Pint sized Printer

“Remind me again why I have to do this?”

Yaz lets out a sigh. “Because the palace intimidates my father and when he gets nervous he starts spouting conspiracy theories. Mum doesn’t want to have to deal with that on her birthday.”

“Conspiracy theories. Like the ones saying that I’m a War Mage?”

Yaz shoots her a look. “How about we avoid that subject for the evening?”

“Fine.”

She watches as Yaz lifts a hand to knock, and pulls her cloak closer. It’s freezing, and really, she should be home, tinkering with her alchemy set. Or putting the fear of the stars into some noble.

If mages were able to get colds, she would have faked one this morning. In fact, she had tried to, but by now Yaz was too well informed.

Also, Juliannah doesn’t like making Yaz unhappy.

Footsteps are audible behind the door, and Juliannah grinds her teeth.

“One hour”, Yaz says. “I promise.”

“Maximum”, Juliannah grumbles. “And keep your sister away from me.”

She just about catches the grin Yaz is trying to hide before the door opens.

–

“What do you mean”, Juliannah grinds out through gritted teeth half an hour later, “we are snowed in?”

Yaz takes a deep breath. “Have you looked outside? There’s a massive storm going on.” She lowers her voice, despite the two of them standing alone in the corridor and the howling wind outside doing its best to cover their conversation. “Caladrius can’t fly in this weather, and we can’t walk in it.”

Juliannah feels her entire body tense. “Are you trying to tell me”, she says slowly, “that we are stuck here. For the entire night.”

Yaz bites her bottom lip. “And potentially part of tomorrow.”

Juliannah lets out a low groan, but then Yaz leans up and presses a kiss against the skin just below her ear. “I’ll promise I’ll make up for it”, she breathes, and Juliannah feels herself relax.

So far, it’s been alright, being here. So maybe staying the night won’t be the worst thing in the world.

Besides, Hakim’s pakora are surprisingly tasty. 

—

It takes Sonya exactly fifteen more minutes until she corners Juliannah in the kitchen.

Really, she knows it had been a mistake to go grab another cup of tea on her own.

“So”, Sonya says as she suddenly appears next to her, leaning against the counter. “How’s it going?”

Juliannah feels a nerve in her face twitch. “How is it going, Your Majesty. Lady Theta, if you must.”

Sonya lifts an eyebrow. “So mum and Yaz get to call you Juliannah and I get stuck with the honorifics?”

Juliannah turns towards Sonya. She resists the urge to project her answer into Sonya’s mind – she has promised Yaz not to – and goes for her most intimidating cold stare instead.

To her credit, Sonya doesn’t budge.

“Your mother birthed my wife, so yes, she gets to call me by my first name. As for your sister…” A devious thought flashes through her mind, and she suppresses a smile as she leans in before continuing, her voice low: “Well, she does call me by my title if she wants to be… good.”

The look of pure disgust on Sonya’s face makes her entire day. Week, actually. Maybe even month.

“Oh my – that’s –” Sonya gives herself a little shake. “Wow. Thanks for that visual, I guess.” She gives a mock curtsy. “Your Majesty.”

Juliannah pours herself some tea as Sonya scurries away. Maybe staying the night isn’t so bad after all.

—

“And that’s why, clearly, the great pear shortage of 14 AR was really a hoax.”

Juliannah sits on the sofa in the living room, staring intently at Yaz’s back. On the positive side, Hakim hadn’t brought up any conspiracies that involved Juliannah. On the negative side, she had spent the last half hour listening to pretty much every other conspiracy theory to ever have been dreamed up by someone.

Hakim leans over. “I mean, I am sure there’s more information hidden away in one of the royal archives. If only I could –”

“Darling!” Juliannah jumps up.

Yaz turns around, a half-eaten piece of cake on her plate, and Juliannah puts an arm around her waist. The contact instantly calms her, and Yaz momentarily opens up their connection, letting a little bit of the warmth of her feelings rush through her.

She lets out a slow breath as they both turn, and a small smile appears on Juliannah’s lips as her eyes fall upon Umbreen.

Yes. Her favourite Khan, aside from Yaz. She was able to handle this one.

—

“So I was thinking.”

Juliannah almost drops the cake knife. With the little restraint she has left, she plunges it into the wooden board, and it shakes a little as she lets go.

Sonya takes another step towards her – not like she wasn’t already way too close – and whispers: “I think I deserve a title. For keeping your dirty little secret.”

Juliannah spins around quicker than a flash of lightning. “What do you know?” she hisses, and she feels a crackle run up her spine.

