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“I hope you’re not intending to go out like that ,” Kya said with a smile “It’s cold outside and I’d really rather be spared the hassle of you warming your ice block hands on my body.” Lin rolled her eyes but accepted the gloves and scarf Kya held out to her. Kya nodded with satisfaction and tugged on her own hat.
The morning air was crisp and fresh, and Kya felt her shoulders loosen in appreciation. Lin, however, only grumbled and huddled further into her overcoat. With a placating hum, she slid her arm into the crook of Lin’s elbow and pressed a kiss to her shoulder.
A comfortable silence fell between them as they walked, broken only by the crunch of snow beneath their boots and the muffled hum of the village carrying across the ice. As always when in snow, Lin let Kya take the lead, following her gentle tugs and pushes to wind their way through a large forest. Snow clung to the branches of the fir trees, icicles dripping softly onto the soft mounds surrounding the trunks.
Gently, Kya slid her hand down the inside of Lin’s arm, following the rough wool to Lin’s pocket so she could lace their fingers together. For a brief moment, Lin stiffened, but quickly relaxed again. They hadn’t been walking long, but already her cheeks were pink. Kya leaned over and pressed a kiss to her temple.
Lin gave her a sidelong glance, asking dryly, “What was that for?”
“Temperature check,” Kya said innocently. “Just making sure you’re not too cold.”
“Did I pass?” The tiniest of smirks curled at the corner of Lin’s mouth.
“Alas,” Kya sighed playfully. “My results were inconclusive. I need to repeat the experiment.” She leaned down to kiss her cheek again, and when Lin turned her head to give her a mock-stern look, Kya only grinned. She stopped suddenly, dragging Lin to a halt with her and wrapping her arms around Lin’s shoulders.
“Still no good. Maybe it’s my method.” She dropped a flurry of kisses on Lin’s cheeks, her temple, her forehead, always avoiding her lips and throat. This was meant to be playful, not teasing .
“Am I going to have to arrest you for public indecency?” Lin mock-complained.
“Hmm?” Kya didn’t slow down the kisses in the slightest. When she felt Lin reaching her limit for public displays of affection, she dropped one more on her nose before jumping back out of Lin’s reach. “You couldn’t catch me anyway, copper.”
With a raised eyebrow, Lin reached for her, but Kya skipped away. She bent and gathered up some snow, pressing it into a firm ball while Lin watched keenly.
“It is an offense to strike an officer,” she warned Kya, a smile teasing at the corners of her mouth.
“Perhaps,” Kya said, taking meticulous care with her snowball. “But you’ll never catch me!” She threw the snowball towards Lin, using her bending to send it into a cloud of white mist just before it made contact.
In the blink of an eye, Lin leapt forward, trying to catch Kya’s hands. But Kya was faster, dancing out of the way to safety. She launched another snowball in Lin’s direction and while she sputtered and dragged snow out of her eyes, Kya bent a good sized handful of snow into a soft cloud. “Don’t you dare,” Lin warned when her face was clear of snow, looking warily at Kya’s creation. “You will regret it.”
“Don’t dare what?” Kya asked with faux innocence, even as she gathered more snow to add to her collection.
Lin’s face fell into a familiar scowl, but before she could get a word out, Kya let the snow fall with a soft wumph over Lin’s head and turned tail to run.
“Kya!” Lin’s bellow echoed dully through the mounds of snow.
Kya only grinned and ran faster from the now-chasing Lin. Dodging and weaving through the trees reminded her of her ice-dodging trial and she let out a whoop of delight. “Come on, Chief ,” she taunted without turning to look behind her. “I thought you were the biggest badass in Republic City!”
The growl she got in return was impressive, and Kya laughed again. She rounded a copse of trees, tugging the snow to her in balls. When she had what she considered an adequate arsenal, she ducked to the side to find a mound of snow to use as cover. Lin was fast and agile, but out of her element her reflexes were just enough slower that Kya had a distinct advantage. Lin couldn’t stop quickly enough and ended up right where Kya wanted her.
With a roar of delight, Kya unleashed the entirety of her snowball collection, pummeling Lin with enough snow to knock her off her feet. Lin went down with a surprised yelp and Kya pressed her advantage. Making sure to keep the area around Lin’s face clear of snow and ice, she buried her wife completely. Every time Lin pushed herself up, Kya released another wave of snow and buried her again.
“Alright!” Lin called breathlessly after the fourth or fifth iteration of this. “I give up!”
Cautiously, Kya gathered enough snow to make three more snowballs, sending them whirling around her head like moons around a planet. With her other hand, she pushed and pulled the snow away from Lin’s body. Lin sat up, cheeks flushed and mock glared at Kya. “You’re lucky I love you,” she said in a low growl. “Or you’d be in cuffs so fast…”
“Kinky,” Kya said, grinning wider as she held out a hand to pull Lin to her feet.
Lin didn’t answer, just raised her eyebrows and pulled,
hard
. With a yelp, Kya fell beside her into the snow, landing on her stomach. Lin straddled her waist, pressing her shoulders down and leaning over to growl into Kya’s ear. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”
Kya shrugged a bit awkwardly. “I don’t
think
. I
know
,” she said, and reached up with her bending to shake the snow from the tree. It fell on top of them, though Lin took the brunt of it. “Ugh!” She jumped up off Kya and shook herself free of snow like a polar bear dog might. “It’s gone down my collar!”
“Aww, poor thing,” Kya cooed as she stood up. With a flick of her wrist, the snow that was on her drifted to the side and away. Lin looked at her expectantly, but Kya only gave her the blandest, most innocent look she could.
