Milestones

by Legendgrass

"The Grand Duchess certainly underestimated the power of your silver tongue. The entire court, I might say." / "You should see what else this tongue can do."

Adaar was so bloody tired.

Her night at the Winter Palace, among the wicked eyes and wicked hearts of those who wished to do her—or the country, or the world, or reality, even—harm, had been the longest of her life. And she'd trudged through a blizzard for hours in the pitch-dark after Haven, not knowing if she would live or die.

At least things had been simple, then. Adaar preferred tangible goals. Milestones that she could meet. Like keep walking. Keep searching. Keep trying.

Here, everything was far too complicated. The shadowy machinations of Florianne and Gaspard and Briala and Corypheus had been nigh impossible to untangle, and even more impossible to halt before disaster struck. Adaar was lucky things had gone as well as they did—if one could call it that. She still wasn't totally sure she had made the right call in leaving all of the conniving politicians alive and pressuring them into working together. Her hope was that the Inquisition would be a significant enough force to keep them in line, if need be.

It had been enough tonight, at least. And Adaar was inexpressibly relieved that it was all over. Not the ball, of course; people were still dancing and drinking and sowing chaos behind the closed doors at her back, but her part in it was blessedly finished. She would spend the rest of the evening on this chilly, lonely balcony if she could. She was not suited to the world of secrets and lies and favors and forgeries. She would much rather run her enemies through with her daggers than talk them to death.

And she had done a fair amount of that tonight, too. How on earth that many Venatori cultists had made it onto the palace grounds with that much weaponry was yet another detail she failed to grasp, but luckily Adaar was no slouch either. Perhaps all the blood would be good for the foliage.

The Inquisitor sighed and leaned her elbows against the railing, settling her weight onto them gingerly. The wounds her enemies had managed to inflict were long closed by healing potions, but a wicked ache still lingered in their wake. Her awkward bright-red tunic strained across her shoulders as she shifted. She wondered whether it might make good kindling later.

A crisp breeze met her face as she leaned out over the gardens where so much treachery and tribulation had happened just a few hours prior. She wondered how badly her advisors and companions would disapprove if she leapt down from her perch right now and disappeared among the bushes. Would anyone look for her, this late into the night? Would anyone care whether she stayed or went, now that she had played her part in the night's intrigue? Or was she just another outcast again; not only lowborn but a mercenary and Vashoth as well?

Her question was answered in the next moment, though not in the way she'd expected.

The sound of the door opening behind her made her ears twitch and her hands start toward her hidden blades, but a second's pause and the recognition of familiar footsteps told her that her visitor was no cause for violence.

It did make her heartbeat stutter for an entirely different reason, however.

"Your Worship," Josephine Montilyet greeted as she approached the railing to stand beside Adaar—a respectable distance away, of course—her voice breathless with excitement. How characteristic of her to be invigorated by the night's goings-on rather than exhausted. Forgoing any further pretenses, she practically gushed, "I must say, your performance tonight was incredible!"

Adaar schooled her expression into something closer to smugly amused than utterly flustered by the ambassador's presence, let alone her compliment. She was thankful that gray skin didn't show much of a flush, and certainly not in this light. "You sound surprised," she observed, turning a crooked little smirk upon Josephine. She almost regretted it when the sight of the ambassador's returning grin, warm and bright and pleasant as candlelight, made her chest constrict. Against all odds, Adaar had survived a lot tonight. She had no intentions of letting this lovely little woman undo all her hard work.

Josephine's smile softened; curled at one corner a little slyly as if she realized the effect she was having—which had to be impossible, because she had seemed to parse none of Adaar's flirtations in the past. Or, if she had, she'd chosen to ignore them.

Hadn't she?

"No. Merely impressed," the Antivan corrected, turning to lean her hip against the railing so she faced the Inquisitor. "The Grand Duchess certainly underestimated the power of your silver tongue. The entire court, I might say."

