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Coco had to freeze as she carried the stew pot from the shelf to the counter. Brushbuddy and Ayla, their undersized owlcat, chased each other into the kitchen and did not care where Coco’s feet needed to step. The witch had to strain to keep her balance and not drop the pot as the two animals wrestled around her ankles.
“Hey! Not in the kitchen!” Coco scolded her two pets. She wasn’t sure they actually listened to her. Rather, their hyperactive energy simply carried them out of the kitchen into the next room. She tried to ignore the crashing sounds that followed their flight. It was with an exasperated sigh that she set the pot down at the counter.
When Agott first brought the owlcat home she was a thin and snarling thing. Just a rumple of thin fur and feathers with ever present claw and tooth. Coco had been concerned at first with how she would integrate with Brushbuddy. However, the two warmed up to each other surprisingly quickly after a few exchanges of scratches and pins. Now when they wrestled, she didn’t have to be anxious about them hurting each other. It was just play. This did not remove the stress of them destroying other things when they got truly rambunctious.
Coco would have loved to send a withering look at Agott, but her wife was out of the atelier. Instead, she would have to be satisfied with shaking her head at the empty air.
She held a great deal of appreciation, even pride, for her wife’s work. The phenomenal advancements in animal care across the peninsula could not be made without her specialized knowledge of the decorative sigils and the amazing seals she was able to craft with them. Coco couldn’t say that seeing an animal in distress didn’t tug at her heart. Even she had been known to bring in the occasional stray herself. However, with the exception of Brushbuddy, she always sought them to a proper home quickly. Agott, on the other hand, struggled to let them go after she had formed an attachment. This softer, open side of her was endearing, but it came with its own challenges. Although, if she was not a slight bit frustrating, Coco supposed she would not be Agott. Couldn’t let things be simple. That would have been boring.
Deciding it was not worth ruminating over, Coco turned back to dinner prep. Sword carrots, carapace yams, and chrysanthonions were already laid out on the cutting board. Agott had smoked some quadryphon the day before and used the bones to make a stock. There wasn't much Coco needed to add to it to make it a delicious stew. There was even some left over quadryphon meat. The only thing that required a lot of effort was the bread, and she had already made the dough and placed it in the oven. Coco let herself get lost in the simple routine of chopping vegetables, humming softly to herself. A serene peace settled throughout the kitchen. She couldn’t even hear Brushbuddy and Ayla making a ruckus. Maybe they finally tired themselves out. That would be nice.
A high pitched yelp pierced through the quiet just as Coco was pulling the bread from the oven. For a moment it didn’t register to her that it had come from outside. Her immediate thought was that Brushbuddy must have managed to knock a book over on itself again. It always startled the little guy, but it never got hurt. It was a surprisingly sturdy creature. Then her brain caught up with her ears and panic flooded her chest. She quickly set down the tray of bread, grabbed her palm quire from the counter, then rushed out the front door.
“—be like that. It’s fine. It’s not scary, I promise.” Agott’s voice carried across the yard. She was in the dirt just outside the side door to the storeroom that attached to her personal workshop. There was an adolescent scalewolf tangled in her arms and legs. Coco’s heart seized in her chest as its snout moved towards Agott’s neck. Her pen was in her hand and flipping through her palm quire before she knew it. Then Agott’s airy laugh was floating into the air, and she realized the scalewolf was just nuzzling into her shoulder. “See, it’s fine.”
“I beg to differ,” Coco said. She knew Agott’s words were directed at the scalewolf, but they felt too apt to not be directed at her as well.
Agott leaned her head back so that she could look at Coco. “Coco! I—woah! Hey now.” Agott was interrupted as the scalewolf squirmed in her hold, startled by a new person.
Coco sighed. She flipped to a blank page in her quire past the defensive spell she had readied. She had to draw this spell from scratch, but it took no time at all as her hand moved deftly across the page. Perhaps a testament to how many times she drew it, or at least very similar variations thereof. Once the casting ring was complete, she gently blew across the page to direct the spell. The scalewolve’s ears and tail perked up as a wind carrying a gentle scent swirled past it. Then the pup was scrambling out of Agott’s hold to follow the scent through the door. Once it was fully inside Coco walked over and closed the door.
“Thank you, my love,” Agott said, standing up and brushing the dirt from her clothes. “He wasn’t hurt. I think he just got startled by the threshold.”
“I wasn’t worried about the scalewolf. I was worried about you.” She took in the rumpled mess of her wife. Her clothes were disheveled, there was dirt on her cheek, and a number of scratches on her hands. Coco gently took those hands in her own to look them over more closely. No doubt they were from handling the scalewolf’s rough armor plating. “Did you not have your gloves with you?”
“Ah, they got a little tore up earlier. Nothing serious,” Agott explained. Her smile was placating and her eyes were bright. Sometimes Coco thought she should not be so weak, but Agott was truly, devastatingly, charmingly pretty when she smiled. It had been so rare when they were younger. She could never do anything that would steal it away.
Coco hummed and brought a hand up to Agott’s face. She brushed at the dirt on her cheek with a thumb. “We should get you a bath before dinner.”
Agott nodded her head. Then slipped her hands around Coco’s waist and pulled her in close enough to bump the tips of their noses. “Hey,” she breathed. “I’m home.”
Coco couldn’t help the smile on her face. Those words always melted her heart. “Welcome home, love.” She sealed the greeting with a sanguine kiss.
With that out of the way, Coco led her wife into the atelier and into the bathroom. Agott stripped her clothes while Coco set the spells that heated the water. Once the water was warming Coco began to undress.
