Ebb and Flow
Everything that comes right after defeating the Adephagos is a blur, a hazy yet overwhelming rush of adrenaline and relief and sheer victory that makes Rita's whole body thrum and sing. It's a blur that whooshes by like the world around her when she runs across the top of Tarqaron, her feet lighter than air as she barrels towards Yuri alongside all the others. It's a blur but her heart is soaring and when Rita finds herself getting pulled into a massive group hug, when her arms entangle and mingle with everyone else's in a series of warm embraces that she can't keep track of and doesn't care to, she doesn't want it to ever end.
It does end, eventually, after Rita's hugged everyone and the dog at least twice and the momentum's died down a bit, but they're still acting as a whole, as one big unanimous pile of joy, as they file on board the Fiertia. It's been a long trek through hell but they've done it, they've won, they've saved the world, and now Judith calls out above the roar, "Where are we dropping everyone off?", because now they can all go home. And all around Rita come the answering cries: "hit the lower quarter for me," "I need to drop by the castle," "jus' leave me ta Dahngrest," "yeah, Dahngrest for me too!"—
—The spell breaks, and all eyes fall on Rita.
Oh, right. Aspio's gone.
That realization seems to freeze everyone, instantly dispelling the feeling of camaraderie and cheer they'd been enveloped in until now, and as they all stare at Rita with gazes full of sympathy and concern, suddenly, she's adrift in the sea of her own emotions. Having people who care about her is something she's still trying to get used to, something that's new but earnest and kind of comforting, but Aspio's gone and no matter how much they care, none of them can fix that.
Of course it's Estelle, sweet, ever compassionate Estelle, who's the first to offer, approaching Rita with a sad smile but hopeful eyes as she proclaims she could definitely find space for Rita at the castle. And of course her offer isn't the last—Karol chimes in with promises of Brave Vesperia's new headquarters, Raven follows up that he could work something out with Altosk, Yuri casually drops that he could ask the lady who runs the inn he lives at to rent out an extra room. They're all willing to make good on their offers and they all truly want to help her; Rita doesn't doubt that for an instant.
But she just…doesn't belong in some stuffy royal castle, or intruding on a closeknit community like the lower quarter, or surrounded by guildspeople when she's never been interested in guilds in the first place. Where Rita belongs is and always has been the lab, where she can bury herself in the steady pace of formulas and theories and experiments. The blastia are gone but that just means that the world needs magical research now more than ever before and frankly, Rita doesn't trust any other mage in the world to do the job right.
This is her responsibility and that means Rita belongs in a lab and that lab doesn't have to be Aspio.
…It doesn't have to be the one place she'd ever really called home.
"Just," Rita finally speaks up, and under everyone's stares, so expectant and warm and loving, she almost can't bring herself to voice her refusal. So Rita just looks straight at Judith, the one person here who has any real command over where this ship is going, and who's gazing right back at her with some expression that Rita can't quite read. She could try to force her lips into a smile but she knows that it would convince absolutely no one, so instead, the mage just sighs and gives a weak shrug.
"Just…take me to Heliord. I wanna study what's left of their barrier blastia."
It's easy enough to just not think about her homelessness when the others are still around, when Estelle's making emotional goodbye speeches and flitting about the ship to give everyone hugs, when Karol's around to spout out nonsense and be smacked (gently, affectionately, even if Rita would never admit it) upside the head for it, when Yuri and Raven's casual snarking at each other turns into everyone ganging up on the old man and that keeps Rita's worries at bay as she laughs along with everyone else. Nobody tries to push her to accept their offers again because they know Rita doesn't want to talk about it, and Rita finds comfort in knowing that those offers will always be available to her should she ever change her mind. Maybe she will settle down somewhere, someday, but until then Rita just wants to hit all the research sites she can and focus on getting the world back on track.
The others understand, so they treat her with friendliness instead of pity, and that right there is more than good enough.
