#!fea

---

"Do you suppose it's too late in their development to teach them to call me something more sophisticated than 'Ma'?" Maribelle asks. "You know, tell them it was all a little farce, but that it's time now for them to speak like princes should?" Lissa, jogging Owain's chubby little legs around in circles as he lies on his back, vocalizing pure delight, responds,

"Oh, don't be such a fuddy-dud, Maribelle! They're both babies, 'Ma' is just easier for them to say." Maribelle at her desk heaves a world-weary sigh.

"On the contrary, Brady has firmly established himself in the realm of the 'terrible twos', as I'm told they're called," she insists.

Lissa decides not to point out that Brady, sitting tamely on Maribelle's lap as he tries in vain to undo the absurd miniature cravat he's wearing, isn't so terrible. At least, when he's not crying. Then again, he's so often crying, that maybe the point is moot. If it were up to her, poor little Brady wouldn't be parading around in so much poof that he practically waddles, but then again (somewhat ironically), Maribelle is far better-versed in what a royal upbringing should look like than she is. She play-nibbles at Owain's stubby toes, eliciting another gale of laughter. He thumps his arms up and down enthusiastically, babbling a mile a minute in his own obscure baby language. She wonders if Brady can understand his brother, or if he's forgotten baby-speak in favor of his newfound love of proclaiming, "No!" at everything.

Maribelle looks down from her papers and makes a scandalized noise.

"Lissa! Take his feet out from your mouth--who knows where they've been?"

"He's a baby," Lissa replies with a good-natured roll of her eyes, "He can barely even walk! Where are his feet even supposed to go?"

"No!" Brady chimes in, and Lissa takes that as him siding with her on the matter. Abandoning any pretense of work, Maribelle sets her work aside to dandle Brady on her knee.

"Do you suppose he's simply saying that to be contrary?" she asks. The question is probably meant to be rhetorical, but Lissa can't resist.

"Contrary? Your child? You know, there's a saying about apples and trees..."

"Yes, and our sons shall be good apples," Maribelle proclaims, punctuating her statements with doting kisses on Brady's round, flushed cheek. He bears his mother's outburst of highly ignoble affection with surprising patience, without a single tear. Lissa is beginning to suspect that Brady cries out of happiness just as much as he does out of fear, anger, or most any other emotion he has. Not to be ignored, Owain begins to crescendo his babbling, as if he has a host of opinions on the matter. Lissa tickles his tummy, and he's back to laughter.

"Good, respectable apples, who do not call their mama 'Ma' like hooligans," Maribelle insists.

---

Exhaustion creeping in, Lissa moves surreptitiously to pick up her staves.  A few local healers have been in and out of the birthing room, helping her with the aftermath, but she judges that now would be a safe time to leave the baby she's just delivered to his family.

"Will you bless the child, Princess Lissa?" the mother asks from the bed.  Lissa looks up with a start, jostling a loose strand of hair completely free from its pigtail.  It tumbles down gracelessly to cling to her sweaty cheek, though Lissa takes distant comfort in the fact that she's hardly the only one who looks like she's been through the wringer.

"Me?" Lissa echos, voice lilting in surprise.  No, the other Princess Lissa in the room, she retorts to herself, inwardly.  The other Princess Lissa who can be graceful both before and after half a day's work delivering a child.  

"If it wouldn't trouble you too greatly," supplicates the baby's other mother, taking the child from her tired wife's arms.

"No, of course not," Lissa rushes to respond, not wanting either woman to think she's too snooty to put in a few nice words with Naga for their son.  She lays her staves aside to accept the tightly-swaddled baby, wondering briefly how he feels about being passed around from stranger to stranger like a hot potato.  His wrinkled little face peers up at Lissa from amidst his blankets, and she can feel his tiny limbs wriggling in fidgety bewilderment at the newness of his own existence.  

She tries to remember how a blessing for a newborn is even supposed to go--if she ever knew this nicety of a cleric's many duties, she's long since forgotten it in favor of all the harder minutiae of being a battlefield healer.  Emm used to love to bless children, Lissa thinks.  She'd go to them one by one, newborn to awkward teenager, whenever she got the chance.  Lissa can picture Emmeryn's hand on each child's forehead, her benevolent smile (though the details of her face are harder and harder to call up, these days), but she can't for the life of her recall what sacred words her sister would use.  As per usual, when it comes to being a princess, Lissa decides that she's simply going to have to wing it.

"Um."  Off to a fantastic start.  Lissa takes a deep, calming breath, closes her eyes, and tries again.  "May you have a long, happy life, a home to always return to, and people in that home who will always love you."  She lets the words hang there for a moment, hoping that they sounded serene and sincere, rather than childish or holier-than-thou.  Halfway through opening her eyes, Lissa suddenly squeezes them shut again, following up with a hasty, "In Naga's name."

"In Naga's name," both mothers intone, gratitude writ in the tired harmony of their voices.

---

"Are we done here?" Chrom blurts out, nearly the second Lissa rounds the corner into his line of sight.  Lissa snorts with utterly indelicate incredulity, plopping herself down into the chair beside her brother with an equal lack of poise.

"Chrom, really?  That's the first thing you have to say after I've been off delivering a baby all day?  'Well,'" slipping here into an exaggeratedly deep imitation of Chrom's voice, "'We've popped that baby right out, so let's move on, Shepherds!'  Jeez."  Chrom bears her poor (though suitably cavalier) imitation of him with a long-suffering roll of his eyes, likewise devoid of princely patience.

"All right, all right.  At least you were actually doing something, as opposed to sitting around uselessly and making the entire manor's staff uncomfortable just by existing.  I hadn't meant to impose on these people for so long, is all."  

"These people" being a minor noblewoman and her household, situated right along the coast of the small, landlocked sea between Ylisse, Plegia, and Regna Ferox.  Chrom's advisers had described the noblewoman vaguely as "an eccentric mage"--a phrase that Lissa supposes is a politely condescending way of alluding to the fact that the woman has a wife.  She sees nothing "eccentric" about the hospitality the small detachment of Shepherds has been shown, their travel by sea delayed by stormy skies and stormier waters.  Indeed, Lissa is starting to feel proud of herself, for having a hand in delivering the baby and paying their hostess back, in some small way.

"They asked me to bless the baby, you know," Lissa says, half to make it feel a bit more real, half to bask in her own usefulness compared to Chrom.

"They asked you?" Chrom repeats, with a little laugh of disbelief.  Lissa shoots him a glare, and his smile turns softer, more appropriately proud and brotherly.  "What did you say?  Gods know I'm glad they didn't ask me."

"I told him that if he ever has a little sister, he has to take her seriously and never be a jerk to her, or else he'll wake up with frogs in his bed every morning."

"That sounds more like a curse than a blessing!"

"Hey, so I'm a curse?" accuses Lissa.  She's mostly just returning fire at his teasing, now self-assured with the knowledge that Chrom probably couldn't have come up with anything better himself.  Thinking of her sister-in-law, pregnant in Ylisstol, Lissa can only imagine what a dunderhead Chrom will be with his own baby.

"You do have your moments," Chrom admits.  He goes silent, then, as if mulling something over.  "Although," and Lissa is instantly wary, hearing the very timbre of his voice shift from a teasing older brother to a prince about to make a speech, "You did a great thing today, Lissa.  Make no mistake."  Lissa averts her gaze a little.

"I've delivered babies before, Chrom.  I didn't skip out on all my cleric's training, you know."  She makes a show of nonchalance, not entirely sure how to face a rare compliment from her brother head-on, nevermind one delivered with an iota of eloquence.

"I mean it--it's a great gift you have, to be able to save lives while so many of us are preoccupied only with taking them.  Every once in a while, even I wish..." he trails off, contemplating the hilt of Falchion that he seems to have taken ahold of subconsciously.  Emmeryn had refused to touch their father's sword, but Chrom had taken to it so naturally that no one even bothered to test if Lissa could wield the one blade that might prove her of Exalted blood, Brand or no Brand.  Despite that, she can't imagine Chrom as anyone or anything but Falchion's rightful wielder, for all his private agonizing over whether or not he's making his own legacy or merely continuing their father's.  

