me to learn a new musical instrument."
“The sun hasn’t even set yet, you old fool!,” she snapped. “You have woken my wife and— and— what the hell even is that thing you’re trying to play?”
“What the everloving fuck are y’all doing?,” Lily whined as her bedroom door was thrown open and she staggered into the hallway. She was clearly hung over and the oversized Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt she was wearing was a crime against fashion she actually deserved to be stabbed for daring to wear in her presence. “It’s like—“ She put on her glasses and her jaw dropped, “Uh— Why the fuck are you standing there butt-ass-naked with your whole fucking pussy and titties out on display and why the fuck are you trying to play the motherfucking banjo?”
Serafine held up her prize, a small string instrument that had been painted in hideous neon colours and tribal patterns that looked like the shameful deformed love child of the ukulele and lute that both were embarrassed to be related to. "It's called a charango. I am planning to become a full time charanguista! I have finally found my life’s passion!”
“I wouldn't call that bloody thing an instrument of music," she observed rather sourly. "An instrument of torture, would perhaps be more fitting— you’re hurting my delicate ears and you have woken my wife! You do not wake my wife if you wish to see another dawn! You will cease this racket at once and you will not resume until my Annie is fully rested!”
Adrian’s bedroom door opened down the hall and he stumbled out of his room shirtless in his pyjama bottoms with his hair standing out at every angle. “What are you all—“ He froze at the sight of her and immediately about turned. “You know what? I don’t even want to know what is happening here. Put some bloody clothes on!”
“It’s mine and my wife’s house,” she deadpanned as he walked back into his room. “And if I wish to walk around in the nude I damn well will.”
“I take it you either got laid last night or your self confidence is just so sky-high you’ve decided clothes aren’t a thing anymore?,” Lily teased.
She rolled her eyes. “Obviously to the getting laid and the self confidence parts of that sentence. I rather enjoy my clothes still.”
“I was topped so much and fucked so hard I still can’t feel my legs, Lil!,” Anastasia called drowsily from their bed.
Lily snorted and gave them a slow round of applause. “Y’all need Jesus.”
She and Lily cringed as Serafine began working away at her new instrument once again, playing what she assumed was supposed to be the tune of that god awful mortal Happy Birthday song that somebody had at some point had the audacity to decide went hand in hand with birthdays.
“If you don’t stop that I will stab you in the eyes,” she deadpanned.
“Oh, no, stab me and then I won’t be able to see all of those hickeys on your thighs and stomach,” Serafine said sarcastically. “The oral fixation is as strong as ever, I see.”
“I’ll break the chimichanga or whatever the hell it’s called, too,” she fired back in lieu of confirming that her oral fixation was indeed even stronger than it’d ever been thanks to her wife’s level of skill.
“Chimichanga,” Lily snorted. “Girl. Go get your pussy ate again to fix your bad mood. You clearly got up on the wrong side of the bed.” She raised her voice and yelled to Anastasia, “yo, she literally needs her pussy ate or she’s gonna stab someone. You better get on this shit and start chilling her out or imma have to take one for the team and do it myself.”
“I’m on it, Lil.”
“I loathe you entirely,” she said dryly, glaring at Lily.
“Its called a charango, for your information.” Serafine cradled the charango in her arms as if it were an easily offended child. "It's a beautiful and very unique instrument! The sound box is made from an armadillo. Well, a dried out and beautifully hand-painted armadillo shell."
“That explains the sound you're making," nodded Lily. "Like a dying armadillo screaming because he knows his shell is gonna be turned into an instrument— its, like, a Pixar movie level tragedy."
“You two are just jealous," Serafine huffed. "Because you do not have the refined soul of a true virtuoso like myself."
“Oh, I am positively stewing in my envy," she monotoned. “But my sex life is still better than yours, so I think I’ll survive.”
“Low blow,” snorted Lily. “That one always hits where it hurts, right in the uneaten pussy.”
Her brow furrowed. “This is no way you can be this… you… before you’ve had a sip of your morning coffee. You’re going to have to tone it back a good few notches if you wish to walk away from this encounter without a dagger in your eyes.”
