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Her beloved is slowly stirring awake when she’s twining her golden locks around her finger, acting as a makeshift curler for its ends as Phoebe tosses around in her to-be-ending-soon sleep—Zani watches her, scarlet eyes fixated on the border of their blankets that barely hid her exposed chest and the little strawberry-colored marks littered all over the soft expanse of her neck is an enchanting sight to see under the morning light.
She thinks they’ll last a week this time, even if there’s no one to admire her masterpiece, not when Phoebe doesn’t even wear anything that’s below the capabilities of a scarf when it comes to covering her neck as she did even back then when she still hadn’t sported her last name—nevertheless, it’s the thought that counts; the thought that even in the midst of praying acolytes and wandering flock, there’s a sign that Phoebe belongs to her, just as she is hers.
(Somewhere over, tossed over linen carpets and gleaming under the morning light lays someone’s lace nightgown and another someone’s silk robe. Zani thinks her first priority should be to lift her bare body off their sheets and pick up their clothes to be thrown to the laundry basket—but the thought of leaving her wife disturbs her a bit too greatly, offends her down to her very core; what if Phoebe woke up and got sulky for the rest of the day because she did not receive her good morning’s kiss? The Order could not operate well if their own righteous Primus wasn’t functioning well, and it just so happens that said Primus needs her good morning kiss to start a day.
It’s not a desire, it’s not a menial task, it’s not some silly excuse that was surely not made up by said Primus’ wife just so that she can have a reason to stay by her side until she wakes up and can bless the world with her glowing presence once again—it’s a need, and a damn good one at that.
Or so she says to herself, at least. Phoebe makes it seem that way, has always leaned her forehead close before she gets going, has always melted down whenever she wakes up by her side even when they’d just tangoed and tiptoed around the line of being anything past the line of friendship back in that phase of their life—so who’s Zani to reject a completely lawful and definitely correct fact?)
Phoebe blinks her eyes open a few times, just to let herself readjust to the warm brightness of their quaint two-person bedroom whose only source of light now was from the sunshine seeping in through their gold-leaf curtains, her mind barely making out the clock out of the corner of her eye spelling 7:19 A.M. when her violet eyes finally refocus into everything else that’s left. Still half-awake, Zani surmises, but Phoebe’s awake enough to wrap her arms around her neck and pull her down for a kiss on her cheek—and that’s all that matters to her in the end.
Drowsily, Phoebe yawns into her neck, “Good morning…”
“Mmh,” Zani responds gently, placing a fluttering kiss on her forehead to supply the aforementioned need, “good morning, Your Holiness.”
The sound of a featherlight giggle reverberates through the air, ariose and each note that Phoebe produces finds its way to electrocute the cavity that exists in Zani’s ribcage. It’s the voice that leads the people in prayer, the one that guides the choir in their Sunday sermons—the same voice that had echoed through the room last night when she’d found herself on top of her while Phoebe’s nails dug into her skin and Zani can’t ever get enough of her wife, not even when Phoebe’s twisting her ear when she almost puts a piece of pineapple on the pizzas they’d cook for their date nights.
Zani finds herself brushing away a few loose strands of hair that blocks her from wholly looking into the violet space of her lover’s eyes. Phoebe has always been beautiful, has only grown to be even more beautiful as the years go by; Zani thinks of how she adores her more and more whenever they intertwine at night and thinks about how lovely it would be to find a carbon copy of her amethyst eyes on a child that has her horns and her tail—one day they’ll have one, maybe, when trade isn’t so bustling to the point where she can take a break without getting emergency calls every other Wednesdays or so; she’s content with her imagination for now, they still have time before they’ll have to think of a name and decide whether or not they want their baby showers to be held in May.
But Phoebe doesn’t seem to think they have time now, not when she’s slowly sitting up while covering her chest with their blanket. She swings her two legs away from the covers and her left foot touches the carpet—but there’s a ropelike knot around her thigh that binds her tightly when she tries to move her right leg, and Phoebe doesn’t even have to glance down to know that there’s a dark stripe that matches precisely with the tail that exists as an extension of her lover’s head hooking her down to the bed.
“Where are you going?”