If Sonya has found out what Juliannah really is, they’re in trouble. Because Sonya, Juliannah knows, will most definitely not be able to keep Juliannah’s secret.

“Well”, Sonya says, a mischievous grin on her face. “You weren’t exactly subtle before. I wonder how Yaz would feel, if mum and dad found out about what you two get up to in the bedroom. She’d be mortified, I’m sure. Plus, if I tell dad that you like, tie her up and shit, he’ll just take it as confirmation for all those bullshit conspiracy theories about you. And then all hell will break loose.”

For a moment, Juliannah feels relief. Sonya doesn’t know about her magic, which would have been catastrophic. But then she realises, suddenly, that by hinting at the nature of their sex life before, she had revealed something to Sonya that would make Yaz very, very upset if she knew.

Juliannah doesn’t like making Yaz upset. 

She would be in a world of trouble for this. Which means she will have to find an elaborate way to show Yaz she’s sorry and then Yaz would want to talk about their feelings.

Juliannah grinds her teeth. “Baroness. No lands.”

Sonya grins. “I was thinking more like Marquise. And some lands close to the Capital.” 

Juliannah lets out a staggering breath. “Everything close belongs to the royal province. Viscountess, no lands. Last offer.”

“Viscountess”, Sonya says softly, taking another step towards Juliannah, “and an estate in the south.”

“What are you two girls getting up to?”

They both instantly stiffen, and turn towards Najia with smiles on their faces.

There’s something about the woman that always makes Juliannah stand up just a little bit straighter.

“Najia!” Juliannah says, a little too loudly. “We were just discussing your cake.”

“Yes”, Sonya says, nodding. “Delicious cake talk” – to Juliannah’s horror, she proceeds to throw an arm around her shoulder, squeezing her close – “and some sister-in-law bonding time.”

Najia, looking entirely unconvinced, turns to continue her conversation with Umbreen.

“I will hack off your hand with a blunt spoon.”

Sonya jolts. “Did you just say something?”

Juliannah quickly extricates herself from Sonya’s hold. “If you’d excuse me.”

Where the hell was Yaz?

—

She falls into the slim bed with an exhausted huff. “Your family”, she croaks out, “is –”

Yaz steps into her field of vision, one eyebrow lifted.

Juliannah swallows. “Lovely?”

Yaz laughs, and Juliannah’s heart maybe swells a little bit at the sound.

“They’re a handful, I know.”

She turns away, and pulls off her shirt. Juliannah feels a familiar heat rush through her at the sight of Yaz’s muscular back, and rolls onto her side for a better view.

Unfortunately, Yaz pulls on a sleeping shirt a moment later.

As she approaches the bed again, Juliannah turns back onto her back, stretching out over the entire space of the bed.

“And where am I supposed to go?” Yaz asks, her tone amused.

Juliannah’s lips twitch into a smile, and she reaches for Yaz’s wrist.

With a swift tuck, she has pulled Yaz on top of her on the bed, and her free hand snakes underneath Yaz’s shirt.

“How about here?” she says quietly.

She sees the desire pool in Yaz’s eyes, but then Yaz is worrying at her lower lip. “My parents sleep right next door.”

That gives Juliannah an idea. She reaches for Yaz’s waist, and flips them both over with quick and practised movements. As soon as she is on top of Yaz, she grabs her wrists and pins them above her head, pressing them hard against the pillow. Trailing her mouth over Yaz’s neck, she feels the woman shudder underneath her, and grins.

“Well then”, she whispers into Yaz’s ear, “you’ll just have to be a good girl then, and be very, very quiet.”

She knows she’s said the right thing when Yaz’s hips press up against her.

—

Juliannah wipes at her mouth as she walks down the stairs into the kitchen as quietly as possible. She’s holding a water jug, and wearing Yaz’s sleeping shirt, which just about covers her.

Somewhere between orgasm two and three, Yaz had drained the water jug in their room, and now Juliannah had to get more to quench her own thirst. Really, it would have been better if Yaz went, but she had looked so beautiful in her exhausted state of bliss that Juliannah had offered to go herself.

At least everyone else in the house was apparently fast asleep.

She quickly found one of the large water jugs in the kitchen, and used it to fill their smaller one.

Juliannah just about managed not to spill everything across the kitchen floor when she turned back around and came face to face with Sonya. She’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen, with what can only be described as a shit-eating grin on her face.

“Countess”, she says. “And I won’t tell them what you did to my sister in her childhood bedroom.”

Juliannah grabs the jug so hard it splinters.

“You”, she says slowly, “are so very lucky your sister doesn’t like it when I murder people.”

Sonya’s grin only grows wider. She spins around, but then stops, and calls out over her shoulder: “The oh-so-scary Lord Mistress of Karn, tamed by love. Who’d have thought it?”