"You wouldn't last a day as a priest," Lissa reassures him.  "If I had Falchion, you'd just bop people around with staves until they broke."

"And you think you could lift Falchion?" Chrom teases in return.  He keeps his doubts so close, unlike everything else he feels, but Lissa knows when not to push him.  

"Hey, mister, you were actually cool for a moment, there--don't be too quick to totally ruin it."  Chrom reaches over and ruffles Lissa's hair a little too hard, twisting even more of it free from her especially haphazard pigtails.  With an agitated groan, Lissa tugs off both her hair ties, letting the whole tangled mess tumble over her shoulders.  Chrom chuckles with the kind of obnoxious triumph only an older brother could exude.

"I must admit, I took that line from Frederick--he said it about Emm, once.  But I do believe it's true for you, too."

Lissa cuts herself short before she can even speak with a jaw-cracking yawn, the exhaustion she'd temporarily forgotten now settling back in.  About a second before the yawn ends, she remembers to cover her mouth.  Chrom snorts, a shared habit of theirs that he swears up and down he's grown out of.  Lissa flops over to the side, resting her head on Chrom's shoulder--the clothed one, of course.  If he's going to tease her, he can be her pillow for a bit, too.

"Thanks," she mumbles belatedly.  "Wake me up in an hour or so?"

---

"There we are," Lucina murmurs, hot and throaty as Severa drops to her knees.  Severa almost hates that she thrills with it every time, the way Lucina can make her yield without fail.  Then again, almost (almost) hating it is part of the charm, putting up a fight that is not entirely play to goad Lucina into ruling her with a firmer hand.  Severa drags her gaze up to meet Lucina's, knowing how irascible she must look.

"I'm not a dog," she complains, knowing that her tone borders on outright whining.  Her witticisms sound so much sharper in her mind before they roll off her dull tongue.  "What, do I get a treat for being a good girl?  Or should I just roll over and play dead instead?"

"It depends on if you think this to be rewarding," responds Lucina, her hand drifting over to cradle the back of Severa's head.  This is her velvet glove, when she knows (they both know) Severa wants the iron fist beneath.  "I almost feel as though punishing you is a reward in and of itself, sometimes."  Severa exhales hard, too hard, her petulant poker face crumbling as a low whine of pure want slips from between her parted lips.  Lucina's gentle touch turns sharp all at once, her fingers lacing through Severa's hair at the roots and pulling like hot metal against the skin of her scalp.  "Service me," Lucina orders quietly.

Severa tries not to comply immediately, tries to make it seem like she's considering the ramifications of disobeying rather than already fantasizing about Lucina fucking her face until she can barely breathe.  She tugs at the waistband of Lucina's leggings a bit, mouthing along the line of skin now bared to the too-warm air between their bodies.  Lucina presses her closer, yet she hides her eagerness far better than Severa ever could--the only indicator that perhaps she wants this as badly as Severa does is the dark glassiness of her eyes that makes her Brand burn like a fever pitch in contrast.  Severa is always the first to break, though, perhaps because she wants to be broken, snapped over Lucina's knee like something helpless and wanting.  Fervent in her haste, Severa yanks Lucina's leggings all the way down--

--and feels a tiny piece of her soul die as she comes face to face with the most atrocious smallclothes she's ever seen in her life.

"What," Severa begins, voice trembling with a mix of disbelief and arousal that is now going out the door, unlikely to return, "What in the gods' names is that."  It isn't even a question.

"My new undergarments?"  Lucina's regal air dissipates almost visibly, her expression now open with earnest confusion at Severa's disapproval.  "I'd purchased them just the other day from an Anna, and I'd thought you might like to see them..."

Severa groans in utter dismay--of course, an Anna would enable Lucina's gods-awful fashion sense, so horrendous that it loops back around from comical to just plain bad.  She wants to put an axe through the next gaudy merchant's tent she sees, even if her fashionable vengeance can't be exacted upon the specific Anna who swindled Lucina into paying real money for this abomination.  

The underwear is cut normally enough, and it could actually be flattering, what with the way it hugs Lucina's slender hips and leaves little to the imagination.  Where the problem begins is the material--a faded shade of light blue that looks like it's been washed with too much bleach a few too many times, paired with thick, rough fabric that cannot at all be comfortable when worn right up against particularly sensitive skin.  There's even a little brass button at the top where a ribbon might normally be, winking cheekily in the low light.  Severa wants to scream.

"The only place I'd like to see this hideous affront to good taste is off you and in a garbage fire!  Good gawds, Lucina, I don't even want to know how much money you blew on this thing."

"I bought several pairs, actually," Lucina admits, somewhat abashedly.  "The merchant gave me a bulk discount, and I was told the color flattered my complexion.  Tell me, is this really so much worse than the nightshirt with Exalt Emmeryn's visage stitched into it?  I seem to recall you disapproving of that one as well."

"Um, maybe because that's, like, your aunt?  I don't need Chrom's holy sister watching me have sex with her niece!"  Severa exclaims, unable to believe that Lucina sees no problem in wearing clothing like that to bed--or to anywhere, for that matter.  It probably also counts as some form of sacrilege, both to Naga and to common sense.  "So, yeah, this is at least as awful as the Emmeryn nightie.  Possibly even more awful."

Lucina almost seems a little crestfallen, rather than offended by Severa's scathing criticism of her sorely lacking fashion sense.  Severa, still on her knees, would appreciate it if the ground opened up and swallowed her whole right about now.

"If I were to remove the offending item of clothing, could we perhaps proceed?" asks Lucina tentatively.

"Yeah, maybe if you let me burn it first so that I can get back into the mood.  Gawds, every time I think I've finally stopped you from unleashing the ultimate in bad fashion on me, you pull another turkey out of the hat."

"I don't believe I've ever worn a hat so big as to contain a turkey."  Severa scrutinizes Lucina's face for any sign at all that she's joking, and catches an upwards quirk at the corner of her lips.

"Now you're just messing with me," she accuses, eyes narrowing.

"I'd thought my choice of underwear was quite fetching.  I might even suggest you wear a matching pair next time."  Lucina brushes a curled finger beneath Severa's chin, smiling with a radiance that is patently unfair given the absurd situation.  "I might even make it an order."

"You are absolutely not turning your horrid, ugly underwear into a pickup line," Severa grouses tersely.  Of course, the mere mention of Lucina ordering her to do anything sets a spark of arousal pooling low in her stomach.  Taking another look at Lucina's undergarments douses that spark with the force of a small hurricane.  "Now take that ridiculous thing off so that I can go to bed without getting nightmares."

"Very well," Lucina cedes with a good-natured sigh.  The mood is quite obviously a bust at this point, though Lucina does take the abominable smallclothes off in exchange for some nice, normal ones.  "Would you rather I wear nothing at all down there?" she asks as she slides into bed next to Severa.  The heated tension between them now gone, the room is faintly chilly--that is absolutely the only reason Severa immediately turns to snuggle into Lucina's chest.

"No, but you're on shopping probation for like, at least the next five years, missy.  You buy so much as a sock, you run it by me first, you hear?"

"I am in your care, as always."  How Lucina can humor her so sagely is always somewhat beyond Severa.

---

Sumia changes with her back turned, and so Lissa does the same.  Out of courtesy, she supposes, wondering when exactly she started to care about propriety.  Not that she'd run around the palace in her underwear, but she feels a nervous energy that has not always been in her, thinking about Sumia's soft eyes on her half-dressed body.

Then again, it might be better that Sumia doesn't see her struggling to cram her legs into the standard-issue thigh-high boots without wrinkling the cream leggings beneath them.  They're more like chaps, really, stiff with newness.  Lissa almost misses her crinoline.

