beep beep* *beep beep*
"Mmm...", mumbled Shayera, clearly being roused from her deep sleep by the wretched alarm clock that just had to ruin it for her.
She opened her shimmering green eyes, her vision being blurry at first, but quickly gaining focus as she gracefully rose up from the plush king-sized bed she shared with Esmeralda. After tapping a button on the alarm clock, forcing it to become quiet, she used her other hand to feel around the mattress to know if Esmeralda was there.
She wasn't.
Not that it suprised Shayera, of course. Besides, that only meant she now knew where to look.
The kitchen.
After stretching out her wings, careful not to knock something over with them, she then stretched out her arms and yawned. Once that was over with, she put her hands behind her torso and loudly popped her back, causing the vertebrae in her spine to rupture the cavitation bubbles of carbon dioxide gas that had built up in the joints overnight. She closed her eyes in relief.
"Damn, that felt good.", she moaned in pleasure.
Shayera opened her eyes again, got up and out of bed and opened the sliding door of the wardrobe. She took out a simple white bathrobe, custom-made to accommodate her wings, and put it on her otherwise scantily clad body, tying the belt to keep it from opening. She closed the door, which also doubled as a mirror, and looked herself over to see if anything was out of place. Her long ginger hair was a bit messy, so she picked up her comb from the nightstand and tidied up just enough to be somewhat presentable. Lastly, she inserted her feet in a pair of fluffy bunny slippers and steadily walked out of the bedroom into the hallway.
After traversing its entire length, Shayera reached the doorway at the end. She poked her head out just a bit and peered into the kitchen, finally allowing her to see the woman she'd been looking for.
Esmeralda was standing in front of the stove, the handle of a pan in one hand and a spatula in the other. Unlike Shayera, she was already dressed for work, with an apron to protect her business attire from getting dirty from her cooking. From the looks of what looked like batter in the pan, Shayera assumed she was making pancakes. The bubbling sound and sweet smell enticed the her to fully step through the doorway. Careful not to give herself away, she snuck up on Esmeralda ever so silently and slowly wrapped her arms around her waist, resting her chin on her shoulder.
Esmeralda didn't flinch at all. She just smiled and turned her head to meet Shayera's glowing, radiant green eyes.
"Buenos días, querida.", Shayera cooed.
"Buenos días, mi halcón.", Esmeralda greeted her back, happily kissing her Thanagarian wife on the lips.
They pulled apart, and Shayera let go of her before sauntering over to the table. She deftly pulled out three chairs and sat down in one of them, placing an elbow on the table and resting her chin on her hand.
"Where's our wonderful daughter, by the way? She's usually here by now."
"Yolanda's almost finished with her yoga. She'll be here in a few moments.", answered Esmeralda.
Shayera nodded. "I really need to start doing that with her sometime."
Esmeralda scoffed and quipped, "With your sleep schedule? Fat chance, chica."
She looked at Shayera and gave her an almost mocking grin and a wink. Shayera stuck her tongue out and crossed her eyes in return. Esmeralda shook her head and turned her focus back to her cooking. She noticed that the pancake was now fully done, so she tilted the pan and plopped it onto a plate just next to the stove, adding to the already big stack of fluffy pancakes she'd already made. She poured in some more batter to repeat the process for yet another one.
"So...are you going to Grundy's grave today?", asked Esmeralda in an unusually casual tone.
Shayera snapped her head away from the window she'd been staring out of, clearly caught off guard by that question.
A moment of silence fell between them.
"I'm waiting for an answer."
Shayera dropped her head down a little and put both her hands on the table, interlocking her fingers.
"Yes. I am. Before I go to the Watchtower."
Esmeralda nodded. "That's good. I hope to visit as well someday."
Shayera perked up. "Really? You mean it?"
"But of course! Yolanda and I have had more than enough time to recover from when he almost killed the both of us. Besides, I blame those foolish college students for that mess. If they hadn't been fooling around with chaos magic, you wouldn't have been forced to put your good friend out of his misery."
Shayera nodded in partial agreement.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. But I also wouldn't have met you and Yolanda, let alone married you. And believe me, you're the two best things to ever happen to me."
Shayera fidgeted with the golden wedding band on her finger, remembering the day they were married, just weeks after the Supreme Court ruling. At this point, they'd now been married for five years. However, they'd actually been together since a few months after the fateful battle with Grundy.
Shayera had seen that Esmeralda and Yolanda couldn't survive as a family with just one parent at the helm and with so much on her plate, so she decided to step in. At first, it was just helping them out with mundane tasks when she came to check up on them. Then, it turned into babysitting Yolanda whenever Esmeralda had to work overtime or on weekends. After that, Shayera somehow eventually worked up the courage to actually ask Esmeralda out on an actual date, to which she said yes, surprisingly.
The rest, as they say, was history.
"And you're the best thing to ever happen to me and Yolanda.", said Esmeralda as she set the plate of stacked pancakes down on the center of the table.
She took off her apron and hung it on the wall rack, then gave Shayera a kiss on her forehead and squeezed her hand a little.
Just then, a young and considerably tall teenage girl, sporting her trademark pigtails and wearing black yoga pants, a white tee shirt and blue flip flops, walked in, obviously feeling refreshed from her morning yoga session.
"Hola, hija.", beamed Esmeralda as she pulled Yolanda into a big, loving embrace.
Yolanda giggled. "Hola, mamá."
"Hey, save some for me, too!", Shayera playfully complained as she stood up and joined in.
"No problem, mom. There's plenty to go around."
The three of them then sat down in their respective seats, and Esmeralda handed out fine china plates and silverware to the both of them before getting a plate and utensils for herself. She then took the pancakes from the stack with a long fork and evenly divided them up, three for each person. Once that was done, she looked at Shayera and Yolanda.
"Care to say grace, hija?"
Yolanda gladly nodded. "Si mamá."
They all made the sign of the cross, closed their eyes and bowed their heads.
"Bendícenos, oh Señor, y estos, Tus dones, que estamos a punto de recibir de Tu generosidad. Por Cristo, nuestro Señor. Amén".
After making the sign of the cross once more, they raised their heads, open their eyes and began to dig in. Yolanda was naturally the first to grab the bottle of maple syrup, a sight that always made Shayera happy. Regarding the prayer she just partook in, Shayera was now more comfortable with faith in general, although the road to reach this point had been very, very long.
Still, she owed it to Grundy.
Author's note: I hope you liked this cute story. This was my first time writing a domestic/family fluff piece. I wrote it because I've always felt that Shayera deserved to have a family of her own, considering the hell she was forced to endure over the course of the series. However, I didn't like the idea of her and John Stewart having a biological child the old-fashioned way, as I considered it rather cliché, so instead I decided she should be with the mother and daughter she saved in the JLU episode "Wake the Dead".
The mother and daughter were never given names, so I took the liberty of naming them "Esmeralda" and "Yolanda" respectively. Although there are many examples of single-parent families that do quite well, it is also important to remember that some children need the presence of two parents in their lives, and I wanted to represent them here. I myself was one of those children, being the only child in a two-parent nuclear family.
In regards to writing Shayera's participation in the prayer, I did that to reflect my own experience with religion. I was raised as a Christian. I attended Catholic schools, but on Sundays I went to an Orthodox church. As you can imagine, it left me quite confused as kid, and I eventually had a falling out religion altogether. I'm an atheist now, but I still hope to mend my relationship with religion someday in the future.
"Love Thy Neighbor", my previous piece, also touches on the contentious issue of religion and homosexuality. And like this story, it also takes a supportive position on it. If you haven't read it, I highly suggest you do.
Also, any hateful/bigoted comments will be removed.