Before Juliannah can do anything, Sonya has disappeared into the dark.

Her blood rushing in her veins, she walks back upstairs. As soon as she slips back into their room, she feels herself relax at the sight of Yaz, naked, her back turned to the door.

Without a word, she slips underneath the covers behind her, and wraps an arm around her.

“Tamed by love”, she huffs, quietly. “Ludicrous.”

“Hm?”

Juliannah nuzzles into the crook of Yaz’s neck.

“Nothing.”

She closes her eyes and breathes in the smell of Yaz’s skin.

Underneath the thin barrier that separates them, she can feel the warm glow of Yaz’s contentment, and thinks that maybe having to stay here wasn’t so bad after all.

She had survived the day without breaking one or more bones, which really, given the current state of the streets, was a massive success. 

“Not so much the streets and more the fact that you are a distracted gangly mess of limbs, love.”

Jo smiled as she turned her key. One of her favourite things about the last seven years was that even when Yaz wasn’t around, she felt like she was carrying a part of her wife with her, wherever she went. She could hear Yaz’s laugh in her ear, see her smile, and even know exactly what she would be telling her in a certain situation – like now.

Shaking the snow from her coat, she stepped over the threshold. On the dresser next to the door, she placed her score – her bag was overflowing with other sheet music – and the mail. After she had rid herself of her coat, scarf, hat and bag, and taken off her shoes, she picked up the mail, and began flipping through it as she walked into the kitchen.

Absent-mindedly, she filled and put up the kettle, and tossed the sales promotion for the nearby shopping centre onto the counter. Finally, she flipped the letters around – two bills, something from the NHS, and, finally –

A grin broke out over her entire face. The other letters went the way of the promotional flyer, and she ripped open the one with familiar handwriting on it.

Dear Jo,

Berlin is not the same without your pretty face.

The cold from outside was gone, and warmth spread all the way from her chest to her fingertips. Jo sank down onto one of the kitchen chairs, and read. At first, she devoured the words eagerly – the tour is going well, the conductor is an asshole, I miss you. Then, she took her time, forcing herself to savour every pen stroke, every dot on an i and crossed t, even the tiniest hint of a tea stain at the corner of the page.

The principal cellist is an old friend from uni, he would love to meet you.

I miss Sophia so much.

Why does Tchaikovsky hate my fingers or why do my fingers hate Tchaikovsky?

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Soon I will be back.

When Jo was done reading, she carefully slotted the letter back into its envelope, and took out her phone.

After two rings, Yaz picked up.

“Hello, love.”

“I got your letter.”

She could hear Yaz smile on the other end of the line. “Good. How’s Sophia?”

“Sophia is well, she’s with your mum. I’ll go over there for lunch in a bit.”

“Will you give her a hug from me? And tell her I’ll facetime tonight, before the concert.”

“Of course.”

“And how are you? I heard half of Yorkshire has frozen over.” There was a brief pause before Yaz added: “Please tell me all of your bones are still intact and you haven’t been running around on the ice with your nose in a score again.”

Jo bit her lip. “I only fell once.”

A laugh, warm and clear, rang through the phone, and Jo smiled.

She got up, and walked over into the living room, towards the book shelf. There, she drew out a little stack of letters, all tied together by a piece string. Pressing her shoulder up to hold her phone between it and her cheek, she undid the string, put the new letter on top of the pile, and tied it again.

“Are you adding it to your collection?” Yaz asked.

“Yes.”

She slotted the letters back into the bookshelf, next to a second little letter stack – the ones she had written to Yaz.

“I have to go”, Yaz said, “we’re about to do the acoustic rehearsal.”

“Have fun”, Jo said. “And tell the conductor I will kick his ass if he’s mean to my wife.”

Yaz laughed. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate the warning. I love you.” "I love you, too."

A click, and Yaz was gone again. Jo kept the phone pressed to her ear just a moment longer as she looked at the letters and let familiar feelings wash over herself: a mixture of love and longing.

Did you know, she had written in one of her first letters to Yaz, that the German word for longing literally translates to yearning-sickness.

As she teared her eyes away from the letters, they drifted over their living room instead. She smiled as she saw Sophia’s toys littering the floor underneath the piano, her favourite place to play.

Soon, Yaz’s violin case would sit on the bench next to the piano again, and the book Yaz was currently reading would be lying on a blanket in the wing chair.

Soon, Yaz’s laugh would fill the rooms again, and her smell, and her soft looks, and her gentle touch.

The kettle began to whistle in the kitchen, and Jo turned around.

Soon.