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Early mornings for Elizabeth was the rustle of sheets and feathers as Shiori wriggled her way in between her and Nerissa, sleep finally finding her after too many hours of paper and ink.
It's Nerissa untangling herself from the mess of blankets and limbs at the first calls of birdsong, chuckling under her breath at the sleepy grasping hands trying to keep her from morning walks.
Once in a while it was Nerissa making low noises as she huddled closer to them, the world outside too cold and the bed too comfortable to even contemplate leaving.
Today it was none of those.
Elizabeth wakes to cool sheets and the absence of bodies nestled against her, consciousness surfacing through layers of sleep when her arm doesn't find familiar warmth sprawled across her chest.
She groggily notes that the bed was stripped of blankets, registering the draft of cold air that roused her leaking in from the cracked open door.
It takes Elizabeth a moment to shuffle out of the room with bleary eyes, nearly losing her footing on the throw pillow lying haphazardly right outside the door.
She peers into the dark hallway, her flame casting shadows on the wall, blending into the dim light further down in the direction of Nerissa's room.
Halfway down the hall was a nightdress belonging to Nerissa that itched slightly from too many washes, and she spots a single leg of Shiori's pyjama pants peeking out from behind a corner.
The breadcrumb trail of soft fabrics slipped from an overeager grasp led her to Nerissa's room, every new find added to the growing collection in her arms.
She finds Shiori sitting in front of the closet built into the side of the wall, one leg splayed out in front of her and the other tucked in close.
There's a book propped up on her knee that Shiori flips through idly, barely paying attention to the words she's skimming over.
A dull thump echoes from inside the closet and Shiori turns, murmuring something that she's too far away to make out the specifics of.
Her bangs spills down the side of her face with the motion, hiding glowing amber behind a curtain of black.
The lines around her face are soft, sleep still clinging to the underside of amber eyes.
Shiori leans back against the closet door, smile quirking at the corner of her mouth when she spots Elizabeth leaning against the doorframe.
She's content to silently admire the scene in front of her, basking in the serenity settled upon their shoulders.
Elizabeth thinks Shiori is beautiful just like this.
"Hey, you."
"Hey to you too, handsome."
The flush that runs up the tip of her ears is absolutely not helped by the knowing smirk Shiori gives her.
It calms slightly when Elizabeth kneels in front of Shiori, reaching across to tuck wayward bangs behind Shiori's ear for her.
Notes how Shiori averts her gaze just a little, the pink that dusts across her cheeks at the proximity.
It's nice to know she's not the only one tripping over her feelings.
"Why are you up so early?"
Elizabeth sees how Shiori's eyes flutter shut under the persistent weight of drowsiness that followed her out of bed, nodding off against her shoulder when the silence stretched on too long in the room.
She fishes out a blanket from the rescued pile of fabric, keenly aware that Shiori was only wearing pyjamas, knows that her feet were cold from the lack of socks.
"May I?"
Shiori mumbles an agreement, limbs pliant in Elizabeth's grasp as the blanket wraps around her shoulders.
Gives herself over to the steady strength in strong arms as she's hoisted up into Elizabeth's lap, content to tuck her head under Elizabeth's chin and listen to the chuckle coming from above her.
"Exactly how long have you been sitting out here in the cold?"
The wooden floor under her still retains a fragment of Shiori's body warmth, enough to indicate that she'd been curled up in the same spot for far longer than she should have.
"Mm, our girl's nesting, stole all the blankets. She's been at it since like five in the morning."
Elizabeth blinks, flinching slightly at cold hands finding a home under her shirt.
Shiori hums contently when her hands warm up little by little, nestled against the furnace of heat that is Elizabeth.
"Nerissa… nests?"
She feels the pleased sound Shiori lets out thrumming against her chest, blue flame flickering in response.
"We skipped the egg laying part already, she's gotta have something bird-like left in her."
Elizabeth quirks an eyebrow, amusement dancing in her voice.
"The wings don't count towards that tally?"
The giggle she draws out of Shiori was soft and worth everything.
"Nope."
"That still doesn't explain why you sat on the cold floor for hours on end, darlin'."
The fingers toying with scarlet strands pause for a moment, a soft hum leading into a hushed whisper.
"Rissa likes having a guard when she's nesting. Makes her feel safe."
Oh. That felt like she'd accidentally stumbled into a confession of a secret that she wasn't meant to hear.
"And you just, woke up and crawled out of bed to keep her company? At five in the morning?"
Shiori tilts her head back a little to peer up at her, eyes bright with something she couldn't name.
"You say that like you wouldn't do the same for her."
She knows Shiori meant that as a tease, but there's an underlying certainty to it that made her breath catch.
She would. She would do that and more, and Shiori knows it.
Another thump from within the closet draws their attention, and she thinks she hears the sound of an excited chirp followed by rustling fabric.
"Is she okay in there?"
Shiori suppresses a yawn, buries her face back into Elizabeth's chest with a huff.
"She'll be fine, probably gonna finish up faster since her favourite person's here."
The door beside them cracks open just a sliver more, and she barely registers the shimmer of wine red eyes peering out at them.
