12/26/1

He asked for a dossier on the people attending this, and he's got one.

Kylo is sitting at his desk, staring at one of the data pads, this one filled with the details that Threepio decided he needed to know about everyone attending this thing.

It's… comprehensive. That's likely the best word for this.

Impossible might be another good one.

He figures that if he really works at it, and drops everything else he's got to do, he could likely get each name memorized along with what planet, system, or corporation each of those names goes with, and which face goes along with those names and organizations, and what their primary interest may be with the Order.

There is no possible way he's going to memorize anything else. Not in the time he has left.

Especially not if, and he looks at the stack of other datapads on his desk, he attempts to do any of his other jobs.

Kylo sighs, grits his teeth, and then goes and finds the seating chart. He pulls up the dossiers on the people they're sitting with. Ten people at their table, and four of them are him and Rey, and the Kinears. That leaves six dossiers he's got to memorize.

Not as much as he was hoping to have, but realistically, what he can do.

He copies them, sends them to Rey, and then gets reading.

"So…" Kylo leads as he puts dinner down on the table.

Rey shrugs a bit. "It didn't hurt."

He's looking at her, as she puts cups of water on the table. "Doesn't look like you enjoyed it."

She doesn't roll her eyes, but she wants to. "The dress is very pretty. They tell me I am, too."

He kisses her. "They're not wrong."

She looks at the plates in front of them, and turns to reach for forks.

Kylo shakes his head, and lays chopsticks on each plate. "I was just getting ready to come home when Jon found me with these. Apparently, Threepio and Ellie Kinear have spent all day today going over the menu, the catering, who's eating what, when, and where, and came to the conclusion that this is a fairly complicated meal with a lot of utensils. Then they talked to each other for a moment, and made the decision to serve it Mid-Rim style, because we'd master chopsticks a lot faster than we'd get the details of what fork to use when."

Rey picks up the chopsticks. She's seen the Canto Bight kids use them, but she never has herself. "So… We just… stab the food with it? And what do we do with soup?"

"I've been told there will be spoons. Everything will be cut to bite sized, and we just," he picks up his sticks, takes a moment getting them into his hand correctly, "pick up," he manages to grab a green bean, "our food," and it goes skittering out from between the sticks, "with them."

Rey gets the sticks in her hand, and eyes the food, and successfully manages to get a bite of mukloo squash into her mouth on the third try. "I think it'd be easier to just stab the food."

"You're probably right." Kylo's eyeing the noodles under and around the veggies. "Supposedly you can use these to eat noodles."

"I've seen the kids do it."

"How?"

Rey picks up the bowl, and does her best imitation of the kids slorping up noodles. That works… okay… enough. Then a horrified mental image of doing that, while wearing her dress springs to mind. When she puts the bowl back, she says, "There aren't any noodles on the menu, are there?"

"Not that I know of." Having seen her do that, he's pretty sure Threepio wouldn't do that to them. He's certain he can get the hang of these things in time. He's also certain that he cannot slorp up noodles in any way that's even resembling polite or elegant.

That said, he also hasn't successfully gotten any food into his mouth, yet, so…

They double down, working on it, and after ten minutes of very few bites of food successfully getting into either of their mouths, Rey has an idea.

She gets the library out, goes looking through it, and… There's a video of how to use chopsticks.

And while it's true neither of them are good at it by the end of the meal, it's also true that they are managing to successfully feed themselves.

12/27/1

Kylo doesn't think he's spent this long working on… anything… well, this sort of anything, obviously he's trained long and hard, but some sort of written thing… he's never spent this sort of time or energy on something like this. But his First Year Speech is done. Or, at least, it's as done as he's going to get it.

He gives the "finished" draft to Rey first. She reads it, smiles, nods, and says, "It's good, Kylo."

"Really?"

She grins at him. "Really."

Jon's staring at a fully revamped seating chart for his dinner. Threepio's looking… well, exactly like he always does, but even this quickly into their working relationship, he can feel the droid is pleased.

