She was a thing of grace and beauty.
Stepping into the room with a swish of heavy fabric across the floor and the room looked up, immediately regarding her with eyes of interest and respect. She was tall, intelligent, perfect and beautiful in her quiet and calm ways. Always managing to have a mothering atmosphere in spite of the leather and belts that attempted to cover most of her figure.
She was older then me, but in the instant I saw her I couldn't really think of anyone else. I was there to help my cousin, but this woman… I had a feeling that if she asked me anything in that rich low voice of hers I would have agreed without a moment's thought.
I would spend nights watching her, rolling over in the inn bed to see her figure in the moonlight from the window. Even asleep, with the moogle resting next to her pillow, she looked like a goddess. Pale moon light slid over her skin, stopped only by the small nightgown she wore that managed to cover about as much as her dress did every day. Her ivory skin, her long black eyelashes… her thin and perfect lips.
The lips that were parted just slightly as she slept and breathed in the perfectly quiet night.
I'd spent hours watching her, not moving from my bed. But in my mind, every night, a hundred times I slid from my bed and kneeled next to hers, silently asking her to kiss me as her eyes opened and looked up to mine.
And in my dreams, she would.
I saw him and her kiss. He was older then me, closer to her age and height and covered with enough muscle and tanned skin that he managed to compliment her quiet beauty with his own 'in your face' rugged handsomeness.
I caught them kissing outside one night and could do nothing but watch.
She looked different when she was kissing. The fading sunlight through the leaves above them still caught her skin, as the light always seemed to do, but now it seemed to wash over her. Her head tilted up ever so slightly, her eyes closed and her lips parted as they met his and I could see a sigh slide through her body as they moved closer together.
His hands moved to touch her, tracing the lines my own had created in my mind thousands of times. Over her bare shoulders, slipping through the thick soft fur, down the smooth leather of her bodice and around her waist to rest at the small of her back, playing with the tiny braids that were just long enough to make it there. She responded by moving closer, one leg shirting against the net of belts to slide against his, momentarily showing that there really was nothing that skirt hid from view.
Her hands slid over his body, one slipping around his shoulders while the other moved from the back of his waist down to his leg, lingering in between to show how right there, his pants really weren't as baggy as they looked.
A voice interrupted them and they broke the kiss, taking only a moment to compose themselves, before she stepped past him with a look and a teasing tilt of her mouth.
I think it was then that I decided she would never kiss me. I was too young, too thin, too pale… and too small for her. He fit her perfectly, complimenting every detail about her. What would she want with an annoying little girl like me?
A couple years and I still haven't changed. I've grown a bit, sure, filled out in quite a few places that took long enough in coming. I wear my hair differently, more braids and beads that click together when I turn in fast movements. I've developed a liking for less clothing, making it easier for me to move around for my work and possibly, I'll admit in the back of my head, making me a little more noticeable to the others out there.
I've caught them staring at me now, eyeing me as we open the door to the ship and get the supplies loaded in, conversations from the others filling my ears. No matter how loud it is you can always hear them looking at you and I thought maybe it would help, but in the end I still feel as alone as I did those nights when they were all asleep and all I could do was watch them.
A smile in my direction and my cousin jumps down to the sidewalk, running over to speak with a few old friends since we landed in a familiar place. I give her the usual smile and teasing comment, but I don't even remember what I say. It just all seems so programmed now. I watch her leave and circle the ship, finding a box of supplies out of sight to sit on, my eyes moving out over the dock to the city just past the lake in front of me. It's quiet and peaceful and for a moment I'm actually smiling, not worried about them.
"Skipping out on work again?"
She's different. Her voice is low, but scratchy in tone, the kind of sound that brushes against your skin like a cat's tongue, leaving you to wonder how it feels, confused if it was nice or uncomfortable.
"I'm not skipping out!"
"Slacker." She doesn't glide across the floor. Instead she walks across it, her boots clicking and informing the area that she goes where she wants, whether you like it or not.
"Meanie." She doesn't smile when I pout or make a face at her. She regards me with the same coldness she gives the rest of the world. A look. A phrase. And a turn of the head. None of it comes close to her, all of it forcefully pushed back by her presence.
"Hmph. Whatever." Her skin is hidden, the familiar smooth leather offering only teasing glimpses of the body beneath this time. There's no fur that you want to run your fingers through and rest your cheek against, no belts that beckon you to be unbuckled to reveal the legs you can glimpse beneath. Everything about her, even her clothing, reflect how far away people should stay. And yet… all I want to do is touch her.
I don't remember when I stood up, or when I crossed the wooden planks covered with sand to stand in front of her. I do remember her lowering the box she was picking up, leaving it on the dock.
I do remember her watching me with a question in her dark red eyes. Red that was so like hers from years ago, but young and darker… richer.
"… you're staring…" I can hear her voice and it's softer this time, unsure. She was never unsure years ago, she always knew what she was doing. But this one, now… I'd caught her off guard.
I liked that.
A hand of mine reached up, brushing back her rebellious hair and slipping against her cheek. I stepped closer and leaned up, closing the distance between us. I'd never had the courage to ask any one, so this time I didn't. This time I just stepped forward and did it instead.
I kissed her.
Cool, soft lips. Tight in shock and defensiveness. She didn't move to stop me, so I didn't stop. I pressed my warm lips against hers, feeling hers warm as they touched mine and eventually awkwardly kiss back as a part of her still struggled to push everything away. But she never moved to push me.
I took it as a green light, and stepped a little closer, my hands moving to her waist. They moved differently then the way I'd always imagined, tracing a new path against her skin and the red belts that came down from her shoulders. I traced those up her back, feeling her skin raise to my fingers, a shiver dropping through her body as a soft sound escaped her lips. One by one the walls faded away and she slowly stopped mentally pulling away from me.
Somewhere in the kiss I knew her eyes closed.
Somewhere in the kiss her hands unclenched and moved from her side, timidly resting against my skin.
Somewhere in the kiss, she began to kiss me back.
I'll never know how the kisses I imagined for the majority of my life were supposed to feel. I'll never know if they should have made my body feel warm, make my skin feel tight or my hands more daring. I'll never know if I should have stepped forward, closer to her, if my body should have shivered when I felt that smooth fabric against my skin, or if I should have whimpered softly when she pulled me closer and took control of the kiss. I'll never know if I should have been dazed as I followed her sudden lead or if I should have gripped onto her to keep my legs from falling out from under me.
I'll never know if that how it should have played out.
But that's how it did.
And I didn't care.
When we finally stopped and pulled back, I knew I finally had it in me. Years of watching, dreaming and imagining and it took doing the real thing to give me strength to actually ask for it.
"Kiss me Paine. … again."
Funny how life works that way.