Lily winked at her and shot her with finger guns.
Serafine refused to be affected by their judgments. She regarded them with a lofty stare of superb indifference, raised the damn charango, and began to play her defiant, horrific tune.
Everyone stopped when they heard the deafening thump of frantically running bare feet from inside Adrian’s bedroom and then he came rushing out into the hallway with a pillowcase over his head to avoid having to see her naked. He looked like he needed locked up in a padded cell for a good few days.
“I don’t know what the hell you three are talking about or why the hell you’re naked but I’m certain I just heard a raccoon making a most tortured noise," he exclaimed. "From the sound of it, the poor creature must be direly sick or gravely injured. You have to help me find it and get it to the nearest veterinarian before it dies!"
Lily immediately collapsed to her knees with hysterical laughter and Serafine stared at Adrian for a long moment, until Kamilah saw her lips twitch.
“There’s no raccoon,” she sighed, watching her foolish little brother bumbling around with the pillowcase over his face. “She’s once again trying to learn a new instrument is all.”
Adrian stilled. “Good god, not again. This reminds me of the time she tried to learn the bagpipes.”
“You are all conspiring against me and my art and I will not stand for it a moment longer!," Serafine declared. "You are a pack of filthy conspirators with no taste in music."
“Well I think it’s admirable, Serafine,” Anastasia called from the bedroom. “You keep doing you and ignore the haters.”
“This is exactly why you’ve always been my favourite,” beamed Serafine. “You’re supportive. These three are just judgemental, tasteless twits.”
She began to play again and Lily stopped her by throwing one of her ridiculous looking Homer Simpson slippers at her face.
“No, but seriously, Serafine," she said. "That noise is so homophobic it’s practically a full blown hate crime. It’s June. Don’t be raining on my Pride Parade with this shit. If you want some music put on the gay icon Hayley Kiyoko and call it a day.”
Serafine sighed and threw the slipper back at her. "Everyone is a bloody critic."
"Why the hell are you doing this?,” she sighed. “It really is like those goddamn bagpipes all over again. If you’re having some sort of life crisis please inform me before you get to the cutting bangs stage, once again, as I am in no mood to listen to you complaining until your hair grows back out.”
“It is not,” pouted Serafine. “I attempted to learn the bagpipes in the year 1817 when I was residing in Edinburgh, in the hopes of impressing a particularly strapping young doctor who played them fairly well.”
“Edward Barrie,” Adrian groaned with a nod of his head. “We remember— odd fellow, wasn’t he?”
“Everyone she beds is somewhat eccentric,” she nodded.
“I was young and foolish then— and I have already explained myself to you all. I wish to become proficient with a musical instrument. Specifically this obscure musical instrument. I have decided to devote myself to the art and lifestyle of the charanguista, and I wish to hear no more your petty objections."
“If we are all making lists of things we wish to hear no more of…," Adrian murmured from beneath his pillowcase.
Lily, however, was smiling like a prized fool. “Now I see what’s up," she said. “Girl. You’ll sell your soul to Satan himself to get your pussy ate— I think you need Jesus more than the kinky nudists across the hall.”
"Lily, you do not see,” grumbled Serafine. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about— you do not see a damn thing because there is not a thing to be seen.”
“Oh, I think she does see… and I think we all see it most clearly in front of our faces now," Kamilah assured her as she leaned brazenly against the doorframe. "What is the man’s name?"
"I resent your implication," Serafine pouted. "There is no man involved. I am now married to my passion for making music!"
"Oh, all right, I’ll bite," Kamilah huffed, squeezing the bridge of her nose. "What's her name, then?"
Serafine’s cheeks flushed scarlet. “Her name is Emilia Fernandez, and she is most gorgeous— now leave me to practice! I may have claimed to be a tried and true professional and I have promised to play her a song! I have a date in three hours and I have been procrastinating for two days, now leave me be!”
“I give up,” Adrian muttered as he turned to walk back into his bedroom but walked slap bang into the wall.
