Valla is a cracked land that will never be uncracked, its proportions mythic and unseen anywhere else on earth, as are the collosal issues of stateship. Few civilizations had powerful queens. Azura thought perhaps the world might be kinder for it, yet no nation aside from the valley state of Valla managed to have two. Perhaps other kingdoms needed that instead of kings like Garon.
Co-queens, Corrin raised in Nohr, Azura raised in Hoshido. It pleased the arbitrators during the treaty of Valla that neither state would have the upper hand, and it pleased the would be queens, both with claims on the throne and each other. A pair madly in love and madly of opposites humors. They were a destined pair, partners in plots and glories and thus perfect for the split needs of a literal fractured land.
Queen Azura reigned the court of nobles, the diplomats, the numbers and figures, counting of coin. No spy could walk free from her eyes, no charlatan escape her notice. The palace of Valla was strong with the queen and songstress of water. There was no question, she was queen.
Queen Corrin traveled through the cracked country every year, no peasant did not know and love their queen. She heard the people's pleas, brought them justice and discovered their troubles. A negligent tyrant replaced with a hero. She traveled in and out of the realm ensuring peace, and used her dragon form to reconnect the shattered realm piece by piece. No peasant would not ride to her aid. There was no question, she was queen.
However no life can every be fully realized with merely matters of state and royal functions to sustain them. Though they had time with their children, the illustrious crown prince Shigure proving himself a civil engineer of some stature, and the twins Kana and Kanna though still children were sweet little dragonlings whom often acted as wonderful company. Despite that there was still longing for something else. Each other, family. Home.
With all things, royalty, good royalty at least, needed to find an excuse. The construction of a grand gondola to connect the two largest chunks of Valla still suspended in the aether, providing access for Valla to merge and heal over time. Shigure designed while Corrin rallied workers, her silver dragon form providing much needed strength as a beast of intelligent burden.
Azura as a fine queen of course found time to audit such an expensive program, a real civil function wrapped up with ulterior motives as she would go herself to see much more than just infrastructure. Examined the reports with the usual songstress' insightful eyes. If those gazes found seconds with Corrin…
But of course the twins must go, what cruelty it would be to rip them from their parents? They were a wonderfully behaved prince and princess so what trouble could be had from a small excursion across the liquid aether of the valley they called home?
None in the slightest.
The massive floating island of Glasir was a tilted landmass of endless streams of water, rivers enchanted that flowed from the greenvalleys and off into the abyss only to appear anew. Nestled in the hills were several unnamed villages and eventually a small city by the same name as the island, though all travel was contained to the occasionally gravity defying falls and riverways, many remaining difficult and confusing to even their most storied cartographers.
The twins loved to run down the wooden whole of the barge while the knights that had sworn to Valla chased them with a mixture of parental love and a babysitter's annoyance. Not that Azura ever truly let them out of her sight.
"My loves, you don't want to miss the view."
Azura allowed herself a mild vacation. Considering the constant difficulties of rulership and the rarity, it was good to stare over the bow and actual live in the land she rules.
"Mama,it feels so weird! Shouldn't we be falling?" Kanna asked, her hair in her usual thick bun punctured with a cute little flower.
"You would think little one, but we live in the lands of myth."
Azura ran her hand through the dim blues of her daughter's hair as the river pulls the great astral vassel up onto the land mass. Cravity turned over and Kana nearly fell as they crashed over the crest of reality. The water settled as the ship did, though the children likely never would given their excited shrieks. More than ever, Azura was sure they needed to leave the palace more.
"Come," Azura swept up the two, easy in her deceptively strong arms as the royal retainers began to buzz around them. The isle's largest...the word port seemed misplaced, was up ahead, its few colored domes and spires visible in the light shifting valley. "Your mother is waiting, and no one should ever keep a dragon waiting."
"Oh gods when did you two become so much cuter!" Corrin was half transformed, her scales running up her neck between flecks of dirt. Their kids cried and cheered as her razorlike claws, the weapons of an aqua dragon, scooped them up. The twins enjoyed cuddling up to her shoulders imbibing in their unnatural strength. Shigure use to like to sit atop her silver hair and hold her twisted wreath of horns like the reigns of a horse.
"Good morning mother," he's too old for that now, the chief statesman he's become. "Your trip went well, I hope."
"Wonderfully," Azura answered, hand naturally reaching to rest on the shoulder of her son, a very proud seat. "Truly I was lost in thought, about this moment specifically."
"It is an excellent one."
