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It had been a day, as many had been of late, of slow winding emptiness. Cinder had learned patience a long time ago, under a harsher hand than the sleepy light of a Vale summer could bring to bear, but that patience had been full of things that had to be done.
It wasn’t as though she didn’t appreciate the value of leisure. She was owed it more than most. But it satisfied neither her natural hunger, nor that new unnatural coil of twisting fire in her stomach. And with so many days with nothing to do other than go over the rosters of teams for the Vytal festival and potential candidates set up to steal the remainder of her power and check to see who else had connected to the CCT tower and had their mundane, boring scrolls conquered by the virus -
She had left her room - a rare occurrence, given the dangers of participating in classes where she might be recognised, in addition to her complete lack of interest in social interaction. That drudgery she’d tasked entirely to Emerald. But even so, too long indoors - it prickled at her skin, and parts of her she had yet to carve and shape out started looking for things to tidy, things to sweep, the excuses Madame would have for why she needed to be punished.
Sometimes, she wondered what her life would have been like, if she’d continued to be weak, had passively waited and done nothing until she could meekly line up in combat school. Beacon had fallen beneath even her lowest evaluations of what that would have been like - their training lacking compared to Salem’s firm hand, their gregariousness the worst of the masquerade guests used to perform for each other while she’d polished their footsteps into mirror-brilliance, and all layered over with the thick, oozing muck of self-righteous ‘morality’. At least Haven had had the balls to be corrupt and useful.
She’d sought solitude, and found it near the cliff overlooking the nearby forest. Had settled in to read a book of fairytales and smirk at the lies Ozma kept his dupes fed with. And feel that burning pain twist and flicker inside her like fire, like stinging coals - Salem was powerful enough she didn’t need to resort to physical punishments to teach Cinder, preferring subtler uses of her strength, but the sting of Maidenhood always reminded her pleasantly of Madame’s voice hissing her unworthiness, her unwomanliness as her thumb jabbed on the button again and again, her muscles tightening, the pain reminding her -
Without you I am nothing. Because of you, I am everything.
She kept her pleased shudder small, and slid her eyes open - to find that she was no longer alone on the cliff edge.
Sitting a handful of meters away was Pyrrha Nikos.
Cinder had seen her before, of course. On her scroll screen, distantly across rooms, fighting in the mistimed breach into Vale. Had discussed her at length - both after Mercury’s initial spar and again later. After all, Cinder considered her as the second most likely candidate for Ozma to imbue her rightful power into.
But in person, like this, there was something… magnetic about her. Even in Beacon’s insipid uniform with its ridiculous string tie, just looking out at the forest, she presented a compelling image in the summer sun. It should have felt staged, because the woman in question had to be at least two-thirds illusion - she was from Argus, from some posh family that had bent their necks especially hard to Atlas and turned their daughter into a smiling mascot.
Except.
Her semblance.
So. There was something back there behind it all. Had she resented that firm, military boot on her family’s neck? Some natural arrogance hidden behind those green eyes as she built her power and strength? Patient. Biding her time.
Maybe. Maybe Cinder’s plans were disrupting her own, to crush every other Academy’s student beneath her sharp heel then reach for them with a smile that looked kind to the cameras but with the truth of it visible in her actions, that she’d beaten them easily, that they’d never stood a chance against the Invincible Girl.
Or, maybe she was just as boring as the rest of the would-be ‘heroes’ huntresses and huntsmen portrayed themselves as.
Cinder didn’t realise she’d been staring, not even pretending to read her book, until those green eyes flicked from the forest to meet hers. She braced herself for an unwanted greeting and smalltalk, but instead -
Instead the Invincible Girl’s eyes ran across her for a moment. Assessing. Weighing.
Interesting.
She lay back a little. Not quite posing, but shifting her position, seeing which way Pyrrha’s eyes would fall. A simple combat trick, a basic method of assessing your opponent’s hand, basic enough he’d taught it to her.
Those eyes tracked hers, unerringly. Bright and sharp like Salem’s fingernails against her shoulderblades. Giving away nothing.
So. She rolled her head to adjust her hair. And let the burning in her gut pull her smoothly to her feet, step closer. “I can move, if you’d like.”
“No need.” Her voice was so perfect and polite it pushed its way round into something lower, baser. “I was just - I thought I was the only person who came out here. Maybe at Beacon, anyway.” Her hair was such a brilliant shade of red, bright and even throughout her whole ponytail. A touch of wind caught it and Pyrrha brushed aside her stray hairs, smiled a little. “You’re from - Haven, yes? Team CREM?”
Oh? Had she studied them, like Cinder had studied her? Preparing for her tourney victory? How many hours of hard work had gone into sculpting her effortless victories? “Yes - and you’re Pyrrha Nikos.” She let the name linger a little on her tongue, savouring the slight freezing of her expression - oh, so her reputation bothered her, fascinating - before adding, “Of team… JNPR?”
“That’s right. I’m - sorry, but I don’t think I know your name.”
“I’m Cinder.”
They were still, the both of them, for a moment - the Invincible Girl still sitting, Cinder standing over her - before Pyrrha stood as well. The handshake was firm, precise, weighted, her hand strong and surprisingly warm before she pulled it away. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Like I said, I thought I was the only one who knew about this place.” Her gaze slid back to the forest, to the battered ruins of a failed culture piercing the trees like spines on the back of an Ursa.
Cinder found her gaze stuck to that profile, tracing the curve of Pyrrha’s nose, the mild underbite of her jaw, the firm line of her cheekbones. “I’ll be honest, I only found it a few hours ago. I was looking for somewhere a little less - busy than the main campus is becoming.” She also had makeup on - a more natural style than Cinder herself preferred, but far too many so-called Huntresses thought themselves above such things in their day-to-day lives. Was it simple public relations that led to that careful contouring work, the green of her eyeshadow, the peach of her lipstick? Or was it another piece of effortless, unthought femininity Cinder wished she could ape as easily?
Those green eyes - green-rimmed too, pretty eyeliner - shot back to her and widened a little. “Oh, if I’m bothering you, I can - ”
“Not at all. One person can hardly be a crowd.” Her lips pulled into a tight smirk. “Besides. I’m the invader here.”
A smile, a hint of laughter in the flare of her nostrils before Pyrrha’s expression became controlled again. “I think the term generally used is guest.”
“That assumes we’re not here to win.”
Ah, and that lit the fire in those eyes. Bright and hot, like something chemical, mechanical, laboratory. “That assumes you can win.”