Lily started laughing as he fell on his ass.
Serafine blinked in astonishment.
And she took that as her invitation to go back to bed with her wife. She’d had quite enough socialisation to last her another century.
“Why do we invite these fools on our vacations?,” she huffed as she padded across the bedroom, stepping over the hastily discarded clothing and different sex toys that littered the floor. “They’re mad, Annie. They’re utterly mad.”
Anastasia giggled and drew her into her arms the moment she climbed back under the covers. She immediately began pressing tender kisses around her pouting face… and she immediately relaxed and tuned out the musical racket and the bickering coming from outside their door. Her wife kissed every inch of her face like it was the most precious thing in the world; framing each of her cheeks with her hands and soothingly stroking her thumbs over the finely chiselled bones of her face.
If she didn’t know any better she’d say she was trying to give her a kiss for every year of her life. And with her every kiss she told her wordlessly how much she loved her— with each of her kisses serving as a gift. She kissed with everything she had, with power and passion and hunger and love. She held nothing back, giving everything, exposing everything.
“Happy birthday, Kami,” Anastasia murmured as she leaned back to look her in the eyes after a truly uncountable number of kisses that had lulled her back into a state of peace, her words coming out like a caress. A litany. An enchantment. A ward against how badly she really felt about her own birthday— she pulled out all the stops on Annie’s birthday, she just loathed her own because her brother was no longer there to celebrate with her.
She smiled softly and lazily ran her fingertips over her spine, tracing the same short line again and again. “Thank you, baby.”
“I have some gifts for you— I know you said you didn’t want anything but I took that as your rules for everyone else.”
She snorted. “So you’re above the rules is what you’re insinuating?”
“Exactly,” beamed Anastasia as she climbed out of bed and glided elegantly towards the closet. “You have rules for other people and I’m above the threat of stabbing so I can do whatever the hell I like and hope that I provoke you into spanking me for it.”
She shook her head in bemusement and leaned back against the pillows, smirking to herself at the sight of her naked wife. It didn’t matter how many times she’d seen her stripped bare like this, she’d never tire of it.
When Anastasia bent over and afforded her a quite scandalous view of her backside, she gave a playful wolf whistle… because she was the only one who could do it without it being rude. She’d literally behead anyone else who dared objectify her Annie with her bare hands. And she couldn’t help but feel somewhat proud of herself that she seemed to have an array of long healing bruises littering her cheeks from the new riding crop they’d played with only hours before.
“Pervert,” Anastasia laughed.
“Shhh. I’m enjoying the view.”
“If I turn round and you’re touching yourself again—“
“You’ll what?,” she teased. “You’ll watch? You’ll help me? You’ll join me? There are so many thrilling ways you could finish that sentence.”
“I’ll send you to Masturbators Anonymous.”
Anastasia glanced over her shoulder at her and she put both her hands in the air like the picture of virginal innocence, and they both started laughing.
“You’re so horny,” laughed Anastasia.
“That’s rich coming from you.” She reached over and grabbed the glass of cool water sat on her nightstand and took a long drink from it. “Two days ago you literally couldn’t wait until the plane landed and had me fuck you in the bathroom whilst Serafine and Lily cheered us on from outside the door.”
“That was your fault for firing one of your employees over the phone,” Anastasia shot back as she started walking back over to the bed with two beautifully wrapped gifts in her arms. “You know it does things to me when you go into boss mode and start calling people mewling mortals— that was literally how you hooked me.”
She sighed. “It has been thirty-seven years. I obviously like you now. Am I truly never going to be allowed to live that down?”
Anastasia smirked at her. “No. You’re not. It was one of the hottest things you’ve ever said to me— and don’t even get me started on when you called me Adrian’s pet and threatened to kill me.”
“I don’t think it needs to be said that I’m very much glad I didn’t kill you.” She groaned loudly and gave her a playful whack with one of the pillows. “You’re my pet and that is no way to speak to your domme mere hours after you were strung up in one of the door frames and fucked so well you literally couldn’t support your own weight afterwards.”
