Margaret’s life has always been made up of music. She doesn’t quite know how else to put it.
There’s always half a tune on her lips, sheet music half-scrawled onto napkins and parchment, harmonies she can pick out of the weather.
Her emotions manifest in her mind as different instruments. A harp for when she’s calm, a flute for sadness, a violin for anger.
Oftentimes it feels like her life is just a pre-written opera that she’s still trying to pick out. It’s why she found it so surprising when as a child she realized that not everyone had music constantly in their brains, could see them and feel them and hear them in the people around her.
It would be redundant to say that Meg loves music. It’s more that Meg’s music is love; or maybe, Meg’s music is.
And that’s why the most fascinating of all are people.
From the world around her she can pick up bits and pieces. A song is always writing itself in her head, based on where she is and where she’s going, the parts of life that she’s taking in around her.
People, though? They are songs.
Eyes are an intro, smiles are a chorus, laughs a bridge, words a melody; everyone is a unique song. Meg doesn’t know if she’s necessarily talented at songwriting. She feels more like she’s just jotting down what’s around her, the people she can hear around her.
This habit of hers only increased tenfold when she came to Selphia.
The people here are just so interesting. There’s so much variety, and especially so after a certain mint-haired princess came crashing into their lives.
Quite literally.
And that moment, that life-changing moment that Meg would later realize is the day that she met the love of her life, wasn’t an instrument, a key change, a melody— it was an entirely new language.
Meg can’t help but feel like Frey— strong, stubborn, kind-hearted Frey— taught her that she had been reading sheet music upside down all her life.
Though it had taken her quite a bit of time to realize (and then admit, and then allow herself to fully embrace) how deeply the earthmate (the human) had sunken herself into Meg’s heart, Meg now knows that she’s been there from the very first moment those bright green eyes landed on hers.
It’s in moments like this one right now— where her early bird wife is still asleep because Meg has managed to wake up a few minutes earlier than her— that Meg reflects on this sort of thing.
She lets her eyes curve down the swelling of her cheeks, the long lines of her shoulders, the crescendos of her collarbones. She buries her hand lightly in Frey’s hair, lets her fingers gently scratch at her scalp in a rhythm that soon turns catchy.
For a second, the elf lets herself tune the world out.
She focuses on the soft breathing of Frey beside her, on the way sunlight falls on her through the window, on the wrinkles their bedsheets make around Frey’s lean build.
Beautiful.
And then it hits her.
Meg is scrambling out of bed so quickly and with such single-minded focus that she barely hears Frey’s yelp of a “woah!”
With practiced efficiency (Meg’s desk is organized to absolute perfection, thank you very, very much) Meg pulls out a long sheaf of parchment, a quill and ink, and immediately starts furiously scratching away something.
She hears the soft but distinct sound of her wife giggling behind her, and quickly scratches out and then changes a few more notes.
The world tunes out to nothingness as Meg composes, her brain now a chalkboard as she tries to keep in mind that perfectly picturesque moment from earlier, and all the parts of a song it had given her.
Then, it’s with a start that she feels a hand (touch gentle, but the pads of her fingers and palm are caressed with calluses from hard work) on her shoulder, at the spot where the sleeve of her nightgown had shifted.
“Ack!” She glances up at Frey, and then her actions from the past 20-ish minutes come back to her in a rush. Meg blushes. “I-I mean, good morning Darling. How are you?”
“Good. I got woken up with a bit of a start, though. Do you know anything about that?”
“Haha… Sorry. I might’ve gotten a bit carried away when I had a new idea for a song…”
Frey leans down to give Meg a kiss on the cheek, and then sets a cup of tea next to her on the desk.
I love this woman so much, Meg thinks.
“What’s it about?”
Meg shifts the sheet of paper so that Frey can see it over her shoulder. “The first draft isn’t quite done yet, but…”
From this close, the sight of Frey’s face as she leans forward gets a bit blurry in Meg’s eyes. Still, the elf can make out the way Frey squints at it in deep concentration. Meg’s been teaching her music for a while now, and quick as she is with everything else, Frey took very little time to pick it up.
“I’m excited to hear you play it.”
Meg smiles. “I’m excited to show it to you.”
Meg returns the kiss on the cheek, and with a satisfied smile Frey moves away to get ready for her day.
“I actually…” Meg says, after a few minutes of appreciatively staring at her wife’s back muscles as the princess dresses. “I have a title in mind already.”
“Oh?” Frey calls back over her shoulder.
“I was thinking… ‘Earthmate.’”
Frey turns back around, and her glittering green eyes crinkle with warmth. “That sounds beautiful.”
So do you, Meg thinks, satisfied.