She let her smirk widen into a ‘real’ smile. “Oh, I wouldn’t count us out entirely. Though of course, the tournament is still some way off.”
“Not too far away. The play-in rounds start next week.”
“I don’t think either of us need to worry about that.”
“I find that belief very quickly leads to situations where one should have worried about that.”
She shrugged, easily. “True. Even so. I’d like to think Headmaster Lionheart didn’t send us here to lose before we even get to the round of four.”
The conversation should have been excruciating. Cinder didn’t enjoy this kind of pointless banter about the trivial inanities people considered ‘important’. But something underneath it, the knifeplay of real meanings and truths - it let her flow effortlessly from one sentence to another without a single concern for her voice or tone. Magnetic. Frictionless.
“Maybe not. But the tournament is - well, it’s a little way off, still.” Her expression was unreadable beneath her porcelain skin, but that discomfort was evident in her tone, like a kind of audible nectar. “What were you reading?”
Cinder wasn’t sure she entirely masked her surprise, the way she’d honestly forgotten she was still carrying the stupid book - “The Man with Two Souls.” The part of her that curled, knowing she had to present contraband to Madame or she’d face the panic of her medication being withheld had her tilting the book to show Pyrrha the cover. “I tend to prefer things that are a bit heavier, but it’s not… bad.”
“It does have some flaws, from what I remember. But it’s been a long time since I read it myself. I tend to prefer the original stories it drew from, but - you’re right. It’s not bad.”
Something dry in the way she’d said those last two words, just shy of mocking - the kind of tone Cinder might take with Emerald when she was being especially oblivious, that Salem might take with her - made her ask, “So what is your favourite fairy tale?”
“I’ve always been partial to the Girl in the Tower.”
Oh.
That had to be a coincidence, didn’t it? Cinder’s favourite story, ever since the orphanage, the story Salem had told her the truth of - there was no way Pyrrha could have chosen that deliberately, unless she’d already been brought in by Ozma’s cult, already knew her face, was toying with her. Cinder wasn’t sure which idea she preferred. That the girl in front of her was such an adept manipulator, or that this was… what, fate? Destiny? Had her face given away her shock?
“I’m - fond of that one myself.” Her lips felt dry and she couldn’t quite stop her tongue from tracing them, feeling her lipstick come away a little. “It spoke to me at a - regardless. Interesting that we both find it interesting.” A moment of irritation with herself for her directionless words. “Destiny or coincidence?”
“Maybe a touch of both. It doesn’t exactly match what I think of destiny as, but.” Pyrrha’s shoulders rose and fell under her uniform jacket. “You probably don’t want to hear a stranger prattle on about philosophy she herself isn’t completely sold on.”
“I can think of worse ways to spend my time.” She would have used her body language to emphasise that interest or lack thereof, but the one disadvantage of the setting was there was nothing to lean against, to use as a prop other than each other. Cinder settled instead for a smile. “Besides, I’m interested. Destiny seems to be a rather fixed concept where I’ve encountered it before.”
“If you are sure.” Pyrrha blinked those long, dark eyelashes, looking at her - the corner of her mouth twitched. “I don’t think of it that way. Fixed, I mean. I think a lot of people do and that removes choice - I think maybe for some people that’s comforting but - ”
Cinder shuddered. “Definitely not comforting, no.” Perhaps removing others’ choices, but never hers.
Pyrrha nodded. “Exactly. But I do still believe in destiny. I just think it’s more… nebulous? Something chosen and strived for, not predetermined.”
“I’m not sure that’s accurate, strictly speaking. In terms of language and - ” Oh, what was that word? For the history of language, Salem had said it once, stupid girl, always forgetting... she silenced the Madame’s voice with a hiss of, “Etymology. But. It’s not dissimilar from some of my own thoughts. I suppose I might describe it more as a maxim than destiny, but that’s just semantics.” And there was something pleasant about the idea of this woman sharing her idea of a perfect goal one strove for eternally, shaping and reshaping oneself until one fit the mould of that fated role. Because of you I am everything.
“I’m not sure of that. I think - a maxim implies it could change. Destiny… you change to meet it.” Pyrrha shook her head, her ponytail a streamer of flame in the wind to match the heat in Cinder’s stomach. “Though that’s a discussion for another time, or day. Again, it’s been good to meet you. Cinder.”
“And it’s been good to meet you too, Pyrrha.” She wasn’t sure which part of her did it, which of the misshapen lumps in the perfect clay of her forming - the foolish child, the desperate girl looking at the moon, the chosen maiden - but she found her hand taking Pyrrha’s and raising it, bending forward, her lips parting. Pressing them against those warm, firm knuckles, the fire in her roiling, eyes rising to meet the Invincible Girl’s startled ones, smiling a little. Unable to pull away without pressing forward a little first, enough her teeth almost brushed the joints - then back.
For a moment they were both still.
Pyrrha raised her hand. Looked from the lipstick mark on it to Cinder, then back. Her face twisted, unreadable, those eyes burning and burning like a chemical fire.
Then, low, those eyes so bright their shadows stretched like grasping hands, she said, “You are arrogant aren’t you.”
Proud. Not arrogant. But she didn’t deny it. No point. Even if she wasn’t sure why she’d done what she’d done, she couldn’t change direction. Once one had made a decision, one had to commit to it, to the hilt, to the bone. She couldn’t quite stop her smirk from tilting across her face opposite to the way she turned her head.
A huff, an incredulous flash of teeth. “It’s a good thing - ” Pyrrha cut herself off. Shook her head. Looked back to the lipstick stain Cinder had left on her knuckles. The shoulders of her jacket rose and fell, and she sighed. “I shouldn’t ask this. But. I would be - would you be interested in.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “Cinder, would you be interested in the two of us having sex?”
Pause. Blankness, whiteness, enough even the flame in her chest sputtered.
“Purely once. One time. It’s - ” Pyrrha shook her head. “It’s a habit I thought I’d left behind somewhat, but your attitude, and - some other, more personal matters - you obviously don’t have to say yes, but - ”
“Yes.” Her voice came out ragged, burnt. Ashes and smoke, not the smoothness of glass. She slid it back to how it should be with another, “Yes.”
“Alright.” Cinder couldn’t stop herself tracing the line of Pyrrha’s tongue as it licked her lips. “Okay. Our rooms. Probably wouldn’t work for this. Tonight - I’ll figure something out, but. It might take me an hour or so. Your scroll number?”