Anastasia snorted. “I guess you’ll just have to whip me with the riding crop again. Teach me a lesson.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“Kill me why don’t you?,” she teased.
She shook her head in disbelief and started laughing. This woman really was the single most uncontrollable bottom she’d ever encountered. She was truly untameable. “You’re such a brat!”
“I may be a brat,” Anastasia said as she handed her one of her gifts, “but I get you the best birthday presents.”
It really was true. Her wife never missed the mark when it came to giving her gifts; be they a surprise for no occasion at all, or for the Dark Solstice, Valentine’s Day, an anniversary, or her birthday. She somehow always managed to get ahold of items that meant the world to her; ancient Egyptian artefacts that she used her abilities to find and take from museums and private collectors who had no business having them, brand new couture fashion pieces that she had designed specially for her, the sort of weaponry that had once graced the hands of kings and only the most skilled warriors, poisonous plants that could kill a mortal with a single touch, specially made one of a kind weapons she made just for her at Raines Corp— the woman knew her inside and out.
But what Anastasia never seemed to realise was that simply having her company was the best birthday present she could ever ask for.
“It took me three years and eleven months to find this,” Anastasia said sheepishly as she tore into the golden wrapping paper that covered a box that was no bigger than the sort modern jewellers sold necklaces in. “And many, many psychic overloads.”
“Three years and eleven months?,” she echoed in disbelief.
“You told me your mother used to wear it everyday but she lost it a few months before her death—“
“Annie,” she gasped, tears filling her eyes as she realised exactly what was inside the the black velvet box before she’d even opened it. “How did you— I— How?!”
“As it turned out, there were more vampires living in Egypt at that time than you’d think and because your mom was a social butterfly she appears in many of their memories. By a stroke of luck I was able to see when she took it off for the last time, she was getting her hair done and she just never picked it back up— it wound up in the possession of a vampire called Cassia and she kept it for over nine hundred years until she died.” She paused. “Then it wound up being passed from collector to collector, until it wound up in storage in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow. So when I was in Scotland talking to students at St. Andrews University last month I decided to have the jet pick me up from Glasgow Airport— I got the train down from St. Andrews to the city and messed with at least thirty minds to get it for you.”
Her breath audibly hitched in her throat as she opened the box to reveal her mother’s favourite bejewelled scarab hair clip. The golden accessory had been given to her by her father when she’d fallen pregnant with her and Lysimachus— he’d designed it himself with the royal jeweller using emeralds, rubies, and sapphires that had been given to him by a visiting Roman ambassador.
She remembered her mother crying everyday for at least a month after she’d lost it… and to make her feel better she’d given her a smaller, similar one decorated with amethysts and rubies that her father had commissioned for her third birthday. It hadn’t been the same, of course, but she knew that her mother had appreciated the sentiment.
“Annie,” she breathed, shaking her head in disbelief as she cradled the trinket in her hands. It looked exactly as she remembered it always had— it somehow hadn’t been tarnished by time in the slightest. “You— I— Do you have any idea what this means to me?”
Anastasia kissed her bare shoulder. “Of course I do, love.” She tucked a dark strand of her hair behind her ear for her. “And I know how much it’d mean to your mom and dad that you have it now.”
She turned her head and pressed her lips to her forehead. “Thank you— Thank you more than I can even say.”
Anastasia nuzzled her shoulder and moved the other gift onto her lap. “It took a bit longer to find this one because I didn’t know if it’d even still exist— so even beginning my journey to find it was next to impossible. It took so much psychic gymnastics that I had to recruit Kano and Serafine to help me locate it… but we eventually found it in a private artefact collection in Amman.” She paused and watched as she tore into the paper. “I restored the almost completely faded parts of it myself because it’s so fragile I wouldn’t allow anyone else to touch it.”
