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Duren used to be a kingdom of magnificent, bountiful greenery, the fields cascading with edible wildflowers and the green, sweet-odorous grass. Sweeter than berries dolloped in iced cream.
The poor never went hungry. Farmers bequeathed their crops, whenever they could spare it, and were compensated for their troubles.
Jhené had her fondest memories of racing against the dawnlight, feeling as if her thoroughbred palfrey and herself were one mighty element. Speckles came to her as a gift when she had been a mere girl. He lived for perhaps a decade. She remembered diving into the cool rivers and ponds, with other villager children, making a contest of who ensnared more frogs in a net.
Boys wanted to flatter her, to enhance her beauty with finery and brooches and gold — the same shade as Jhené's bright eyes. Tame her. Her parents also wished Jhené would settle down for once.
She did. Eventually.
While attending princess lessons, she met Oriana — with her name, her skin like a sunray's glimmer. Awakening the dawn in Jhené's piercing, yellow-golden eyes. Her heart racing.
Neither had kissed another girl before, and Jhené no longer desired to kiss anyone else.
Years passed on, and they wed. Duren's soil turned to rot. While pregnant with Aanya, she dreamed of herself in silken, white robes and a face-veil, still onto a beach-rock. Oriana stood upon the opposite rock, looking like a dark, silken specter covered from head to toe. Her own face hidden.
The crowns upon their heads metallic and spiked like the tips of lightning bolts. The ocean went silent. Jhené felt the waves crashing, under her bones and in her blood, push-pulling, dragging out of her.
Her heavy, round belly felt the waves, contracting, as she woke up in the middle of labor.
Oriana left after a fortnight, with their soldiers, looking for resources and possible answers to their dying harvests. The separation seemed so much longer. As soon as Jhené glimpsed that crest of sterling-white hair, peeking over the horizon, she rushed forward. Oriana thoughtfully wrapped her arms to her wife.
"My starshine…" Jhené breathed out, grinning like a lovestruck fool she must be, touching gently over Oriana's pearly, wrinkled eye-scar. "How I have missed your smiling face…"
Oriana nodded, kissing her mouth heatedly, and then kissing the cheek of their daughter.
"And I have missed you both…"
They gazed down on Aanya crooning upon Jhené's breast, squinting her little, gold eyes, wiggling her tiny limbs. With a forlorn stare, Oriana leaned into Jhené's neck and told her the news softly. Most of their people will not survive the winter without Katolis, and its reserves, not if they can't persuade them for aid.
Everything must be for them now. For the kingdom, for Aanya.
If anything is worth sacrificing for.
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TDP isn't mine. SO LET ME SALT FOR A MOMENT HERE. DREAMWORKS THINKS THESE LADIES ARE IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO MAKE CANON WLW AND THEN I GUESS TO KILL OFF, BUT REFUSES TO NAME THEM. THAT'S BULLCRAP. I'M NAMING THEM. I ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT THESE LESBIAN QUEENS. I decided to write for them so if you love them too please come say hi and any nice words would be appreciated! I have "Damned" as official Femslash February prompt and "Queer Identity" for today!
Oriana = "gold/dawn" | Latin
Jhené = "paradise/little loved one" | Japanese and African descent
((I know that people think they saw a name in the credits for the taller queen and I acknowledge that HOWEVER UNTIL TDP PROVES THEY CARE AND SAYS SOMETHING IN CONFIRMATION,,, UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE THESE ARE THEIR NAMES TO ME))