She recited it, ears buzzing, felt the confirmation text buzz against her lapel.
“Good. It’ll need to be - secret. Or not - I don’t want you telling - ”
“I wouldn’t.” She meant it. Because somehow this broken, stuttering, less perfect Pyrrha was even more perfect. Was this - love? Had she fallen in love? Cinder tried to imagine it, to shape it, this new heat and had to conclude -
She doesn’t want me. It’s one night.
Oh, and that. That hurt. Not the good hurt of thinking about the collar, or the power twisting inside her, but the hurt of Salem’s disappointment in her partial failure, of how the collar had actually felt. Why did that hurt? Why should this stranger’s care matter? Why should the idea of accepting that fake love anyway, that lust, be so tempting where it had never been before?
“Okay.” Pyrrha’s voice, firm. Her hand, reaching for Cinder’s, and oh, that is why Pyrrha had looked at her like that. “Then I will see you tonight, Cinder.”
She stood there for some time after Pyrrha had left, balancing her warring mind with the faint scent of Pyrrha’s uniform and the soft, almost invisible mark of lips on the back of her hand.
-.-.-
Cinder never quite felt as solid in herself, in her choices, in a hotel. It was a weakness, she knew, but she couldn’t quite stop the parts of her looking for traces of mud on the carpets, her heart leaping in fear when she found them. The failures she hadn’t quite finished carving from her flesh.
She still wasn’t entirely sure why she was here. That curdling conflict, pressing against the burning inside her - love could not be its name, because love was weakness, and why would she ever want it? But it wasn’t lust either, though its traces caressed her with memories of the mark on her hand, those fire-bright eyes. Desire, maybe? The same kind of love and lust she felt watching the false inheritor rise into the air above Mercury and Emerald, the storm answering her call. A new person who could grant her everything.
Except.
Except they were strangers, still. Would be even after this mere meeting of flesh. How could someone make her everything if their rough hand was not clasped around her throat, if their smile wasn’t flensing her as she panted and begged for just a moment more, a moment, please? That required more than someone - what, trying to distract themselves from their fame, from Cinder’s ‘arrogance’?
But.
She was still hungry for it. Still so hungry, hungry enough to eat Pyrrha down to the bones, to peel the tendons out with her teeth, gnawing and desperate for traces and fragments, any trace of flesh that could be ferreted loose with suction and time. And if Pyrrha would throw some scraps of the power she held to Cinder, Cinder would take them and make them hers.
She walked the liminal space of the hallways confidently - in the few hours it had taken for Pyrrha to text her and to make the trip into the quaint, pathetic city of Vale, she’d changed into her new - disguised, so I don’t catch Goodwitch or the drunk’s attention - combat outfit. Well, the one she’d settled on as a disguise, at least. Not quite her preferred style, the Haven uniform was closer to that, but despite its colouration it was relatively attractive. Even if she felt like it bared too much skin around her stomach, the trousers and bandages clinging to her uncomfortably close -
At least the heeled boots were pleasant. The fingerless gloves too.
She straightened them a little before she knocked on the door of the agreed upon room. Found her fingers going to straighten her jacket, adjust it to hide any unsightly marks or the narrowness of her hips. Stupid to think of your own imperfections now when any act will inevitably lay them bare.
“Come in!” Her voice was somewhat muffled through the door but that was, unmistakably, Pyrrha.
Cinder swallowed once, dug her nails into the leather of her gloves, and on finding no relief, pushed open the door.
The room - the hotel as a whole - was middling. Nothing as faux-pretentious as her former employer’s had been, yet nothing tacky either. Save, perhaps, that awful wallpaper. She found her gaze tracing along the floor, the walls, the desk, unwilling yet to look up and meet the eyes of -
Of Pyrrha, sitting calmly, legs crossed at the ankle, chair swiveled to face the door. Pallor cast into something almost sickly by the harsh blue light, and made all the more appealing for it.
“Shut the door behind you, and let’s talk a bit first.”
Cinder obeyed, feeling the heat surge in her at the roughness in Pyrrha’s voice, pushing sway into her hips as she crossed past her to the bed, sitting on the edge of it in a mirror of her posture. “What’s there to discuss?”
“A few things. Limits, wants, expectations.” Those peach lips curled up.
She rolled her shoulder in a half-shrug. It was - it should have been an unexpected, offputting weakness as a proposal, but something about those burning green eyes.
And. And she should probably say, before clothes were removed - before her face could crumble into disgust or horror or -
“I’m trans.” Cinder didn’t like to say it like that, like she was different, wrong - though she knew she was, Madame had made that clear with every snarl and sneer, customers expect a female maid from Mistral, that’s the only reason I indulge your delusions - “If that’s going to be a problem - ”
“Of course it isn’t.” Pyrrha’s voice was still steady, and it was something close to divine that her voice and face held no trace of pity, just that still strength and fire. “I didn’t bring any condoms, I’m sorry, but there are other ways - ” Some part of Cinder’s face must have twitched hearing that because she cocked her head, eyes narrowing a little, before widening. “Unless - I didn’t mean to assume anything about - ”
“No, it’s.” Cinder’s tongue darted to her lips as she tried to form the words, push them out of her throat before they froze her. “I did bring it up because my genitalia are still. That. Though I tend to not enjoy… penetration, with it.” Or penetration of herself, per se - her fantasies and the one experience she’d enjoyed had focused more on tongues and lips and hands. “How strong can we both be?”
Pyrrha’s fluster vanished back into that confident, conquering smile. “Oh, given we both have aura - I was looking forward to watching you struggle under me.”
Her smile was a razor shard splitting her face slow and wide. “Who’s to say that’s the way things would go?”
The smile twitched. As polite and calm as ever, Pyrrha said, “It’s how things will go.” Then, before Cinder could even process how hot that had been, she continued - “To check, briefly - terms?” Her eyes flicked down, meaning unmistakeable.
The consideration after the confidence shouldn’t have been - it should have felt mollycoddling, like she wasn’t being trusted to know her own limits, or like Cinder wasn’t being trusted to be capable of defending herself. But somehow that kindness was lethal, aura-piercing - even if it was misguided. “Anything.” There was no point in trying to mask what still was between her legs behind lies after all. “And I’m not opposed to more general… talk either.”
Pyrrha’s smile twitched again. “You’re very coy about sex. Or is that part of the image?” She stood, and as she did she shrugged off her jacket. “The confident seductress who never says, exactly, what the endpoint of the seduction is. Are you actually that confident and arrogant?”