“This… this… is my father’s handwriting,” she stammered as she stared at the letter that had been meticulously framed for protection. “This— Annie— The date— This is—“
“The last letter he wrote to your mother,” Anastasia whispered. “He wrote it the day before he was killed and it never made it home— I remember you saying how his troops swore he’d written everyday but they could never find the final letter. It somehow wound up in his second in command’s belongings and he didn’t find it until your mother was already dead… but he kept it and it was passed down through his family for generations.”
Her jaw dropped as she stared at her father’s distinctive handwriting and the Coptic script she missed reading things in more than she ever let on. She was so stunned by it she couldn’t even concentrate on what was written. “Will you… read it to me?”
“Of course.”
She’d taught Anastasia her native languages long ago and she now spoke both Koine Greek and Coptic Egyptian fluently enough that she didn’t even have a foreign accent in either of them. The very same way she could now speak Russian and Kazakh fluently enough that she could hold a long conversation in both languages, despite the fact she still struggled to differentiate their Cyrillic scripts from one another— and because neither of them were able to speak their native tongues very often anymore they often spoke them to each other.
“My dearest Amunet,” Anastasia read in Egyptian. “The weather turned cold yesterday, and I realised that I promised you and the children that I would have returned home to you long before the seasons changed. I am so sorry to have broken that promise to you and vow to redeem myself however I can the moment I am back in your keeping.”
She rested her head against Anastasia’s and closed her eyes.
“This morning I received the drawing of our home that Lysimachus made for me — he is becoming quite the artist and I see great potential in his work — along with a long letter from Kamilah that demanded I bring her back the severed heads of the enemy along with a new sword so that she might run through the next Roman fool she crosses paths with.” Anastasia laughed and her cheeks flushed bright red. She really had been quite the demented child. “I know she would be quite displeased with me for laughing at her willingness to stab whoever dares look at her the wrong way… but I laughed so hard my wine came out of my nose and I started choking. Please do not tell her, as she really would be displeased enough that I would likely wind up being whacked once again with that dastardly wooden sword of hers or shot in the thigh with the bow and arrows she has made from sticks.”
“I was days away from turning six,” she grumbled. “And I may be 2100 years old now… but I’m still severely displeased that he found my completely serious demand in any way comical— it’s just rude.”
Anastasia squeezed her hand and continued to read. “I miss you most ardently, my love. It has been so long since I last held you. Since I last heard your voice. I do not merely love you… I need you. Not in the desperate ‘you complete me’ sort of way that your favourite playwrights often depict in their dramas. No, you do not make me whole. Since the day that we met as children you have improved me in ways that no one else has been able to. Something about you — something I do not think I will ever come to wholly understand — has a way of amplifying the good in my nature while muting the bad. You are the catalyst for my soul. No, my darling, I do not need you in order to exist... I need you in order to be the best me. And I would be lying if I told you that I have been anything other than utterly bereft these long months without you by my side.”
She smiled softly and turned her face into Anastasia’s hair. “I… feel closer to him after having heard that,” she whispered. “I understand exactly what he just said.”
Anastasia brought her hand to her lips and kissed the backs of her knuckles and continued reading the next passage. “I know that you worry for me, you worry that I am not going to live, and I am sorry that I can do nothing to ease those worries. All I can do is choose to be as much for you and the children as I can be, to burn as brightly for the three of you as I wish, and perhaps it will be for a shorter time than either of us would like, but that, I believe, is better than to burden you with a man only half-alive for a longer time. Fighting for Egypt to once again become the greatest empire the world has ever known is my choice and my duty, and at the end of the day all that I do, I do for you, Lysimachus, and Kamilah, so that three of you will never have to fight. So that you may be happy and healthy and free to prosper.”
She screwed her eyes shut tight at that.