But eventually, Estelle and Yuri and Repede have to get off at Zaphias, and then Karol and Raven leave at Dahngrest, and the empty silence that permeates the ship in their absence drives it in harder than ever that this journey is done, it's over. They're all going their separate ways and even though Rita knows she's going to see them all again, her stomach is still churning as Ba'ul takes off. She keeps staring at Dahngrest as it gets smaller and smaller and smaller and it's only when the town isn't even visible anymore that Rita finally turns away, sitting herself down in a corner of the ship and tucking her knees in.
The wind whipping around her leaves a constant chill against her back, and when Rita closes her eyes and breathes slowly and lets her thoughts wander off, she yearns for warmth. She yearns to be wrapped in cozy blankets as she sips hot tea at her work space, she yearns to be surrounded by her books and her blueprints and her blastia, she yearns to be safe and snug in that rundown but familiar and comfy hut where she's free to ruminate over formulas all day long—
Rita remembers. Her eyes snap open. Her chest hurts.
Dammit.
"Hey, mind if I join you?"
The words pierce through her gloom like knives and when Rita looks up at the speaker, she's greeted with twinkling violet eyes and a serene smile. Judith doesn't even bother waiting for an answer as she sits down beside her, bumping her knee with Rita's almost playfully, but the mage doesn't mind at all. If anything, she's grateful—Judith already makes for good company under normal circumstances and now that's she's the only friend Rita has left on this ship, the Krityan's practically her saving grace.
"Sure." Rita straightens up and turns to face her, perhaps a little too eagerly, but hell, she'll take any opportunity she can get to take her mind off things. "What's up?"
"Well, it won't be much longer until we reach Heliord. And before you go, I wanted to give you a farewell present."
"A…present?" Rita blinks in confusion, and she's not entirely sure what to expect but it certainly isn't for Judith to pull her hand out from behind her back and reveal a vaguely familiar object—Ba'ul's horn, Rita recognizes soon enough—grasped in it. Judith holds it out towards Rita but the mage can only stare at it, her gaze blank and confused.
"…Why would you give me this?"
Judith shrugs. "So you can call on me whenever you need a ride. Or a place to sleep. Anything, really."
It's an offer, Rita realizes. It's an offer, just like all the ones everyone else gave before, and she purses her lips at the thought. Rita does appreciate the sentiment, really, but she just doesn't need anyone's sympathy right now. What she needs is to study and research and plan, to delve herself into work so she can help the world recover from its newest technological setback. She's not getting Aspio back no matter how much she may wish it, so rather than waste all her brainpower feeling sorry for herself, she might as well concentrate on something productive.
"Judith, I don't really need—"
"I know," Judith interrupts, her frown so solemn that it makes Rita shut up in an instant, "what it's like to lose your hometown." The words are sharp and Rita doesn't really register their meaning for a while, but when she does, it comes crashing down on her like a rockslide. Rita suddenly recalls Temza: fallen, ruined, a city that was once surely marvelous now reduced to nothing more than burnt ashes in the furnace of war.
Rita completely forgot it in the rush, but now she remembers, rather guiltily, that Judith doesn't have a home anymore either.
"So since I lost mine," Judith continues once Rita sends an apologetic look her way, "Ba'ul and I have just kept on wandering. Frankly, I'm not sure if we'll ever stop." Judith cocks her head to the side, her lips curling back up into a soft smile as she inches the horn ever closer to Rita. "You'll probably find a new place of your own someday, but until then, I figure we might as well stick together. Not to mention, it'd be a lot faster to travel by air than by land or sea."
…Well, Rita can't help but admit that Judith is making a damn compelling argument. Having the ship at her disposal would greatly expedite both her travel and her work. But surely, it would be an inconvenience to Judith herself to have Rita calling on her all willy-nilly.
"You're…really alright with that?"
"I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't. Ba'ul and I would love to have you along."