Phoebe’s head turns around to look at her, but her body is still facing the direction of their bedroom door and it makes Zani glower with a sulk, “To get ready…?” Phoebe answers, though it doesn’t quite satisfy her question, looking from the unchanged expression on Zani’s face. Another explanation for the explanation, she supposes will have to do; “To go to the Cathedral…?”
There’s a grunt of disapproval, and then; “No you’re not.” Zani protests.
The tail that’s wrapped around her thigh wags around, and Phoebe thinks it’s trying to represent the action of its owner shaking her head, who’s still refusing to move from her place. She looks like a lost puppy who’s lost her favorite chew toy, or a little kid who had her favorite echo taken away for a little checkup. Pouting, silvercloud hair sprawled all over their velvet pillows, her hand reaches out to clasp onto her wrist for a tug back to bed.
“There’s still ten minutes until seven thirty.” Zani remarks, pointing at the clock situated on the wall by their curtains with her other hand, “I intend to savor every minute I have looking at my beautiful wife before I have to be parted from her the whole day.”
(As she does everyday—being married to a Primus who was loved and adored and spent most of her day in the Cathedral was something of an ordeal by itself, but being the second-hand of the Montelli’s rightful successor doesn’t quite help her case either.
Zani thinks of her empty desk that won’t stay empty for so long the moment she clocks in and alerts Carlotta of her presence. The empty desk no longer empty will be filled with stacks of paperwork and forms to sign, and even though Carlotta has lessened her shift time from ten hours to nine so that she could clock out just in time to get to the Cathedral the moment Phoebe’s done with the day—that’s still more than one one-third of the day spent without Phoebe by her side.
Carlotta tells her that she’s the only executive director whose honeymoon phase has lasted longer than a year throughout Averardo’s long-lasting existence and Zani had laughed. Told her that she’ll also be the only one whose honeymoon phase will last for the rest of her life; and she intends to keep that promise, she does.)
Phoebe finds herself laughing from the innocent declaration, “My, is this the executive director of Averardo Bank not wanting to immediately prepare herself to go to work the moment she wakes up I’m hearing?” she muses, using her title just for a hint of dramatics, “Pray tell, what possessed the good, hardworking and very, very attractive director?”
“How scandalous, I know.” Zani retorts, clearly not scandalized in the slightest. She looks the opposite, if anything, with a teasing grin now hanging off the corner of her lips, “Frankly, I’m still recovering my strength from last night since the head of our state was instructing me to do overtime work, and it would be unwise of me not to use up all those ten minutes just to laze around until we have to actually get up to prevent any sorts of lateness.”
Her face goes red at the reminiscing, Phoebe clears her throat, looking away when she sees the grin only growing wider at her response but still manages to remind her kindly; “Accusing the Primus of unpaid labor is considered slander and can be punished with imprisonment for up to ten years, last I heard.”
“Hm? I never said anything about unpaid labor.” Zani objects, and even if she doesn’t say exactly how she was rewarded, she thinks that all the bites stamped onto her skin, laying dormant under her sunkissed hair is enough of an answer. “In fact, I’d say I was generously rewarded with a form of payment one could only dream to attain.”
Maybe she’d been staring at them too much, though; Phoebe pulls the blankets up even farther and she can’t see them from this angle anymore.
“Though,” Zani hums, continuing her teasing, “I suppose with how you were begging me to—“
“Enough…!”
Phoebe cuts her through halfway, very much embarrassed—it’s another thing that hasn’t changed over the years, her inability to take her affectionate jabs before she turns scarlet red.
She’s refusing to look back at her, “I’m heading out.” Phoebe says and they’ve rewinded to where they started; a foot touching the carpeted floor, a thigh that’s shaking off the presence of a very much clingy wife who’s holding her in place with her second mind of a tail, and a will that’s set in stone to hop into the shower alone—emphasis on alone because that is not how it goes in this household, maybe unless one of them was running a fever or running late.
Her tail doesn’t let her go so easily, though. It’s stuck to her like glue, tight enough to keep her still in place but also still loose enough not to choke the area it’s holding onto of the blood circulating in her veins. Phoebe tries, she does—but if there’s anything her years of experience has taught her, it’s that Zani has only gotten better at keeping a grip on her with the blessings she’s been given; the tail is one thing whenever she wants to keep her close—but there’s the hold Zani has on her heart too, no matter how much Phoebe so badly wishes sometimes she wasn’t so enamored with the warmth that comes from being in her embrace that her virtue of self-restriction from going back to bed crumbles to dust whenever Zani does something like this.