“Before the war I had thought that there were good people and bad people in the world, that there was a clear side of light and a side of darkness, but I no longer think that. Each day I fight the enemy and I see myself in them more and more; husbands, fathers, and brothers all sent away from their families and merely following someone else’s orders. I thought I had known true evil, in my brothers and my father, the evil of good intentions gone wrong and the evil of sheer desire for the hereditary power bound to our blood. But in goodness there is also no safety: virtue can cut like a knife, and the fire of those who believe themselves following the orders of the gods is blinding.” Anastasia sighed. “I know you have told me that questioning my orders will do me no good but I still cannot help but wonder whether or not I am on the right, most honourable side of things. We burned another village yesterday. Why? I could not tell you even if I wished to. You said in your last letter that I ought not to burden my men with my worries, as sometimes carrying the burden of an upsetting truth, and hiding it, is actually a gift you give to someone else. You bear that burden, so they do not have to be weighed down by it, in a situation where telling them will change nothing. And I agree with you on that… but you have told me time and again that following orders makes me good and on that point I still disagree with you. I have a ruthlessness in my bones and ice in my heart with anyone but you and the children, Amunet. Please do not try to assuage my guilt by telling me any differently. I fight for Egypt’s honour, but not always by honourable means, and for that I am sorry.”
“He worried whether he was a good person… just like I often do,” she breathed, talking more to herself than anything else, momentarily overcome with how close she suddenly felt to her father. “He was just like me— if only he’d heard the things you say to me whenever those demons refuse to leave me alone.”
Anastasia supportively rubbed her arm and continued, “I have never minded it. Being lost, that is. My whole life I have bent to the will of others who outrank me. Done what is needed to be done in order to prove myself loyal to the throne. And I had always believed that one could not be truly lost if one knew one’s own heart. But I fear I may be truly lost now, as I do not know who I am anymore.” She sighed. “I have grown tired enough that I often do not know what I am doing here… but I keep you and the children in my thoughts and always manage to muddle through. Hug them tightly for me. Kiss them on their cheeks. Tell them how I miss them. Promise them that we will celebrate their birthday as a family when I return. Thank Lysimachus for the drawing and let him know I intend to carry it into battle tomorrow folded beneath my armour. And tell dear Kamilah I will do all that I can to fetch her a new sword, and if she manages not to offend any of her guards by shooting them with that bow and arrow of hers I may even teach her how to properly wield a blade when I return— it is high time she stops simply whacking whoever displeases her with the wooden one that she made, do you not agree? Though I would be lying if I said that the thought of her with a sharpened blade of her own does not make me nervous.” She paused. “Take care of yourself. Say your prayers. Remember that I do not want anyone but you. I do not even want to want anyone but you. And know that the stars will go out before my love for you dies. Now and always, your loving Imhotep.”
“I feel as though I’ve just heard him speak to me for the first time in 2094 years,” she murmured, staring at the letter in disbelief. “My mother would’ve treasured this, Annie. I really do believe she died of a broken heart and if this had reached her— well, she might not have given up on life so entirely. He was the love of her life and she couldn’t bear to be without him. A great love like that comes once in a lifetime if one is lucky, and one would be a fool to let it go… so she went to him only three years later.” She paused. “I used to be so angry at her for leaving me… but having lost you, I understand why she couldn’t bear to go on.”
Anastasia gently stroked the back of her hair. “His voice was so clear in his writing. You can really tell how much she meant to him— how much you all meant to him,” she whispered. “The first thing I thought when I read it was how much he reminds me of you.”
“Mama always said I had more of him in me than her,” she said amidst a watery laugh. “Lysi was all her, in looks and in nature… but I— our personalities were so similar that my grandmother used to say that he was more like my twin than Lysi was.” She wiped at her eyes. “We are one now, I feel, him and I. He was more like me than I could’ve ever truly understood as a child. I just wish I could tell him that he was a good man and that doing what he had to in order to keep us alive didn’t make him a bad person.”
Anastasia kissed her cheek. “The best way you can honour that going forward is to remember how you feel now that you know he had those worries too. You know that he was a good man, the very same way that I know you’re a good woman. Everything that you wish you could say to him, say it to yourself when those anxious voices start yelling inside your head.”
She nodded tightly and let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “I think I will.”
“Good girl.”
She groaned and bit back her laughter. “Now is not an appropriate time to exploit my praise kink.”
“Why? Is there a wooden sword somewhere you intend to whack me with?,” Anastasia teased.
