The baton's slender glass tip counted out a rhythm in sets of four.
Weiss always loved music because of that. Just like her Dust, singing was magic to the uninitiated, the talentless, the ones without drive and direction. Everyone wanted to gush over her as a child, such a beautiful voice, such clear, high tones. Weiss only ever wanted to discuss the theories behind it. How math and music were intimately linked. The light went out of people's eyes when she began to peel it apart, strip the mystery from it. They wanted the magic. They wanted to pretend it was a secret, and Weiss could not stand for that.
She knew the secrets because she broke them down, piece by piece, one-two-three-four-one-two-three-four.
"Keep up, Weiss," her teacher murmured under her breath, the words soft. The order in it brooked no argument.
Her knuckles were crisscrossed with red stripes, hard-won lessons for the price of failure.
It had started hours before. Even before adrenaline and sharp pain made her hands start to shake, Weiss could not focus on the music sheets in front of her.
The house was too empty. That was the problem. Her whole house– quiet. Naked, she pressed herself against Cinder's back and listened to the older woman sleep, drawing a line down the crease of her back, the divot that was the curve of her spine. She watched the flesh rise, hair standing erect, and wanted more than anything to wake her up and make love again.
Restless energy filled her; she pulled on a robe and went downstairs. The piano stood still where so much else had burned and crumbled away, in the wake of the attacks, the fires, the destruction of the White Fang.
She remembered Cinder standing in the archway of the great front doors, flames licking around her, a pillar of darkness in the fire. Cinder had saved her, and Cinder had guided her, and Cinder had anchored her when the last gasp of oxygen had been burnt from the room.
Plucking at the ivory was second nature. When she was a girl, it filled the empty house with something, some lonely little song for the bird in the cage. Now it gave her the same warm solace, and she did not even realize Cinder had followed her until she felt a palm on her shoulder.
The heat she radiated could be felt clear through the fabric. Weiss gasped, twisting in her seat. Her hands instinctively ducked to her hip, where Myrtenaster should lie, and clutched on empty air because of course the sword was still on its mantle upstairs.
"Can I join you?"
A heart beat, four heart beats. Even that followed a pattern.
Weiss relaxed. Held the hand on her shoulder, giving Cinder a tired smile. "Of course. Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."
"You didn't." The older woman slid onto the seat to her left, reclining her head so that it lay on Weiss' shoulder. Less concerned now by the volume, Weiss resumed her practice.
The surety of her strokes only faltered briefly when Cinder sat up straight and entered the song, accompanying her in a duet. The song wasn't necessarily built to accommodate two people but they worked around that, with each other, wordlessly finding a rapport.
"You're so talented, Ms. Schnee," Cinder said, and as with everything it was with a hint of tease. Everything was a promise, coming from Cinder's lips. "You must have had an excellent teacher."
Smirking, Weiss just lifted up cold blue eyes in a mocking stare.
Her playing suffered for it; once or twice she hit a sour chord before her focus returned to the keys, drawn in by Cinder's carmine nails dancing across the white and black. "She was a strict one," Weiss answered. "But I found a harsher touch often produced better results."
Under her breath, Cinder gave a patently false, affronted gasp. It was so quiet and yet so unexpected, Weiss couldn't help but laugh. "You wound me," Cinder went on. "A harsh touch… Implying I ever laid a hand on you at all."
"Much to my frustration."
Outside, it began to snow. Weiss thought about each flake, perfectly unique. How the heat and pressure molded each one, how pure chance resulted in the individual.
A hand whipped out, wrapping around her left wrist. Her dominant hand. Nails pressed in faintly to the top of her palm before setting it down against the keys. The loud sour note exclaimed in the empty house, and Weiss looked up into molten eyes, a naked face wiped clean of makeup before they had made their bed that night, and a pleasurable chill ran down her spine.
"Maybe I should have," Cinder said. "For the lessons to stick better."
A tug tested the strength of Cinder's grip, proving herself trapped. The keys clinked in distress under her as she pulled and twisted, like a thrashing bird on the ground. When she gave up, Cinder was waiting.
"Your attention keeps straying," Cinder said, taking Weiss' hand and bringing it to her lips. Cinder kissed the back of her palm, the crescent moon indents her nails had left. "You're missing all my cues."
"Well, you're distracting."
"You never let that stop you before."
Stretching up, Weiss kissed Cinder on her lips, missing the familiar taste of lipstick, the garish red smear the older woman would paint across the pale surface of Weiss' body. "Because I was terrified of disappointing you."
Real sadness flickered across Cinder's expression, dampening the smolder in her eyes. "Now you really are wounding me. I was never that cruel to you, was I?"
"Not like that." She laced their fingers together, holding the warmth to her forehead. "When you frowned, it was worse than any…" A thumb rolled over the scar on her eye. "…Punishment, or lecture. Those I could endure."
"I'll endeavour to avoid that in the future."
A grin spread across Weiss' face. "What? Frowning?"
"Mhm." Hands on her hips, Cinder kissed her again. Incredible strength was hidden in those hands, enough to pull Weiss onto her lap as she straddled the bench. It felt like she reached deep inside, plucked a thread of desire from her and drew it out, stretching it taut until Weiss was gasping into her mouth.