"It was almost a disaster, a full on disaster. You had the F'ranor delegation next to the Polonians, and they've been at war with each other, on and off, for the last hundred years… Your caterers had planned thanen for the second course, and yes, I know they're delicacies in half of the galaxy, but they're also forbidden by three separate faiths, Concordance of the Stars among them, and you've got their Grand Bishop attending this. I was able to make sure that anyone sitting at his table is getting something else, and…"

Jon's very pleased to see this going so well. It's the kind of details he knows exists, but there was just no way for him to even begin to take care of them. Threepio's a good half hour into the catastrophes he's averted with his keen eye for details, and Jon's glad of them, but mostly he's just sitting here feeling pleased about all the ways this isn't about to blow up in his face.

"Threepio?"

"Yes, Lt. Colonel Frakes."

"Do you want a uniform? Or something to show off your rank?"

"Lt. Colonel Frakes?"

"You're invited to this, too. You know that, right? I understand you can't eat, but…"

"You want me to attend?" He's never attended something like this before, other than to hover in the back and occasionally whisper something useful in Leia's ear.

"Of course. Attend. Mingle. Talk. Watch. Learn. Help me put out fires before they start. Do you want… If not an outfit, something to show off your rank? A mark of office or alliance?"

Threepio thinks about that for a long minute, and then he says. "I can't see a uniform, or changing my appearance. However… There's someone I'd like to invite."

"Certainly."

There's a somewhat less than perfectly professional lilt in Threepio's voice as he says, "He's an R2 unit, and I can't wait to have him see people take orders from me."

"An old friend?"

"Something like that."

Kylo growls, quietly, when he sees that two of the dossiers he managed to get memorized now belong to people he's not having supper with.

He pulls up the new ones and gets to it.

"What's on your hands?" Kylo asks as they get ready for bed that night.

Rey shakes her head, eyes narrowing as she looks at the mitts on her hands. "Mirina says I'm supposed to rub some sort of goop on my fingers every night and then wear gloves to bed."

Kylo's just staring at the mitts. They're bright pink and somewhat fluffy. "Why?"

Rey viciously rolls her eyes. "Apparently, there's stuff that takes nail lacquer off, and if you don't use it, and just let the lacquer chip off, it rips up your nails and makes them rough and unhappy, and apparently, this is the sort of thing that's supposed to help them get smooth and happy again."

Left unspoken is the fact that if she's got rough, unhappy fingernails and cuticles (and as of yesterday Rey didn't even know what a cuticle was, let alone that they're supposed to be perfectly smooth) people will look, and judge, and talk. And it just wouldn't do for the Master's Lady to have rough, unhappy cuticles and fingernails.

Kylo stares at them, rolling his lips together, and nods, slowly. Then an idea bounds through his head and he pounces onto the bed straddling her, stretching her hands above her head. He kisses each wrist, saying, "Thank you for putting up with this." Meaning things like extra fittings and all of the 'getting ready' stuff he knows Mirina and Tasha are shoveling on her.

Then a huge grin lights his face. "You can't use your hands." He lets go, but his Force is still holding them down.

Rey tests his hold, wriggling a bit, not entirely sure if she likes this, but she also knows he'll let her go if it's an issue. Then she feels the tension on her wrists slip, and he cocks his head a bit to the side, asking if it's okay.

She nods, and the pressure returns. And with it the feel of his lips against her wrist.

Maybe, just possibly, there's something to be said for not being able to use your hands. At least, Rey appeared to have thought so, and Kylo's very much hoping to find out for himself sometime in the not wildly distant future.

12/28/1

"Welcome aboard the Supremacy Lord and Lady Xanqlath. I trust your voyage was uneventful, and I hope it was pleasant…"

Jon hovers in the background watching one of his hand-picked First Lieutenants gladhand the latest of the guests. He has over a thousand of them, each one assigned to handful of delegations, doing nothing but getting them settled, making sure they are comfortable, answering questions about The Order, what it does, what it could be doing for them, leading them around on tours, and all in all, making sure they have a "good" time.