"How's it coming along?" Sumia chirps from somewhere behind her.

"It's not really coming along, period," Lissa admits, disgruntled.  She'd jumped at the offer when Robin asked if any of the other female Shepherds would be interested in learning the pegasus knights' more advanced maneuvers, but if she's having this much trouble getting dressed, she can only imagine what getting onto a pegasus will be like.

"I didn't pick the wrong size out for you, did I?  I hope not--you're the perfect size to be a pegasus knight."  Lissa sneaks a glance over her shoulder to see Sumia worrying at her lower lip with her teeth.  She's never considered that there's a "proper" height for pegasus knights to begin with, but the obvious, unspoken message is that Sumia is not that height in the least.  Eyeballing it, Lissa imagines that the top of her head would probably fit right under Sumia's chin.  Not that it would have any real reason to be there, but it would be a neat fit.

"The size," Lissa grouses, her words halting as she continues to cram herself into the chaps, "Is fine, it's just that this stupid leather is stiffer than Frederick's posture!"  Sumia giggles mirthfully at the comparison as Lissa finally manages to wrangle the uniform into as good a state as it's going to get, smoothing down the tunic with an irked grumble.

"Well, I don't mean to rain even more on your parade, but the armor comes next."  Sumia gingerly lifts a breastplate off a nearby bench and offers it to Lissa.  Lissa turns to accept it, and even though she's braced herself for the weight, it's heavier than she'd anticipated.  

She's never worn armor of any kind before, she realizes.  Even though she's put on all sorts of vests and dresses and corsets, Lissa fumbles with the ties on the back of the breastplate.  She can't for the life of her figure out why she's suddenly forgotten how to get dressed like a competent person, whether it comes from a noble nervousness in the face of combat or her decidedly less poetic excitement at being alone with Sumia in a changing room.

"Would you like help?" Sumia asks shyly, circling around to stand behind Lissa.  

Lissa sighs, "Apparently.  Sheesh, you'd think I could dress myself after having to put on my own silly cleric's getup every single day."  Obligingly, Sumia takes the laces from Lissa's hands and begins to tie them in a surprisingly businesslike fashion.  Their knuckles brush, and Lissa nearly jumps a foot, arms shooting down to her sides like a knight on the parade ground.  She can feel a flush covering her cheeks, washing down to her throat, utterly irrational.  While she'd managed years ago to convince Frederick and Emm that she no longer needed maids to dress her, Lissa is reasonably certain it wasn't because she might have wanted the maids to undress her instead.

"I'd wanted to be a cleric myself, once," admits Sumia softly.  "I thought I might make a living caring for other people's mounts, instead of riding my own."

"What changed your mind?  I think you'd have been great at it."

"Oh, well, you know me.  People would've spent all their time fixing me up from scrapes, instead of the other way around."  With a final, decisive knot, Sumia finishes cinching up the breastplate.  "It's not too tight or anything, is it?"

Lissa flexes her shoulders, unaccustomed to both the restriction and the protection.  The metal weighs oddly heavy over her now-armored heart.

"Seems okay to me!  Maybe I can do yours up or something, just for practice?"  Just for practice, Lissa insists firmly to herself.

Sumia laughs, then, a little noise that comes from someplace warm and clear in her throat.  "Getting ready with someone else like this reminds me a lot of my trainee days, actually!  Well, minus the part where I used to tie my own hair in with my breastplate's laces so tightly that I had to cut it out."  Imagining Sumia cheerily sliding her thin-strapped tunic from her shoulders, Lissa develops a sudden and intense interest in pegasus knight training.

"Uh...  You might want to pull that hair up, first," Lissa suggests with slight apprehension.  Sumia nods in abashed agreement, then begins to sweep her hair up into a surprisingly elaborate bun at the nape of her neck.  

Lissa is amazed by how pretty it looks, Sumia's smoky curls twining around her fingers without so much as a hint of her normal gracelessness.  It makes her self-conscious of her own hair, which sticks every which way in uneven layers instead of falling in soft waves.  She never does anything nice with it, and her pigtails aren't even the same size half the time.  Watching Sumia work, Lissa notes the way in which she holds her body in on itself, like she's afraid of taking up too much space.  How can Sumia think herself so gawky when she's so tall and slender and soft, with those tumbles of hair and warm brown eyes?  Lissa wonders if this is how Maribelle sees her, as above all her self-proclaimed faults.  The thought is one she quickly forces away--it borders too closely on outright saying she has a crush on Sumia, and for such a shallow reason as thinking Sumia is beautiful and endearing and an amazing pegasus knight to boot.

Sumia at last finishes pulling her hair up, but a single strand has already escaped its pins to trail down her back.  It's the thin, flyaway kind of hair that clings so stubbornly to the gentle curve of Sumia's long neck.  

"Sumia?"  Lissa blurts before she can stop herself.  "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, here, but you missed a spot."  Sumia groans in dismay, and starts to undo the whole thing, apologizing profusely as she does so.

"I'm so sorry for making this take absolutely forever and wasting a princess' valuable time and--"

"It's not a waste of my time!" cutting Sumia off with more impatience than she means.  It's not Sumia's clumsiness that irks Lissa, but rather her implicit insistence that she is nothing more than a bother.  "I'm having a good time with you, okay?  We can just stuff that one little hair back into your bun-thingy and be done with it, right?"

"Uh.  I didn't even think of that," admits Sumia bashfully.  Lissa actually has to stand on her toes just a bit to get a clear view of Sumia's hairstyle and how to fix it.  It takes Sumia a moment to realize this, and in response, she squats a little bit, placing the back of her head level with Lissa's face.  The pose is absolutely ridiculous.  Sumia giggles nervously at the sheer awkwardness of it all, and that has Lissa chuckling back until a snort slips out amidst her laughter.  Then they're both laughing, which provides a neat excuse for the flush across Lissa's cheeks and the matching color rising in Sumia's.

The offending strand of hair is crammed back into Sumia's bun, and Lissa finally proceeds to lace up Sumia's breastplate.  It's much easier when you can actually see what you're doing, Lissa considers, feeling extra-stupid for needing Sumia to do something so simple for her.  For wanting Sumia to do something so simple for her, maybe.

With both of them armored, Sumia draws away from Lissa to take a blunted practice lance from a nearby rack of them.  

---

By the time Lissa enters the parlor, Maribelle has already drawn all the curtains shut.  

"I am sorry to make it so gloomy, dearest," she explains, straightening a drape that doesn't seem to live up to her standards of presentation.  "I fear it's terribly dreary to be drinking tea by candlelight in the middle of the afternoon."

"Yeah, well, our other option isn't a whole lot cheerier," Lissa points out.  She can hear her voice coming across strained, full of a forced cheer she knows Maribelle can detect in an instant.  The candlelight isn't so bad, really, given that it comes from a low-set chandelier with little prism drops to catch the light and make it sparkle.  If anything, the mustiness probably comes more from House Themis' sense of decor, which appears to be genetic if the parlor is anything to go by.  Lissa wonders how many generations of Maribelle-esque women had a hand in adding mountains of stiff, lacy furniture to the ensemble.  In the center of the room sits a circular tea table, set for two with high-backed wooden chairs.  "What about Brady and Owain?" she asks.

"Ideally, Brady is practicing his violin while Owain reads improving literature, not another volume of that rubbish about Hector the Mighty Muscle Master."  Lissa happens to know for a fact that Owain's latest favorite series of pulp novels is in fact entitled "Hector the Gallant General", but she holds her tongue for the pure humor value of hearing Maribelle speak the words "Muscle Master" aloud with dainty disdain.  "I was thinking we two might have tea by ourselves, seeing as how the boys are strictly forbidden to enter this room anyhow.  At least," Maribelle adds, lips twisting wryly, "Not until they have matured substantially."