"Ack-"
And then Shiori is gone from Elizabeth's lap, stolen away by the creature lurking in the depths of the closet.
"Shiori?"
She hesitates, peeking into the dim space beyond the doors.
The scent of Nerissa's usual detergent and a faint trace of perfume greets her, but all she's able to make out are vague outlines of clothing with no trace of Shiori in sight.
It would be rude to intrude in a safe space when she's not been invited.
"It's good, Liz. You can come in now."
She parts the row of hangers obstructing her way and ventures in, the faint light of her flame saving her from having to fumble around in the dark.
Following Shiori's voice leads her sight to the far end of the tiny space, and Elizabeth can't help but grin once she finds where Shiori had been whisked off to.
"You look cozy."
Tucked into the corner was an arrangement of structured chaos, pillows propped up against the walls to form a protective circle, blankets and clothes strewn all over the space in a way only Nerissa understood.
In the middle of it all, placed on layers upon layers of the softest fabrics Nerissa could find, lays Shiori.
Still tangled in the blanket Elizabeth put around her, cradled by warm limbs and overeager wings.
She weathers Elizabeth’s teasing gaze, patting at the side of Nerissa’s face with a mixture of fondness and exasperation.
"There, there, silly. I’m not going anywhere, let me up for air?"
Elizabeth muffles a giggle into the palm of her hand when the wings draped around Shiori shows absolutely no sign of loosening their hold.
"So this is what you meant when we hauled a trunk's worth of pillows back that time."
She remembers the trip to the department store where she lost track of Shiori in between the aisles, and a cursory search around Shiori's usual haunt near the shelves of stationary showed no sign of her missing girl.
Elizabeth finds her in the linen section eventually, trailing a cart that was already halfway filled with pillows behind her.
"I didn't know we were prepping for a pillow apocalypse."
Shiori wanders ahead, weaving her fingers through fabrics and tossing another blanket into the nearly overflowing cart.
Elizabeth rescues a wayward pillow escaping from the cart, scrambling to rearrange the pile when another bolster immediately takes its place.
"Trust me, we're gonna need them soon."
She laughs at the double take Shiori does when the total flashing on the till far exceeds their monthly groceries.
They end up splitting the bill.
Elizabeth gestures at all the new material woven into the nest, smile soft on her lips.
"For the record, I think it was worth it."
Shiori mimes throwing a pillow in her direction, an action that draws Nerissa's attention away from her to Elizabeth.
Wine red fixates on her, blinks once.
The switch from nesting mode to full defense was instantaneous the moment Nerissa's instincts registers the foreign presence hovering outside her nest.
Feathers bristling at the perceived threat, moving to angle Shiori away from Elizabeth's line of sight.
Elizabeth holds up a hand, takes a step back from the edge of the nest where she stood.
There's an intense gaze tracking her movements as she carefully moves to sit right outside of the nest’s boundaries, making sure that she's not disturbing any of the carefully laid material.
She's not quite sure what to do in this situation, but making herself smaller so she wasn't towering over them like a threatening figure couldn't hurt.
The motion must have still set off something in Nerissa's instincts because the raven makes a warbly noise at her, a low rumbly sound that landed somewhere between a caw and a squawk.
"Mine."
Nerissa's declaration was supposed to be threatening.
It doesn't work as well as it should have, not when she's swallowed by Elizabeth's old hoodie that's been given joint custody between Nerissa and Shiori.
"Whoa there, girl. Baaaad raven."
Shiori tuts, poking at her sides to get Nerissa to back off, earning a whine from the raven at the reprimand.
"Easy now, be nice to your girlfriend."
Nerissa tilts her head in confusion, instincts clearly not processing the info.
It takes a moment before Nerissa moves to nuzzle her cheek against Shiori's, soft chirps spilling from her lips.
"Mine?"
A wing uncurls from Shiori's side to gesture vaguely at Elizabeth.
"Also mine?"
Shiori snorts at the question, palm pushing against the side of Nerissa's jaw to turn her in Elizabeth's direction.
"Yes, the hot red woman is also yours, you silly bird."
Nerissa squints at Elizabeth, eyes narrowed in careful consideration.
"Mmm."
Elizabeth wonders if Nerissa might not be comfortable with having her near the nest after all.
"Okay!"
Her world spins on its axis when Elizabeth is tugged into the nest in the next moment, blankets tossed over her limbs, weaving her into the nest.
"Hi there. Come here often?"
She meets twinkling amber behind the raven chirping insistently in her ear.
"You’re part of her nest now, hot red woman."
Elizabeth finds that she doesn't mind being a treasure in a raven's nest.
The next nest was made in Elizabeth's closet, heralded by delighted chirps when the raven discovers that the space was just barely large enough for Elizabeth to squeeze a futon in.
Shiori barely dodges the excited fluttering of a wing when Nerissa spots all of her usual nesting materials stacked neatly against the wall, folded with the careful precision Elizabeth tended to use.
The doors slam shut behind them as Nerissa ushers them out, the sound of rustling fabric and happy chirping starting almost immediately as she got to building.