“There bloody should be.”
“It seems like you haven’t changed a bit since you were six years old. The only difference is now you know how to stab your enemies and don’t have to resort to beating them with a wooden sword.”
She laughed at that. “I used to get myself into so much trouble. I used to bite people, too, you know.”
“Used to?,” smirked Anastasia.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I still get myself into quite a lot of trouble and have been known to tear chunks out of my enemies as recently as last week… but back then I didn’t have a wife who could just alter the memories of people I’d taken offence with and had resorted to trying to impale on the nearest sharp object. The difference is that now I actually listen when you tell me that I perhaps shouldn’t be so quick to stab. Back then I just whacked whoever dared critique me with my wooden sword or shot them in the thigh with my bow and arrow… or perhaps bit them— I didn’t start making my own spears until the year after this letter was written.” She paused. “I don’t think my father would’ve been too pleased with me, now that I consider the notion.”
Anastasia huffed in bemusement. When she turned to faced her again, her big blue eyes were glistening with feral amusement, a happy sort of ease that was always there when she spoke of her past, when she spoke of the long dead world in which she’d been above each and every mortal law.
She sat the letter aside on the large Alaskan King bed and pulled her wife into her arms— her embrace so tight that she really would’ve shattered her bones if she were mortal.
She’d never wanted to admit to herself that her father had been dead for so long that she’d started to forget the sound of his voice— time had the oddest way of distorting and taking those things from a person. But having that letter, seeing his words written down on the page as he would’ve spoken them, and hearing them read aloud to her… she remembered.
She remembered that unlike many fathers of the time, to his children, her dad had shown the same love he had always shown to her mother; fierce, loyal, and unyielding. And it was that very same protectiveness that she’d learned from him that she, herself, had only ever shown to one person: her Annie.
Anastasia seemed to know exactly what she was thinking and wrapped her arms around her neck, holding her tightly.
There was once a time she would’ve hidden how much these gifts meant to her, once a time when she wouldn’t even have been capable of displaying the emotions even if she’d wanted to. And she probably still would’ve hidden them from anyone but her wife as she wished to present her best self, but she didn’t have to do that with Annie. Because it was real love, she knew that her wife simply understood it, without needing to ask her. In a true partnership like theirs, the kind that would last through the ages, there was an unspoken communication that never failed them.
“I don’t know how you’ll ever top these gifts,” she murmured against her shoulder.
Anastasia leaned back to look her in the eyes. “Would you believe it if I said I was already working on that?”
She shook her head in awe and stroked her fingers down the side of her face. “You’re magnificent.”
Her cheeks flushed a rosy shade of pink that stood out against her pale skin. “There are a lot of things out there that rightfully belong to you. I’m going to get all of them back… and then we’ll work on bringing down the whole grave robbing in the name of academia industry.”
That startled a laugh out of her. “Yes. Indeed. We’ll display the severed heads of every archaeologist, Egyptologist, and private collector on the Ahmanet rooftop and no one will dare mess with us again.”
“Morbid… but okay. You do you, babe.”
Before she could say anything else a racket that sounded distinctively like Serafine smashing that god awful instrument in a fit of frustration echoed from outside their room.
“Well it’s about time,” she deadpanned. “I was worried I’d have to listen to that all day and I really was having one too many flashbacks to the bagpipes incident of 1817.”
“How long was she taking lessons?”
“Oh she wasn’t taking lessons. She was just blowing into them and making the most godawful noises you’ve ever heard, all to impress some scrawny Scottish mortal who called himself Eddie.” She rolled her eyes. “After putting up with them for the entirety of 1817 I stopped considering the bagpipes a musical instrument at all. I now consider them something of a Scottish Breathalyser test. You blow into one end, and if the sound that comes out the other end doesn't make you immediately want to kill yourself — then you're not nearly drunk enough.”
Anastasia started laughing. “My high school boyfriend played the bagpipes because his mom was Scottish.”