Cinder trailed her eyes from the muscles defined under the whiteness of Pyrrha’s shirt, across the peach of lips curved into a smile that was somehow both kind and cocky, an insult and a promise at once, and laughed, low and musical as she could manage with her pulse thundering in her mouth, her neck, her crotch. Had her lips parted? Had her tongue darted out to lick them again as she pulled on a smirk of her own? “Well, then let me be as direct as you were. Are we going to merely talk about sex, or are you going to - ”
Two steps was enough room to react in a fight, but the only counterattack Cinder gave was to lean up into the kiss, wrap her arms around Pyrrha’s broad shoulders and dig her nails into the glass surface of her aura hard enough to spark, teeth kneading at her lips. It turned out the Invincible Girl’s mouth tasted like most mouths do - flesh, and sweetness, and the softest hint of lipstick sliding against her own - and that mundanity made every motion important, the softness of the firm hand at her waist, the other’s long fingers fisting into Cinder’s hair, the precise touches of tongue like she was probing for an opening with her weapon, heat so suffusing it almost drowned out the hunger in her chest with a different flame entirely.
It was a filthy kiss, all teeth and tongue and mess, and it was the kind of thing Cinder wouldn’t have thought Pyrrha capable of. It was another layer to the depths that today had shown. And it was almost painful to break it with a smirk, tongue still caught a little between her teeth - when was the last time she’d had to breathe hard, not even Goodwitch had pushed her to that in combat and here she was already panting from just Pyrrha’s kiss -
Her smile was still as bright and kind as it had always been, but Cinder knew now it had to be a mask. Visibly so with Cinder’s lipstick smeared across her mouth, with her eyes green and burning and hooded, with one hand still wrapped in Cinder’s hair.
So when Pyrrha said, like she was just who she seemed, “If you’re not familiar with the traffic light system, now is the time to say. Colour?” Cinder could only give one response.
“Green,” she managed to snarl out before trying to latch her mouth around Pyrrha’s pulse point, teeth digging in against the aura there hard enough for her jaw to ache. She hated the idea of safewords, of the fumbling nets needed to restrict the powerful from getting what they deserved, but this wasn’t that, this was a taunt, a gauntlet, how had she not seen how fascinating Pyrrha was before this - ?
The hand in her hair tightened, and Cinder was ripped back, tossed onto the bed, landing hard enough she heard the springs strain, that she felt one of her boots come off. It was almost enough to remind her of attempting to bounce on one of the beds she’d been cleaning during a moment she’d thought she wouldn’t be discovered, a moment that had cost her in pain extensive enough she’d almost passed out - but Pyrrha’s leap after her, the thighs and hands bracketing her and pinning her down, that pushed such thoughts away entirely.
Oh, it was obviously a role - if Cinder wanted to she could turn the tables on this girl and have her begging, crawling for her, but right now she didn’t want to. She considered it though - lifting her knee and launching Pyrrha back the way she’d came, into the ugly wallpaper hard enough to crack the wall underneath before dropping to her knees before those thighs - instead she leant up to kiss her again, to pull her shirt free and begin ripping the buttons loose.
Pyrrha hummed something against her lips - and then Cinder had to suppress a startled sound as she was lifted again, into Pyrrha’s lap, hands peeling Cinder’s jacket down enough to tangle around her elbows. “How much of your clothing can I rip,” she murmured, almost low enough to be a growl, something more than the role the question implied that made Cinder snarl out a laugh against her lips.
“As much as you think you can,” she taunted, and almost immediately Pyrrha’s hands clenched and Cinder’s jacket - which was meant to be rated for combat, hah! - tore around her, falling off past her gloves before Pyrrha was pushing her back, headboard digging into her hip, wall at her back - Cinder dug her teeth into her lip in response, tugging hard enough to elicit a hiss of pain and another slam that broke the kiss, let Pyrrha’s mouth drop to her jaw, her neck -
Pain there always felt. Like something. Without you I am nothing. But it was also good, and though it couldn’t make her everything - a different sting at that, passing and fleeting like a girl looking at the moon - it was given in Pyrrha’s lips on her scar, so soft, her teeth, so sharp, pinning her in place -
Cinder moaned so loud it would have been embarrassing if she could feel embarrassment about this, about desire. Pyrrha’s hair, freed from its ponytail, was thick and warm around her fingers, made to be curled, tugged, pulled while those lips trailed lower, not even pausing on the scar, no pity in their touch just heat enough to flay her skin loose and boiling against the parts of her that sat wrong and strained closer against the tape that held them in place.
They stopped, just above where the bandages framed her chest, held her together, and Pyrrha glanced up, those eyes a wildfire. Leant back up to nip against Cinder’s collarbone, but made no other motion -
“Take them off,” Cinder found herself snarling out. Straining upward to present what she had better, to force her hand. She needed the heat, the fire, or needed to devour Pyrrha herself, to take skin and to mar it with the darkness of fast fading bruises, the blemishes of lipstick and spit and sweat. Tried to wriggle down to start, but the grip on her was firm - she could break the grapple if she could just focus past Pyrrha’s lips, her eyes, the tightening of her fingers.
Pyrrha’s smile showed teeth. “Take what off?” She pulled out of the remnants of her shirt and somehow her sports bra was both perfect and frustrating because if it wasn’t there then Cinder could knee, shift down and bite down into that valley, smear her makeup across it.
“Any of my clothes. More of them.” Then realisation struck as a sword blow - “Oh, you want me to beg, don’t you?”
“It would be nice.”