"I don't get why they can't go in this one silly room, of all things," Lissa protests.  "Well, I get why you wouldn't want them in here," gesturing to the frumpy decor, "But I don't mind letting them come hang out with us for a little bit."

"It's tradition," Maribelle insists, taking her seat.  "Even I wasn't allowed to enter in my mother's day, no matter how much I might have wanted to do so."  Lissa follows suit, trying to scootch her chair in gracefully without leaving trails on the rug or making a weird noise on the floor.  As Maribelle begins to prepare the tea, they both pointedly ignore the thunder that rolls outside with no rain to accompany it.

Lissa privately hates that pointed ignorance.  It smacks of Ylisstol's court in its pettiest heyday, where one was expected to ignore all snubs and sail past anything unpleasant with an upturned nose.  Though they're young, it isn't like the boys can't grasp what's happening, when their mothers are healing dying soldiers in the estate's foyer and they have to travel with armed guards between Ylisstol and Themis.  Hiding things from them for their own good reminds Lissa far too much of the way not even Emm would ever answer her questions about their father and his war, their mother and her death.  That isn't to say she likes looking out the covered, peerless glass windows at an increasingly ruined world, but she's not here to pick a fight about child-rearing, of all things.

Maribelle's gloved hand is suddenly on Lissa's, and Lissa starts a little with surprise.  She hadn't even noticed her tea being poured.

"Darling," is all Maribelle says, very softly.  She raises Lissa's hand to her lips to kiss, a word and a gesture of devotion and comfort all in one.  The candlelight off the prisms on the chandelier turns the gold of the wedding ring on Lissa's finger buttery and warm.  It puts her more at ease, unwinding the knot of worry she wishes she weren't so quick to start tying these days.  With a silent smile, she squeezes Maribelle's hand back.

They settle in to drink their tea, the same kind they drink on every Wednesday.  It's a black brew, almost too brisk for the afternoon.  Lately, Maribelle has taken to drinking a particular kind of tea on each day of the week in order to ration it, in some distant anticipation of the day when little luxuries stop climbing their way up to a woman of her station.  Lissa globs cream into her cup--carpe diem, then, or however the saying goes.

Maribelle tuts, "Lissa, really.  You might as well drink straight from the creamer at that point."  She's smiling, though, and her hand still rests atop Lissa's from across the table.

A sudden forceful banging on the door has both of them jolting to their feet.  Lissa's reaching for an axe that isn't by her side, Maribelle somehow has a tome in the hand that doesn't clutch Lissa's even tighter.

"Maaaaaaaaa," comes Owain's dragged-out call, accompanied by another round of banging at the door.  "Ma, are you in there?"

A muffled "Shaddup," can be heard from Brady on the other side of the door, and Lissa laughs like a breathless, fearful exhale, purging herself of the panic that flooded her so quickly.  She makes herself open the door for her sons without any sign of trembling.

"Boys!" Maribelle nearly explodes from behind her.  "Have I not made myself clear that this room is strictly verboten to you?"

"I don't even know what a verboten is," Owain protests, squeezing through the doorway past Lissa.  "If it's not in my Holy Dictionary of Heaven and Earth, it doesn't count."

"Aw, come on, Maribelle," Lissa wheedles a little, ushering Brady in as well.  "Let's just have a family teatime while they're already here."  She puts on her best beseeching and pitiable face, with not a trace of still-rattled nerves in it.  Motherhood makes one a surprisingly good actress.  Besides, having Brady and Owain in the room makes her momentary fear seem downright foolish.

"Very well," Maribelle relents with an over-affected sigh.  Owain cheers and nearly bounces over to the table, giving Lissa's tea an indelicate sniff.  

"Blegh," he declares, wrinkling his nose.  En route to Maribelle, he grabs a little square of butter off the table and pops it into his mouth whole.

"Revolting!" Maribelle exclaims almost involuntarily, like she hasn't quite processed what vile little boy thing her son has done now but she knows she's disgusted by it.  At Lissa's side, Brady makes a face.

"'S disgusting as all get-out," he grumbles to her.  Lissa can't help but laugh, between Owain's actions and Maribelle's scandalized reactions.

"That is pretty nasty, kiddo," she admits.  If the disapproval of his family has fazed him in any way, Owain promptly forgets about it, kneeling before Maribelle like a player making a soliloquy.  

"O mightiest Ma, would you please turn your All-Seeing Evil Eye over my latest masterpiece?"  He produces a rumpled, slightly grubby stack of papers and holds them solemnly aloft to Maribelle.  Brady rolls his eyes while his brother isn't looking.  Maribelle very gingerly takes the papers from Owain, holding them with the very tips of her fingers as if they were a dead animal or something otherwise unhygienic.

"Well, I'm certain I ought to be offended by the allegation that I have an 'evil eye', but if you would like me to proofread your writing, I would be happy to do so in the interests of improving my son's somewhat tenuous grasp on the niceties of grammar."  As Maribelle begins to read (making her first mark on the paper about two seconds in), Lissa sits back down and beckons to Brady.

"Want a seat, Brady Bear?" she asks, patting her lap.  His cheeks flush a little at her nickname for him, but he still clambers onto her lap and pulls her arms around him like a belt.  She's happy that her older boy hasn't decided he's too manly for a hug at the tender age of nine, even though a kid as sentimental as Brady is unlikely to outgrow maternal affection any time soon.

"Mind if I have some tea?" he asks, indicating her cup.

"Go for it."  Brady takes a poised little sip, his pudgy child's fingers gripping the cup's handle with more grace than Lissa could muster.  His facial expression is a little less polite, though.

"Yucko," he decides, putting the cup down.  "Way too sweet."  Lissa rolls her eyes comically and shrugs--she's always found it cute how Brady shares Maribelle's snooty taste in tea.  Meanwhile, Maribelle is telling Owain for the third time to stop leaning on the arm of her chair.

"Owain, really, you needn't throw your whole weight onto such a delicate piece of furniture like a complete lummox," she scolds.  Rather than laughing, though, Brady leans back into Lissa's chest and curls in a bit towards her body.

"Momma," he begins quietly.  Worry begins to seep back into Lissa like a morning fog--Brady only ever calls her that these days when he's well and truly upset.

"What's up, buttercup?" she answers in an equally low tone, though she doubts Maribelle and Owain are paying much attention as they squabble over his story.

"I saw all the curtains was drawn, all over the whole house.  Does that mean there's monsters out today?"  Of course Brady would call them monsters, though he knows they're really Risen.  Lissa wonders if that's what he expects under his bed or in his closet when he runs sobbing into his mothers' room at night.

"Yeah," Lissa tells him, "There's monsters out.  We just close the curtains so they don't know what we're up to in here."  It borders on a white lie, the kind she'd normally hate to tell, but then again, it's also not entirely incorrect.  It's easier to say that they hide to keep the monsters out, like how children think they're invisible when they cover their own eyes.  She is not shepherding him away from the truth, not when he knows enough to draw his own conclusions.  It's better than Brady having to hear that Maribelle closes the curtains because she doesn't want to see how ruined the world she's leaving her children is.  "You wouldn't want to look outside and see some ugly monster with its face all smushed up against the window because it's watching you practice your violin, would you?"

Brady snorts.  "Sounds more like somethin' Ma would do."  Vaguely aware that Brady probably picked up the habit from her, Lissa snorts as well.

"That's rather unbecoming, Lissa," Maribelle interjects from the other side of the table without looking up from the stack of papers.  "And Owain, dearest?  I very much doubt that Lord Sigurd ever referred to his Lady Dierdre as 'a solid ten out of ten'."

"That's fair," agrees Owain.  "She was probably more like an eleven out of ten, possibly even a twelve.  I should make him have a lot more ardor for her.  See, this is why your Holy and All-Discerning Benevolent Gaze comes in handy, Ma."