“Ah, yes, the Irish boy who is now a tattoo artist,” she snorted. “Not to tease you or anything… but you really lost your virginity a bagpipe playing tattoo artist and that is fodder for at least a good few hundred of my stellar jokes.”
“You fucked Serafine, who was also a wannabe bagpiper and a… what the hell was she trying to learn how to play?”
“A charango.” She scoffed. “She is planning to become a charanguista, apparently.”
“Well then I don’t think you can make those jokes. You fucked a bagpiper who is now a wannabe charanguista,” Anastasia teased. “That’s the sort of behaviour I’d expect from Lily.”
“What? The fact I fucked her or the fact she wants to be a charanguista?”
“Both are very Lily-ish behaviours.”
She groaned and gave her a hard shove onto her back, so that she was pinned between her and the mattress. “Take that back,” she growled, nipping at a ticklish point on her neck with her descended fangs. “Your ex boyfriend wore black nail polish and so much eyeliner he looked like a raccoon in every one of your high school pictures— your taste in bagpipers is much worse than mine.”
“At least my bagpiper never tried to become a charanguista,” Anastasia laughed as she looped her legs around her waist.
“Well— Well— At least I never wore too much black eyeliner and black nail polish to match mine,” she fired back. “I may be 2100 years old now but I can say with confidence that I never came close to doing that.”
“I suited the grunge look à la 2013,” giggled Anastasia as she squirmed in her hold. “Looking back I can see he looked like he’d been hit in the face with a frying pan but between 2013 and 2015 were some of my most stylish years.”
“You literally have the world’s top designers making your clothes now and you’ve had at least seven Vogue covers,” she teased between kisses on her neck. “I really don’t think your depressed high school student look was the gold standard, baby.”
“I’d be offended if anyone else said that. My studded Steve Madden Tarney combat boots were the be all and end all of the time’s fashion, I’ll have you know.”
She playfully blew a raspberry on the side of her neck and started laughing hysterically as she was whacked with a pillow. And before she knew what was happening they were rolling around on the mattress, wrestling and laughing hysterically like a pair of overly excited children.
Hers was the sort of laughter that only Annie could draw from her. The sort that only her brother, her mother, and her father had been able to draw from her beforehand. Husky and full-bodied and genuine — something her soul cooked up and her heart served.
She laughed.
And laughed.
And laughed.
Until they both fell breathless in a tangle of limbs, the happiness she felt so intense she may as well have been floating. Somehow, laughing like this made the big 2100 seem much less intimidating than it had beforehand.
“What?,” giggled Anastasia when she noticed her staring at her.
She propped herself up on her elbow and ducked her head down so that her lips met hers. “I’m so in love with you,” she murmured. “And this just might be my favourite birthday I’ve ever had.”
Anastasia reached up and caressed the side of her face, holding her gaze. “I love you too, Kami.”
She smiled as Anastasia ran her thumb along her jawline and down her throat. And she bent down and kissed her slowly and intensely, and it was incredible.
They melted together. Every movement of hers was somehow perfectly mirrored by Annie. Her heart was pounding so hard she knew she must be able to feel it and she was sure her legs would’ve given way if she was standing.
Anastasia ran her hands through her hair and down the length of her bare back. And she let her hands wander over her breasts and she nestled even closer to her.
All she felt was peace as she lay there with her wife in her arms and kissed her luxuriously. She really hadn’t been over reacting when she said this was her favourite birthday so far… and she’d said that every year on her birthday since meeting Anastasia.
When you loved someone like this, they became a fundamental part of who you are as a person. Anastasia was in everything she did. She was in the air she breathed and the water she drank and the blood in her veins. Her touch stayed on her skin and her voice stayed in her ears and her thoughts stayed in her mind.
Annie knew her dreams because her nightmares pierced her heart and her good dreams were her dreams too. And she didn’t think she was perfect, and she knew her flaws, the deep-down truth of them, and the shadows of all her secrets, and they did not frighten her away; in fact she knew Annie loved her all the more for each and every one of them, because she did not want perfect.
She wanted the truth.
She wanted her. Now and always.
~ fin.