There's this look that comes to Judith's eye as she says that, a glimmer of something that comes across as sincere, and kind, and almost imploring. Rita isn't quite sure what to make of it and in the first place, Judith has always been kind of hard to read, but the offer is both earnest and fundamentally different from all the others. Rita doesn't belong in the capital, or in Dahngrest, or anywhere that has ties to anything other than research, but Judith and Ba'ul and the Fiertia don't really have ties to anything except each other.
All things considered, that's exactly what Rita needs.
"I guess it wouldn't hurt to hitch a ride every now and then," Rita concedes finally, and reaches out tentatively for the horn. Judith gently pushes it into her hands with a grin that Rita would almost call radiant, that makes an odd but pleasant warmth blossom in Rita's chest and creep up to her cheeks. "Th-thanks."
"It's not a problem. Just make sure to call, okay?"
Judith meets Rita's gaze as she speaks and holds it insistently, even hopefully, and as Rita clutches the horn tight, she can't help but smile in return.
"…Yeah. I will."
She means that as a promise.
The first time Rita blows the horn, Ba'ul is there within the hour.
It's actually catches her off guard when she glances out the window and sees his large, unmistakable form approaching Heliord from over the horizon, because she honestly thought it would take them longer to get here. It's not like Rita's gonna complain about their promptness, and thankfully her stuff is already packed and ready to go, but even so, the next several minutes are a rush as Rita swiftly makes sure all her things are in order and then checks out of the inn in a hurry. By the time Rita finally makes it outside the city, the ship has already touched down and a familiar figure in blue is casually leaning over the bulwark.
"Hey!" Judith calls, voice light and playful as she gives a jaunty wave. "Need a lift?"
Rita just shoots her a big, cheeky grin of affirmation before dashing right on board.
It's only been a month since they parted but somehow it feels like so much longer, because after traveling with the party for so long, it's become pretty weird to spend all her time all by herself. Funny thing, it wasn't even a year ago that being alone had been so normal, so routine, but so much of Rita's world has changed ever since meeting everyone on the journey and she doesn't regret any of it one bit.
Hell, if anyone had told her at the start of that journey that she'd ever be this happy to see the dragon freak, Rita would've blasted the poor sap into next week.
Yet here she is, brimming with joy just to see Judith's face again, and from there, falling back into a comfortable pace is a simple as fitting the final piece of a puzzle. This isn't the first time they've had the Fiertia to just the two of them but really, the first time wasn't a good time, what with the Adephagos appearing in the sky and the search effort for Yuri growing more and more hopeless by the day. They'd both been pretty worse for wear then, as Rita drowned herself in studying Zaude and Judith viciously did whatever she could to help just because they both needed to do something other than mourn what they'd been so certain they'd lost.
Except they never really lost him and spirits above, is Rita grateful for that, so this time the atmosphere is much lighter, almost nostalgic even, as Judith greets her and they dissolve easily into conversation as if those weeks apart were no time at all. Rita can't allow herself too much breaktime, though, so when their ambling chat eventually dwindles to a standstill, the mage sits down on the deck and lays her plans out in front of her and sets to jotting down equations. Judith smiles and leaves her to it without any fuss.
The whole world fades once the Rita radar gets locked on target, so amidst formula checks and magical analysis of the samples she collected from Heliord's blastia and Keiv Moc's aer krene, it's all too easy to lose track of time. Her study is interrupted only twice: once when Judith leaves a plate of freshly cooked croquettes by her side for dinner, and again when the croquettes are long finished and the sky is dark and a tap on Rita's shoulder draws her gaze away from her formula iterations and into Judith's face.
"Hey," the Krityan greets with a casual waggle of her fingers, "are you going to bed soon?"
Rita sighs. "Is it time to?"
"It is if you want to get a full night's sleep before we reach Halure."
Rita can't help it when that response gets her lips curling into a pout, but she doesn't get to sulk for long, not when Judith distracts her with a chuckle and a gentle pinch to Rita's nose.