"I'm afraid that's not what I meant in the least," responds Maribelle with a faint air of exasperation.  Lissa looks at her family, sitting in candlelight in midday, and wants desperately to believe that they shine bright enough together to cut through Grima's overbearing presence, if only for a little while.

---

"Do you think your desire one-sided, Severa?"  Lucina's voice is raw with barely-restrained tremulousness.  Her proximity is wanton and overwhelming all at once.  "I know it's unbecoming of me--" she exhales like a helpless punch to the gut, then soldiers on, "Unbecoming, to act so, but I feel you ought to hear me say it, only to turn around and fear you might find me repulsive instead."

With aching slowness, Severa raises a hand to cup Lucina's face, lets it slide down the curve of her flushed cheek.  She runs her thumb across Lucina's lips and actually feels the soft moan course right through her skin.  Just the sight of Lucina so open renders Severa dumbfounded, ill at ease with holding control rather than yielding it.  Belatedly, she finds herself capable again of something like coherent speech.  

"It's...kind of hot, frankly."  Lucina starts visibly, then eases into Severa's touch, eyes fluttering shut.  Severa immediately regrets such an inane admission, especially in the face of Lucina's overly-earnest poeticism.  "I mean, you're the only person I can think of who could ever make the whole tormented lover thing work.  If it were anyone else, I'd laugh them out of the room."

"You're more a joy to me than a torment," Lucina murmurs.  Relief lines her stance, though she still leans over Severa, keeping their bodies pressed against the wall.  

Severa scoffs.  "Ugh, see?  Where do you even come up with this stuff?"

"Though you do have your moments," Lucina adds teasingly, pressing a kiss first to Severa's forehead, followed by another to the tip of her nose, and a third to her lips.  Severa starts to protest that she hardly wants her lover to be kissing her like a nanny putting a child to bed, but scraps the thought entirely when Lucina's kiss deepens.  The sense of desperation seems to spill out again through the press of Lucina's mouth against hers, heated and utterly lacking in Lucina's usual degree of control.  Severa responds in kind, lacing her fingers brusquely through the hair at the nape of Lucina's neck.  The verve of it leaves her heady as their lips part and meet with equal abandon.  When they break apart, Lucina's breath comes quick and shallow.

"Gawds," Severa breathes rather uselessly.

"Severa," is Lucina's response.  For once, she seems to have something equally useless and quasi-coherent to say.  "Severa," again, this time accompanied by another kiss to her bare collarbone.  Severa arches up into the fleeting contact, rolling up onto the balls of her feet as Lucina moves down her body, dotting her with little caresses.  Lucina sinks to her knees like she's kneeling at Naga's own altar, running her hands up and down over Severa's waist and hips.  

"You are so very easy to love when you let me."  She speaks the words right against Severa's stomach.  Severa's interest in banter completely evaporates as she considers this reversal of their usual positions.

"I guess it's nice to know I've got at least one redeeming quality."

"You have many," Lucina insists warmly, taking one of Severa's hands in her own to press a kiss against her palm.  "I intend to convince you of every one of them."

"By going down on me?" The words come out more a breathless squeak than a witty quip.  Lucina looks up at Severa and fixes her with a wicked smile that reaches her eyes and makes them shine.  

"You may find I have a silver tongue."

She tugs Severa's leggings down smoothly, but leaves them hanging around her ankles.

"At least let me take them off all the way so that I don't look like some waddling drunk," Severa grumbles at the risk of completely killing the mood.  Lucina bears Severa kicking her leggings off to the side with surprising patience, for all that she looks like she's either about to lunge or come right on the spot.  Suddenly, Severa thinks she understands Lucina's domineering urges a little bit more--if she looks even half as good when Lucina has her, she'd want to lay waste to herself, too.

Obstruction fully removed, Lucina leans back in.  Her hands brace on Severa's thighs, fingers digging in just enough for an edge of pressure.  A little gasp flies out of her before she can cut herself off when the flat of Lucina's tongue curls against the outline of her clit--if this is Lucina's method of persuasion, it's working with embarrassing swiftness.  This is not Lucina's typical fare, and the reversal of their roles in conjunction with the rawness of Lucina's sheer want leaves Severa uncertainly heady with dominion.  Murmuring wordlessly, Lucina pulls away Severa's underwear to work at her in earnest, kissing and tonguing around Severa's cunt.  

After a moment, Severa spreads herself with her fingers, wordlessly inviting Lucina deeper.  Her fingertips are slick with her own wetness, hypersensitive as Lucina's tongue brushes up against them in her desperation to please.  Lucina presses her face even closer between Severa's thighs, pushing her tongue into Severa's cunt and rubbing the tip against the sweet spot just inside her.  The sensation is hot and pleasant, but not wholly satisfying--Lucina is still being too gentle.  Free hand grabbing a fistful of Lucina's hair, Severa arches her back and rolls her hips up and down, fucking herself brusquely on Lucina's tongue.  Lucina teeters on her knees with the sudden force of it, but steadies herself to work her mouth in tandem with Severa's thrusts.

---

Sparring with Lucina is an event Severa reserves only for the rare days when she's feeling like her bite is actually as bad as her bark.  It's almost an exercise in hubris, given that she tends to end up up slinking away from a bout to lick her wounds and feel sorry for herself, thinking that she could actually match Lucina with her own lousy skills.  For now, though, she rides the high, willing to believe for a little bit that she must be somewhat competent.  If she were a total failure, Lucina would just impale her in one go and be done with it.  To be able to push Lucina, to make her sweat, to make her cheeks flush with exertion, to make her show any signs of imperfection at all--it makes her more fallible to Severa.  Granted, fallibility isn't necessarily a desirable trait for a leader, but it's something Severa almost clings to in a lover, that Lucina breathes and bleeds just the same as she does.  

Alone together in a practice court, they square off for a third bout.  The score (which Severa is likely the only one keeping track of) is one to one, and Severa is feeling like a tiebreaker today.  She shifts her right foot back into a fighting stance, knees bent, her shield arm forward.  Though she isn't wearing her shoulder guard, the posture is a habit.  The sense of strength and balance it gives her outweighs the vague embarrassment of standing with her legs so far apart, lending a swaggering sort of mien to her posture.  In direct contrast, Lucina carries herself tighter and more dignified as she raises her mock Falchion directly parallel to her body in a solemn salute.  She almost glides into her own stance, not so much a wide challenge as a brief resting point in the beautiful, relentless flow of the royal form.

Seeing Owain's bastardized version of the technique always fools Severa into thinking she can handle Lucina's style, that she'll be ready when Lucina's bent sword arm extends in a deadly flash, the well-balanced force followed by her body as she cuts at Severa's chest.  Severa brings up her own blade to block the blow, and it's only when she overcompensates the forcefulness of the block that she realizes that this is just a beat.  Her body still tensed to brace against a harder impact, Severa's slow reaction is rewarded with a sharp jab in the shoulder from the point of Lucina's practice sword.  Hissing through her teeth, Severa ruefully notes that the blow would have glanced off her shoulder shield, then immediately scolds herself for worrying about what-ifs.  She knows (both of them know) that there's no room to claim you would have won if you'd had some extra advantage when you're dead.  Theirs has not been a life that allows for excuses.

All of this cycles through some distant place at the back of Severa's head in a matter of moments as she recovers from the blow and counters with one of her own, a harsh sideways swing meant to jar Lucina's sword-holding wrist rather than to take the hand off entirely, as it would with live steel.  Lucina skips back out of reach, but only barely.  Unwilling to give her an opening, Severa presses forward and comes down hard with the intent to make her blows hurt, even if Lucina blocks them.  Getting so close makes her easier to hit, but it also makes it harder for Lucina to get some space for something fancy that would be lethal in real combat.  

