I shivered as Aria’s fingers traced their way up and down my back.

It was late, or maybe early depending on your definition, and Aria was feeling playful which she usually was when it was dark and I was naked. Plus, I had fallen asleep on my stomach which left my bare back exposed to her after she got home from work so, really, I’m not sure what I expected.

“Keep your voice down, Red,” Aria whispered softly. “Don’t want to wake anyone up…”

“Aria~” I mumbled, still sleepy as she traced a single, slender finger up my spine with one hand as she clambered on top of me. “You’re teasing me again…”

Aria lowered herself until her naked body was draped over my back and her lips brushed over my ear. “Oh? Should I stop teasing you? That seems kinda boring.”

“Mm… maybe you should make good on the teasing instead?” I whispered back, my voice husky as I turned to smile up at her.

Her chuckle was low and heated as Aria gently nipped at my shoulders and neck, and I shuddered in pleasure as her talented fingers went down my sides. She kissed along my back, brushing my long red and gold hair out of the way so her lips could reach the sensitive spots on the back of my neck where she knew I loved her touch the most.

“Mm, Aria~, I missed you,” I muttered as I melted under her expert ministrations.

“I was only gone for six hours you loser,” Aria snarked playfully.

I shifted around and turned over so I could wrap my arms around her and pull her forward. Our lips met and she hummed delightedly against my mouth as trailed my fingers through her long, luxurious hair.

“Too long,” I replied after a long kiss, “too long by far.”

Aria rolled her eyes. “Maybe… ‘Dagi wants you to come back to work soon, by the way.”

I blew out a soft breath and then sighed. “You know how hard that’ll be with-”

“I know,” Aria replied quietly, her voice a little subdued. “We both knew when we made the choice… but you’ve gotta get moving again a little.”

“I can work from home,” I retorted a little defensively. “I’m a programmer, I don’t need to go anywhere to do my job.”

Aria didn’t answer, instead she reached her hand up and let her fingers find the lines of my face. She stared down at me with those gorgeous jewel tone eyes, amethysts that sparkled in the low light of the spring evening.

Seven years together and I still get lost in those eyes.

“You always do this, Red,” Aria said sternly. “If I don’t break you out of your funk you’ll just keep doing what you’re doing til hell freezes over.”

“If it ain’t broke?” I said weakly.

Aria was right, as usual. I had a problem with inertia; a problem that generally manifested in me getting comfortable doing a routine and then losing weeks or months to it. It wasn’t healthy, and it was probably wise to break out of it. It’s quite telling, I think, that Aria was the one who was taking up the role of ‘voice of reason’ here, but I suppose after so many years even the pair of us had to mellow out eventually.

“Can we talk about this in the morning?” I asked quietly. “I’m not deflecting, I do really want to talk.”

Sighing, Aria nodded and then leaned down to press her lips to mine. I felt her cup my breasts, running her fingers over the sensitive peaks, squeezing and touching as she kissed me.

“Ah~, I love you…” I whispered heatedly as Aria kissed down my neck.

“I love you too,” Aria replied, her voice low and breathy. “I’ll always love you…” she kissed me between every other word. “And I’ll never get enough of you.”

I let out a gasp as I felt her fingers trail past my waist and slip into me. I writhed beneath her and moaned softly, and I felt Aria shudder as she worked her fingers in and out in gentle motions.

My own fingers found her dripping sex a moment later and I began returning the favor, and I relished her low gasps of pleasure, the tightness of her, and the way she moved against me.

Mellowed or not, I suppose some addictions never fade, even after better than half a decade.

A gasp slipped past my lips as I jerked and came over Aria’s fingers at the same time she hit her own peak. The sweet, musical note of her voice sent pleasant shivers down my spine as she stifled a quiet cry of satisfaction.

I pulled my fingers free of her and lifted them to my lips, slipping them into my mouth without breaking eye contact with Aria, and her eyes narrowed in a fiery glare.

“You always know how to get me going,” Aria hissed softly.

Reaching out, she gripped my wrist and pulled my fingers from my mouth, and I smiled coquettishly at her, batting my eyelashes as I did, and she growled.

I’m dead certain it would’ve gotten even more intense from there if, at that moment, we hadn’t heard a loud crash from the kitchen.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Aria groaned, hanging her head.

I slumped back against the pillows and sighed. “We signed up for this.”

“Did we?” Aria grumbled.

I laughed softly and raised my head to peck a kiss onto her lips.

“Yes, darling, we did,” I said in a slightly mocking tone. “Now c’mon, before the kitchen catches fire and explodes.”