Shiori leans against the wall, grinning knowingly at the soft look on Elizabeth's face.
She hasn't seen her raven this happy since when Nerissa's instincts realized she could smuggle Shiori into her nest and Shiori was fine with it.
"You weren't kidding when you offered to help, huh?"
Elizabeth rubs at the back of her neck, flame flickering bashfully.
"I just wanted to make it more comfortable for her."
The sigh that Shiori lets out is soft and fond.
"Our girl's not letting us leave this closet until tomorrow, I hope you know that."
Elizabeth sheepishly holds up the assortment of cookies and a flask filled with the floral blend that both her girls adored.
"I came prepared?"
"I'm stealing all the chocolate ones."
Nerissa keeps them in the closet until way past noon the next day.
In all the time that Elizabeth had known Shiori, the archiver still remained somewhat of an enigma to her.
Shiori could be talkative.
It's easy to listen to her ramble about the plot of the latest book she'd picked up, voice coloured with passion and gesturing in excitement.
Oftentimes Shiori was silent.
Hidden away in a part of the room with her eyes trained on words far beyond Elizabeth's understanding, scribbling away in a journal with the quill that never left her side.
Elizabeth finds Shiori to be the opposite of Nerissa.
Where Nerissa loves with her heart on her sleeve, it's impossible for her to get a proper read on Shiori.
Not when most questions were met with snarky answers, emotions hidden under a facade of nonchalance and redirection.
Calm. Steady. Like nothing in the world could ever catch her off guard.
It's an illusion that shatters the day she reaches out to clasp a hand over Shiori's shoulder without much thought.
Elizabeth didn't think she'd ever seen Shiori flinch.
The movement is small, a slight twitch of her muscles tensing at the unexpected contact.
An aborted attempt to distance herself from the hand on her shoulder.
It's enough for Elizabeth to pull her hand back as though scalded by the contact, flame wavering at the thought that she'd crossed an untold line.
"I- Sorry, are you alright? Did I hurt you?"
Shiori opens her mouth like she was about to say something.
Silence won out in the end.
She gives a small shake of her head in response, amber eyes downcast.
Nerissa sends Elizabeth a questioning look later in the evening, Shiori tucked against her chest and cradled in her wings.
She watches as Nerissa strokes at Shiori's hip with gentle motions, the way Shiori seemed to melt into downy feathers brushing against her skin.
Elizabeth doesn't give her an answer, retreating from the room to escape from the uncomfortable silence blanketing the room.
She's fine with this.
If it's her touch that Shiori spurns, she wouldn't force it upon her.
Elizabeth knows how to keep her distance.
She's fine with this.
They take to avoiding each other for the rest of the week, and Elizabeth ensures that Shiori is never trapped alone in a room with her.
It's in the dim of the night, curled around Nerissa in her bedroom, that the subject is finally breached.
"What's going on between you two, Liz?"
Elizabeth feels Nerissa shift in her arms, glances down at wine red peering up at her, worry bright within them.
She's never been good at keeping her secrets, least of all from her precious raven.
She tells of her transgression in soft whispers, tries not to remember how it felt to be the cause of Shiori's panic, however fleeting it'd been.
When Elizabeth finishes, she braces for the inevitability of Nerissa withdrawing from her, likely leaving to coax Shiori out from hiding in the archives.
"Touch is… complicated for her, you know?"
Instead, there's a weight directing her shoulders downward, and Elizabeth lets Nerissa guide her down to the bed.
She exhales softly when Nerissa drapes herself on top of her, wings encasing them in a cocoon of feathers, the tension bleeding from her limbs at the comforting weight.
"Besides, I don't think Shiori has a problem with you, love. Not with the way she always talks about how warm your hands are."
The obvious heat that creeps up her neck is met with a giggle, feathery kisses pressed upwards along the column of her throat.
"Take it slow, Liz. She needs you to ask, and she needs you to give her time to say yes. Don't make it a surprise for her."
Elizabeth nods, trusts Nerissa's word without question.
Because Nerissa reads Shiori like an open book, a mutual understanding born from the many lifetimes spent by each other's side.
She could tell when it was acceptable to nudge Shiori in the side with an elbow, teasing and bantering until she's sprawled across Shiori's lap with affectionate amber looking down at her.
When Shiori would let her fill the silence between them with her chatter, humming occasionally in agreement while curled into the other end of the couch.
And Nerissa knows exactly when the tense set of Shiori's shoulders warranted a cup of hot chocolate snuck from Elizabeth's stash, and offered nothing more than silent company.
She takes to showing Elizabeth their archiver's tells.
How Shiori tended to take the middle of the couch when she was open to being cuddled, instead of her usual spot in the far corner of the couch or the armchair off to the side of the living room.
The way a soft call or fingers tapping gently on the table served to announce Nerissa's presence when Shiori was far too deep into a book.
How Nerissa would offer her hand, palm up, and wait for Shiori to weave their fingers together as her okay.
Habits that Elizabeth learns by heart, if only to stop herself from overstepping Shiori's boundaries again.
"Liz, you're behaving like Rissa."
