Big huge thank you to Magami Kent (in coming up with the final idea) and Brawler64Brandon (in being part of the discussion) for solving my woes in coming up with this story's title over Discord! Even if it doesn't seem like much, the process and the fact you were kind enough to help, well, it helped!

"Say, shall we dance?"

Hades lifted her gaze away from the river, and met Cher's eyes, the same green as the fireflies hovering on the other side of them, sparks of light from the lamps they each held making them flash. His lips were quirked up questioningly, and Hades could not help but smile back.

"We've been dancing all night."

"Not all night," Cher corrected, almost languid. "Besides, that was only with the students, or with the others. We haven't danced together yet. "

Hades pretended to consider this, looking down at her own opulent dress, black and silky with a darkness that would have been unacceptable without the silver embellishments, damp from having trailed through the grass of the forest but no less magnificent for it. Then, she studied Cher, more regal than usual with the swooshing cloak in deep purple that he'd personally gone to town to acquire, the gold details on the fastenings and the hem of his waistcoat and the stitching in his shirt making him sparkle. She adjusted her head-dress, making sure the parts that draped around her horns had not gotten tangled, before she eventually answered:

"I suppose it would be a shame to let the bi-centenary pass without at least one dance, wouldn't it?"

"Sure it will. So, my Hades, may I have this dance?"

After setting down his own lamp, Cher extended an arm, and Hades did a mock curtsey, taking it after putting her own lamp down.

"Did you have a song in mind?"

Cher named it, and Hades thought a second before she placed it.

"I think I can remember it."

"No need, I'll hum."

And hum he did, slow and low, warm and melodious. As they spun and twirled and stepped side to side with only the fireflies as witness, the world reduced itself down, just for a moment. She didn't worry about the students, wonder about the challenges of the year ahead, think of the lessons she needed to plan. It was just her, and Cher, and the notes of a song that was half filling the air around her, and half running through her very being.

If only it could last.

The last time she had danced like this, she could not remember. Thirteen years (because they'd missed ten, somehow), twenty years, fifty, a hundred, hundred and fifty, and now two hundred years since they'd been able to open Kawaakari's gates. Many, many reasons to dance, and yet she couldn't remember the last time it had just been the two of them, having a moment like this.

I don't want it to stop.

Recognising the final end notes in Cher's humming, as she twirled out for one final spin, she met Cher's eyes and shook her head. One more, she conveyed, just one more. Cher nodded, and let the final notes of his humming linger in the air, before gathering her in his arms once again, and starting off on another song.

And another, and another.

Just one more, Hades would plead when they got near to the end. Let's do another, we have all the rest of the night, Cher pointed out if she did not. These were not words that needed to be voiced-they knew each other too well for that. So they danced, and danced, and only let go of each other when the routine of the dance demanded it.

But gradually, gradually, their legs grew weary and neither of them could hold back their yawns. Hades finished humming, and their swaying gradually stopped so they were standing there, right by the bank of the river. His hands were on her waist, her arms draped around his neck, and they looked at each other.

"Imagine if the students could see us now." Cher eventually muttered.

"They'd probably not know what'd hit them." Hades said.

"Nope, and then we'd get to send them back to their dorms with their tails between their legs for daring to be so impertinent."

"Those of them who have tails, anyway."

Cher sniggered at Hade's remark, and she shook her head in amusement. Moving one of her hands, she reached for a lock of his pink hair that had come loose from his ponytail, idly twirling it around her fingers. It was silky soft, as if they had not seen more than two hundred years of life and lost mortality together. Though, that was not so remarkable as the fact she could still marvel over something about someone she knew every inch of, inside out, from beginning to now. Beginning to now, rather than to end, because there would be no end.

Even when the time for dancing stopped, there would be no end. Oh, how she was glad of it.

"You're beautiful, do you know that?" Cher murmured, almost absently.

Hades pulled a face, even as her cheeks heated. There, another marvel, that such words had such power.

"Me? Are you sure you do not mean frecht?"

She didn't mind, really, that she was more frecht than any other kind of beauty. It was truth, anyway. Even Shippa used her as an example to illustrate the meaning, when the rare student who didn't know the word raised the question in his classes. Frecht had a certain amount of power to it, after all, and it was as effective a weapon as all the physical and magical ones that she had learned to wield.

"I've never been afraid of you."

It was a simple, factual response, and one that was just as true. Cher never had been afraid of her, never ever. Not even that very first time they had met, crossing a battlefield of the type both of them had only ever seen in legends before. Not even though she'd been completely drenched in blood and knew she must have looked a sight with her eyes seeming to glow through the redness of it, laughing from a hysteric sadness she hadn't been able to control. Not even in all the other times she'd had to show just how fearsome she could be. Even when she'd relished those moments, he hadn't been afraid.

Still now, it meant more to her than anything, than anyone.

"No," she murmured. "You never have."

"Mmmm."

They stood there for a moment, just holding and looking at each other, and then Cher sighed.

"I wonder, do you think we'll make it to three hundred years as well?"

Hades had to blink at that, take a moment to get herself back into the present, where she was also Headmistress Hades, and not Hades who had known Cher, always. Who would love him and be loved by him always, always. Back to the reality that had, for a moment, been distant and blurry.

"It's hard to say for sure," she answered. "But you know what, I think we will. We'll make it so-you and I and everyone we gathered."

"You and I." Cher echoed, nodding.

Hades nodded back, once again not needing to say anything. And for another few moments, they remained standing until Cher yawned and shook his head, blinking tiredness away. Reluctantly, Hades unwound his hair from her hand, let both her hands fall to her side.

"We should go back in. A lot to do tomorrow, to see the seniors off into the world. "

"You're right about that."

Cher let out a breath and let go of her, too, stepping back. Hades bit her lip, wanting to say no, never mind, let's just stay here forever, even knowing that she couldn't. Instead, she turned to the lamps they'd left on the ground and reached for hers, only to rear back when they suddenly began to float. From behind, Cher grabbed her hand, and she looked at him questioningly, only for him to point back at the lamps. Confused for a moment, she settled next to Cher and then watched as the lamps came to float in front of them, a short distance away. When Cher adjusted his hold on her hand so their fingers were laced together, then she understood.

"When we reach three hundred years, we'll have to dance again." She told him, simply.

"Naturally."

And then the two of them started walking back together, hand in hand.