I slipped out of bed, pulling on a pair of pajama pants and a loose tank top. Aria just grabbed a pair of shorts and the bathrobe hanging off the bed’s headboard, pulled them both on, and joined me as I headed down the short hallway to the kitchen.

As we approached I leaned over towards Aria.

“We need to show a united front, Aria, remember,” I whispered.

“I know, I know,” she grouched, her mouth twisting slightly.

We walked into the kitchen and stopped immediately. I let out slow, even breath and counted to ten, staring down at the tile floor as I did.

“Wow,” Aria said in a toneless manner that reminded me of Pinkie’s older sister, Maud.

The floor was a mess of broken ceramic and scattered cookies. There were crumbs and shards everywhere and in the midst of the ruin stood a tiny angel.

Or at least, that’s what she would’ve been mistaken for if that person had never met an imp.

She was small and slim, lacking much in the way of baby fat despite only being four and a half, and had an angelic face framed by perfect tumbling ringlets of gold, scarlet, and plum with a few streaks of turquoise here and there. Her expression was one of total innocence, although it was somewhat spoiled by all of the cookie crumbs decorating her mouth and down the front of her pajama onesie.

For a moment I felt exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the fact that I was up at two in the morning. This exhaustion was different; it was a very specific, maternal sort of exhaustion that only a mother with an extremely high energy child who learns just fast enough to get into new and creative forms of trouble every other day can possibly understand.

She looked very similar to both Aria and I, which made sense since she was our daughter.

Literally.

Magic is a hell of a thing. Princess Twilight kindly cast the spell that mingled Aria and my essences once we decided this was something we wanted; a common enough spell in Equestria given the mare-to-stallion ratio is roughly three-to-one.

I agreed to carry the child and, nine months of the weirdest cravings later, Aria and I were proud mamas.

I’m not kidding about the cravings though, one time I thought I wanted radishes and blue cheese and it turned out I was hankering for schadenfreude.

Yeah, emotion cravings, perks of carrying a pathovore, I guess. So Aria and I binged two seasons of Jackass and I felt great.

She had inherited my precocious intellect, which made me newly appreciate Princess Celestia's infinite patience in raising me, and my wife’s flawless facial features, although she had a suspiciously ‘Sonata’ level of energy which was exhausting, and, weirdly, Adagio’s raspberry eyes.

The elder Siren sister had been instantly smitten on sight, and now she’s the worst kind of spoiling vodka aunt.

“Cantata,” I said firmly, my face schooled to tolerant neutrality. “What happened?”

“I dunno,” Cantata said with an entirely straight face.

If she hadn’t been standing in the middle of the destruction and clearly clutching a cookie behind her back, I might have bought it.

From that display, I am forced to assume that also she got her poker face from me, since she sure as Tartarus didn't get it from Aria's side of the family.

“C’mon kiddo, you’re the only other person in the house,” Aria said firmly.

“Nuh-uh,” Cantata said, meeting Aria’s eyes. “There’s Cowlick.”

“Are you suggesting the cat,” I enunciated, “knocked over the cookie jar?”

Cantata nodded her head emphatically, sending her ringlets bobbing around, and then beamed a smile that could have gotten her out of a murder.

That might work on Adagio and her wife but, unfortunately for Cantata, I happened to be her mother and was therefore immune.

“Cantata,” I said quietly, putting some disappointment into my voice. “I know you’re hiding a cookie behind your back.”

Our daughter just looked up at me with those big beautiful eyes of hers and blinked innocently.

“Nuh-uh,” she replied.

I heard a snort from my side and turned to glare at Aria who was silently shaking with barely restrained laughter

“Can I get some help here, dear?” I asked in a sarcastically saccharine voice.

Aria just snorted again. I knew if she opened her mouth she’d just start laughing and any ground I had gotten with Cantata would be instantly lost.

So much for that united front.

I sighed again and turned back to Cantata. “Honey, please… we’ve talked about lying, remember? What did we say about lying?”

“Only do it when you know you can get away with it,” Cantata recited as if by rote.

“PFFFFFFHAHAHAHAHAHA~” Aria finally lost control and started cackling, gripping her ribs as she bent double.

“Ooo~” I growled angrily before sucking in a sharp breath and turning to my wife, “Aria~, please tell Auntie Adagio that her babysitting privileges are suspended until further notice.”

“Aw c’mon babe, that was fu-”

My glare turned incandescent.

“F-f-friggin’ hilarious,” Aria finished, with a weak chuckle.

I pressed my fingers to my temple, blew out a calming breath, and counted to ten again.

