Confidence

[Kira Adia]

The waves lapped gently at the shore in the eternal twilight. The sound, like many things on the isle, was relaxing. The steady arhythmic pulse of water was a focus to steady the mind, and at the water’s edge, on a large flat-topped stone, Kira sat alone. Red waves ran free and untamed over her shoulders as she stared out into the horizon.

She could have gone home. It had been a few days since she’d been to the Estate. But she was restless. She felt an irresistible pull, and she dare not try to ignore it.

Kira knew what was causing it. She hadn’t felt this way in a long time. That familiar ache that was maddening in the pleasure it promised. It did not interfere with her work, but in her moments of peace between one thing and another, thoughts inevitably drifted…

This was in the back of her mind. Her focus now was on meditation, connecting with the elements, especially her beloved earth, and listening to the sounds of nature.

A familiar face could be seen by someone not in the middle of meditation. Mira was approaching, slightly winded.

"Heeeeey Huntress! Been looking for ya… basically everywhere!" she shouted over the beach with a laugh. "Turns out people can tuck themselves in all sorts of nooks and crannies around here! Busy?"

Kira turned to face Mira. “Not at all.” She beamed a smile to the young woman as she stood and hopped off the rock. Green tank top, black shorts, and barefoot, she looked ready for the beach.

A quick walk closed the distance, and she opened her arms to Mira, ready to pull her in a hug, even a kiss if Mira seemed willing, though Kira wouldn’t push it.

Mira was in the same sweater and skirt that she was wearing earlier at the bookstore and the bar. She flopped like a sack of potatoes into Kira’s arms, just… holding her tight.

Kira felt the stress built up in her companion, so she simply stood and held her. She allowed a moment of silence before speaking.

“What is it, my dear? Tell me what’s wrong.”

"Don't ask…" Mira said, stealing a breath of air from Kira's red hair. She wanted to talk about *so much*… but she didn't want to worry her.

If Mira didn’t want her to worry, she chose the wrong date. Kira kissed her forehead. “Then tell me when you’re ready. I will help where I can, even if it’s just to listen.”

"I, um… yelled at your kid…" she said softly, smirking playfully. "I didn't meet your grandchild, though… timelines really are a mess in Rhy'Din, aren't they? Met a couple of Time Lords later… fought with Jackson a bit… got salty… been a day…"

“My… ah, you mean Haru. For the record, it was the family that adopted him, not me specifically. When he calls me ‘mom,’ it’s usually with snark behind it.”

She sat down in the sand and held an arm out, gesturing for Mira to join her. She would pull her close to hold her if she wanted. “Start with what you’re most comfortable with. I have all night.”

The sad, confused girl snuggled in with Kira, getting small and tight. "Haru is a nice kid. Found out about time travel and kinda bit his head off about going back and saving my dead friends back home. Sorry, I know I'm a bit of a hypocrite having read off the whole 'carpe diem' stuff the other night…"

“It’s easy to say ‘let go of the past’ when you believe it’s long behind. I know what most people think of as time travel. To believe you can bring back old friends is difficult to reconcile.” Kira stroked her hair. “I know that pain. There are many in my family I wish to see again.”

"I just… I used to have this really strong sense of conviction… that if I could trade my life for theirs, I would… no questions asked…"

Her lips cracked into a smile at having her hair touched. She'd never experienced it, other than Mum brushing it over a century ago. The girl really was tragically unfamiliar with intimacy, and the burden of learning about that unfortunately rested on Kira, if she was willing to take the time.

"Haru… reminded me about you… and… I… I don't think I want to trade my future for fixing the past right now. I feel guilty about it… like I'm killing their memory for selfish reasons. Does that make any sense?"

She nodded. “It does. Some wounds… never fully heal. You just had one reopened. It’s understandable.” She considered a moment, just holding Mira and playing gently with her hair. “You aren’t betraying their memories. And you don’t have to forget them. They live through you. I believe so, anyway. We carry the spirits of those we love with us beyond death.”

"I… I should've died on my last mission."

The words blurted from her lips, causing her to almost gasp as they left her mouth. No putting the genie back in the bottle now…

"I mean… I decided I had to. We were on the Solar Confederacy's flagship, the Edison… everyone that was left… trying to blow it up. I knew how to overload the engines… and I'd done it dozens of times before. Twenty-minute timer, get to escape vessels and go… except they built a new deadman switch into the system… someone would have to stay back to push the button… so we decided to bounce. Live to fight another day, right? The feds figured on that, and we fought our way to the escape pods… but only James and I made it there."

Silence fell for a moment, the only sounds by way of waves, wind, and a deep, shaky breath in. It sounded like she wanted to cry… but no tears came. Mira put a hand on Kira's thigh and continued.