"Even geniuses need their sleep, Rita."
Rita's certainly accustomed to being called a genius but somehow, hearing the compliment from Judith's lips catches her off guard, and that combined with getting her nose tweaked is enough to get her flushing like mad.
"H-hey, quit that!"Rita mutters,slapping the hand away, and she puts a scowl on her face but it doesn't actually feel very menacing and must not look very menacing either if the amused glint in Judith's eye is any indication. And when Judith proffers her hand and levels her with a soft smile, Rita can only sigh.
Thing is, she doesn't really need anyone to look out for her, because before meeting the rest of the party, Rita didn't even have anyone like that. But during the journey, everyone else had her back, and even now, Judith is cooking for her and monitoring her and looking out for her. If it were anyone other than a friend, Rita would hate it, but she never hated getting an extra hour's rest at camp when someone else volunteered to take a longer night watch, and she doesn't hate this.
So Rita gives in and takes the hand and lets Judith pull her to her feet, and when they settle down to sleep in the ship's cabin, Rita slides into her bunk. The wood base is flat against her back and these ship berths have never been the height of comfort, but Rita has slept in worse conditions and oddly enough, there's something almost nostalgic about staring up at the scratch-riddled bottom of Karol's bunk instead of some perfect inn room ceiling.
"Goodnight," Judith chimes from her own bunk on the opposite side, her voice bouncing softly around the cabin, and Rita can't help but be reminded of the journey again, of the days when these walls echoed with Yuri's light laughter and Estelle's sleepy sighs and Raven's occasional snore.
There's none of that now, but Rita can hear Judith breathing slowly from her bed like she always did and even just that is enough to make Rita's lips twitch, so she pulls the blankets up over her head and rolls over to hide the big dumb grin growing on her face.
"…Yeah," Rita answers, still stupidly giddy. "Goodnight."
And that night, in that hard and tiny bunk, Rita sleeps far better than she ever did at the inn.
Hitching a ride is simple: blow the horn, hop aboard the ship when it arrives, hang out with Judith, get off at a research station, repeat. Rita's not sure when exactly that became such a common routine in her life but she can't deny that it has, especially since nowadays she feels like she's spending more time on the Fiertia than she does at the research centers. The flying ship is always mobile, yet somehow it's become the one real constant Rita has in her life, and when one day she jumps on board and catches herself thinking I'm home, she knows that the Fiertia isn't just a means of transport anymore.
Rita has been moving between different research labs and excavation sites for about a year now, so she's not sure when exactly she started thinking of the ship as hers. Not exclusively hers, of course, but she doesn't want it to be, because she'd be crazy if she didn't want to have Estelle come on board for a few girls' nights on the road, or if she didn't want to share the ship with the guys from Brave Vesperia whenever they needed it for a mission. And in the end, it's not nearly as much her ship as it is Judith's—the whole party has pretty much wordlessly agreed that she and Ba'ul have more of a claim to the Fiertia than any of the rest of them—but then, just being with Judith makes it so easy for Rita to feel like she belongs, too.
But being on the ship means pitching in with all the chores too and Rita doesn't usually mind, but this time the "chore" is hitting the ground to hunt monsters and Rita hates that. She hates it because Judith is slicing up enemies left and right but Rita can only stand there and sometimes hit a few monsters with her book, because without her bodhi blastia and her magic she's so damn useless as a fighter that she might as well not be there at all. She's nothing like Judith, Judith who's never even had a blastia in the first place, Judith who doesn't seem weighed down by the lack of battle support at all.
If anything, Judith relishes the challenge it presents.
She's crazy like that. Judith loves fighting and that's something Rita will never quite understand but it also fascinates her, because she doesn't know of anything else in the world that can turn calm and cool and collected Judith into a raw and fiery and vehement warrior. Judith loves the adrenaline, loves every twist and dodge and strike, especially loves jumping and flipping and spinning through the air, and Rita decides that the flying enemies are most definitely Judith's favorite as the Krityan leaps into the air and slices one birdlike monster to the ground and lets loose an exhilarated, ringing laugh.
