FicWad

Translation

The celebration had been going on all day, and the dancing had started just after sunset, as soon as the darkness made the firelight vivid. The rakh feared the night less than humans did, especially now that the Master of Lema was dead and the Dark Ones routed. Ciani danced in the midst of the circle, robes flaring around her, ornaments clicking together as she tossed her hair. It felt so strangely right to be here; the rakh were not her people, but they were her life, in a way she'd been unable to remember for most of the past year. Sharing their triumph now made her giddy.

Purposeful movement through the edges of the crowd made her look up, -- Hesseth was threading her way through the circle around the dance, looking thoughtful, and a bit lost. It took only moments for Ciani to decide, and it was easy to slip out of the dance and follow her over the dry grass, back to the tent they'd shared since they got back to the rakhene settlement.

The rustle of the tent flap announced her presence, and Hesseth was already looking up by the time Ciani's eyes had adjusted to the light inside. "Good evening," she murmured, ducking through the low door, smiling at Hesseth as she stepped inside. "Am I disturbing you?"

"No." Hesseth shook her head. "Not at all." She smiled back weakly, an awkward, learned expression, and looked down at the bone and turquoise necklace she held in her hands.

"Damien said you'd be leaving in the morning," Ciani said softly, crossing the woven rugs toward her. "I didn't realize it would be quite so soon."

Hesseth nodded, rubbing the beads of the necklace between her fingers. "The Canopy will be easier to cross if we make it to the river before spring comes. Once the snow starts to melt, the river will rise, and...." She trailed off with a flick of her ear that Ciani recognized as embarrassment.

Ciani knelt beside her gracefully, sweeping the rakhene robe and tabard around her so the folds arranged themselves evenly. It had taken her months to learn to do that gracefully, the first time she came to the rakhlands, but by now the gesture was almost instinctive. "Are you sorry to be going?"

"Of course. And yet, I'm not," Hesseth started. The way her shoulders hunched was almost human, in its expression of doubt. "I mean...." She set the necklace aside, and stilled the nervous motion of her hands. "I will miss my people. But it needs to be done. Someone from the rakhlands must go. And...who better?" The context hung heavy over her words, not spoken, but clear: I am already an outsider here.

Ciani shifted closer, and where it would have been the human thing to speak, to offer some reason that things would be all right, instead she just leaned her head on Hesseth's shoulder and nuzzled, humming in sympathy, giving comfort in a rakhene fashion. The beads in her hair clicked against each other as they fell forward.

"Ssa," Hesseth said, stiffening as if surprised. She smelled like wood smoke and soft warm fur, and she leaned instinctively into Ciani's touch. "What about your priest, then?"

"What about him?" Ciani replied, more than a little ruefully. Had circumstances been different, she and Damien might have been ideal for each other -- but even if the Dark Ones hadn't arrived so shortly after he did, the distance between them would still likely have been too much. "I am grateful for all he's done for me, and I care for him, but we aren't lovers."

"You could be," Hesseth chided, even though her hand was already coming up hesitantly to cup Ciani's smooth face. "The way he looks at you, the way he behaves...."

Ciani shook her head, and pressed her lips to Hesseth's palm, the bare skin where no fur grew. The skin was tough, callused, rough against her lips. "It could never be serious. His religion wouldn't permit it. He...couldn't ever be comfortable with what I am."

"Strange customs your people have," Hesseth said, stroking the line of Ciani's bottom lip with her thumb, careful with her claws. Her eyes were warm as amber, and the pupils dilated almost round in the dim light of the lantern -- but the shape of her face, the strange angles of her cheekbones and the set of her eyes, couldn't be mistaken for human in any light.

"Yours, also," Ciani smiled. Her heart pounded; she wasn't sure she dared ask this, but if Hesseth would be leaving in the morning.... "You haven't taken a lover since you traveled to the human lands, have you?"

Hesseth returned her smile, but sadly. "It could never be serious," she echoed. "I am a /khrast/, after all. I can't bear again."

"And you don't want something that's not serious?" Ciani was close, now, breathing the words from bare inches away. She could smell the faint musk that clung to Hesseth's fur.

"I hadn't thought so," Hesseth murmured. "But perhaps I could be convinced." And she pressed her lips to Ciani's, kissing her like a human.

Ciani opened her mouth, letting her tongue brush the thin rakhene lips, feeling the threat of teeth hidden just behind them. Hesseth made a quiet sound of surprise, and for a second she didn't respond. Then, slowly, she let her lips part, and her tongue brushed sandpaper-rough against Ciani's. Kissing her was a danger, Ciani realized, between the rough tongue and sharp teeth, the markers of Hesseth's predatory ancestry. But the danger itself was thrilling.