"I… I decided I was gonna stay… get the job done. James was like my little brother in the organization. I literally promised him that I wouldn't let him die out there… I was gonna toss him in the pod with my saxophone case, and if he lived, I… I was okay with it. I wouldn't feel it or anything. A core rupture happens in a fraction of a fraction of an instant. Poof, I'd be vaporized. Easy, right? Except… James pushed me into the pod and closed the door a moment before me. He… he smiled at me through the glass as I got shot off… and twenty minutes later… twenty minutes…"

Kira listened attentively. A part of her stored every detail it could, though she wasn’t sure why yet. Another part of her was very aware of the hand on her thigh, but that part was silenced until later. Comforting was her focus right now.

“I know it’s hard to think about it this way, but the choice he made is not your fault. You would have stayed behind if he hadn’t forced the decision out of your hand. Whatever the outcome, your mind was set on what you believed in.”

"Yeah… I mean, I know that, but… before a week ago, Kira, I knew that was the past… and saying you'd change it if you could was easy because you couldn't. Now? Knowing there are chrono-whatevers and Time Lords and all this? I… I would've… but…"

She trailed off, having trouble finding the right words.

Kira kissed the top of her head, taking in her scent. She thought for a few seconds. “You cannot go into your own past. What you lived through and what brought you here…” she squeezed her gently, as if to say here in my arms, “cannot be changed. For us, our past is set.”

There seemed to be a lack of finality in her voice.

Slowly, Mira sat up, cheeks reddened by the kiss on her head above her horn. She stared into Kira's eyes intently… that same look she gave her on their date.

"I… I'm not good at intimate stuff… I-I think I've made that clear… b-b-but I need to say something, and I need to ask you to help me brace for it…"

She reached out both hands and leaned in to be able to put her horn on Kira's forehead, if she leaned in, too.

Kira did. “Whatever you’d like to say, I’ll listen. If I can answer, I will.” She held Mira’s hands with a gentle firmness.

With that, Mira took one more long breath in before continuing, gazing into Kira's eyes, their noses touching every so often.

"I… have a lot of hate in me. I've done things, Kira… terrible things, that would make the boogeyman's neck hair stand straight out. I've killed… gods, I literally don't know how many people I've butchered in the name of the cause. Young, old, men, women… it didn't matter. I was known on the terrorist watch lists as 'Burke the Butcher.' I… I'm not sorry for any of it… I'm not asking for absolution from you. I'd do it again, given the chance… every last despicable act…"

She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts.

"T-the problem I have isn't that I regret my actions… or even that I regret not being in my James's place on that flagship. The problem I'm having is I don't think I'd do it, given the chance. Even if there was a way, hope beyond hope… I… I don't think I'd be ready to make that sacrifice… because of you..."

"I… want a future here, if even a short one. I like it here… it's like a paradise in Rhy'Din… and you are here. You ground me here. I might just be stupid and naïve, Kira, but… in the short time I've known you, I've fallen head-over-heels… and I want to persist with you…"

She gripped her Huntress' hands tight and choked back what would've been a flood of emotion, if possible. She was being candidly sincere with her words… all playfulness had left the room.

"I… I don't feel bad that I didn't push James into that escape pod. I'm feeling guilty that I wouldn't. That is what's tearing at my heart…"

“Mira, don’t feel guilty for that. I don’t.” She kissed her, hands moving to grasp at Mira’s sweater and pull her close. It was different from their first kiss. This one was greedy and longing, as though it were the only thing keeping some unseen force from pulling Mira out of her grasp.

It wasn't in her toolkit to escape from her attack… not that she'd want to if she could. She was pulled in willingly, feeling taken by Her Huntress. Mira had never felt so helpless, so out of control… and she was loving every moment of it. She thought if she told Kira the truth about her… about her sin… that the noblewoman would recoil and be done with her, but… it seemed like she wanted to take Mira's badness and goodness.

She pulled away briefly to gasp for a breath before putting her hands on Kira's face, tracing an outline from the top of her hairline to over her ears, running a couple of digits over the sensitive spots. From there, she tucked her shoulder in and laid down in the sand, coaxing her partner to follow.

"Every… every moment I spend with you, I realize how much more special it is than I'd thought before. You… amaze me, Kira…" she whispered, grinning like an idiot whilst the honeyed words dripped from her dark-tinted lips.

Follow Kira did. Her hands had restrained their urgency, but one still traced along her side while the other found the cambion’s cheek.

“There are things about me, you have not yet learned, just as you have yet to tell me your secrets. There may come a day when one or both of us discovers a person other than who we thought we met.”