"Be careful or the big bad dragons going to have a snack!" Corrin tossed the two in the air as giggles erupted. Azura might have been afraid if Shigure hadn't taken a few trips into the air before. People around them stared, the bridge workers shared glances at their Queens, their Royal family. Most, Azura noted, smiled. She liked to think this humanized them to the fathers and mothers. Perhaps it damaged their link to Divine Mandate, but it built their link to humanity.
"Corrin, love, you have a bridge to build," Azura chastised.
The twins screeched on their way down to a soft catch. Corrin let out a small roar that had them both howling out like beasts to the moon.
"Not before I get a moment with the love of my life." Setting them down she rushed towards Azura, not mindful what working as a dragon did to her clothes or would do to Azura's kimono.
"No," Azura announced stopping the dragon of Valla in her tracks, the talons of her claws digging into the earth as she lunged for a kiss. All Azura had to do was lift one slender finger, press it to the dragon's lips, and she was powerless before her. "It's important to be mindful of others. Taxes shouldn't be wasted on my laundry. After work, my love."
Corrin receded some, her shoulders drooping and scales reverting to skin. Her cheeks turn flush as her red eyes dim, meeting with the golden of Azura.
"Yeah, I just miss you so much, forgive me."
Azura rewards her apology and chuckle with a quick kiss before the people. Even if Azura strained her neck to reach without scuffing her royal attire.
"As do I, my love," Azura's voice fell low and soft, almost a pure musical note. She does not speak, she sings. "So work hard, and very fast."
"That's from the infamous Hans, his axe had a mean bite," Corrin noteed, tapping on the crack of red that outlined her upper bicep, "sure, though you know what they say about mine." Corrin snapped her teeth, extended for show as the twins cheered for the display. Azura enjoyed from her seat by the open window overlooking the shifting rivers that dripped up the mountain and into the sky. Here, the windows blew fresh, warm air into their home as the sky above shined with starlight between the shuffling streams and spinning plates of earth, Valla's kaleidoscope sky.
"Crush!" Kanna announced in a cheer while Corrin let her teeth shift to the maw of a dragon. Azura sipped from her glass of wine and hid hers behind a soft smile.
"Did she really, mother? It seems awful to eat a person," Shigure had always been closer kin to Valla's native queen, though they resisted such family favoritism.
"Yes, absolutely," Azure lied with all the ease of a bored truth. "Her jaws snapped our enemies in half. I've seen her quarter a cavalier without dropping his core from the horse, the ghastly screams sent shivers through Anankos' loyalists." She gave up the lie with a smile once Shigure grimaced. "All but the heads you see, I prefered to make skull glasses of our enemies."
"Yes," Shigure paused to take his own sip, though he was always much more the sober statesman, "I'm are those glasses now, mother?"
"Lost in the move I'm afraid. We accidently took Leo's book collection instead. A tragedy." Azura let herself chuckle as soon as Shigure laughed.
"What is the collection of the greatest mage in existence compared to your collection of enemy skulls." In some ways, Azura might have regretted having their first child so young, while the war was still on, but now she took great comfort in this, a man of her equal and one she could love so deeply. A fine son.
"I have an aesthetic to maintain, Shigure."
"Yes, the cold and calculated queen of Valla," Shigure's hand squeezed the tightness in her shoulders, "Aside from mom, I don't believe I've ever met a more loving person."
"Your aunt Camilla exists."
"Fair, but I could do with a little less."
They shared a sigh as deep as the canyon and a smile rich with the love of family.
"Mother," Shigure broke his expression, shifting like the rivers of their land, revealing little to the untrained eye, his own wide as not to lose sight of something. Azura knew that piercing was her own. He was trying his best to see through her. "Are you alright? You seem tense."
Such a sweet boy, Azura cannot help but brush the blue strands of hair from his face. He looked so much like his grandfather from the tapestries and paintings Anankos had failed to burn. While the question of inheritance always haunted her, she knew he would make a fine king. Shigure's dragon blood failed to manifest and to some the twins were better suited, but what was picking children? Nobility tore family apart and Azura could not stand to see her kids at war with each other. The nation already was.
"There have been some disputes. The Nohrian and Hoshidan settlers on Brahmapura revolted the other day. Rumor has it the Hoshidans started it, but the Nohrian's escalated." Azura kept her voice to a whisper as not to alert the twins or Corrin who seemed too peaceful rolling around on the rug in tickles to be interrupted by something so toxic.
"Rebels? I thought all settlers agreed to accept the authority of the Vallanite crown? Should we contact General Silas? I would not want blood, but early enough and there may not be any." Shigure's mind was a quick one, the type to solve every puzzle the moment it was presented.