"I don't," Hesseth began, as Ciani tugged at the strings holding her robes against her body. "I'm not sure what I can offer you." The ties unwound, and cloth slipped from her shoulders, pooling around her waist. "I'm not...." And she trailed off again, gesturing with her claws as if to warn Ciani off.

Ciani reached up and laced her fingers with Hesseth's. "You don't have to worry about me," she promised. "I won't get hurt." She smoothed back Hesseth's robes, away from lean, muscular limbs covered with close-lying, tawny fur. "You're beautiful," she said. There was a better word for it in rakhene, already laden with the ideas of strength and attractiveness intertwined, but Ciani didn't trust herself to say it, not with the awkwardness of her human throat.

"And you?" Hesseth asked, looking her up and down. "Let me see you, also." Her hands were quick and clever, just as agile in this as they had been with the springbolt, and careful not to let her claws do more than brush against Ciani's skin. She used the word from her own tongue that Ciani had not, the one that meant beautiful woman and /deadly hunter/.

"Thank you," Ciani murmured, though she feared she didn't deserve the praise. Certainly she didn't feel deadly, not compared with the avid, predatory look in Hesseth's eyes now. But it was chilly in the tent, too cold to be comfortable without her clothes, and Hesseth looked so invitingly warm, bronze and sleek, so Ciani closed the space left between them and slid her arms around Hesseth's waist.

Their bodies fit together smoothly, breasts nestled against each other and legs twining together. The muscles of Hesseth's thigh flexed hard and strong between Ciani's legs, and Ciani rocked her hips, pressing harder into the caress. She slid a hand up Hesseth's side to cup one small, firm breast in her hand and stroke the nipple. "Here?" she asked softly, and Hesseth mewled, arching her back, twisting against Ciani's touch.

Ciani moved her hand, inward to the narrow hairless stripe down Hesseth's middle. "Here," she said again, more confidently this time, and Hesseth's body answered in a ripple of fae made visible, spilling off her in a warm shimmer of gold even before she managed to hiss her pleasure. The fae licked at Ciani's senses, made her giddy with refracted sensation, and she moaned as her hand slid down over Hesseth's belly.

Hesseth might claim that her people didn't Work, but they lived with the fae, affected it in ways that humans -- even Adepts -- couldn't manage, and it gave this experience an intimacy that made Ciani's breath catch in her throat. Her fingers slipped between Hesseth's legs, and they both moaned as she parted the slick folds to sink her fingers in, slow and deep. Hesseth's claws skated over her back, stinging deliciously, and Ciani shivered, grinding harder against Hesseth's thigh.

Hesseth rocked her hips in response, demanding more from Ciani even as she pushed back against the needy motion of Ciani's hips. She growled low in her throat, too far gone for words in human or rakhene speech, and the pull of the fae around her dragged Ciani along like gravity, like the pull of the moons against the sea, and for just a second Ciani thought she could see it, the tide gathering around them both, shimmering bright in more colors than she could name. Then the climax broke over them both and she couldn't see anything at all, just feel it, bright and clear as a perfect Working, leaving her gasping into the downy fur of Hesseth's shoulder.

When she recovered, Hesseth was petting her, stroking her hair gently. "It's not usually like that for you, is it?"

Ciani shook her head. "Sometimes, between two Adepts, it comes close, but...no. Not like that." She was trembling, little aftershocks like the ones that had rocked Lema for days. "Is it...with your people, is that normal?"

Hesseth made a little snorting noise that Ciani almost didn't recognize as laughter. "We might live better on Erna than humans, but even we aren't that lucky." She nuzzled at Ciani's ear, like an uncat washing her kitten. "With women it's more likely, since we feel the tides. But even then...." She laughed again. "Let's just say the women in question need to have hunted together more than once."

Ciani smiled, stroking Hesseth's side, imagining she could see the childhood mottling still faintly visible in the tawny coat. "I suppose we have done that, haven't we?"

"Mmn, I suppose we have." The silence was comfortable, soothing, and Ciani had almost dozed off when Hesseth spoke again. "When our quest is done," she said hesitantly, "when we return from the east...."

"If your people will let me stay," Ciani said, "I'll probably still be here." She found Hesseth's hand and laced their fingers together, feeling the gentleness underneath rough pads and sharp claws.

Hesseth kissed her forehead, carefully, as though she weren't sure how it should be done. "I will be sure to hurry back, then."