Title: Sunlight and Games
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Renata/Demetri
Author's Note: This one-shot was requested by hopeforastalemate. She asked for an outtake of sorts from A Thousand Stairs, using a line about Demetri chasing a barefoot Renata through Volterra's castle as the basis. Finally, I've written this fluffy little piece, and I hope that I am forgiven for taking nearly a month longer than I should.
Enjoy :)
The morning melds into auburn afternoon before slanting rays betray the time, causing Demetri to toss aside the black-bound book resting upon his lap. He rises in a rush, searching for neat trousers and customary robes; his masters seek perfection but his own nature supersedes their precision.
In moments, he is polished and gleaming as frost-glossed steel. A curious hand leaps to his throat and immediately, he remarks upon the absence of his customary crest, a trinket forged in loyalty and silver.
Demetri hisses, disliking the sudden sense of things misplaced, the insinuation that arbitrary error has intruded upon his disciplined world.
A peal of laughter, shimmering like sunlight upon the sea, echoes from the next room and then a girl with night-coloured curls and fawn-wide eyes leans through his door. Her robes are pressed, a portrait of propriety belied by mischief's dance in her smile. She holds up a fist and light strikes chilly sparks upon metal.
"Are you looking for something?" she asks, beginning their game.
"Renata, not now," he sighs, though he can summon no real irritation at the playful little creature bouncing just out of reach. She is a candle's steady flame, so brilliant that he cannot help but wish to be near her, cool and fastidious though he is.
Her lower lip is full, granting softness to alabaster-wrought features and it curves, a pink petal of a pout that is as sweet as it is captivating. "You are being altogether too serious," she tells him. "You begin to resemble an affronted cat." Her grin turns wicked then and she whirls on her heels, her toes arching as she sprints, though her lover's crest is still caught between clever fingers.
Demetri moves far too quickly, the cadence of his steps betraying a tracker's gift.
.-.
Their chase winds through the corridors of the palazzo, a laughing, loving game that meshes skill and affection into jumbled warmth. Though he mirrors Renata's wavering path with ease, her shield comes between them when he draws too close, and Demetri's senses are tilted and skewed, a ship tossed upon winter waves, until all he can see of his quarry is the pale flash of bare feet beneath a whispering cloak.
As he weaves through smooth pillars in the entrance hall, he notes the glances cast his way, the indulgent amusement of his masters coupled with the surprised affront of their golden-eyed visitor, but he forgets them in heartbeats as Renata skips away into the warren of halls and galleries that fill their slumbering home.
Finally, certain that he has lost their game, Demetri decides to abandon subtlety and simply pounce upon his target. It is a gamble, certainly, and he knows that her shield will likely send him tumbling in another direction, bruised and perplexed but he attempts it nonetheless. Moments later, he is sitting on polished marble, a delicate, dark-haired girl tangled and pressed against his skin.
"I caught you," he announces, terribly proud of himself as Renata giggles and squirms in his embrace.
"Yes, you did. Now let me go," she demands, breathless and disheveled as he tickles the soles of her feet.
"I do not want to," he says, brushing his mouth against her throat. "You might run away again, and then what will I do?" The past, neatly stacked and locked in chambered chests, casts a shadow upon his mind and he can grimly recall a time before Renata's kaleidoscopic joy tinted his life with flecks of colour.
She wriggles until her slender arms are around his neck in an airy embrace. "You'll catch me," she says happily, before loosening her hold and raising thorns in his hair with the flat of her hand.
He forgets himself then, the ebb and tug of his whetted senses fading into mere noise as little Renata finds his mouth. Her kisses come in pairs, the first entirely unrestrained, marked by teeth and impatience while the second tastes only of summer strawberries, dainty and sweet. He remains peacefully lost until she moves away, leaving spaces that echo his longing.
"They know," she says solemnly, and concern is reflected in garnet irises. She speaks of Aro and Marcus, gifted with second sight of different sorts, who do not like it when guards fall in love. "It is not a secret anymore," she confirms, and he can feel the tension thrumming in her voice, blossoming into a shadowy shield that repels even him, as it always does when she is frightened.
"They will not mind," Demetri reassures, his fingers chasing stray curls along the curve of her throat. "We remain loyal, and we are not intending to run away together." He pauses for a moment, and wonders. A year ago, he would not have been quite so flippant about the severity of his masters, but then he had not known how much he loved Renata's shy, shimmering smile.
There is such trust in her gaze that he finds himself equally humbled and comforted. Then, before she is given another opportunity to divert him, he remembers the aim of his chase.
"I believe you still have something of mine," he purrs, his words sinuous and feral.
She nods, saying nothing.
"And you do not intend to give it back, I see."
Renata smirks, pleased with herself. It takes a good deal of effort to steal away Demetri's possessions, if only temporarily, and she refuses to surrender them without significant persuasion. "If you ask very nicely…" she suggests, flower-strewn innocence yielding to something entirely different.
"I aim to," he agrees, curious fingers slipping beneath the neckline of her cowled robes. He expects to feel damask, heavy and ornate, but his touch finds only skin and sheer fabric, nothing more than a scrap of a shift. Familiar, intoxicating heat coils through him; he discovers that his imagination needs very little prompting of late.
He stands up in a rush, tightening his arms around Renata, who does not seem surprised. Instead, she tilts her head back and smiles, the graceful arch of her neck revealed, and that is all the encouragement he needs.
.-.
The afternoon passes in a blur of sunlight and muted laughter, punctuated by caresses mellowed into gentleness. Somewhere along the way, a dress is shredded and the cautious order of his room is turned into lovers' anarchy. The missing crest has yet to make its reappearance.
Demetri does not notice.
Author's Note: Here ends my attempt at Renata/Demetri. I rather like them together; Demetri needs someone in his life to make him less neurotic. Please let me know what you think.