If this works, it'll be a raging success. If it works, it will give off the impression that they are so flush, and well-appointed, and rolling in money and resources that they can afford to appoint officers just to take care of the comforts of guests. If it works, it looks like they've got the funds to also host, in comfort and some level of luxury, more than ten thousand people for more than a week if need be.

If it works…

Every officer below the rank of Captain who could memorize an in depth history of the Order in six weeks, look good in a uniform, with a high level of charm and empathy, and could learn, on his feet, enough about each of the guests he was in charge of to not mortally insult them, got dragooned into this. And about two hundred non-coms and three hundred enlisted also got a very sudden bump in rank when it became clear he desperately needed more people for this.

As of right now, three days into people arriving, it's still going… Well enough. Being able to fob a lot of the protocol issues onto Threepio means Jon's actually getting some sleep, and from what he's being told, they are starting to get inquiries into The Order's ability to host 'delicate' gatherings in need of discretion and security.

Jon rubs his eyes. He's really got to find someone to put in charge of that. He's building… the eventual Court of Ren… and one day… He can see it, a sparkling place where people gather to work together, with each other, with the wider galaxy… A place of learning and tolerance and… Order. Not too many rules, but the ones that are there are there for the safety of everyone involved and… And he really needs to get a few weeks to just write and sketch and that should happen shortly after the universe burns out because he's still beyond overscheduled.

Jon sighs. Tomorrow night. Once it's time to start getting ready, he's got a few hours of nothing much to do. Keep Kylo in line, and out of his Mom's hair so the girls can get ready, and make sure he doesn't have some sort of nervous pre-party melt down.

And then there's a party, and he's intending to fucking party.

Kylo gives the text to Jon next. He reads it, smirks a little, and then looks up at Kylo. "Long live Master Ren."

It's actually rather nice to have someone say that to him, and not have to be choking the life out of him to get it.

"That said, let's polish it up," Jon adds.

And then they spend an hour working on word choice, meter, and how to say some of it.

"Uh…" Kylo's staring at the green goop on Rey's face, neck, shoulders, chest, and back, as they are, once again, getting ready for bed.

She just glares at him and tosses the tube in his direction. "I've been told you're supposed to use it, too. It's supposed to make your skin look nice."

"How?"

She glares at him again.

He nods and unscrews the top, sniffs at it, it's got a scent he'd call minty, but not quite. He pulls his hair back into a bun, and goes about rubbing it on his skin. It's sort of tingly, and he's not exactly loving how it feels when it dries, but… "The mitts were more fun."

"No shit." I did not sign up for this is radiating off of Rey. Though the fact he's doing it, too, helps.

The fact that those stupid bloody pimples are gone in the morning helps, too.

Poe looking at her during a quiet moment when the kids are studying, inclining his head a bit, smirking and saying, "Looks like you had a good morning…"

Which, well, is true, at least in the way he means good morning, but that's usually true so… She raises an eyebrow.

"You're glowing. Like… I mean…" And it's clear he's starting to feel a little embarrassed because he's apparently read the situation wrong. "Your skin is really… bright. Uh… It's pretty." That helps, too.

And maybe the little voice that thinks this is appallingly stupid isn't dead, but it's getting quieter.

12/29/1

"Hey, Rose."

Rose looks up from the snow plow they're trying to get attached to the earthmover. Snow is great. Snow is fun. Snow's awesome, for about two days. And now, snow is starting to be a massive pain in the ass because they're getting about 10 centimeters a day, and at first that was fine, but it's over knee high on the adults now, and just slogging through it isn't working. Plus, for the littlest kids, that's hip high, and…

Time to get something better than a shovel.

Rey sidles over next to her, eyeing what she's up to. "Here," she holds two of the shock absorbers in place, and Rose gets to welding.

"What's up? Or did Finn find you and tell you I needed some extra hands?"