Severa knows, even at her most mullish, that she has the upper hand on Lucina in terms of raw strength.  When the side of her blade connects with Lucina's collarbone, Lucina cries out for a pained instant before she bites the noise off.  This close, Severa can see the sweat-darkened hair clinging to the curves of Lucina's neck, the glimmer of the Brand in her eye.  Lucina brings her blade back up into a fierce arc towards Severa's stomach, forcing her to create distance between them in order to avoid getting hit by a blow she knows she couldn't have blocked in time.  If Severa beats out Lucina in power, though, Lucina makes up for it with her sheer speed.  With sufficient room, she lunges with a thrust aimed right at Severa's chest.  Severa twists her torso only fast enough to dodge the brunt of the attack, which still clips her along the side.  

In an aggressive instant, Lucina draws back, then repeats the lunge with a horizontal slash meant to cut straight through her opponent.  Her technique is one borrowed from the pegasus knights, a first attack followed by a pass that cuts the attacker through to the other side, and it is just as swift as if Lucina were mounted on a pegasus herself.  She comes in low, and Severa is already beginning the first half of a riposte when she happens to glance down Lucina's loose neckline.  Gaping like the village yokel at the sight of Lucina's bare breasts beneath her shirt, Severa promptly has the wind knocked out of her by Lucina's strike driving home.

She stumbles back, clutching feebly at her stomach with one hand and clenching her sword in a tight, desperate fist with the other.  The flow of Lucina's attacks comes to an immediate halt, the keenness of battle immediately replaced by concern.

"Severa!"  Lucina exclaims, rushing to her side.  "Forgive me, I fear I may have gotten somewhat competitive just then."  Wheezing, Severa frowns and shakes her head dismissively.  Out of the two of them, Lucina is hardly the one who should be worrying about competitiveness.  Besides, there's a far more pressing matter at hand.

"Never mind that!" snaps Severa the instant she can draw a full breath.  "Lucina, you, you're not wearing a--" cutting herself off as she gesticulates vaguely over her own breasts, "Well, you're not wearing anything!  Under there!"  She points accusingly in the general direction of Lucina's chest, and Lucina follows the line of her finger with her gaze.  For a moment, it doesn't even seem to occur to her what the issue is supposed to be, until she begins to laugh as the impetus for Severa's scandalized reaction dawns on her.  As annoyed as Severa is for the sake of Lucina's reputation, the way the corners of Lucina's eyes crinkle when she smiles makes her thrill in a way that has nothing to do with the adrenaline of their spar.

"Oh, Severa, I hardly have anything there to speak of, so I see no need to wear anything else.  My clothing is tight enough to prevent what little discomfort it might cause me, more often than not."  Severa is absolutely gobsmacked by Lucina's frankness--its source is completely innocuous, rather than crude.  Somehow, in Lucina's usually-sensible mind, there is absolutely nothing wrong with admitting to habitually going without a bra.  She groans in a mixture of frustration, secondhand embarrassment, and a sense of desire she could really go without feeling right now.

"Lucina, look.  You're a lady, okay?  Maybe you can get away with it when you're wearing a high-collared shirt, but not in that thing!  Do you know how many men would just be able to look down and see everything?  A princess should exhibit a little modesty, here."  Severa neglects to add that she'd very much like to keep Lucina's breasts a sight for her eyes alone.  She doesn't think about what that makes her in comparison to any men who might be looking down Lucina's shirt.

"I very much doubt many men would take an interest in what little I have to offer.  Besides," fixing Severa with a gaze that borders on teasing, "The only one looking down my shirt at the moment appears to be you."  Severa swears that Lucina's voice drops in pitch when she gets like this, growing husky and warm with a sensuality she doubts Lucina even consciously means to exude.  What must it be like, Severa wonders, to be able to unwittingly hold such power over someone else?  She tries to imagine herself with the same sway over Lucina's devotion and comes up with nothing.  Her heart flutters like some mooning maiden's, and she turns her head sharply to the side in order to avoid meeting Lucina's gaze.

Severa scoffs, "Better me than some other creep.  And I don't want to hear you going on about how you're not actually that attractive, because believe me, any number of bozos would cut their left ear off to see what I just saw."

Lucina seems to puzzle over Severa's exaggeration for a moment, no doubt imagining some man literally chopping off his own ear in exchange for a look at her shirtless.  The fine art of hyperbole continues to be lost on her.

"All the same," she begins, having given up on Severa's latest and greatest exaggerated turn of phrase, "You had best see Brady about your stomach.  I would hate for you to suffer a bruise in such a painful area on my account."  Severa bites back a retort about how every bruise she suffers is for Lucina's sake, if you look at it in a certain way.  No one needs that degree of cloying chivalry in their life.  

"Fine--as long as you see him about your collarbone.  Deal?"  A momentary look of confusion flits across Lucina's face, her brow furrowed as she presses her fingers gingerly to her collarbone.  Touching it obviously reminds her of the blow Severa had landed, and she winces a little.  How she so routinely manages to forget about her own pain in the face of another's would border on saintly if Severa had never seen Lucina lick her own wounds in private before.  Again, she is filled with a guilty sense of satisfaction, to be close enough to Lucina to see her hurt and then help her heal.  Not that she wants Lucina to be hurt in the first place--better her, someone expendable and self-deprecating enough to take the blows and feel like she deserves them.  Severa declines to imagine how stupid she must look to Lucina, constantly mooning over her at the weirdest intervals.

"Deal," Lucina agrees firmly.  "Now then, I think we ought to call it a day for now--at least, so far as sparring is concerned.  I'm on mess duty tonight, and I suppose it wouldn't do for me to go out and about in such a scandalous state, now would it?"

"What about the last round?"  Severa blurts, her pride temporarily eclipsing her concern for Lucina's deportment.

"What about it?"  When Lucina echoes Severa's words, it is not mocking, simply a question.

"Who won?  You, probably."  It smarts to admit as much, but Severa has only her own inane desires to blame for that.

"I would be far more inclined to call it a draw," admits Lucina.  Severa realizes her expression must look even more disdainful than usual, because Lucina quickly amends herself.  "Or perhaps we can even declare it unfinished?  We could pick up from where we left off whenever it suits you."

"Whatever, that's fine by me."  Frankly, Severa is too winded and tired to press an issue she never should have brought to the table in the first place.  She just hopes Lucina actually has the good sense to put a bra on now.

-

Severa finally resigns herself to looking at her stomach later that evening (much too late--she has a strict self-imposed curfew for beauty sleep purposes), having rushed through her bath while most people were at dinner.  Though she'd struck her deal with Lucina, she'd found herself unable to go see Brady about the matter.  Adjusting her unwieldy camp mirror to show her bare stomach in the flickering light of the lantern, Severa winces at the blotchy, tender bruise already spreading all over her skin.

"Severa?"  She nearly jumps, hearing the voice just outside the door flap of her tent.  "May I come in for a moment?" Lucina asks.  Turned around, Severa can now make out a faint silhouette outside the canvas.

"Just, just wait a moment!"  Severa exclaims, a sense of hurried panic spiking through her as she fumbles to shove her nightshirt back on.  Not that it matters when Lucina's seen her fully naked, but she's not going to let Lucina in while she's half-undressed like some sort of waiting courtesan.  

Fully dressed, Severa rushes to undo the tent flap, revealing Lucina in full.  She carries no light, but the night is bright with a nearly-full moon that plays across the edges of her dark hair like Falchion's gleaming edge.  She's also still wearing that silly shirt from their earlier spar, which now looks particularly lascivious in the way its neckline is almost wide enough to show a slip of Lucina's shoulder.  Her throat and collarbone  are bared with a casual intimacy entirely unsuited to such a simple piece of clothing.

Grimly quashing her wanton observations, Severa ushers Lucina in and quickly reties the tent flap.  Even if most people would simply see this as a visit between bosom friends, Severa has no desire for anyone to know just how well-acquainted with Lucina's bosom she really is.

"I won't trouble you long--I know how you value your sleep.  I simply wanted to check in on your stomach," Lucina explains.