Adaar snorted, very unladylike. It was a good thing it was only her and Josephine out here, so she did not offend any nobles with her crassitude. Maybe it was that same seclusion, then, or the stress of the night, or the overwhelming relief that came with it being over that made her forget herself just then and say, "You should see what else this tongue can do."

Instantly she froze.

Josephine's jaw dropped.

Regret coursed through Adaar's system, sudden and strong.

Had she really just said that? In front of Josephine?

In front of Josephine!

The comment was something she might have made with the Valo-Kas, among the coarse, comfortable company of her boisterous colleagues, not—

Not Josephine.

"Forgive me," she pleaded in a rush, raising her hands as if to ward off an incoming blow, backing away so that not so much as her aura could sully Josephine's purity any more. "Th-that was—I mean, uh—I-I didn't—" she stammered out, face blazing. So much for my silver tongue. And so much for charming Josephine. Adaar forced a deep breath and ran a hand over her hair, looking away. "I'm so sorry, Lady Montilyet. It was—old habits, I suppose."

Josephine's response was not the whip-crack reproach that the Inquisitor fully expected, but rather a shocked sort of giggle. "I suppose it's fortunate that the nobility wasn't around to hear that," she said, echoing Adaar's own thoughts. And—not getting angry?

Adaar slid an embarrassed sideways look at the ambassador to judge her reaction, and needless to say, it was nothing near what she'd expected, either. From what she could see in the faint glow of the palace's exterior lights, Josephine was blushing, eyes wide, one cheek dimpling with a bewildered sort of smile. It was—a relief, sort of, but it also raised all sorts of questions in Adaar's already spinning mind.

Why wasn't Josephine angry? Or disgusted? Or annoyed, at the very least? Why hadn't she given Adaar a sound scolding, like she had the time the Vashoth teamed up with Sera to dump a bucket on her head?

Surely she deserved it now as much as she had then.

Now Adaar was confused as well as flustered. She scratched at the back of her neck, shrinking into slouched shoulders as much as she could when she was six and a half feet tall, trying to think of something suitable to say. It wasn't easy, considering the massive hole she'd just dug for herself. She settled lamely upon, "Just when I thought I was done making a fool of myself…"

"I suppose it's only fair for me to do the same," was Josephine's soft response, and—honestly, Adaar could not take many more of these shocks before her heart truly began to protest. And if the unforeseen comment was not confounding enough, the touch on Adaar's shoulder that accompanied it was enough to have her head whipping up in surprise so fast her neck twinged. There she found Josephine watching her with eyes warm and half-lidded, a hint of fear and something else entirely swimming in their depths.

"Josephine?" she prompted cautiously, even as she found herself swaying forward slightly, drawn by that heavy look and the way Josephine seemed to positively glow. Her head swam at their proximity—when had Josephine stepped so close? When had the sugary scent of her perfume become the only thing Adaar could smell? What was going on? What—

"Hush, my Inquisitor, before I come to my senses and deprive you of the praise you deserve," the ambassador cut her off at a whisper, and before Adaar had time to ask her what the hell she meant by that, Josephine was reaching up with a gentle hand to grip her chin and coax her down, down, down… Adaar savored the feeling of smooth skin against her own as Josephine's touch lingered, the only thing grounding her amidst an experience that otherwise felt like fiction. The Vashoth was tempted to pinch herself.

Josephine only stopped once their lips hovered hardly a hairsbreadth apart. There, she ran her thumb along Adaar's strong jaw and breathed unevenly, and though the air around them was cold, the sliver of space between them seemed to buzz with warmth and electricity. For what seemed like an eternity, Adaar watched Josephine watch her lips with those tender gray eyes and wondered if she'd died down in the gardens after all.

Is this really—

Her fledgling thought halted when Josephine went tense in the breathless pause, dropping her hand to clasp it with the other in front of her like she had suddenly remembered herself. Always so careful. Always so polite. She looked away, and Adaar immediately missed the heat of her gaze. "Forgive my forwardness, my lady. If this is not what you want—"

Adaar closed the distance before she even got the words out.