"Something about someone 'who knows what those damned machines like,'" Rey says. "Also…" she's more than a little nervous asking, but… "You know I've got that… thing… coming up."

"Thing?" Rose sits back from the plow, flipping her welding face shield up. With a raised eyebrow, Rose says, "You're calling it a thing?"

Rey rolls her eyes. "The dinner."

"Yeah. I know you've got it." Rose doesn't exactly sound enthusiastic about this. "Why?"

"Uh… apparently getting ready for it is a big deal, and takes time, and… They asked if I wanted a friend to come with me, and… Uh… If you go, they'll sketch a dress for you for our plan to run Canto Bight, so…"

"Who's 'they?'"

"Tasha and Mirina. Jon's… You don't know Jon… Uh… The dress designer and her daughter."

Rose's eyes narrow a little. She's not exactly comfortable with this, because if it were solely up to Finn, she'd never get within a light year of anything even remotely related to the Order. And she's not exactly disagreeing with him on that. And, she's also not exactly a huge fan of rich people flouncing around with their piles of money. Which 'dress designer' sounds a whole lot like.

But Rey is standing there, not looking at Rose, chewing on her lip, which is apparently a gesture she got from Kylo. "Are you nervous?" Rose asks.

Rey nods. "Very. I… don't know how to do this. I'm learning, but…"

"You think I do?" The idea of which stuns Rose.

"No… But… It's supposed to be fun and… maybe it would be fun with you. Getting ready for your wedding was fun, and this would be like that, probably. I hope."

Rose sighs. Getting ready for her wedding was fun, but she's fairly sure that had a lot to do with the people doing it, and not so much with what they were doing. "Can Paige come?"

"Yes. And…" Rey leaps on a way to sell this idea to Rose. "We can call it reconnaissance. We're… learning how to blend in at Canto. Poe keeps telling us that we need to be able to do that to convincingly join the high stakes tables, so…"

"Are we still going to do that?" Rose looks toward the chapel, where earlier this morning Kylo was teaching his fourth lightsaber class. "He could just… get us what we need, right?"

"Yes. He'd like to do it, too. If I let him, we'd have a corps of engineers and a fleet of builders and the week after next we'd be set. But…" She half smiles. "Doing it for myself, for us… matters to me."

Rose smiles at that. "That I understand."

"And… I think he's looking forward to it, going to Canto Bight to play, too."

This was something Rose had never considered. "He's going to go?"

"Why wouldn't he?"

"Okay, beyond attempting to get him and Finn in the same place for hours at a time… He sets foot in a casino and—"

"Trust me, no one is going to recognize Ben and Rey Amidala out for a good night with their friends the Ticos and Poe Dameron."

Rose shakes her head and puts the welding torch down. "He really… plays… relaxes… does fun stuff?"

"He really does."

"And drags you along to things like the dinner."

"Drags is too strong. I…" She's biting her lip again. "It matters, right?"

"Does it?" Rose is staring at her. "No… banthashit… No you'll hurt him if you tell it true. No he-wants-something-and-you-don't. Does it matter? Really?"

Rey twists her hands together. "I didn't join the Resistance for the politics; you know that. I… actually… couldn't really tell you what, other than being against the First Order, the Resistance was for. Jakku… All I grew up with was grab what you could take, and hope no one bigger grabbed it from you. All I could tell you about the Empire or the New Republic was based on the wrecks that were scattered around. It was just… I found a droid, and it needed to get to the Resistance. A guy showed up, and he claimed he was with the Resistance, and I ran away with him, and the guys chasing us were with the First Order and…

"And… All of this… politics stuff comes from after he was part of my life. But… I think if he hadn't been there, if I'd been pulling this out of a vacuum, it'd matter. I'd approve of it. Threepio says this is good. That he doesn't like Kylo, but what he's doing is good, so…

"So, it matters, right? I mean… we killed people to make a better galaxy, so… I should be willing to live…" But he's not asking her to live for it. "Hell, put a fucking dress on and do my hair… for that, too, right?"

