The dress of a Kyoshi warrior is not designed for easy removal. Oceans of wide skirts in sturdy materials with intricate folds, layer upon layer. Sashes tied with stubborn, nail-breaking knots. Then pants. Underpants. Smellerbee spits curses under her breath and tugs and tears and yanks her way to bare skin.
Ty Lee is writhing and moaning beneath her, putting on a show that is as unnecessary as it is exaggerated. Her chest heaves, her hips buck, her spine arches and it really isn't helping at all.
"Lie still!" Smellerbee growls, and Ty Lee takes a long enough pause in her performance to allow for her pants to be pulled off and for her legs to be pushed open. The hair on her sex feels coarse for a second; then it is slick, Ty Lee is slick and eager against Smellerbee's thigh, and Smellerbee herself is pressing down hard on Ty Lee's leg, split open and dripping wet.
She moves fast, jerking in short thrusts, rubbing her clit against now slippery skin in urgent frenzy. She's barely started and she's already close; she can make out the contours of an orgasm. Smellerbee grips Ty Lee's hips harder to hold her down and in place.
When she comes she feels it as a tremor somewhere deep in her centre. A slow pulse, stronger for each beat. She stops. Changes her pace, moving along with the throbbing of the sensation building inside her, slow and intense, on the borders of painful. She winds herself taut, head thrown back and eyes squeezed shut, teeth gritted around impatience and need as the budding orgasm swells and swells and then finally, finally bursts, rushing through her in a violent shudder.
It's over just like that. Smellerbee opens her eyes to a messy pile of green clothing and Ty Lee's smiling face in the middle of it. She wishes she could go back to not noticing anything at all.
The wetness between her legs squelches faintly as she rolls off the other girl. She should find something to wipe herself with, then her pants, then get dressed and get out. If only she wasn't so spent. The floor is hard below her shoulder blades, below her tailbone. She wonders if Ty Lee came too, but doesn't want to ask. She tells herself it doesn't matter.
"Wow," Ty Lee says, and Smellerbee looks over at her before she can stop herself. Ty Lee is propped up on the elbow, still smiling. "You're a lot more woman than you look, you know."
Smellerbee stares. She considers getting offended, then can't be bothered. It's just Ty Lee. She's always like this.
"You didn't even touch my peace offering," Ty Lee continues, reaching over to the tray of pastries standing to the side, forgotten.
"Peace offering," Smellerbee says with a snort. "So that's what that was."
"Of course! To end the hostility between our two nations. It's symbolic," Ty Lee says, beaming. Smellerbee rolls her eyes.
"There's been peace for going on ten years."
"I know that." Ty Lee tilts her head. "But do you?"
Smellerbee sits up. She doesn't have to take this, she could plant a fist right in Ty Lee's pretty face and push her comments back down her throat – except she couldn't, except Ty Lee was always the stronger of the two.
Suddenly, Ty Lee's arm is around her shoulders and one of the pastries is in her field of vision. It's a little piece of art, lovingly crafted out of eggs and sugar. Ty Lee puts it gently in her hand.
"Try one," she pleads. "They're super tasty, I promise."
She's quite hungry, Smellerbee realizes. More than that: she's craving the sweetness with an intensity that makes her mouth water. As if nothing has changed since she was twelve and poor and an outcast and the smallest sliver of cake was a luxury to dream about in secret. She takes a bite of the pastry, then another, and it isn't good, it's fantastic. She eats a first, a second and a third in a fast, urgent frenzy.
Ty Lee watches her.
"I'd really like for us to get along better. Outside of sex, I mean," she says. She isn't quite smiling anymore.
The sounds of Smellerbee chewing are loud in the following silence. She should think of an answer, a proper yes or no, then get further in or get out. If only her mouth weren't so full.
She takes another bite, says nothing. She tells herself it doesn't matter.