Phoebe gives up eventually, plopping down back from where she came from—but like a spoiled child who hasn’t been given her candy, she refuses to face her despite how it’s a given position that they default to no matter the situation.
Zani notices her grumbling, nevertheless.
“There there,” she placates and her hands are wrapping around Phoebe’s torso like a deadlock. The perks of having a wife that can lift twice her weight overruled the cons ninety-nine percent of the time, but there’s always a one-percent situation like this where she can’t escape her relentless goading because she’ll just get dragged back in half the time she uses to even escape her clutches—Phoebe would know, it’s happened before, too many times to count and it’s always ended in freshly washed sheets getting tossed into their laundry basket before it had even been used for a day; “we still have eight minutes left. I promise I won’t tease you on how you wanted me to make you scream to the point the whole of Rinascita could hear their Primus being devoured.”
Phoebe turns around instinctively, dumbfounded at her words, “…You just did.”
“That wasn’t teasing.” Zani grins, knowing she’s regained momentum with how Phoebe is now facing her once again, “That was a promise, Your Holiness.”
Phoebe’s about to sound out another complaint again, some sort of counterargument that her words can be two things at once—but she doesn’t. Zani leans in, her mouth pressing against her own, and in an instant every single feeling of protest evaporates into thin air, finding itself replaced with the softest of whines as they hold onto each other once more, the prelude to yesternight’s events replaying perfectly under the morning light as it had happened before.
They won’t get to the part where they weave into each other now, Phoebe knows that for sure. It’s a silent rule that’s been established since the last time they did just exactly that on a busy weekday morning and left them both running an hour late to their respective destinations—but this is just as welcome, too. Phoebe has always liked it when she can feel the press of Zani’s thumbs against her cartilage, the giddiness exploding in her stomach as Zani chuckles into her mouth when she can’t withhold a whine to herself—she likes where she’s at now, she wouldn’t trade away her place for anything else to begin with.
“I love you, Phoebe.” Zani tells her softly when they part, just to make sure she knows if she hadn’t made it all too clear, if all the teasing had clouded her thoughts despite it all coming from the same place as that love itself, but she didn’t have to worry because Phoebe knows, she does—she has known it even since before she’d held her hand in front of the altar and sworn to the Sentinel above to cherish her above all else in this world, and she will know it for the rest of her life from the way that Zani has always so surely held her hand and remind her of her promise for the rest of their mortal lives.
She sighs in bliss, ultimately choosing to lay her head against Zani’s unyielding heartbeat, lulling her to rest just for a little bit more, just for a few more minutes before they’ll have to go and succumb to their everyday routines for a few hours without each other by their sides.
“I love you too,” Phoebe murmurs back, listening in as their hearts start to sync in harmony, and it’s the softest of any morning aftermaths, “I always will.”
It couldn’t get any better than this, she thinks. She knows it can’t.
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(“Mmh, you know, angel, we could do it one more time in the shower—“
“Zani!” Phoebe exclaims in protest, hitting her in the chest as the clock almost ticks to seven thirty. Nonetheless, she sighs afterwards, her face heats up once more because she’s just as wanting for her touch even if she doesn’t admit it, and they’ve never been late if it happened in the shower as opposed to having it done on their bed, so; “…But only if you don’t keep me in for two rounds.”
A chuckle. Then, a kiss lands on the corner of her eyes like it’s trying to smudge the blush that’s inking her skin red into the rest of her face.
“It's always a pleasure negotiating with you, Your Holiness.” Zani teases her again, as she always does.
Phoebe doesn’t reply, but it doesn’t matter when the blush that’s began its expansion answers in her place—she’ll need as much rest as she can for her voice before they get to the bathroom. This isn’t the first time it’s happened before, and she knows it won’t be the last—but Zani has the last laugh for now, maybe will have it for the rest of the day too if she doesn’t come up with something that renders her speechless to the point that not even Carlotta can get her to function properly.
They still have a long life ahead of them, and Phoebe can get back at her later—the dress Cantarella had gifted her for their wedding anniversary that had left her a blushing mess when she unwrapped it by herself is still hiding under her piles of daily outfits, anyways. It’ll be put to good use, soon, she'll just have to be patient.)
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