“Are you getting in with me?” Agott asked.
“Of course.” Coco raised an eyebrow. “Unless you object?”
“No, I just—I,” Agott stumbled through her sentence. Even after all these years she still blushed so delightfully. She steeled herself with a firm, singular nod of the head. “Never.”
“Good. Now, turn around so I can wash your hair.”
It was a matter of pride for Coco to be able to wash her wife’s hair. Agott, despite her sloppier habits, took great care of her hair. Curls, as she explained, required specific attention. It took a great deal of instruction and trust building before she would let Coco wash it for her, but that only made it more special for her. Coco loved this simple, gentle, intimate way of caring for her wife. She loved the way Agott was unwound through tender touch. Learning how to care for Agott’s hair even helped with her own, keeping it strong and healthy as she grew it out.
After rinsing off they climbed into the now perfectly heated water. Coco leaned against the wall of the bath while Agott sat between her legs, leaning back against her chest. Coco ghosted her fingertips up and down Agott’s arms, careful of all the scrapes she had acquired on her latest excursion. There was a particular rough spot on her shoulder. It looked red and irritated, a little swollen. Hopefully, the water would help soothe it, but Coco was doubtful. She bent her head down to brush a kiss across the it. Agott drew in a small, sharp breath, barely audible.
“That’s going to bruise,” Coco said gently.
Agott gave an affirmative hum, taking a glance at it. “Scalewolves never understand just how hard their heads are.”
“And what brings our hard-headed guest to our atelier?”
“A birth deficiency. His scales didn’t grow in quite right,” Agott answered. She sunk a little further into the water, letting it come up over her shoulder and settling lower against Coco’s chest. “His pack was rejecting him, but he kept trying to reintegrate. He was just getting hurt.” Coco couldn’t help note the sympathy in her words. It was a little too reminiscent of Agott’s own family. She placed a kiss on Agott’s forehead, now perfectly accessible with the change of position.
“If you can’t get him to rejoin the pack, what are you going to do? There’s no way you can keep a scalewolf,” Coco said, a warning lacing her words.
Agott’s smile grew playful. “Oh, come now. You love waylaid strays.”
“If you were a waylaid stray, what does that make me?” Coco asked with a laugh. She squeezed playfully at Agott’s sides.
“You were just… temporarily displaced,” Agott answered after a short consideration.
Coco thought back to that time when she first came to Qifrey’s atelier. She thought back to all the people she met. People who were still in her life now, rooted deeply in her heart. It was hard to imagine never meeting them, a life without their love. She thought of the definitions of family and home. Coco rested her chin atop Agott’s head. Her arms came around to encircle her waist.
“No,” she disagreed softly. “I was always at home with family, no matter how fractured that became.” Agott gave a reassuring squeeze to her hand.
“You admit you weren’t a stray, then?” she asked lightly.
“I felt astray.”
Agott could not let this melancholic answer to stand. She sat up, water sloshing around them, and twisted so she could look Coco in the eye. She cupped Coco’s cheek, smoothing out the scarred skin that rested there. Even after all this time the sensation was a little dull. There were nerves that were never able to regrow. Perhaps she could have sought some treatment for it, but there was never any motion to do so. Agott never made her feel less than for it.
“You, my love, have never been without bearing. You’ve always had direction. Straight and true.” Agott’s words were spoken with absolute determination. There was no room for argument. Even less when Agott pressed a kiss to her lips.
When they pulled apart, they rested their foreheads against each other. Coco sighed. It was not exasperation, just exhalation. A release of everything built up inside her. Set free to dissolve in the warm water, in the gentle caress of her wife. There was only one thing left in her chest. It made her heart heavy, but she would never dare to put this load down. She held onto it more fiercely than any dragon.
“Only because you were always there to anchor me,” she whispered into the small space between them.
“A good thing I have no intention of leaving your side,” Agott intoned back. Her hand slipped from Coco’s cheek to her chin, thumb brushing against her lips. Coco could see all the scratches on her wife’s hand quite closely now. They looked better, less irritated.
Coco took Agott’s hand in her own. “Come. Let’s get you patched up and fed.”
There was never any space between them for the rest of the evening. Not when Coco gently rubbed a salve onto Agott’s injuries. Not when they sat at the dinner table with their bread bowls full of stew. Not when they settled into bed, Brushbuddy and Ayla taking their spots curled against their backs. There was always a brush of a shoulder, the glide of a finger, the tap of a foot. Even when there was no touch, there were words wrapped in warmth to bridge the distance. Even if the distance grew too much for sound or sight, there was love carried in the heart and never put down.
Several months later Coco was collecting vegetables from the garden behind the atelier. Despite their utter ineptitude at gardening, Brushbuddy and Ayla were out there with her. They found themselves in another spirited wrestling match, and once more Coco had to grip tightly to the basket and freeze her steps lest she trip. This time though, their play was accompanied by deep, loud barking. Otto, the scalewolf pup Coco had told Agott she could not keep and Agott had sworn she would release, came running down the row to chase after the brushbuddy and owlcat. Soon enough, all three of them of them were happily playing, doing nothing to help in the garden.
Coco tossed a look over her shoulder. Agott stood a few feet away with her own harvest basket. The smile on her face barely held back her laughter. At least she was actually helping with the gardening.
“You’re all quite lucky you’re cute, you know,” Coco threw out. At this laughter burst from Agott unrestrained. Coco’s heart thumped against her chest. The air was filled with squeaks, hoot-mews, barking, and laughter. Had she ever heard such a wonderful harmony before?