It's warm in her room. Summer heat crawls through the open window, running over her body lain bare over the covers. Unintentionally, she's got Akali pinned beneath them, the thin cloth stretched against her hips. Akali moves slightly.

"Can you move?"

Irelia rolls away. Akali pulls herself free, and Irelia returns to the girl's side. She stares at her profile, uncertain and hesitant - like the intimacy she had was removed from her, filled with a lukewarm, vague temperature, a shapeless feeling. She likes the way Akali's skin feels, and the breathing sounds nice, but something in her is fighting the peace. Something that doesn't know what it wants to hold, what it wants to love. Almost tentatively, she puts her hand on Akali's arm.

Akali opens her eyes and turns her head. Her profile is pretty, but looking at her makes it a little easier. Irelia doesn't know what 'it' is, but it feels like facing a fear, or accepting a truth. Akali is very sharp without the mask. A lot of people expect women like her to hide a secret softness, that the jawline and lips are meant to be softer than her eyes. But Akali's admitted to her before she only wears it to keep the blood out of her mouth.

"Yeah?" Akali asks. It's a question that tries to be friendly. Irelia already realized a while ago what the difference between Akali being friendly and Akali being cold is. Irelia looks at her hand, like she doesn't know how it got there.

"I don't think you're asleep."

"It's too hot. You don't look that tired, yourself."

Irelia gives something like a laugh through her nose. She rolls over, laying herself on her stomach, and tucks her head a little closer into the pillow. "I won't keep you up, if you don't want me to."

"I don't really mind. I don't think I'll be sleeping much." Akali bends her arm at the elbow to reach up, grazing her fingers against Irelia. "Something's on your mind, isn't it?"

Irelia sleeps through heavy nights and limitless heat. She wakes herself up at the slightest threat, and is vigilant, even in the depths of slumber. She doesn't like that Akali can see through her, because it means that cover isn't taken. But - in the end, she doesn't think she minds that truth. Akali's different. Akali knows she's different - she makes that clear enough in her attitude.

"Tomorrow, I'm attending a council meeting," Irelia laments, resting her cheek down into the supported pillow over her arms. "Karma wants me to present forward Placidium security ideas."

"What's the problem?"

"The recommendations aren't my own. They're just suggestions and ideas come up by her representatives." Irelia looks up into Akali's eyes. "It doesn't feel genuine."

"Politicians don't like listening to the truth, Irelia."

"It's a lot easier to say that when you're not communicating with them yourself, isn't it?" As Irelia speaks, Akali supports herself and sits up a little, resting on her hand to watch Irelia, a hand drawing down her back lightly. Irelia sighs. "I hate making progress only to regulate it to something... agreeable. It's taken months to get the Council to realize we need more than barriers at the Placidium's walls - we need armed soldiers."

Akali's eyes remain on Irelia's pale back, her nails scratching gently into her back. Irelia flinches and rolls herself over, and Akali's hand lingers over her navel instead. It's Akali's turn to frown. "They don't want to protect the capital more?"

"The villages past the rivers are barely fortified." Irelia stares at the ceiling, her gaze distant. "The coastlines, the islands... we have farmers who have blades, but they don't know what to do with them."

"You'd rather be militarizing us."

"Protection isn't going to come from prayer and hope, Akali. You know what that allows."

"It was years ago," Akali replies, only a little more terse. Irelia looks at Akali, the light that sparks between them a moment of battle, the kind of flare that happens between unstoppable forces and immovable objects - it's not an argument, and it'll never get to an argument, because they know where the other stands. Irelia is the first to close her eyes, and exhale through her nose, but Akali continues speaking. "Maybe we need some kind of organization. You think you're going to get the chance to tell that in your once-in-a-lifetime meeting tomorrow?"

"I don't think so," Irelia says, sighing a little louder. "It's-I'm tired, but I can't sleep. It's keeping me up and vexing me."

Akali traces lazy circles over Irelia's bare navel after a beat of silence. Irelia glances down, at Akali's thin hand on the moonlight. It's better that she can see her. It gives the fighting part of her the calm it needs to lower the guard and let Akali's hands roam a little more.

"Pushing yourself's going to kill you-probably," Akali says, and the way she says it makes Irelia's eyes roll upward, shaking her head, but stays there. "But I'm not one to tell you to quit what you're doing."

"Thank you," Irelia says, closing her eyes and turning into Akali, her body pressing against hers, ignoring the summer night's heat that threatens to bother her some more. "I suppose I will tread my discussion carefully, and keep doors open."

"How remarkably mature of you."

"Watch it."

"For a dancer, you're awfully brutal."

"You know what my dance does, Akali."

"I know two of its forms," Akali teases, and Irelia's arm makes some attempt to nudge her, a mock-threat that lingers under sleep-deprived irritation. It makes Akali grin. Irelia laments she cannot see it, so she lifts her head to watch the other girl, at her shadowed smile. "It's not my fault you've shown me it."

"You're hilarious," Irelia says dryly, but sits up to match Akali's cuddling, an arm slipping over her bare hip. "Because, for one, it is your fault."

"And two?"

"Consider yourself lucky you're the only one who has," Irelia remarks, before kissing her lightly. Akali reciprocates immediately, a passionate push that leads Irelia to her back once more, Akali's long black hair spilling down over Irelia's rich blue. It lingers, and Akali's tone thigh meets Irelia's own, but it does not progress. The fire ignites, and Irelia almost wishes it did, even with the sweat on her body from an entirely different problem.

Akali kisses her again, again, over her lips and against her cheek. Irelia allows her to roam, hold herself about her and kiss, touching her body in chaste brushes - over the shoulder, over her bare breast. Irelia's hands dance through Akali's hair, scratching her scalp and making her sigh with deep content. Her hands move as they would with the blades; ethereal grace, with beauty slipped through fingertips that go unnoticed to untrained eyes. Akali's eyes are all she wants on her, even in the darkness. She knows shadow - she can see whatever she wishes, and Akali chooses Irelia.

One kiss finds Irelia's nose, and it makes her lips, hypnotized and warm, break into a grin. Akali's pursed lips on the tip of her nose feels funny. When Akali ends up kissing only teeth, she pulls back to see Irelia smiling, and she returns it.

"It's too hot," Akali says, sadly. "Otherwise I'd wind you up again."

"It's best if I sleep," Irelia replies, with a shared mourning. "You too. Perhaps when I return from the council."

"You'll keep them busy all afternoon."

"What does that mean?"

"You can talk their ears off, Irelia. But it'll be worth it." Akali kisses her once more, before lowering her body down carefully, resting atop of her own. "I know you'll win."