Elizabeth freezes in her tracks, fingers hovering mid-air above the coffee table, halfway to the tapping motion she was reaching for.
Her eyes drift upwards, taking a moment to scan for hints of discomfort in Shiori's posture.
She finds nothing but curiosity flickering in the amber studying her intently.
"See, you're doing it again."
Understanding flits across Shiori's features, a wry grin plucking at the corner of her mouth.
"Rissa told you, didn't she?"
A statement rather than a question, an undercurrent of fondness carrying through her words.
"I- I didn't want to scare you again. Am I making you uncomfortable?"
"You aren't."
Shiori pauses, watches her for a moment.
"C'mere."
She pats the space beside her, the end of the couch with the arm rest, and Elizabeth slides herself into the spot, taking care not to jostle Shiori with her weight.
Places her hand down. Palm up, like how Nerissa taught her.
Waits patiently until a smaller hand finally makes its way into hers, digits curling around her own with slow hesitation.
"Sorry. I know I'm being weird about this. It's just… a little too much for me sometimes."
Elizabeth turns to face her, frown threatening to take over her face.
That wouldn't do.
"You don't need to apologize. Not for something you need."
Not for a gesture as simple as asking permission before touching her.
Shiori makes a sound that might have been gratitude, and Elizabeth feels the question murmured into her shoulder more than she hears it.
"Can we just stay like this for a bit?"
Elizabeth gives Shiori's hand a gentle squeeze, soothes a thumb over the back of it.
It feels like an unspoken promise between them.
"Of course, darlin'."
When Nerissa walks by the living room half an hour later, she's greeted with the sight of Shiori cradled against Elizabeth's chest, secured by a steady arm around her side.
Amber veiled behind closed eyelids, trusting Elizabeth enough to fall asleep in her lap.
It's something of a miracle that Shiori doesn't stir with the way Nerissa bounced over to them, wings aflutter and barely holding down a squeal from escaping her.
Elizabeth's flame flickers in tandem with Shiori's slow, steady heartbeat pressed against her.
A rhythm that was interrupted by Nerissa pressing a kiss onto her forehead, whisper soft in her ears.
"You did good, Liz. You did good."
There's something peeking out of the cropped tank top Nerissa is wearing that catches Elizabeth's attention.
The start of a word formed from dark ink, the vaguely familiar script disappearing under the shirt.
"Oh, that? That's just Shiori."
Nerissa sweeps her hair to the side, lifting the fabric just enough for Elizabeth to get a clearer view of what she recognizes to be Shiori's handwriting on Nerissa's skin.
"You'd think she would be pretty shy about stuff like this, but she can get downright possessive sometimes."
She shows Elizabeth the 'pretty bird' existing across the span of her shoulder blade, lets Elizabeth trace the 'my girl' scrawled on her hip.
With a grin that promised trouble, Nerissa brings her hand up to hook under the high collar hiding her neck from view, pulling it down to reveal a hidden secret.
Nerissa laughs when Elizabeth's face turns to match the color of her hair when she registers the purplish bruise messily marking the junction of Nerissa's neck and shoulders.
"She nibbles when she gets really sleepy and comfy."
Nerissa reaches for Elizabeth's neck, fingers tapping at the spot that would've mirrored her own bite, humming softly in thought.
"I'm kind of surprised she hasn't tried to make a snack out of you yet."
The shiver that runs down her spine was definitely not caused by the image of sharp fangs scraping against her skin, monochrome hair tickling against her shoulders.
"P-princess. Love. Maybe you're the only one she wants?"
A weak excuse, one that she stumbles over as her flame flickers erratically, as if that could burn the thought out of her mind.
There's a twinkle in Nerissa's eyes like she knew something Elizabeth didn't.
"We'll see about that."
Elizabeth gets her answer a few days later when she's buried in a stack of paperwork in her office, and a glance at the clock tells her that it's nearly an hour later than she'd expected to finish at.
There's a muffled knock on the mahogany door, followed by the creak of the door handle turning after absent mindedly calling out her permission to enter.
She skims the report in her hands once more, trying to finish just one more page before Nerissa drags her away from her desk.
"Still busy?"
The lack of noise should've tipped her off, but it's Shiori that plants herself in the chair on the other side of her desk, not Nerissa like she expects it to be.
Elizabeth quirks an eyebrow in response to the unexpected company, she could count on one hand the number of times Nerissa managed to get Shiori out of her archives before midnight.
"I was just finishing up, I'll be done in a minute."
Shiori hesitates for a moment, hand reaching into her pocket to fish for something.
"Good, just in time for me to do this."
A soft thump sounds on her desk, and a sleek velvet box slides across the polished wood in her direction.
She takes it in her hands, lifting the lid carefully at a nod from Shiori.
Elizabeth's breath hitches.
There's a quill nestled within the box, jet-black feather leading into a metal nib, runes painstakingly inked onto the bronze grip.
Her fingertips run down the side of the feather, the sensation familiar from helping Nerissa coax her feathers back into proper place.
The runes on the grip are barely recognizable to her, written in the words of a language long lost to history.