"Um," is Severa's slow-witted, useless reply.  Caught red-handed.  Lucina's eyes narrow a bit.

"You haven't been to see Brady, have you?"

"Well, neither have you, evidently," Severa retorts, indicating Lucina's very much visible collarbone.  It sports a long red weal that vanishes below Lucina's neckline, and Severa immediately curses herself for her fixation on a ragged old shirt that wouldn't even look good if it didn't happen to be on Lucina's body.  To her surprise, Lucina averts her gaze in shame.

"I only found out after dinnertime that he was on cleanup detail, and by the time he would have been done, I would only have been troubling him late at night.  I had hoped you'd caught him prior to dinner."

"Ugh, and what was I supposed to say to him?  Somehow, I don't feel like 'Hey, Brady, I got suckerpunched by Lucina because I was too busy ogling her breasts' would cut it."  Besides, she's dealt with injuries far worse than a big bruise in a tender spot and gone without a healer to boot.  Though she's not keen on keeping scars, Severa is still acclimating herself to a world where staves are freely available from a supply convoy, rather than precious resources to be used only when someone's life is in real danger.

Lucina chuckles lightly at Severa's wry remark.  "Very well.  We will both have to see him together tomorrow, and I'm certain we can come up with a plausible excuse between the two of us."  After a moment, she asks quietly, "May I see it?"

Severa slides her shirt up to just beneath her ribcage by way of consent, feeling vaguely like a dog baring its stomach in hopes that its owner will pet it.  Lucina's fingers brush carefully over the bruised skin, and the touch goes straight down between Severa's legs.  Of course she would be turned on by Lucina doing something as stupidly simple as just touching her stomach.

"I hadn't meant to hurt you so," Lucina murmurs regretfully.  "I should have checked my blow--I'm so sorry."  Severa almost rolls her eyes, but checks herself because of how earnestly distraught Lucina seems to be over the matter.

"Um, no, you shouldn't have.  The whole point of sparring is to go all out without hacking each other to pieces with real weapons, so I'm not offended, for once.  Besides, you've apologized a billion times, so let's just let it be water under the bridge or whatever."

"Be that as it may, I want to keep you safe, yet here I am, battering you with a wooden Falchion like a child," Lucina insists.  It's almost as though she wants to be blamed, wants Severa to give her a scolding instead of forgiveness.  "And I know this must seem trite nonsense to you," she continues (she's partially right), "But please, for a moment, consider how important it is for me as a leader to keep you all safe.  It's...  It's odd for me, to have one foot on the side of command, where I must seem at all times impartial and resolute, while the other is on the side of friendship, where I care for each of you as individuals who are dear to me."  Lucina shakes her head.  "This isn't about me, though, so again, I am sorry for hurting you so."

Severa wordlessly leans into Lucina's shoulder, suppressing a groan.  Her arms slide loosely around Lucina's waist, and after a moment, Lucina's own arms come up around Severa's neck.  She seems almost surprised by such a tender gesture, as if she expects Severa to be nothing but sharp words and blunt edges.  If she feels that way, Severa can hardly blame her.

Now Severa has to make the feel-good speech, and it sucks.  It's not just her conscience nagging at her, telling her to be decent for once and show some sympathy--it's love and devotion, a sense of distress that Lucina is down on herself over something so ultimately trivial.  It should be the other way around, with Severa pissing and moaning over something meaningless until a few well-placed words from Lucina have her thinking that maybe she's worth something after all.  The reversal of their roles is a sign of trust that part of Severa almost revels in, but Lucina deserves better encouragement than anything she can get from Severa, of all people.

"Look, Lucina," says Severa, just to break the silence.  "I said it's fine, so it's fine.  You know that if I don't like something, I'm just going to come out and say it to your face, and I didn't, so...  Gawds," she concludes lamely.  She turns her head to the side, so that her cheek presses against the cool skin of Lucina's shoulder.  "That probably just made you feel worse.  Being nice and being eloquent are both hard enough on their own, never mind together!  I have no idea how you do it, honestly."

While Lucina makes no immediate response, she does lean down to press a light kiss to the top of Severa's head.  Her silence is her ambivalence, one that Severa is familiar with.  The feeling of wanting to be forgiven and move on while also wanting to continue self-deprecating without solving the problem is Severa's constant companion.  The feeling of Lucina's fingers trailing down her spine to trace the small of her back is a very different one entirely.  Severa starts, and Lucina immediately retracts her touch.

"Sorry," she says into Severa's hair.  She sounds for all the world like Noire right now, apologizing for apologizing after being told to stop all the apologizing in the first place.  Severa desperately wants the mood to change, resigning herself to the fact that she's going to have to be the one to slog through changing it.

"Did you come here to do anything besides grab my love handles?" Severa asks, hoping it sounds less acerbic than her remarks usually do.  Lucina pulls away a bit, and she looks less riddled with heroic anguish when Severa looks up at her.

"Severa, your musculature is quite enviable," she comments, earnest and oblivious.  "I would easily put you on par with Kjelle.  In truth, I love the way in which you so effortlessly seem to balance strength and poise--I fear I've left a great deal of my grace behind."  Like she isn't the most graceful thing in the world, like she doesn't make her ridiculous ribbed leggings or a worn-out training shirt look amazing.

"This war's made me look more like a raw side of meat than a girl," Severa grumbles.  "Do you know how hard it is to find dresses that flatter my stupid broad shoulders and arm muscles?  Because it's really hard."  As she speaks, Severa realizes that Lucina's been looking at said arm muscles rather admiringly.  Lucina's no reedy maiden, but she's not exactly going around toting an axe, either.

"I imagine you're equal to the task," says Lucina, her expression finally softening.  "My intention was not to come here to unburden myself on you, though, and leave you feeling unpleasant."  One of her hands comes back up to cup Severa's chin.  "Let's not be at odds tonight, Severa."

Severa has her eyes closed and her lips parted before Lucina's even leaned in to kiss her, irked at her own helplessness whenever Lucina's voice grows husky and intimate.  Lucina clearly intends for the kiss to be open-mouthed from the start, her tongue making a slick pass against Severa's own.  When Severa moans a little, Lucina's leg comes up between hers with a rough sort of urgency, as if she's on some sort of time limit unbeknownst to Severa.  Normally, this is the kind of thing that makes Severa thrill with a need to be conquered down and roughed up, but Lucina's string of fast, wanting kisses still feels too much like an apology.  She pulls away.

"Let's change this up," Severa breathes, tightening her hold around Lucina's waist.  She feels absurd, trying to take on a dominant posture with over half a foot's difference in their heights that forces her to look up at Lucina.  There is, however, some benefit to being at eye level with Lucina's chest.  At these close quarters, with the fabric of her shirt drawn taut, Severa can quite clearly see that Lucina still isn't wearing a bra.  "Are you seriously still parading around like this?  I know you're tall and all, but plenty of people are still tall enough to see down your shirt!"

"I may have neglected to take your advice in my haste."  Lucina watches Severa watch her, that soft, commanding little smirk playing at her lips.

"So, what, are you trying to seduce me or something now?" Severa asks wryly.  Lucina actually blushes a little.  "Ohhhh my gawds."

"We must make do with what little we have," admits Lucina somewhat abashedly.  Severa decides in that moment that she can indeed match her bite to her bark, that she'll be taking charge for once.  She disentangles herself from Lucina and sits down on the edge of her cot.

"Here, come sit," she offers, gesturing to her lap.  Lucina, to Severa's mortification, sits beside her on the cot, looking at her expectantly.  "No, like...  On me.  You know," and she certainly hopes Lucina does, given how often she's dandled Severa on her own lap.