That was a game Cinder was very familiar with. It normally stung, when it was forced by Salem or Madame, but like this, to those green eyes, there was no sting at all to roll her neck back and breathe out, “Please, then.” She flicked her tongue across her lips. “Please - I want your mouth on my breasts, I want to feel you against me - ”
The fingers that had been merely toying with the bandages clenched and pulled, tugging strips loose and tight into her skin against the pressure of her aura, Pyrrha’s lips chasing the exposed flesh down - Cinder’s head thunked back as the teeth returned, her nails digging into Pyrrha’s shoulders, clawing at the muscle there and drawing a pleased hum from her, an acknowledgement of the blow where she wanted to draw blood with a moan like the one ripped rough from her own throat as Pyrrha found a nipple, those strong hands twisting and tugging -
Cinder knew the value of her cleavage, of its exposure and closure, the value of it bared. It and her legs - currently wrapped as tightly as she could managed around Pyrrha, trying to press herself closer into that mouth with a roll of the hips for the sake of friction - were the only parts of her that felt perfected, like their glass had set from liquid to solid clarity. But they were assets she primarily deployed at a distance, not here where she could feel Pyrrha’s own chest compressed against her abdominal muscles, where there wasn’t even enough space between them to draw a knife, closer than any fight should bring two bodies. Here every brush of lips was disarming, the tug of teeth a mortal blow, the salve of a tongue enough to flay her down to just ribs and heat and panting, needy breaths of, “Yes, there - ah! Tug, right - fuck - there, bite - ”
A low laugh, right against her skin, lodging like an arrow. “So commanding, while you grind on me so needily.” The last of the bandages pulled away, Pyrrha lifting back up to press a quick, biting kiss to Cinder’s lips, tugging her lower one in teeth. “Colour?”
“Fuh - fuck - ”
Pyrrha’s expression became more serious, her eyes flaring brighter, the moment of ignition on a bomb. “I’m not continuing until you say - ”
“Green, fuck, please,” Cinder said, the words wrenched from her - who knew the golden girl, darling perfect Pyrrha Nikos could be such a bitch, forcing such weakness onto her, making her heart hammer against her ribs hard enough to shatter them. She paid her back by leaning forward to latch onto the side of Pyrrha’s own neck, gnawing, tongue laving in broad sweeping strokes to deny space. Her eyes fluttered, rolled at the gasp she gained as a reward -
And then Pyrrha was ripping her free again, slamming her against the wall, and oh, she could snarl too. “I really should punish you for that.” At Cinder’s breathless laugh at that because yes, yes, yes, make me everything as much as you can, Pyrrha smiled, and the flash of teeth between messy patchwork lips was the slow drawing of a blade. “I could just reward your impatience by stopping, but maybe - ” She pulled up a length of the wrappings that had been around Cinder’s chest, tugged them taut.
Well. That would be new. Cinder almost asked for it to be around her neck, instead, so it would be a little more familiar - it wouldn’t be able to shock her but Pyrrha could close it tight until the world wavered and broke into darkness and that would be almost as good - but she just nodded instead, breathing out, “Green,” before Pyrrha could ask again.
She tugged Cinder down the bed first, pinned her hands against the pillows, wrists crossed under her grip. Then the tangling of cloth round them, pushing her gloves deeper into her skin, tying tighter and firmer - not tight enough in Cinder’s opinion as she wriggled against it, under the apex of Pyrrha’s thighs, her skirt brushing the underside of Cinder’s breasts - but still tight enough to restrain. For now, at least. She’d rip loose when she was ready, when the hunger to have the heat and wetness she could feel against her stomach around her fingers grew too strong to be denied.
“There.” Pyrrha finished the last knot tying hands to headboard and knelt up over Cinder, looking down - but her gaze was still level, burning like a hardlight beam. “Comfortable?”
“I’d be more comfortable with your cunt pressed against my abs again.” Cinder tried to rock back up to achieve that, but Pyrrha rose easily with the motion out of the way, swaying out of range.
“And I’d be more comfortable with my mouth between your legs.” Pyrrha raised a delicate, faux-mocking hand to her mouth and Cinder longed to bite her so badly her jaw ached. “But you misbehaved earlier, so you can’t stop me from doing what I want.” Ducking herself down to just under Cinder’s jaw, not even kissing just pulling her lips down Cinder’s neck, the scrape of teeth as Pyrrha reached her chest again, like a blade unzipping her from gullet down - now there was an idea, Pyrrha with that sword of hers carving Cinder open until her guts spilled in grey tangles around her champion fingers - “Mmm, gorgeous, arrogant, and so pliable and good like this~”
‘Good’ should not have sent a jolt to Cinder’s crotch like the warmth of Pyrrha’s mouth was already wrapped around it. ‘Good’ was an insipid, pathetic descriptor, whether it was used for morals or for quality, and those who used it as a compliment or felt pleased being described as such were the kind of irrelevant dregs Cinder didn’t even consider.
‘Good’ had Cinder arching her back so desperately that her body became her bow’s arms pulled taut, the bedsheets the string, a rough and broken, “Fuck!” flying from her mouth, split like a broken arrow - Pyrrha answered with a laugh right into the skin above Cinder’s belt that shoved Cinder back into taut readiness, nails scraping at her aura.
“A brat with a praise kink,” she murmured against Cinder’s skin. “How original.” She salved the blow of the words with her tongue, with the tips of her fingers tucking into the band of Cinder’s underwear. They tugged at the tongue of Cinder’s belt -
Cinder rolled and pulled against the binds on her wrists, trying to rock her hips up hard enough to break Pyrrha’s nose. She managed to draw an annoyed sounding grunt and the briefest promise of impact, but nothing more. “Not - not a brat.” Tried to curl her legs around Pyrrha’s ribcage to pull her in closer. “Just because I don’t bend over immediately - ”
Pyrrha’s hands dug into Cinder’s flesh and slammed her down into the bed, hard enough the binds round her wrists dug into her skin, hard enough the wood of the headboard creaked, hard enough that even with the bracing of aura the air was forced from her lungs. “You’re a brat because you say things like that then bend over immediately after.” A bite to the top of Cinder’s hip that had her whole body melt like her being had been pulled into a kiln, followed by Pyrrha's lips soft and annealing at the slope down of belly towards crotch. “Colour?”
“Gr-green, take my trousers off already.” Cinder twisted her body towards vitreography as best she could, to make up for what was between her legs - she could make the rest of her body art, make Pyrrha take it and fuck it despite her deficiencies, make her - “Please.”
Strong fingers pulling her belt loose. “Hold still for me then,” Pyrrha said, and finally, finally the cool air of the room touched the heat of her upper thighs as her trousers were tugged down, down, sliding rough over the burned frictionless surface of Cinder’s legs and tugging the other boot off with a clatter followed by the slap of fabric against the wall as Pyrrha tossed the trousers and underwear aside. Gazing down the length of her body, Cinder could see the burn in her eyes darken, intensify - hunger like the fire that curled in her own belly, lined in green and the dilation of her pupils - “Good, gorgeous girl.” Pulling the last of the failing tucking tape away with the faint sting of its tug against sweaty skin, replacing it with the smear and mess of the last of Pyrrha’s lipstick -
Cinder’s moan was broken and twisted out of her, a blade handed kneeling in surrender, a shattering of cullets into black and splintered powder peeling her skin loose, a fire that scorched her throat dry. If only, if only she could stay, if only I could stay, if only - because if this brief lie felt so good already, what would it be like if it was forever?