"We needn't, your aunts were summering on the isle. Hinoka's word and unfortunately Camilla's Axe made short work of it. The people respect the crown of Valla, but too many see it just as an extension of Nohr or Hoshido."
"I see why you're concerned," Shigure admitted as his foot tapped rhythmically against the marbled floor of the place, "But if its been resolved, truly resolved, you wouldn't let it ruin your night. What can I do, mother?"
"Nothing could ruin my night with my children, even the folly of nationalism. I just worry." Azura's eyes followed the twins as they swung around their mama's arms. The way they danced about in their princely uniforms reminding her so much of a teenage Corrin, one more foolish and sweet, with the sun shining in her eyes instead of the bright but wiser dusk. "As a parent, the last thing you want for your children is the problems you left unfinished."
Shigure's hand rubbed her back as he stood a foot taller at her side. Those hands were so warm at the touch. To think people believed he had none of Corrin in him. Maybe not in his mannerism or his temperament, but in that radiating warmth, the gentle regard for life. "You can't talk like that until you're much older."
"I can only hope you're correct." Azura tilted her head onto her son's shoulders and let that worrying heart rest. If only for tonight, for them. She was never able to live just for herself, a toxic part of her constantly denied that, but she could live for her children, for her wife, for the nation they hoped to raise to be just as just and good as these children. "We will keep moving forward and build you a wonderful future, Shigure."
"You're wrong, mother." Shigure took a step forward and let the support of his strong shoulders whisk away. "We will build that future together. I'm a skilled beaurocrat and proud of it."
"My son, the talented statesmen and charming prince," Azura joked, Azura believed.
"Brother, sister, if you continue to attack the queen I will, as a knight of Valla, have to get involved." In just a few short moments the twins had 'overpowered' Corrin, with hands clutching at her hair and climbing all over the warrior queen, unaware of just how deadly she was. A family secret.
"Charge!" Kanna shouted as they both rammed into their older brother in a bold first strike. Shigure, for better or worse, weathered this offensive well, collapsing onto the cushions of couch only after safely holding them both to his chest of course. Corrin lost her hold on their attention just like that. Her weary eyes, as always, riddled with the tired bags of status could relax and watch them play while Azura in turn watched her.
How the twilight sun had to burn during these hard days, pulling on ropes and rocks, shifting form and playing the cheerful hero. Azura did not question if Corrin had missed her, years of marriage left her sure, but she worried Corrin would never even have a private moment to mourn her absence. No matter what Azura did, the work she lifted off her shoulders, there was always more to take on, problems to toil on. Causes to die for.
There is no taking away that drive. Whether birthed from guilt, from pure humanity, or a draconic sense of propriety, all this was second to Azura. The question was what gift she could give, what healing she could do.
Corrin's grin, the looseness in her muscles, the drifting of her eyes, all these told Azura this was the right gift. Them, together.
"Should we get them ready for bed?" Corrin asked once Azura took her seat beside her love.
"No, just a few more minutes, don't you think, Corrin?"
"Yeah." She could use just a few more minutes.
"You can let yourself sleep you know?"
"I want to enjoy it, just a few more minutes."
Corrin let out a rumbling moan as Azura pushed the tangled knot of muscles up her back. Her hands weren't as thorough as some of the other servants, but none would understand Corrin's body as well as Azura. Fingers spread over the exposed pearl skin with cracked fissures of dulled red. Some lines thin razor cuts, others muddied blemishes from the heavy slap of a warhammer. She knew them best, because she most times sutured them.
"Corrin, don't be spoiled," Azura whispered as she spread some lotion on the shoulders, tracing around the ugly slash on the right from a rusty undead samurai's blade. She still remembered pulling that together with twine during their first day together in the caves of Valla. There was more blood then, and to her displeasure, she had not yer learned the best stitches. A lesson the battles to come would reinforce time and time again.
"I'm sorry, I can be so selfish."
Corrin tugged on Azura's hand to bring it to her lips. A gentle kiss.
"If you get lotion on your lips I will not be able to stand them, love."
"I'm just very impatient." Corrin relieved Azura so she could get back to the work of mending the flesh. Azura amused herself with the thought of being a sculpture molding Corrin from the most supreme of clays.
`"I miss kissing you," Corrin added as work shifted to her arms. Here the scarring got worse and more frequent. She battled without a shield in a wild duelist style. That meant blocking with armor and flesh; forearm guards only deflect so much.
"Are you afraid I've set a cap?"
"The only thing I've ever-"
"Careful," Azura chastised as Corrin shifted underneath her. A queen far too impatient. Not even a warning her, especially given Corrin was the seat Azura had been straddling. At least, to Azura, the view was not undesirable.