Her hand found the hem of the sweater and hesitated at the suggestion of bare flesh. The effort of simply staying as she was felt more difficult than changing the past, but she traced her fingers back along Mira’s sweater.

Let agony be my reward just a bit longer.

“May the hells take me if I should find some reason to turn from you.”

An audible whimper escaped from the fair-skinned demonkin, her cheeks darker than a rose. Her mint-green eyes pleaded with Kira to do something…anything with her. She didn't care any longer. Reason had left her mind, leaving only beautiful, wild emotion.

"I'd cling to you the whole way down, Kira," she said, biting her lip with a single, sharp tooth from top and bottom, causing it to bleed. "I… I thought I was the embodiment of avarice… but I think we might both be greedy… covetous…"

With a graceful movement, Mira reached up with her right hand and followed the outside of Kira's arm up to her shoulder and softly began moving her fingers on the top of the hunter's shoulder blade. With her left, she placed only her middle finger on the back of her waist, moving it softly. Her legs moved on their own, wriggling and crossing one another with abandon.

Typically, she'd've balked at the sand around them getting into her clothes… but the thought of sand was so far beyond her mind that she continued to writhe on the ground, surely getting it everywhere. She didn't know what spell Kira was using on her, but it was having an effect, that was certain.

Kira looked into Mira’s eyes as if searching for something. A chill ran through her under the demonling’s fingertips.

“I… have never been… never by choice…” she hoped Mira would fill in the gaps. That hand found itself back at the hem of the sweater, fingertips slowly moving back and forth at the skin barely exposed there.

“Would… you like to… accompany me to my home?” Kira became aware the layers of confidence and propriety she’d long armored herself with for years were slipping away. Before Mira now lay not the fierce Huntress, nor the noble Mistress of House Adia. This was Kira, a maiden long hiding under the mask of a woman.

As the earth mage's fingertips touched down on her bared abdomen, Mira let out another gasp. Her skin was pillowy soft, but behind the surface, Kira could feel the tough, dense, defined muscle structure that could only come from either near constant exercise or physical labour.


Twinkling innocence with a long appetite looked back at Kira. Mira had been born into a long line of concubi… a master-crafted instrument never used for it's intended purpose. She nodded softly, never breaking her gaze.


"I-if you'd have a wretch like me, I'd give you everything… body, mind, and soul. Gods… W-what are you doing to me… I've never taken a drug that made my head swim like this…"


The demonkin pulled her close and softly kissed her neck before giving a small nibble, just hard enough to draw a few beads of blood. She then ran her long, soft tongue up the tiny incisions.


"I'd follow you off the edge of this world, Kira Adia. My heart is yours… Please take responsibility…"

The piercing of her flesh sealed the deal. There was no more coming back. Kira became so lost at the moment, she nearly forgot where they were. She gently pushed Mira on her back and positioned herself above her, staring into mint green eyes. Kira’s violets were unmistakably glowing violet as she gazed on her lover.

“Hold on to me tight. Don’t let go.” When she felt arms wrapped around her, Kira spared some of her focus, first dismissing the sand on both of them to remain on their beach, then reaching out, across the void, to find her home. Her room. Her bed.

Kira’s awareness tugged at the point she chose, and the universe tugged back. The pair immediately found themselves in a bedroom, soft covers replacing soft sand. Before Mira could react, Kira was upon her.

------

It was the light of the still rising sun that woke the Huntress. The fog of awakening sat heavy on her for a moment, then she nearly jumped up, until she felt the weight of limbs resting against her.

Her eyes opened to see the woman sleeping before her, and she immediately relaxed. Kira thought back to the night before. The memories conjured were seemed like a dream of its own. But it wasn’t a dream. The presence of her new lover was a testament to that.

It was a moment later when a new realization struck her. This one was much more of a startle. She thought hard. Had she woken up at all before now? There were no memories after everything. There was the vague impression that dreams were want to leave, but…

Dreams. Kira dreamed. There were no night terrors. No nightmares. No waking to screams and cold sweat as her mind forced her to relive the most horrific moments of her life.

Kira dreamed. For one night, the first in years, Kira had a night of peace.

She gently put an arm around Mira and pulled in closer, gently kissing her forehead before closing her eyes again and sinking into the comfort of their glowing embrace.

The cambion might never know what she had done for Kira that night. She might not truly understand how much the simple act of sleeping together, in the most literal sense, meant to her companion. That didn’t matter. For that reason, among many others, that night would be treasured in the undying memory of Kira Adia.

She wouldn’t sleep again. She needed no more that day. But she was in no hurry to wake her companion or leave her here.