If glares could generate heat, Kya was positive Lin would have been dry in only a few seconds. As it was, wet tendrils of hair clung to her cheeks and temples and water dripped from the cuffs of her coat. Kya stepped closer, brushing ineffectually at the snow that still clung to Lin’s epaulettes and collar. Lin only glared more, though her eyes shone with challenge and that bit of haughty pride that she’d had all her life. “You will regret that,” she said.
“You said that last time, and yet...” Kya gestured to Lin’s general dishevelment with a pointed grin. “I’ll make a deal with you. First one to the cabin gets the first shower.”
“Alright,” Lin said, the gleam of competition in her eye. “Starting wh--”
Kya was off like a shot, leaving Lin in her snowdust. When she felt she had enough of a lead, she reached behind her, setting a patch of ice in Lin’s path and piling soft snow around to cushion her fall. She kept running, lungs burning pleasantly from the cold. Somehow, Lin managed to avoid the trap, though the yelp from behind her told her her hard work had at least been noticed.
With a burst of speed, Kya escaped the treeline, and the cabin came into view. She made it through the door a full three seconds ahead of Lin, letting it slam against the wall as she sprinted up the stairs. “Thanks, love!” she called down behind her. “I’ll try not to use all the hot water.”
Downstairs, the door closed gently enough, though Lin’s harsh breathing echoed in the small entryway. Kya smiled to herself as she stripped down in the bathroom to step into the shower. The water was glorious and warm, and it took all of Kya’s self-control not to call Lin up to join her. Instead, she took only long enough to warm up, knowing that Lin wasn’t as comfortable being chilled as she was, having lived in temperate Republic City all her life.
Kya dressed in a warm pair of pants and one of Lin’s tanktops. “Shower’s free,” she called down the stairs as she bent the water out of her hair. A wet, bedraggled Lin appeared almost immediately. She spared Kya only a brief glance before disappearing into the bathroom. When she was dry enough, Kya left for the kitchen to start a pot of tea and stoke the fire in the living room.
Lin’s own shower was only slightly longer than usual, a sure sign she was feeling quite a bit chilled. Kya added another bundle of sticks to the fire and settled on the couch to wait. “I’ll dry your hair if you want,” she shouted upstairs when she heard Lin padding around above her head. Her only answer was more of Lin’s heavy footfalls.
It wasn’t long before Lin appeared downstairs, wearing a pair of her workout pants, fluffy socks, and one of Kya’s warmest tunics edged in fleece. She ran her hands through her hair roughly, trying to get the water out of it.
“I’d like to report a crime,” Kya said as Lin settled on the floor in front of Kya’s knees. She waited until Lin had shifted to accommodate her bad hip before settling one hand on her shoulder and the other in her hair. “A robbery, to be precise. Of a very valuable piece of clothing.” And then she caught sight of which socks exactly Lin was wearing. “Make that pieces. ”
Lin scoffed. “It wasn’t a robbery. Public Code 418.9, Section 4, Subsection 4.1a specifically states that a charge of robbery must include an instance of breaking and entering or the threat or execution of violence against your person. Since you gave me a key , and these clothes were not in their assigned locations in the room, that made them fair game.”
“Alright, alright,” Kya laughed. “Spare me the recitation of the Police Manual. I withdraw my complaint.” Gently, she trailed her fingers through Lin’s hair and flicked the water into the fire. There were faster ways to remove the water, but Kya always enjoyed the slow unwinding of tension from Lin’s shoulders when her hair was played with. Inch by inch, Lin relaxed against her legs.
When her hair was dry and Lin was practically boneless, Kya plucked at Lin’s collar. “Come up here.”
Lin moved without protest, stretching out on the couch with her legs behind Kya’s waist. Kya listed over, snuggling into Lin’s chest and wrapping an arm around her middle. Their legs tangled together as Lin pulled the soft woven blanket off the back of the couch to wrap around them. Kya snuggled in closer, slipping her hand under Lin’s sweater to rest against her side, stroking gently with her fingers. One of Lin’s hands came to rest on the back of Kya’s neck while the other settled in the small of her back. Her fingers traced idle patterns against Kya’s skin, random loops and swirls that eventually gained more structure.
Kya let the silence lay for a long while, listening to Lin’s steady heartbeat, the crackling of the fire, and the wind starting up outside. Finally, when she was drowsy with the warmth of it all, she asked, “What are you designing this time?”
A small hitch in her breathing that Kya might have called embarrassment if she had an inclination to label it before Lin answered. “A snowball throwing machine,” she said, resting her palm against Kya’s skin as if to seal her design there.
With a breathy huff of a laugh, Kya leaned over just enough to press a kiss to Lin’s jaw before snuggling close again. “You still won’t win,” she said.
“No,” Lin agreed. “But it’s worth trying.” She dropped her own kiss to the top of Kya’s head, hands stilling briefly before her fingers resumed their movement. This time, it wasn’t mechanical drawings but the same three shapes over and over, in varying sizes. Kya focused until she thought she had a good idea of what Lin was saying without any words.
“I love you, too,” she murmured against Lin’s chest.
Lin tucked her chin over Kya’s head and resettled her arms around Kya’s waist. They laid there together for a long time, just content to be in each other’s company as outside the wind picked up and the fire crackled in the hearth. It was, Kya decided, one of those everyday miracles that happened with more frequency when Lin was around. Love, in its purest form, wrapped in contentment and security.
Hers and hers alone.
Forever.