"Oh sorry," Corrin blushed with the same cheeks she had when they were both seventeen, in love, fighting wars, killing… Everything about her looked the same. Dragon blood, would she ever age like Azura did? Was? Is that better or worse, is that… "I was saying the only thing I fear is losing the ones I love. A limit on how much you and I can ever have is exactly my biggest fear."
"You're sweet my love, sweet and charmingly foolish," Azura giggled at the sentimentality and soaked in Corrin's response. Her laughs were surprisingly refined, considering how unrefined her fighting style was. That laugh Azura remembered from the first day they had together, it felt like the gateway that let her see inside Corrin. The little things spoke of people's true character. Seeing them was her finest talent, and one can in this case hear it in that laugh, and she loved her for it even more.
"So everyone tells me, but is it so wrong to be sweet?"
For a queen it was ill advised. How many assassins would nearly fell her before the end? Azura questioned her skin for answers… or more for her own pleasure.
"No. Are you cold?"
It wouldn't be so odd. The temperature of Valla, despite its place in the darkest of valleys, was usually wet, humid, warm. On some islands at least. Like all other things in this strange land it shifted. Here the wind cycled like a vortex around the castle tower, outside the air spun with a buzz that worked surprisingly well as a lullaby. Yet inside, thanks to being the center of the twisting air, the master room was nothing but a gentle breeze, a cool breath to whisk by every minute or two. The perfect temperature. If you weren't exposed to the elements.
"No, I feel warm with you," Corrin whispered barely above the private white noise of their room.
"Corrin, you believe yourself to be so smooth don't you?" Azura mocked as her hands reached for the face of her beloved queen, her best friend of so many years, her destined partner. What an absolute fool. "I'm still dressed and even I am starting to feel a chill my love."
"Maybe we should fix that. Are these," Corrin clarified by a tug on her robes, "needed when I have the blood of a dragon in me to keep you warm?"
"You're covered in oil, love."
"You covered me in oil and it was very attractive."
That earned an eye roll from Azura. She was sickeningly cute, absolutely sickening. It made her heart ache not to just sink in, accept it all. Kiss and hold, love, be one, two entangled. Sing songs and be devilish. So many things. She had missed this, oh how she missed this so.
"We're not even in bed," Azura acted the contrarian beyond the point that even she could not understand why.
"We can move of course. Unless you rather not, I'm sorry I'm not being considerate."
Laughable. Complete and unquestionable nonsense. Corrin's powers of empathy we're famous in her family and abroad.
"My love I am convinced you are incapable of being truly inconsiderate. You could never hurt me this way. I'm being coy is all."
"Why?" Corrin asked and Azura proved incapable of an answer. "Time with you is so precious, it's rarer than it was, than it should ever be. What we do is so important, but every day I think of you and the kids and it strains my heart to breaking. I'm so selfish and needy." Corrin's eyes watered up with drips of tears, the release valve for months of loneliness. Azura's magic pushed away the droplets so she could kiss where they ran.
"It is not so terrible after being apart so long to feel needed." Azura let her robe slip from her slender shoulders, "I am just as in need you know, despite being monarchs we still have needs. Do not feel guilt in the needing."
"Azura, you will always be twice the monarch, the wife, and the woman I am. I'd never be queen without you." Corrin reached up to meet her. When their skin touched Azura was struck by exactly how warm she turned out to be. This dragon of hers. No wonder she wasn't cold, never cold, never bent, never held back. The unshakable bedrock that held Azura's life together.
The question of whether to live was no longer on the table. Azura wanted to love herself for herself. She wanted to be strong enough to keeping with or without Corrin, and maybe she could... She was healthy, strong, all those good things Corrin whispered that Azura for so long believed to be nothing but lies, she would chose to believe it. She could be her own ends now. To that she owed Corrin. Not for giving her that, but for buying her time and opportunity. She denied her previous thoughts, she proclaimed to herself a silent oath. She would live for herself, and love for her family.
"Corrin I see your shine more than you ever will. As you see mine," Azura whispered as she felt her wife's fingers pull at her skin, desperate to be a little closer, a little warmer, a little safer. "My coyness put aside, I want you to know I miss you so much. So please, love of my life, hold me for a while."
That's what I need.
A/N: Hello hello! this short one shot is lovely and paid for by Curlicutie, she's given me a lot of patience and time and I adore it 3 Also thank you to TigerLilly for editing and working on this you're amazing as an editor and person. Hope you all enjoyed this fresh slice of family fluff.