Ohhhh spirits, she has a beautiful laugh.
Rita has always thought Judith was a captivating fighter but she doesn't know when exactly in this past year she actually became so conscious of it, when everything from the agile twist of her hips to the sheen of sweat lining her skin became all she could fix her eyes on. She doesn't know and she can't actually afford to dwell on it right now, but when a bearlike monster pops up in front of her, it's too late. Rita doesn't have time to evade its claws before they leave a nasty gash down her arm, and through the stinging pain, she curses herself for getting distracted in the first place.
Rita stuns the creature with a whack from her belt and runs for it just as Judith, having apparently finished off all the flying enemies, whizzes onto the scene. In the blink of an eye, she draws back her spear, then unleashes a merciless barrage of thrusts that blur in Rita's vision and soon enough have the bear falling lifelessly to the ground with a thud. Judith yanks her blade out of the carcass with familiar flourish, but as she turns to face Rita, the mage notices that her eyes are lacking the same fire that a tough battle would usually bring to them.
"Uh, s-sorry," Rita gasps. "Thanks for the hel—pmmff?!"
Judith shoves something into her open mouth so abruptly that it leaves Rita slack-jawed and wide-eyed, and it's only when a fruity tang washes over her tongue that she realizes she's sucking on a couple of lemon gels. Judith's watching her carefully and Rita gets the message and starts to chew, but Judith's hand still hasn't left her mouth and its only when Rita gulps the gels down that Judith finally pulls away, leaving Rita's lips tingling where those slender fingers had been pressed against them.
Rita's head feels oddly fuzzy all of a sudden and somehow, she gets the feeling it's not from the slight blood loss.
"Hold still for a bit," Judith murmurs, pulling the first aid kit out of their bag, and Rita hates how stupidly shy she feels as she holds her arm out and lets Judith pull up her sleeve to apply disinfectant. It stings a little but the gel's medicine is already kicking in and any lingering pain is quickly forgotten once Judith slips behind her, holding her arm close in a firm yet gentle grip as she starts to bandage the wound.
Rita flushes hot and she thinks her heart stops for an instant before it starts beating again, way too fast and so damn loud in her own ears that she's half scared Judith can hear it too. But the Krityan shows no sign of noticing her heartbeat or their proximity and that's almost irksome, because Rita herself is all too aware of how Judith's lips are practically hovering by her cheek, so close that each breath washes warm over her skin and makes Rita's nerves quiver, until she's half tempted to just yank herself out of Judith's clutch because she's now a lot more concerned with the blood rushing to her head than she is with the blood seeping out of her arm.
But that would be rude and suspicious and probably painful so Rita endures, biting her lip and doing her best to ignore the almost frantic warmth in her chest, and when Judith finally finishes her treatment and releases her grip, Rita lets out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
"You okay?" Judith asks, and Rita just barely stops herself from meeting her gaze because she's almost certain that if their eyes meet, Judith will see right through her.
"I-I'm fine!" Rita says, and maybe that came out a little too quickly but she doesn't care, she just needs to get out of there before her heart bursts out of her chest. That must not be convincing enough though, because Judith speaks again.
"…Are you sur—?"
"Don't treat me like a kid!" Rita yells, too flustered to think of anything other than escape, and takes quick, long strides towards the ship and, more imporantly, away from Judith. "C'mon, let's just go already. We were gonna go shopping after this, right?"
"…Yes, right," Judith says, and when the soft thud of the other's footsteps resound behind her, Rita picks up her own pace almost desperately. The nerves in her arm are still prickling, a little from pain, but mostly from the warmth that still lingers everywhere Judith touched her, and Rita's face burns in memory of those lips, so close to her cheek yet so far from actually making contact. She doesn't want to think about how much she would have liked it if those lips had made contact, but it's a losing battle, and she does.