Elizabeth spots one that translates to devotion, another that might've been eternity, little phrases that she understands from Shiori randomly pointing out words while working on her texts.
She recognizes the gift for what it is.
A claim that bore equal weight as the ink and marks on Nerissa's skin did.
"For me?"
Shiori's gaze softened at the hint of uncertainty in her voice, reply steeped in the fondness that was always present when Nerissa was involved.
The box sitting in her palms tells her that it might extend to her as well.
"Rissa would've absolutely tried to lock us in the same room together if I delayed this any longer."
Elizabeth hears the subtle hint of rustling feathers from beyond the door, catches the mischief shining in Shiori's eyes.
"Is that why she's been spending so much time on preening the last month?"
Shiori nods, pretending to lean in with a whisper, well aware every word was being tracked by their raven pressed up against the door.
"She also spent another two hours trying to pick the shiniest one and pretending not to pout over having to part with it."
The door is the only thing standing between them and the offended gasp that sounded outside, and Elizabeth chuckles at the shushing motion Shiori does, playing along with her.
"What did you promise her?"
"Sorry, I got us both into rewatching the Princess Diaries. Again."
Shiori offers apologetically, as if allowing Nerissa to claim them for the length of a movie was something to apologize for.
The velvet sits heavy still in her grasp, and Elizabeth delivers her words with the gravity of an oath.
"Anything for our princess."
Anything for you.
The box is reverently tucked away in the top drawer, one last trace of her palm against the edges before Nerissa bursts into the room, dragging them excitedly towards the living room.
She needs to look into buying an inkwell in the morning.
The last of the already familiar credits rolled across the dimming screen.
Shiori slips away from the room, back to the archives to finish whatever work she abandoned in favor of spending the night with them.
Not before Elizabeth extracts a promise out of her that she would be in bed before daybreak, and Nerissa laughs softly at how Shiori folded under Elizabeth's steady voice.
"I told you she likes marking her things."
Nerissa mumbles sleepily from where she lay in Elizabeth's lap, wings twitching at the kiss pressed to the crown of her head.
"You know her well, princess."
Nerissa hums, cups her palm over the back of her neck.
Lets Elizabeth think that the quill was the only way Shiori was marking her with.
She doesn't draw attention to the 'love you' hiding shyly under her curtain of hair, inked on the nape of Elizabeth's neck like it'd always belonged there.
Elizabeth considers herself human.
A human with a burning flame for a heart, but still human nonetheless.
But every now and then, the little voice at the back of her mind overrides the usual restraint Elizabeth holds herself with, and it's always a battle to wrestle it back under her control.
Under normal circumstances, that is.
She never won when it involved Shiori or Nerissa.
There's no reason for her to be standing in the kitchen doorway, clad in an apron and armed with a spatula, failing to keep her gaze off her girls at the dining table.
Elizabeth tracks the silver of the morning sun curling around Nerissa's horns, watches how Shiori's strands of white shimmered like silk in the glow of the light.
She doesn't quite remember what landed her in this situation.
Elizabeth listens to the sounds of approval coming from Nerissa as she makes her way through her stack of pancakes drizzled with syrup and loaded with berries.
Notices Shiori nursing her second cup of coffee for the morning, lured into a rare appearance at breakfast by the scent of Elizabeth's hand brewed coffee.
It ignites a warmth in her chest that she doesn't know what to do with.
She wouldn't mind doing this for the rest of her days.
To provide. To protect.
The voice rumbles in agreement.
Mine. Mine to care for. Mine to keep.
"Liz, if you stand there any longer you're gonna end up with charcoal flavoured pancakes for breakfast."
Elizabeth blinks at the amused quip Shiori directs at her, bolting back into the kitchen with a yelp when she remembers the skillet left on the still burning stove.
The laughter that follows her retreat makes her cheeks flush with embarrassment, even as she scrambles to scrape the charred piece of batter away from the bottom of the pan.
Once Elizabeth was sure that the kitchen wasn't going to go up in flames from an unattended pancake, she runs a hand over her face, huffing out a sigh through her fingers.
She needs to stop being so utterly distracted.
Her mind helpfully provides the memory of Shiori's fangs gleaming against her lips when she smiles, the thrum of Nerissa's soft humming filling the silence of every room in the house.
Elizabeth groans at the smitten flare her flame does in response to it.
Even if she had every reason in the world to be.
Elizabeth brushes a hand down the side of her neck, frowning at the sheen of sweat it comes away with.
Her temperature was too high.
She cracks the freezer open, retrieving the ice pack wedged behind a carton of ice cream before holding it to her wrist with a relieved sigh.
She's been running what felt like a low grade fever for the past week.
Enough for Nerissa to notice when Elizabeth wraps herself around her in bed, placing the back of a hand against her forehead in concern.
Enough for Shiori to pick up on it even with the lack of physical contact.
Elizabeth catches the tail end of the conversation by chance, passing by the archives on her way back to her room.
"Do you think she's noticed it?"
"What, that she's attracted to hot and pretty women?"
She hears the groan Shiori let out, and the soft thump on her head Nerissa receives by way of a tome.