Moving carefully, and I swept some of the crumbs and shards away with my foot as I approached Cantata and knelt down in front of her. I met her eyes, and she blinked innocently.

Sighing, I held up my right hand to the left of her face and snapped my fingers a few times. She looked up at my fingers, then frowned and looked back at me.

“Cookie,” I said firmly.

Then held up the cookie that she’d been holding behind her back in my left hand, which I had neatly picked from her hands while she’d been distracted by my fingers.

Cantata’s eyes widened.

“Mama’s got a few tricks of her own,” I said dryly, then I took a bite of the cookie.

She frowned as she watched me eat her prize, and I turned to Aria who was still chortling.

“Ari’, can you start sweeping this mess up, please?” I must have sounded as tired as I felt because Aria’s face instantly softened.

“Yeah, sure thing, Red,” Aria said softly.

I scooped up Cantata into my arms and made my way out of the kitchen as Aria swept up. I took another bite of the cookie as I carried Cantata into the living room and dropped in the couch.

Cantata was trying to frown at me, maybe trying to frown the cookie back into her possession, but then she yawned massively. After a moment she curled up in my arms and laid her head on my shoulder, and I felt the tension and exhaustion melting away as I cradled her and began to sing.

“Sle~ep now,

child of mine,

sleep til the dawning li~ght,

“Sle~ep now,

da~rling mine,

sleep and I’ll hold you ti~ght,

“No nightly fears shall find you here,

Mama will keep you warm and near,

so sle~ep now, da~rling mine,

sleep til the dawning li~ght…”

Cantata’s breathing was slow and even, and her small arms were clutched around me tightly. I felt tears tickle at the edges of my eyes as I looked down at her adorable face and wiped away some of the crumbs.

“My beautiful girls,” Aria’s voice came from the threshold between the kitchen and the den.

I looked up to see Aria leaning in the archway, her amethyst eyes sparkling with happy tears. She was still holding a broom and a full dustpan, and she turned slowly to tip the pan into the garbage as quietly as possible.

I stood slowly, hefting my precious cargo up carefully to ensure she stayed sleeping against me.

“I guess we should take her to bed,” I said quietly.

Aria shook her head. “She has nightmares, Red, just bring her to bed with us.”

I furrowed my brow. “How do you know she has nightmares? She hasn’t said anything to me.”

“Why else would she be up looking for sweets at two in the morning?” Aria asked, shrugging. “She probably just doesn’t wanna bother us.”

“But-!”

Aria leaned in and silenced me with a kiss, then gave me a soft smile.

“C’mon, Red, you know Canta,” Aria said quietly, before leaning down to place a delicate kiss on the crown of her head. “She got your brains and she’s all heart… she’s sharper than every other kid in her preschool. She catches on quick, so if you’re stressed just assume she knows it.”

I sagged a little as we walked towards the bedroom.

“She’s four, Aria,” I said plaintively, trying to keep my voice soft. “She’s not supposed to worry about me.”

“Yeah well, she’s your kid so what’d you expect?” Aria said with a small smirk. “C’mon, let's get some sleep, okay?”

Aria doffed the bathrobe and crawled into bed, I followed and settled in with Cantata between us. She snuggled up against both of us, one of her small hands fixing a deathgrip onto one of mine.

Pulling the covers over the three of us, I stared down at Cantata with a smile so wide that it almost hurt.

“Look what we did, Ari’,” I whispered, staring at Cantata. “We did this.”

“Hey, I just helped,” Aria commented sleepily. “You did the hard part.”

“But it was your idea,” I replied with a warm smile, reaching out my free hand to loop into hers. “If I remember right we were watching tv and then out of nowhere, you looked up at me and said: ‘Hey Red, wanna have a kid?’”

Aria blushed but didn’t open her eyes. “I mighta been feeling especially crazy about you at that moment.”

“We did it, though,” I said happily. “She’s the best of the both of us.”

“Here’s hoping,” Aria said, yawning and curling around Cantata.

I got closer, pressing my forehead to Aria’s with Cantata gently cradled between us.

“I love you both with all my heart,” I whispered, and I saw Aria’s lips curve up into a smile.

Aria said something in a flowing serpentine tongue without opening her eyes, and I blinked in confusion. Aria smirked as she opened one eye and fixed it on me.

“It means: until the tides fall silent,” Aria translated.

“Until the tides fall silent,” I repeated, then leaned in and kissed her. “Written’s Quill, I love you.”

“I know, Red,” Aria murmured softly. “Now go to sleep, we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us.”

And we did.

Author's Note

We Have Come To Terms