"I see," Lucina says, and then she's actually straddling Severa's lap, gaze warm and trusting.  Severa pulls her in by the nape of her neck, willing herself not to chicken out by keeping the momentum running.  She kisses Lucina's jawline, her cheek, the corner of her lips, then full on the mouth.  Lucina reciprocates eagerly, obligingly letting Severa set the pace and ignoring the fact that she's stalling for time to figure out what she's even supposed to do next.  When they part, Severa impulsively slides her hands under Lucina's shirt, finally pushing the stupid thing as far up Lucina's torso as it can go.  Her hands follow, running against bare skin, and Lucina arches into the touch.

"Take it off," Severa orders in what she thinks might pass for a suitably sensual voice.  Lucina complies, then folds her arms loosely over her midsection despite the fact that this covers nothing.  It's odd to see Lucina embarrassed, though it's equally odd to see Lucina relinquishing control, period.  "Don't tell me you're embarrassed now."

"Somewhat," Lucina confesses.  "Though I have no substantial reason to be."

"You've got that right."  Severa moves her hands up until they hit Lucina's crossed arms, waiting.  At the very least, Lucina can take a hint, letting her arms fall to her sides so that Severa can move up to her chest.  "You're gorgeous," she adds, wishing she had the vocabulary to articulate herself beyond empty-seeming compliments.  The faint swells of Lucina's breasts have a gentle sort of slope to them that make her nipples seem to stand out a bit more, pert and wanting.  Severa palms them, trying to go more for an appreciative fondle than a dirty old man grope.  The flesh is soft and pliant beneath her fingers, rather than hard and taut.  She rubs a little, and Lucina's back arches so far into the touch that she has to brace herself on Severa's knees to keep her balance.

Lucina's breath comes quick and shallow, breaking into a little cry when Severa pinches hard at one of her nipples, then rolls over it with the pad of her thumb.  Severa sticks with soft touches that border on agonizing, watching with heated fascination as bits of Lucina's composure begin to crumble.  When Severa presses her lips to her sternum, Lucina gasps, clutching Severa's knees so tightly that her fingernails dig in through the leggings.  Giddy with her own arousal, Severa kisses loose circles around Lucina's breasts, pausing occasionally to drag her tongue across the skin.  Lucina's skin, usually cool, is now flushed and warm with a mounting urgency that makes Severa thrill.

She makes a brief detour to Lucina's bruised collarbone, licking and kissing up the mark, then following it back down its diagonal course to one of Lucina's breasts.  Pressing the flat of her tongue over one of Lucina's nipples yields a low, throaty moan, the kind that almost makes Severa want to give in, let Lucina pin her down to the bed, and fuck her until she begs.  Lucina's back is arched so far that her hips are up in the air, so Severa reluctantly moves one hand to Lucina's lower back to guide her back down.  Almost immediately upon making contact, Lucina grinds up against Severa's thigh, setting a haphazard and frenzied rhythm in an attempt to build some friction.  Severa realizes that she can't just spend the entire night pawing at Lucina's chest, and wishes she'd been a little more attendant to what Lucina wanted.

"Okay, I get the message," she murmurs, tugging at the drawstrings to Lucina's leggings.  This close, it takes some maneuvering, but Severa manages to slide her hand down into Lucina's underwear, fingers parting her gingerly.  Lucina is slick and hot, her clit stiff against the heel of Severa's hand.  Severa presses her palm up, and Lucina cries out sharply, as if she's been struck.  It shouldn't be nearly as arousing as it is, seeing Lucina so undone and so full of raw desire, relinquishing command of herself.  Severa wonders if maybe it's cathartic for Lucina the way it is for her, to cede to someone else so utterly just to unburden yourself for a short while.  She slides a finger into Lucina, only intending to go to the first knuckle, and finds that Lucina is quite ready to take more.  Withdrawing, she shoves two inside in one go, aiming for the kind of tightly controlled brusqueness Lucina always uses on her.

"Severa," Lucina gasps, thrusting her hips forward and down with such force that Severa nearly falls back onto the cot.  She holds steady, though, dragging her crooked fingers along the curve of Lucina's walls, still kissing and sucking at her breasts as well.  Putting a bit more pressure into her fingertips, Severa searches out Lucina's sweet spot, grinding and massaging hard up and down until Lucina cries out again.  She works Lucina harder, using the hand on her back to guide her down until Lucina's practically fucking herself on her fingers, head tossed back and hair streaming down behind her.

She looks stunning like this, breasts bouncing a little with the forceful way she rocks into Severa's fingers.  Her eyelashes are butterfly-light on her cheeks, which burst with red in the low lamplight.

"Outside," groans Lucina suddenly.  "Severa, please, I--" cutting herself off with a shuddering moan that knocks the wind from Severa as surely as the blow from her sword.  It takes Severa a muddled moment to understand what "outside" is even supposed to mean until it occurs to her that Lucina is probably talking about her fingers.  She slips them out of Lucina's tight warmth, tracing over the contours of Lucina's entrance.

"Like this?"  Her voice sounds high and alien, totally lacking in the heady sense of conquest that always seems to imbue Lucina's when their situations are reversed.

"Please," Lucina repeats, eyes opening just enough for her Brand to twinkle hazily.  Severa swears her heart nearly flips at the sight, and she has to clench her thighs together in a vain attempt to shut out the needy ache.  Her fingers slick, she moves them up to Lucina's clit.  This, she can do--she knows what Lucina likes, and she's willing, desperate to give it to her.  She runs the tip of one of her fingers up and down the shaft of Lucina's clit in short, quick strokes, building friction against the wet skin.  Lucina's reaction is nigh-on immediate, her entire body tensing like she's afraid she'll lose her momentum if she relaxes for even a second.  She alternates jerkily between thrusting her hips up against Severa's finger and just tensing, so tight that her knees against Severa's thighs almost hurt.

Severa keeps her lips pressed flush against the skin of Lucina's chest, feeling her heartbeat in a way that borders on carnal.  The lines of Lucina's body are writ frantic, so much so that Severa would worry if Lucina weren't so eager.

"Come on then," Severa grinds out breathlessly.  "This is how you like it, right?  Come on, Lucina," and Lucina's voice reaches a desperate, yielding crescendo, all short, incoherent noises.  Severa presses down hard, rubbing Lucina's clit with the length of her finger, willing her to come half from adoration and half from a desire to get herself off.  Lucina abruptly shifts her position to grip Severa's shoulders instead, thighs trembling with the strain as she holds herself taut.  Severa looks up just in time to see Lucina's eyes go wide and bright, her lips falling open in a surprisingly delicate little gasp as her hips jerk forward with her orgasm.  For an instant, Severa almost stops touching Lucina entirely, but then renews the relentless pressure until Lucina's ridden it all out and exhaled so deeply that Severa wonders if there's any air left in her at all.

Slowly, Severa removes her slick fingers from Lucina's leggings, and Lucina immediately curls in to rest her head against the crook of Severa's neck.  Puffs of Lucina's breath float up to Severa's uncovered skin, and the sensation would be maddening if Lucina weren't so tranquil in her stillness.  She awkwardly runs her fingers through Lucina's sweat-tangled hair, making a point of using the hand that hadn't just been crammed inelegantly between Lucina's legs.  Undoing the little knots in Lucina's hair is something that Severa doesn't have to think about, letting the quiet yawn between them and weighing her own lingering arousal against the fact that she could very comfortably fall asleep right here and now.  These are the kinds of vulnerable sides she loves to see in Lucina, the ones that almost make her feel special by proxy of Lucina's radiant fallibility.  

"I believe we can call that one your win," Lucina says suddenly.  Snapped out of her daze, Severa has no idea what Lucina means until she looks up at her (which is odd enough) and adds, "That makes the score two to one in your favor."  A wry, unbelieving laugh escapes Severa's lips.

"Gawds, I thought I was the only one petty enough to be keeping score."  Rather than responding immediately, Lucina lays Severa down on the cot with no resistance.  The vulnerable openness is gone from her countenance, replaced with the self-assured dominion that instantly has Severa aching with need all over again.