"Rissa, you exist in the same room with Liz. I think she already knows that."
Elizabeth retreats back to her room, sliding down against the door the moment she locks it behind her.
She needs to get it under control.
Given the nature of her magic, it's no surprise that she runs much hotter than the average person.
Elizabeth knows that from how people jolt away from her whenever she got close enough to touch, wary and uncomfortable of the heat radiating from her.
She remembers sneaking off to cool down in the stream running through the training grounds in her childhood, unable to stand the heat licking at her skin while clad in training leathers.
Even when it resulted in her instructors lecturing her on her inability to control such a base part of herself when compared to others of her blood.
"Such a difficult child."
"Your brother had full control over his magic when he was younger than you, you need to step it up."
"Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame, you are falling behind your cousin at this rate, and I refuse to have this as a mark on my record, do you hear me?"
She's better than that now.
The ice pack is transferred to rest against her forehead, eyes sliding shut as she leans against the kitchen counter, trying to even out her breathing.
Breathe in. Hold for four.
Out. Hold again. Repeat.
It's a slow process, but Elizabeth tamps the heat burning through her veins down, bit by tiny bit.
Until her magic quiets down to a simmer, flame reduced to embers from its usual bright flare.
It never felt right to her, but she would much rather keep her magic on a tight leash than to lose control over herself.
Elizabeth tucks the thought away, pushing herself up from the counter to return the ice pack to the freezer for future use.
It always passed. It always would.
This would be no different.
In hindsight, she really should've noticed that something was off.
Maybe she could have avoided crashing into the shower, fingers fumbling with slippery knobs in a desperate attempt to turn the contraption on.
The sound of running water is drowned out by the rush of blood pounding in her ears even as she frantically cranks the spray of the shower head to the max, slumping to the ground when the short burst of adrenaline left her limbs.
The soaked fabric of her shirt clings to every inch of her skin, chill seeping into her bones from the clothes she hadn't had the time to pull off, from the cold hard tiles pressing into her back.
It's not helping as well as she'd hoped it would, and she's barely holding on against the feverish temperature raging through her body.
Her head hurts.
Why are her eyes burning?
She presses her palms against her eyes, hoping to relieve the burning sensation with the pressure.
It burns still.
She curls on her side, cheek against the slippery floor of the shower, feeling the awareness slowly bleeding out of her under the unrelenting flow of water.
She doesn't know if she's been there for mere minutes or half a day, not with the fire raging through her veins, burning away at her consciousness.
"Liz, are you okay in there?"
She's unsure if she heard the bathroom door slide open, but she does register the string of curses that sent shame curling through her stomach.
She never meant to trouble them with her failures.
Elizabeth looks up blearily, trying to peer past the water staining her lashes to focus on the blurry figure throwing the shower curtain aside in a panic.
There's a squawk of surprise when the cold water hits them and the voice grows distant for a moment.
And then there's hands around her, pulling her off the shower floor, braving the cold spray of the shower head.
She's going to have to apologize to Nerissa for getting her feathers wet.
"Here- get her… The tub should work-"
Elizabeth picks out Shiori's voice in midst of the noise, fractured pieces of sound accompanied by the cool of a hand pressing against her burning forehead.
The concerned twinge to it is a rare thing that deepens her shame further.
"One, two, up-"
The ground falls out from under her.
The next moment, the sensation of cold water washes over her limbs, enveloping her as she's submerged into the large tub.
She flinches reflexively when the water sizzles upon contact with her flame, breathes into the arm holding her head above water gratefully when she's pulled up and away from the water line.
"Sorry, love- Shiori, drain it-"
Damp towels drape around her shoulders, someone is dabbing at the nape of her neck with another, the familiar cool of the ice pack comes to rest against her forehead.
Someone takes her hand and she feels them squeezing, ghosting fingers over her palm and over her knuckles.
Another cups her cheek, touch careful and gentle.
"It's okay, we'll take care of you."
She lets herself drift.
Elizabeth doesn't remember much of how she got into bed, only that she came to in the early hours of the morning, the sensation of feathers shifting against her skin indicating Nerissa bundled against her back.
The room seems… sharper. More detailed.
Her eyes track loose threads in frayed ends of the throw rug, tracing patterns in the timber of the dresser with surprising clarity.
Details that she shouldn't have been able to pick up in the dim lighting cast by the singular nightlight on the opposite wall.
"Morning, sleepyhead."
She finds Shiori propped up against the headboard, cradling a book in her lap.
The shadows under her eyes indicates that she's not slept, opting to stay up for the night, keeping watch over them.
Elizabeth opens her mouth to apologize, but thinks better of it at the sharp look Shiori sends her way.
She settles on gratitude.
"Thank you. For helping me."
For getting her out of a situation of her own making.
The book slips shut with a thud, and Elizabeth feels Shiori's gaze on her, carefully considering her words.
"Elizabeth, do you understand what happened?"
She takes a breath, no sense denying it now.
"I lost control, and my flare up got out of hand-"
Shiori cuts her off, her tone firm but not harsh as she expects it to be.
"Liz, this happened because you were pushing down your instincts for far too long."