She felt herself throb, leak against Pyrrha’s lips at that thought, and Pyrrha hummed into her skin in reply, tongue tracing with her tongue in time with the beats of Cinder’s heart. Her hands juddered against each other where they were tied, the insides slick and raw with her sweat. Then Pyrrha brushed with teeth, hard enough Cinder had to push her aura to life under the bite, and that pressure-pain almost had her spilling instantly.
“I thought you might like that,” she said, and she wasn’t even smug, and somehow that absence became overwhelming presence. Her fingers dug into Cinder’s hips, and she set tongue to flesh again, shriving, flaying, peeling -
Cinder realised with a sudden flush of embarrassment that her hips were rolling, pressing herself against Pyrrha - that was part of the source of the slick, wet sounds, it wasn’t just Pyrrha’s mouth and its suction, its motion, it was her own sweat-stained body. Hold still for me - and so Cinder tried to hold herself still, tried, tried so hard.
Pyrrha took Cinder wholly into her mouth, the wet heat almost overwhelming. “Mm, you are - ” a pop as she pressed her lips against Cinder, sucked, suckled, “ - so wet for me.” The cool of her breath as she blew on that wetness coating Cinder’s length, and Cinder couldn’t help but scream, raw and desperate, soothed only when Pyrrha’s teeth closed on her upper thigh. “And trying to hold still. Not succeeding entirely - ”
“No no no no no,” gasped out of Cinder as she resisted the urge to thrash. “T-trying, please.” She didn’t know - didn’t know if she wanted mercy or further punishment, punishment was what she knew she deserved for failing an order, but the idea of mercy was - who else but Pyrrha Nikos could, would grant her mercy, who else might?
A scratch along the line of her hip, one Cinder didn’t even think to block with her aura until after she’d been marked. Pyrrha’s voice, soft as leaves - “Trying isn’t the same as succeeding. We both know that.” She nuzzled against Cinder and the warmth of her face was almost overwhelming. “So. You don’t get to cum. Not until I say. Is that clear?”
“Green,” Cinder snarled out. “Green, fuck you, green, green - ”
“But you can move. Move for me.” And Cinder couldn’t help but obey, couldn’t help but grind up into Pyrrha’s mouth and tongue and fingers, couldn’t help but lift and roll, legs trembling - “Good girl, gorgeous girl. You taste so good, Cinder.”
Almost enough to undo her already. She had to stammer out, “C-close,” like being made to admit what food she’d eaten that was meant for the guests, except here rather than a slap and starvation her hunger was fed by Pyrrha’s lips moving to pepper her thighs with kisses, was fed by her own hands clasped round each other hard enough her bones creaked.
But it still wasn’t enough. Wouldn’t ever be enough to fill her. But Pyrrha’s tongue coming back to trace her length, her voice murmuring low and sweet and so fake - because it had to be fake, because no-one was like that really, no-one - it was perfect, “Thank you for telling me,” a sucking, biting kiss - those were almost enough, almost.
Her hair felt. Soaked with sweat. The bedsheets were tangled under her, around her shins where she’d thrashed, where she braced to lift herself up into Pyrrha’s mouth and hands. Distantly, she felt part of her think this will be a disaster to clean and couldn’t help the giggle that burst from her alongside her moans. Time felt - fluid and stretched like this, sticky and slow and molten. Had it been a minute since Pyrrha had last pulled back? A minute since Cinder had looked down and seen the flash of her eyes gazing back, the curve of a smile before Pyrrha had looked back down and set back to work? A minute since Pyrrha had grabbed and lifted her legs and Cinder had dug a heel into Pyrrha’s shoulderbone, against the damn sports bra she still hadn’t taken off? More? Less? Did it matter?
She was saying something. What was she saying? Oh, the soundtrack to her life, a low shifting repetition of, “More, more, more, more, more - ”
“Say please.”
“Nm - ah, more, please, please, been - ” Her throat was clay, parched and dry as she swallowed. “Been good.”
“You are. You’re being very good for me.” And oh, that for me made good into something almost worthwhile, even without Cinder’s inexplicable reaction to it. Pyrrha’s lips brushed against Cinder as she spoke, as she said, “But your punishment isn’t quite done yet.” A whine echoing around the room - oh, that had been Cinder’s voice. “I know, I know.”
“Can’t - can’t hold - can’t - ”
“You can. Be good for me, Cinder.” Pyrrha pressed a firm kiss at the join between her leg and her body - no teeth or tongue, just pressure and warmth, and Cinder had to resist the urge to sob. She wasn’t - she didn’t - was this worse or better than being nothing, having to hold herself down and small - oh fuck Pyrrha’s mouth was back on her - she found herself making the small choked whimpers she normally associated with being young enough she hadn’t understood the purpose of pain yet, she needed, she needed, she needed so, so badly, her hips were thrusting desperately and erratically - her throat drawn taut, desperation almost as good as fingers of electricity for clenching her muscles tight - “Okay. Okay, you’re doing so well.” Words like in a rainstorm spilling from her mouth, she couldn’t register. All of them, any of them, that soft voice mingling with the racing beat of her heart. “It’s okay. You can let go, you can cum. Cum for me, Cinder.”
Once, Cinder had made the mistake of reading a romance novel a guest had left in their room. It had deprived her of food for a week, and it hadn’t even been good. In its pages, orgasm was described in terms of soft destruction - ‘dissolving’, ‘coming apart’, ‘fell to pieces’, and so on. A death, but one without blood, one with no cost.
Cinder didn’t orgasm like that. It was a dissolution, yes, but it was a shredding. A tearing into fragments, no gentleness in it, especially after such delay. She was aware of the impact of her knee against the side of Pyrrha’s head because like this she forgot to cushion it with aura and felt it bruise against the glassy surface of Pyrrha’s own soul. It was burning in fire, the shortness of breath of the smoke, the heat crisping and curling skin, the instinctive desire to pull away from a sensation that was too much, but you couldn’t because it was set against your throat. Her hands shredded the binds around them - had she burnt through or simply tugged? - fingers tearing into the pillow under them, the splinters from where she’d pulled part of the headboard loose. Orgasm was a butchery, each cut of her separated and prepared and hooked and salted ready to be served.