The pleased hum that left the ambassador's throat as their lips met was enough to set Adaar ablaze. She forgot the ball; forgot the crowd milling just beyond a single door; forgot the pain in her limbs and the fatigue in her mind in favor of experiencing Josephine, fully and with all the overwhelming euphoria of finally reaching a goal thought unobtainable.

Because Josephine was; always had been. She was a noble; a lady; a woman of great stature and grace, and Adaar was simply…Adaar. No matter how sorely her heart longed to hold Josephine, she'd always tamped her feelings deep down because she knew the chasm between them was just too great.

Only—

Here she was, kissing the Lady Montilyet slowly and sweetly and thoroughly the way she deserved, and no one was stopping them.

In fact, Josephine was leaning in to ask for more, her arms coming up to twine around Adaar's neck and pull her down so their bodies could curve into one another like two halves of the same whole, and suddenly that distance did not seem so great.

It was clichéd, but Josephine tasted as sweet as she smelled. But of course she did. Josephine was sweet all the way through, not just on the exterior, where sponsors and nobles and allies could see. She was actually polite and thoughtful and wonderful and kind. She was actually as perfect as her reputation presumed. It was no wonder Adaar had fallen for her as hard as she did.

The towering woman tried to keep her hands light and gentle as they traced the curve of Josephine's waist; the swell of her hip. Tried to communicate through her touch alone just how precious she considered Josephine. She was not fragile, like stained glass or fancy dishware or even flowers, no. She was more like precious gemstones in the way she glittered so beautifully yet still cut so sharply, and Adaar treated her as she would her most prized possession. She felt Josephine smile against her lips as if she knew, and her heart soared. She reached up to trail her fingers affectionately along the line of the young woman's jaw; the side of her neck.

They had to break away for the ambassador's sudden giggle at the touch. "Forgive me," she said, breathless and grinning bright as the sun as she caught her balance. "I fear I may be ticklish."

Adaar couldn't help but bark out a laugh of her own as her brows shot up in surprise. "Oh?" She considered for a moment taking advantage of that new discovery, but decided it may not please Josephine as much as it did her. Instead she released the young noble and raised a hand to dab at her own tingling lips, still hovering on the verge of disbelief. She'd just kissed Josephine.

The implications of that were frightening, especially considering the nature of their roles within the Inquisition, but Adaar was not in the mood for pessimistic speculation just now. She just felt so—so—warm. Josephine always made her so warm, inside and out.

"You're just full of surprises, aren't you?" she said wonderingly, relishing the blush that resurged to Josephine's cheeks at the compliment.

"Well," the ambassador dipped her head modestly, but not quick enough to hide her enduring smile. "Not so much as yourself, my Inquisitor." Here, she angled a wicked look up at Adaar through her eyelashes. "I must say your performance just now was at least as impressive as what you accomplished in the ballroom."

Adaar laughed again, feeling her own face burn pleasantly. She longed for this moment never to end. The two of them, alone out here on the balcony with no one but the moon to judge them for their love; a long, exhausting night behind them but a future full of possibility before them—it was bliss. And yet none of it was quite so wonderful as the simple pleasure of Josephine's smile upon her.

Adaar liked tangible goals. Milestones that she could meet.

Like kiss Josephine again. Never let her go.

And that, she could manage. "Are you saying you'd be amicable to an encore, Lady Montilyet?" she teased, slipping a careful hand around Josephine's waist again to flatten against the small of her back, drawing her closer.

Josephine came willingly, sliding her own hands up Adaar's toned arms and across her shoulders before cradling her face in them both. "Of course," she replied simply; barely a breath. Then, as they leaned in again to savor this sweet end to the night, she added, impossibly soft, "kadan."

Adaar could not suppress her grin.

Yes, she thought with renewed certainty and felt a flame of determination flickering up as she kissed Josephine again This was a goal she would love to meet, over and over again for the rest of her life, if she could.

Never let her go.

…