Elizabeth isn't sure if she'd misheard.
"Pardon?"
"You have draconic blood in your lineage."
The blank stare she gives Shiori deepens the frown marring her features, and Elizabeth follows the finger gesturing for her to look in the dresser's mirror.
Her eyes stare back at her, the same scarlet as she remembers them.
But her pupils are slitted, not unlike a reptile's, and glowing in the same way she's seen Shiori's eyes do.
"You've been burning up like wildfire and you didn't know about this?"
Elizabeth considers denial, but she knows better than to doubt Shiori of all people.
"I always thought it was a side effect from our family's magic. It's not… uncommon among us."
She doesn't bring up that she's historically been the only one unable to bring it to heel.
Shiori lets out a huff of frustration, pinching at the bridge of her nose in clear exasperation.
"Those humans wouldn't know real magic even if it hit them over the head with a brick."
Elizabeth feels the bed dip as Shiori shuffles closer to them, feels the rare contact that Shiori initiates, hand weaving through scarlet tresses to scratch at her scalp.
"Listen to me. Your magic stems from the fact that draconic blood flows within you, and it's clear that the blood runs stronger in you than the rest of your family with the way it's fighting to be acknowledged."
Another hand slides across the sheets to cover her own, and Shiori's magic is tugging gently at her, coaxing her to respond to it.
"It's only normal that the instincts are stronger in you. All you need to do is let it run its course naturally."
Her magic surges with a ferocity she's never experienced before, and it's out of pure reflex that she tries to force it back down as she's always done.
"Don't fight it, Liz."
Elizabeth feels Nerissa's hold tighten around her waist, a chin coming to rest on her shoulder, wing across her hips a comforting anchor to remind her she wasn't alone.
"Let it out, we can take a little heat."
Elizabeth was familiar with how her magic responded when she reaches for her flames.
Heated, burning across her skin, always with an underlaying thread of intent that was not her own. One step away from being explosive if she wasn't careful.
This was different.
It coils around her limbs, spreading across the entirety of her torso, eventually settling naturally over her skin like a warm blanket.
"There you go."
Shiori inspects her forearm, humming in approval.
"About time they came in."
Elizabeth stares at the spatter of shimmering crimson scales layered over skin, pulsing with the heat she used to push down.
For the first time since she could remember, her magic sat comfortably within her.
The usual push and pull of it fighting against her control was gone, replaced by an easy response when she reached for it.
It felt right. Like a piece she never knew was missing finally slotting into place.
The change wasn't purely physical.
Elizabeth knew she always had the tendency to hover, preferring to keep her girls in sight whenever possible.
It was always laughed off with a joke, that she was just monitoring them.
That was nothing compared to the possessiveness that was starting to bleed into more and more of her behaviour.
Elizabeth doesn't think that a want to hover near her girls during interactions with other people could be compared to the burning need to physically carry them off.
She wants to hide them away in places that screamed safe to her, preferably in her bedroom.
Warm. Comfy.
Safe.
She catches herself trying to corral Nerissa back into her room when she finds her straying from her immediate vicinity, even if it was just down to the kitchen for a glass of water in the middle of the night.
Nerissa only chuckles at the arms draped over her from behind, soothing her ruffled instincts with a hand down her scales and soft hums.
It's not enough to stop Elizabeth from sweeping her off her feet and carrying her back to her bedroom the moment the glass was back on the drying rack.
"Is this what it feels like for you?"
The intensity was unlike anything she'd ever felt before.
Nerissa laughs softly, reaching up over her head to stroke at her cheek, what with the way Elizabeth had molded herself against her back.
"Oh, you have no idea, love. All the damn time."
It's the same question she asks Shiori days later.
Shiori's gaze shifts from the piece of parchment she was working on to her, still curled up lazily in the armchair she's claimed in the corner of Elizabeth's office.
Tomes from the archives pile up in chaotic piles on the ground around her, evidence of how much time Shiori had been spending in Elizabeth's office in recent days.
Elizabeth doesn't admit how calming the close proximity was for her.
"Occasionally, yes."
The smoldering look Shiori gives her nearly fixes her in place, and her throat tightens under the glowing gaze staring at her intently.
"Only for Rissa, and for you."
The voice preens softly in the back, whispering a claim she would never say out loud.
"For the record, we don't mind being part of your hoard. I think it's cute."
"Wha- I don't hoard people."
Shiori raises a brow in clear challenge of her defense.
"Does that mean you wouldn't mind us going to the club? Rissa was pretty interested in the one we passed by last week."
Elizabeth was no stranger to a night out in a club, even if she personally preferred lounging at an old fashioned jazz bar with a glass of melon soda.
But the thought of them on the dance floor, in close proximity with other people, strangers who would dare lay hands on her precious girls-
The growl that ripped itself out of her made her jump, a hand flying up to hover over her throat in disbelief.
She doesn't need to look to sense the amusement radiating off Shiori.
"You were saying?"
The red taking over her cheeks was enough of an answer.
The horns that grew in less than a month later were honestly a surprise.