And through it all, Pyrrha was there, her hands wielding the knife, the torch, the gentle ripping softness of speech that cut so much. Hands on her hips holding her down, kisses to her thighs, to the bruise on her knee from her thrashing. The hard bone of her chin digging into Cinder’s stomach as she spoke, the flashing green of her eyes. The curve of her smile, the promise of her teeth.
She was the first who had tried to be with Cinder through that feeling, that destruction.
Why? Why did it have to be the one who would only be there for one night? Who was so ready to give so much - ?
The words slowly drifted into coherency. “... gods, you did so well, you did such a good job for me. It’s okay, I’m here.” Each accompanied by soft lips. “Hey. Do you need a minute, need some water, need - ?”
No, Cinder didn’t need water. She didn’t need. Care. Not from someone who wouldn’t be there beyond today. Not from someone - indulging, distracting themselves. She didn’t need the promise of food later, a glittering academy. She needed freedom now.
So like she had then, she took it.
Cinder sat up fast, hands reaching to tangle in that perfect, thick, scarlet hair, to tug her up into a kiss that was as harsh and biting as she could make it - feel it, feel it, can you feel it too, the hunger that can’t be sated, you have to feel it too - a kiss Pyrrha answered in kind with a little hum in the back of her throat, anticipatory and like it had been anticipated, like she’d known Cinder would want more and had offered care anyway -
“I want your bra off and your tits in my mouth,” Cinder snarled, but it was still wobbly from the orgasm, from the tears in the corners of her eyes, from the hunger and pain in her chest. She hid her failures in the kiss, in the messiness of it, the way she could slide down to nip along that strong jawline, but she found it slowing at Pyrrha’s pace, becoming wetter. Still messy but slower, achingly so, boiling with the tension of it. Her tongue tangled and tripped Cinder’s own, her teeth marching out to tug Cinder’s lower lip into the warmth of her mouth, the soft pleased sounds from her throat wrapping round Cinder in melted glass, in amber. Languid. And that languidness that - almost sloth, that indulgence, that privilege that a celebrity fighter could afford that Cinder couldn’t, it was infuriating, but she was insatiable, desperate, wanted it so much, the softness that let Pyrrha bear to take her time, bear to roll her hips so slowly and strong against Cinder’s own, bear to have the soft peach fuzz along her cheeks revealed without foundation, along her jawline, that she could be seen as a woman despite it when Cinder couldn’t sit in skin she hadn’t scoured of every follicle she could push superheated glass into -
She growled again, low in the back of her throat, set teeth to the flawless length of Pyrrha’s neck. Flawless, flawless, flawless, but Cinder knew the flaws now, felt them under the hollow image Pyrrha presented to the world. She’d carve them out if she could, tucking under the band of the sports bra, lifting it away - Pyrrha lifting her arms to help with a soft, pleased noise that became a groan as Cinder’s nails dug into the flesh revealed there, thumbnail pressing against the rose of the nipple.
Madame had always accused her of handling the decorations and crockery such that she left oily fingerprints on them - it hadn’t been deliberate then, but now the desire was. She wanted the whorls of her hands embedded into Pyrrha’s breasts in green and purple and black, in broken veins. Cinder squeezed, hard enough for the flesh to redden - Pyrrha hadn’t lifted her aura, hadn’t stopped - ?
A soft laugh, broken only by another moan from between a groan pulled from a bitten lip. “Mmm. As long as they’re - ah. On the underside. I’m fine with that - ha! Fine with that too.” Pyrrha’s eyes smoldered, that chemical fire rising again, back arched to present herself more.
Had Cinder - ?
Had Cinder spoken her desire out loud? Had she said what she wanted to do and Pyrrha had… accepted it? Wanted it, even. Yes, the concessions to her armour, to the fact that this was only tonight - but even with aura, the marks would linger for a little while, for a handful of hours. For a handful of hours longer when Pyrrha moved, she’d remember Cinder’s hands on her skin.
And she wanted that. She wanted it.
Cinder did not pause in her motions, but she could feel the heat rising in her cheeks - she hid it behind a smirk, behind lowering her mouth and teeth to graze the upper slope of Pyrrha’s chest, feeling the catch in her breath under her tongue, behind digging in fingers again. Clawing, raking, marking. And since Pyrrha had insisted before, it was Cinder’s turn to ask, mocking-soft, “Colour?” and smile like the unsheathing of a blade.
“Gr - hah - definitely green.” And then, the counter-attack - “Good girl - mm, you look so pretty like this - ”
She was one to talk, as though she didn’t look gorgeous stretched out in Cinder’s lap, breaths lifting the muscle of her stomach into Cinder’s palms, her sweat catching under Cinder’s nails, against her tongue. Cinder was used to being desired herself - at least, in abstract; perhaps the specificity was why Pyrrha had disarmed her so? - but her own wants had always been more total, more mingled than anything as pedestrian as lust. Even here, even now, when her mouth felt both dry and drooling at once from the thought of Pyrrha wrapped round her fingers, her mind spun off from that - the other ways Pyrrha could be wrapped around her fingers, bowing her head, accepting her commands, fighting for her, trailing after her to grant her more because Cinder had been good enough -
“I’m - I’m in control here,” she found herself hissing out. Another thought that should have remained inside, but if the orgasm had torn her apart she’d done a poor patch job of tying her pieces back together, and these words were leaking out of her through the cracks. Things that weren’t - desirable, right, things she’d thought shaped away a long time ago.
Pyrrha smiled again, eyes like lighthouse lanterns, so controlled, so composed, even with a heaving chest. “Pull down my skirt, and touch me - two fingers, please.”
And Cinder - Cinder obeyed. Cinder slid her hands down from the artwork she’d made of Pyrrha’s chest, tugged the band of the skirt down those warm thighs, left it puddling around Pyrrha’s knees, against her own stomach. Those legs parted and oh, how had Cinder not known she hadn’t been wearing underwear? That the stickiness on those thighs wasn’t just sweat, was her - and she was dripping, swollen and flushed, the curls of hair thick and darkened to the colour of dried blood. And so soft, soft as the whine she made as Cinder brushed over her with the pads of her fingers, relishing the slick glide, the burning heat in her flesh. The blood under the surface, thick enough just a prick would have it spilling to with each pulse of heart she could feel.
Had her jaw dropped? It had only dropped once before, when she’d understood what Salem was, that if anything in this world deserved worship it was her. Cinder had never understood religion, but for a brief moment of epiphany she had, and now epiphany had struck again, and she wanted to worship.