And once she does, Rita can't bring herself to even look at Judith for the rest of the day.
Rita's not too sure she knows what love is but she thinks she's been in love once before. It was easy then, really, because Estelle was pretty sheltered and maybe a bit crazy but she was kind and she was sweet and she was earnest unlike anyone Rita had ever met before. Estelle was the first person Rita ever considered a friend, the first person since her own, long dead mother to make Rita's chest swell with warmth and affection, and from there, it was so, so easy to fall for her.
But time has passed and things have changed and Rita's really not too sure she knows what love is, but she thinks now she's come to be in love with Judith.
It's weird, because Rita thinks she was in love with Estelle but now she's in love with Judith and Judith is nothing like the princess who wears her heart on her sleeve. Judith is ice as much as she is fire, as good at wearing masks as she is bad at telling lies, as easy to talk to as she is hard to read. Judith's an enigma and Rita can barely tell what she's thinking at any given moment but what she can tell is that Judith's heart is hidden behind walls, walls built over years and years of isolation, and Rita relates to that all too well.
Maybe that's why she trusts Judith so much more than she trusts anyone else.
But unlike Estelle who wears her heart on her sleeve and makes it obvious that she has never liked Rita as anything other than a friend, Judith is confusing, complicated, secretive, and even though Rita knows she's broken down some of those walls, there are still so many more for Judith to hide behind. Rita doesn't know for sure how Judith feels towards her, if there's even a chance of Judith ever liking her the same way, and that makes even looking at Judith so frustrating that sometimes Rita just wants to scream.
Now is starting to feel like one of those times, because tonight sleep is escaping Rita and she keeps staring at the opposite bunk and all she can see is Judith, all she can think about is Judith, she half expects that if she does ever fall asleep she's going to dream about Judith, and dammit, she really needs to clear her head now.
So she slides out of bed and tiptoes to the door and opens it slowly in hopes that it won't creak too loud, and once she's out, she sits down in the middle of the deck and inhales the fresh night air and tries to calm herself down. But it's useless, her heart is still pounding ridiculously in her chest, and it's stupid and it's pathetic but the fact is she's fallen for Judith and Rita doesn't know how to deal with this any better than she knew how to deal with her crush on Estelle. Hell, she never properly dealt with her crush on Estelle at all, really, not before Judith became such a big part of her life and then proceeded to make it so damn hard just to be in the same room as her.
Maybe she should just sleep out here for tonight—
"Ah, Rita?"
…Shit.
The half-sleepy voice is accompanied by the creak of the cabin door, and Rita instinctively turns back to look but then instantly regrets doing so, because Judith's hair is down and she's essentially wearing nothing but her underwear. Rita would've thought she'd be used to the latter by now since Judith is near-naked almost all the time, but the Krityan has this infuriating ability to somehow seem more and more gorgeous every time Rita looks at her and that is not helping the situation one bit.
"H-hey," Rita calls, and swallows hard when that comes out as an almost-croak. "Sorry, did I wake you?"
Judith shakes her head, rubbing at her eyes. "It's fine. I wasn't particularly tired anyway. Are you alright?"
"Yeah, just…couldn't sleep. Getting some fresh air. I'll head back to bed in a bit."
Rita quickly turns back around in order to avoid the other's questioning gaze, and she hopes that Judith will take that as a sign of dismissal, but no such luck. Instead, Judith makes her way to Rita's side, sitting down right next to her so that their knees are practically touching, and the mage bites her lip and looks down at the floor in an attempt to conceal her incredibly warm and probably red cheeks.
Why does Judith always have to be so damn close?
"…Hey, Rita? Are you mad at me?"
"H-huh?" The unexpected question makes Rita's heart leap up her throat for a split second, but even then, she still refuses to look up. "Wha—? Where did that come from?"
"It's just, you've been avoiding me lately."