Elizabeth watches as Shiori circles around her, scribbling down notes on the back of a napkin she'd grabbed off the kitchen table.
"Damn girl, didn't think you had that much fire lizard in you. How are you feeling now?"
She reaches up to one of the sloping horns that showed up over night, gingerly running a finger down the ridges and bumps.
It doesn't feel overly sensitive, unlike the sensations Nerissa describes with her own, where anything other than a gentle touch would overwhelm.
"Somewhat off balance with the weight, but nothing hurts. It kind of feels like when you touch my scales."
Shiori makes a noise of acknowledgement, still scratching notes onto the napkin until it was nearly out of space.
"I wouldn't expect it to, considering it's a manifestation of your magic, not a proper physical change."
Elizabeth turns to the side, searching for Nerissa who was unusually quiet.
She finds her observing her horns with absolute fascination, hand hovering over one but never closing the distance.
"Can I touch them? I'll be gentle, I promise."
Elizabeth nods, tilting her head down slightly so Nerissa could get to the horns curving from her forehead.
She barely feels Nerissa's fingers coming into contact with her horns, the touch feather-light with all the reverence of someone who knew the importance of a kind touch.
"So, Rissa?"
Nerissa makes a questioning warble at Shiori, attention still mostly focused on Elizabeth.
"Did you know that touching a dragon's horns signals intent to mate?"
Elizabeth swears she's never heard Nerissa squawk as loudly as she did, snatching her hand back with heat flushing across her cheeks.
"You couldn't have said that any earlier?!"
She peers up at Nerissa through the scarlet strands partially obstructing her sight, grin plastered across her features.
"I wouldn't mind that."
Nerissa chokes on the flustered sound that clawed its way out of her, but the fingers do eventually return to brush against her horns once more.
Her tail came in on a normal morning.
Elizabeth stirs awake with the morning rays spilling into the room, courtesy of the curtains none of them remembered to draw before crawling into bed.
She untangles herself from the wing stretched across both her and Shiori, absent mindedly tucking the blanket that got shoved to the side back around her girls.
She wonders why her body felt slightly heavier than usual.
Half asleep as she was, Elizabeth opts to ignore the peculiar feeling, swinging her feet over the edge of the bed and standing up to start her day.
She takes a single step.
And crashes face first onto the ground, betrayed by her sense of balance.
The sound of rustling sheets reaches Elizabeth's ears as she rubs at the side of her ribs, having turned on her side to absorb the brunt of the impact.
She must've jolted her girls awake with the noise from her fall.
"You alright there, love?"
A beat of silence passes before Shiori laughs, gesturing for her to turn around and look behind her.
Elizabeth pushes up into a sitting position, peers over her shoulder to find a new addition extending from the end of her tailbone.
A tail that was languidly swishing back and forth along the floorboards, crimson scales shifting and glittering in the light with every movement.
She turns to look up at two pairs of amused eyes tracking her tail, sighs at the delighted noise Nerissa makes when the tip of her tail reaches for them with a mind of its own.
"A little help here, please? I'd very much like not to stay on the ground for the rest of the day."
"Alright, alright, we're coming, you silly goof."
First things first.
She needs to stop the damned thing from wagging about like an over eager pup.
Elizabeth finds her girls on the couch during one of the rare times that they were both relaxed enough to just lounge around without anything to tend to.
She could tell that Shiori was receptive to touch today, with the way she tucked herself against Nerissa's front, stroking at the wing in her lap.
Perfect.
Elizabeth drops down on the couch beside them, crooning softly as she leans her head against Nerissa's shoulder, earning a pleased trill from the raven.
"Really? Right in front of my book?"
Nerissa's hands are scratching gently into her scalp, near the base of her horns, regardless of the mock protest from Shiori.
"I'm leaving you lovebirds alone."
Shiori wriggles herself free from Nerissa's grasp and gets to her feet, padding in the direction of the archives.
Only to have a scaled tail wrap around her waist and deposit her right back on the couch.
Elizabeth has absolutely no idea who would do such a thing.
Shiori turns to face her, eyes narrowed.
"Elizabeth."
She bumps her horns against Nerissa's palm that had stopped in its ministrations, pretending not to hear the vaguely threatening tone coming from Shiori.
Elizabeth waits until Shiori gets up again, five steps away from them before she strikes once more.
She tucks Shiori securely in between her and Nerissa for good measure, tail swishing behind her happily, instincts pleased with the current situation.
She meets the glare Shiori directs up at her with her best puppy eyes, a tactical move that had yet to fail her so far.
"It's the instincts, Shiori. I couldn't help it."
It takes all of ten seconds before Shiori deflates with a sigh, leaning into Elizabeth's side with a grumble.
"This is the consequence of my own actions, isn't it?"
There's a rumbling sound coming from Elizabeth, pleased and constant despite the tease Nerissa aims at them both.
"Oh, I know you like her like this. Don't pretend you're not enjoying this now."
Shiori shrugs, not moving away from Elizabeth despite the sound coming from right beside her.
"I like doing things that make her happy."
The rumbling only gets louder.
Shiori was right. She always was.
Elizabeth really does like hoarding people.