Pyrrha’s hips rocked that - that tabernacle into Cinder’s touch. So gentle, so slow - not even a whine, or a moan, just a breath. Cinder had never felt so starved before, not ever - parting those folds and smoothly running her fingers over Pyrrha’s entrance, running up to tease against the stiffness of her clit, down in a firmer stroke. She felt almost deranged with hunger, like she’d been locked in her cubby for a week again, but the soft little hums Pyrrha gave, the way her nails dug into Cinder’s shoulders… those were the kind of feasts that only the guests were served. So Cinder gorged herself on those reactions, kept her eyes fixed on Pyrrha’s - oh she wanted to look at her pretty cunt, to see it flush and spill more, but she’d glut herself on those soft sighing moans first, the smudged eyeshadow crinkling with each fluttered eyelid, that profile that had first fascinated her in the sunlight now cast in the blue-white of the room’s light.
“Don’t tease me.” Pyrrha’s voice was firm, even with that faint shudder under it. “Two fingers. Now, Cinder.” And that edge, how could she disobey? When turning her hand and sliding two fingers in made Pyrrha’s nails dig into her, and had her lean forward into a hungry, hungry kiss - and now Cinder understood the heat of the relaxed pace earlier, how a slow burn could rise hotter in the wet heat, the clenching pressure. A kiln, the two of them melting together into one, like Cinder could just slide under her skin and live in her where that chemical fire burned behind Pyrrha’s eyes.
She still felt compelled to hiss against her lips, “You teased me.” Slowing her pace to torture, crooking and dragging, searching for a spot that would draw a moan - there, like that one, then to tease around it, running the edge of her thumb over those swollen outer lips. “Made me beg. Punished me.” Pyrrha’s lips were no longer that soft peach, the lipstick long gone, red and shining and swollen as Cinder sucked on them, pulled back, enjoying the wet sloppy noises their bodies made together. “Am I not owed the same?”
She wasn’t even sure what she wanted as the answer. What would be satisfactory right now. Did she want to be reminded that without Pyrrha she’d be nothing? Or did she want to be exalted, finally in control with a hand around her throat to hear her choke and be everything?
Pyrrha leaned in to kiss her again, her walls flexing against Cinder’s fingers. Her hand tangled in Cinder’s hair. Rolled her hips down into Cinder’s hand so Cinder was knuckle deep. “Such a brat,” she said, a little fondly, right against Cinder’s lips, so she had to swallow each word.
And that was enough. That was - she added a third finger, ate the groan Pyrrha breathed into her mouth. Pumped and curled, hard, deep, like the twist of a blade in a gut. The stretch perfect, perfect like the skin of Pyrrha’s neck as she set teeth to it, like the tug on her hair. Ignition, sparking in the light of their souls, in the stuttering of Pyrrha’s breath, the faint sound of ripping as her thighs flexed the band of that skirt apart in need. Brushing her clit like the fletching of an arrow, feeling Pyrrha’s tremble like the ripple of flesh when struck by the head. The resistance as she tugged out, Pyrrha’s nails digging in like barbs. All of it, Pyrrha, Pyrrha, Pyrrha - !
She was grinding too, up into her - Pyrrha shifted from lap to interlock their thighs, and that was even better, tangled up in each other upright and tipping down onto the ruined bed to grind and rut, and that wet heat still around her fingers -
If Cinder’s orgasm had been a rendering, it seemed as though Pyrrha’s was to be a controlled demolition, piece by piece - first, a hissed, “Ah!”, then the shuddering secondary detonations in every muscle, clinging and molding them together even tighter - then the collapse, the relaxation, amidst the gush of liquids. Cinder fucked her through the aftershocks, drew drenched hand to her mouth and cleaned it with long strokes of her tongue as she was watched through hooded eyes, hips still grinding down into Pyrrha’s thigh -
“Cum for me again,” Pyrrha said, voice rough, and how could Cinder not obey?
She came back to herself a little being held. A hand running through her hair, the nails short - a fighter’s hand. Pyrrha’s nails turned out to feel nicer against her scalp than Salem’s.
For a moment, Cinder almost wanted to cry, if that wouldn’t be an abominable display of pathetic weakness. Why? Why did she get to experience what this could be like? This - this fake love, a worse poison than the real love, when she knew it wouldn’t last? When she knew this was a distraction for Pyrrha? She’d resolved to be greedy, and gorged, and now she suffered the bloating pain of overindulgence.
Could she - persuade Pyrrha to keep her? Or steal Pyrrha away? Promise her eternal victory, eternal championship at Cinder’s side - maybe they could even overthrow Salem together, keep her bound in eternal chains of black glass while they ruled the world. No, no, that wasn’t - the risk to Pyrrha would be too high. And she wouldn’t… even if she wasn’t the image she presented the world, she’d still never been that kind of hungry where she needed to never be low again. Nor was she Watts’ kind of greedy for more - she enjoyed her victories, yes, but she also seemed not to, maybe.
… she could leave. She could tell Pyrrha who she was, here in her arms, in the safety of the soaked sheets. Even if Pyrrha wasn’t the image she presented the world, she’d be shocked. Maybe even appalled. Another rejection, that’s all you’ll ever do - no! No, she’d need to. Turn herself into Ozpin and his crew of arrogant fools first. Prove herself to maybe have a chance to spend a moment watching Pyrrha from afar, stuck in the mess that was the combat academy and never trusted, shut out again -
No. No, Cinder couldn’t defect, couldn’t turn Pyrrha, couldn’t run with her. In the end, it was like she’d said - destiny. A choice you shaped yourself for. One you made, and kept making, and Cinder would keep making it. Once you had made a decision, you had to commit to it, to the hilt, to the bone. That was who Cinder was.
She wasn’t the girl who wanted love. She was the girl who wanted to be strong. Who wanted to be feared. Who wanted to be powerful.
So they’d each stay on their paths. Perhaps - perhaps Pyrrha would fight through the Fall that was coming, carve a new place for herself in the coming world -
No. More likely - the image came to her suddenly, of the fight between the two, over a power promised by a man who had no claim over it when it was rightfully hers. The blows, the heat. The arrow.
Kindness was not in her nature, but it would be then. She’d grant Pyrrha the dissolution each of them had lacked in their orgasms. Crumble her to ash and stand, chosen, destined.
For now though. She turned her head, smiled up at her, crawled up to start the fun again.
For now though they could have tonight.