"I-I haven't!" But the lie comes out too quickly and too emphatically to be convincing and Rita doesn't hold any hopes that Judith believed it.
She only receives silence in return, and the longer Judith doesn't say anything, the more Rita feels the awkward tension reigning down upon her. But then a palm is curling around her knee and that touch makes Rita jump and turn to Judith in surprise. That's a huge mistake, though, because her eyes meet Judith's steely gaze and once they do, Rita can't look away.
"…Do you wanna talk?"
Rita doesn't know how to answer that and even if she did she's not sure if she could, because now that she's looking all she can see is Judith shining under the moonlight and for a moment, Rita stops breathing. Judith's eyes are shimmering, her lips are pursed in what looks like confusion and compassion and concern, and suddenly, all Rita wants is to wipe that frown straight off of Judith's face.
Her lips meet Judith's before she can stop herself.
It's mindless, a total slip in control perhaps brought about by lack of sleep, and the contact is fleeting because the moment Rita realizes what she's doing, she yanks back as if she was burned. Hell, she might as well have been, because her cheeks are hot as a campfire and her lips are still prickling from the kiss and oh, spirits, why the hell did she do that?
Judith's gaping and wide-eyed and Rita can only guess how her expression will change once the shock wears off but she doesn't want to see it, so she turns away and buries her face in her hands as if hiding herself from the world will make it so that the last few minutes never happened. But Rita knows better than that, she knows she can't erase what she's done, and she's this close to jumping to her feet and making a break for it because even if there's nowhere to run on a flying ship in the sky, she'd rather be anywhere than next to Judith right now—
Fingers close around her elbow and yank her backwards right as she starts to leap.
It's swift and it's rough and it's practically whiplash-inducing, and it startles Rita so much that she yelps aloud and her arms flail and the next thing she knows, she's fallen on her butt in Judith's lap. The violet of Judith's eyes fills her vision as the Krityan's face hovers ever closer, but before Rita can let out a shout of surprise, or indignation, or confusion, or whatever the hell she's feeling right now, Judith muffles the cry against her own lips.
Rita freezes up.
Time seems to slow down and her mind swirls a million miles an hour in an attempt to comprehend what's happening because no way in hell is Judith actually kissing her right now. It's got to be a hallucination, a dream, another self-indulgent fantasy conjured up by her imagination and any moment now, Rita's gonna wake up. But seconds pass and Judith's lips are still locked onto hers and only now does Rita realize that those lips feel so soft, so full, so much more insistent than she ever could have imagined them being.
Holy shit, this is for real.
The moment that realization hits, Rita's body moves faster than her brain. Her arms snap into place around Judith's neck, tightening their hold almost desperately, and when that makes Judith smile into the kiss and clutch at Rita's middle in turn, the mage feels like she's floating on air. Her eyes flutter shut as stars blissfully explode behind her eyelids and when the magic of the moment finally fades and Judith pulls away, Rita bemoans the loss of contact, still so enraptured, still half afraid this is all going to turn out to be a dream after all.
But when Rita opens her eyes, Judith is smiling like her dreams have come true, and she knows then that Judith's feelings are a perfect mirror of her own.
Their feelings had been mutual this whole time.
"…I'm an idiot," Rita finally decides after a minute of staring blankly like a fool, and brings a hand up to cup her forehead. "I'm such an idiot."
Judith laughs softly at that, bringing her own hand up to brush Rita's aside, and leans her face in closer, slowly this time, as if asking for permission. Rita wants nothing more than to give it so she forgets her nerves and her self-consciousness, forgets anything that might cause her to pull away, and Judith pauses just when their noses are almost touching. Their breaths mingle in the space between them, their mouths separated by only that small pocket of warmth they've created amidst the cold nighttime air.
"That makes two of us," Judith admits in a husky whisper, and moves in to kiss her again.
So Rita just closes her eyes and lets her, all too happy to oblige.