There was only sheer fabric between her and Cinder. Weiss' robe was thick and twice her size, puffed up and downy soft. But Cinder strode through the unheated hallways in tissue thin, sheer red gossamer. Untouched by the cold. Above it.
Her body was still an endless fascination to Weiss, who was always acutely reminded of how they had first met. Of being the girl who yearned for her tutor. To be her, to be like her. To have her. And then her absence, years apart while Weiss withstood it alone. And their explosive reunion, Cinder rescuing her from the White Fang, sinking her claws into Weiss and dragging her down into the truth behind her family name, the dark politics that ruled the city, and all the power that was there for the taking.
"Let's play pretend," Cinder whispered into the shell of her ear. "That you're my beloved student again." Two fingers sliding against her entrance, collecting the wetness that gathered there before drawing it up to circle Weiss' clit. "And I'm not allowed to touch you."
That's how it started.
Cinder would never hurt her hands hard enough to cause serious damage. All those fine bones, the soft upper skin. But the baton unfurled from the power of her semblance left red welts across her knuckles, forearms, punishment for every missed chord. And the more it happened, the more her playing suffered, until her hands were hovering over the keys and trembling, her thighs damp, her clit aching.
There was a word she could say– Anthos– and it would unlock the cage and set her free. But she held her tongue, and when Cinder pulled her head up by the chin to force their gaze to meet, Weiss' eyes had gone ice-cold and fearless, jagged and rebellious.
The next thing she knew, she was bent over the flat of the piano top, arms outstretched and her robe torn aside. It was cold against her bare chest, nipples puckering and erect from the contact. Breaths escaped her in huffs, whole body shaking with need.
Cinder did not touch her. Could not touch her, deign her with the pleasure of her scorching hands. Instead the tip of the baton pressed against her exposed lower lips, holding one to the side to inspect her.
Weiss expected a sharp comment, humor on the edge of a knife, or a coy line to continue the game, but Cinder's laugh was somehow worse. A blush spread down her naked back, redder than the lines on her forearms.
"So this is why you can't concentrate," Cinder said, and the cool press of glass was poison and it was panacea. "Explain this to me."
"Cinder–"
She gasped at the first strike across her bare bottom, body going rigid.
"Ms. Fall." Cinder's gentle voice correcting her stood in sharp contrast to the stinging flesh.
Weiss struggled to remember to breathe. "Ms. Fall! I'm sorry."
The second stroke was harder. "I asked for an explanation, not an apology."
Her hands curled into empty, futile fists as she bowed her head. "You're so beautiful," she said in half a whisper, not playing pretend. "You're just so strong and–" Another crack of glass against flesh wrested a cry from her throat. "Ms. Fall, I– I–"
"Speak up."
Had it been a solid glass rod, the pain would have been unbearable. But it had a supple give to it, unnatural in its flexibility as Cinder lashed against the back of her thighs.
"So you'd rather sit here and dream about touching yourself than doing what I tell you?"
How many times had she dreamt up scenes just like this? Cinder sitting at her side, looking positively docile while her student fumed with lust. She felt wicked then, like she was staining their relationship with her desires, feverishly wanting something she couldn't have, shouldn't have. Didn't deserve.
A ragged moan escaped her as she clutched her own head, knees swaying on the edge of collapse as she tried to stay upright. "Hard, just harder!"
Cinder didn't pause to question or bring attention to the break in character. Instead, the glass fell on her in hard, even strikes, each one threatening to pull a sharp cry from her lips. She kept quiet, damn her throat, bit her lip and grit her teeth. There was only one way to stop now, just the safe word, or to await Cinder's satisfaction, whatever that might be.
Even here, there were patterns and rules to be followed.
Weiss knew she wouldn't be the first to buckle. She never was. She was too strong, too resilient at her core, to surrender. Even when she wanted to. Even when her knees started sinking, the tears pricking at her eyelids. How else had she survived when no one else had? How else was she the only one left in the house, her father's house, left to count all the lives of the people she had sacrificed to be here as they trickled through her fingertips like gold coins.
One last strike hit her, the pain sharp and real, grounding her to this moment and overwhelming all other thought. A noise left her, not a cry or a scream but just a noise, high and shattered, and she kept her hands flat on the piano top and sobbed in the resulting broken dam.
Cinder pulled her into her arms immediately, letting her knees give way and holding Weiss to her chest, soothing and stroking hands through her long silver hair. "Oh, love. No no no. No more. We're done. We're done."
"But I didn't–" Weiss hiccuped through the tears, shushed by the force of Cinder's lips on hers. Weiss responded at once, clutching onto her for dear life, drinking her in. "I didn't– I didn't say–"
"Fractal."
That was Cinder's word. And she kissed Weiss' tears away, murmuring over and over– "I love you. I love you. Weiss, I love you."
Taking Cinder's hand, she dragged her down between her legs, the wetness that streaked almost down to her knees. A desperate, open-mouthed groan sounded between kisses, halting like a laugh, jagged like a sob.
She came in a spreading pool of heat, enveloping her in calm and warmth, soft fluttering as it faded and she was empty, blessedly still.