Rose doesn't say anything; she's just watching Rey.

"And… He's met me more than halfway on anything I've even hinted about wanting." She gestures to their settlement. "He's never pushed about giving me anything. He doesn't comment about it being small or shoddy or… Or he's there, squeezing an hour or so out of everything else he's got to be doing so he can be working with the kids, and… We weren't even… A thing, yet. Just… talking really, and I mention freeing slaves, and boom, he's on it. He doesn't always do it the way I expect, but… He does it. He's been meeting me in the gray for years now, and… I should meet him, too, right?"

Rose sighs. She pushes the tangle of hair that got caught in the wind out of her face. "Part of me… The part that sees Finn tense up every time he catches Ren out of the corner of his eye, wants to tell you, 'No. You go on being exactly you. Don't compromise an inch. Don't change. Don't grow. Stay exactly the way you are. Don't make yourself do anything even slightly uncomfortable for this man, because he's not worth it.'" She bites her lip. "But that's shit advice. He's your man? Your love?"

"My love. My dark. My husband. My other self."

"If that's true. And, look… It's okay if it's not. You don't have to stick with a guy forever just 'cause you were with him once, or just because now is good. But, if this is true, if it's real, if it's forever, if this man is your husband, then you can't take a centimeter more than you're willing to give. Not if it's going to work. Not if you're going to be together for the long run and not resent each other. And it sounds like you've been doing a lot of taking, and… And that's what it's about, you support him and he supports you, and you find a goal and move together toward it, and… And if that goal means you've got to dress up and go to parties to get where you need to go, then you dress the fuck up and you go to the damn parties, and you make the galaxy bend to you, and not the other way around."

Rey nods. She looks at her friend. "So… wanna come and help me do this? And probably get the start of a beyond awesome, make Finn's jaw drop to the floor and forget his own name, dress out of it?"

"Yeah." Rose flashes her a little smile. "I'll admit. I am kind of curious to see what his place looks like."

Rey shakes her head a bit. "It's black."

"Oh, I'm so shocked. Really?" She couldn't sound less shocked if she tried.

"He tells me it was that way when he got there, but the things he's added since have also been black."

"What did he add?"

"A small pool and a dining table and chairs."

"Why a pool?"

"He likes to float around from time to time. And, a bath time after dinner is fun, you know?"

"Oh." Rose shakes her head again. "Getting used to him being a person is going to be weird."

"Tell me about it. I just about swallowed my tongue the first time I saw him in a bathrobe."

"When was that…" And, for the first time, Rey starts to talk to one of her friends about how, in detail, she and Kylo became what they are now.

Walking home from that, Rey thinks about what Rose said about forever. About Kylo being her husband. About setting a goal and moving toward it together.

She knows that Kylo has promises he's made to her. Promises that he's made to himself, and to their future. She knows that that's how he's defined their marriage in his mind.

But, as of now, Rey hasn't done that. She's spent so much time thinking about what everything else means, that being a wife hasn't gotten a lot of thought. It's something she does, not something she thinks about.

And maybe that's time to change. Maybe that needs some defining before she can be a… Whatever it is. The Not-Emperor's Not-Empress.

Before she can really be Lady Ren.

She remembers Jon saying to her, 'He's laying a galaxy at your feet, so pick the damn thing up and help him carry it.'

She's just inside their home, having pulled off her coat, and squeezes her left hand, feeling her wedding band digging into her fingers. And in that moment, makes the first of her promises, to herself, about being Lady Ren.

I will carry your burdens with you.

Kinear gets the third version of the speech. After Jon and Kylo spent an hour on edits, and Kylo spent another two hours after that. He reads it quickly, and then puts it down. His eyes are serious, but alight.

"That's what I needed."

Kylo raises an eyebrow.

"You told me peace, and that you wanted people to join us, and ground was just dust, and I said I'd get you a map. Peace is vague and nebulous. It means different things to different people. People joining us… Who knows how that works? And what's supposed to happen with us doing that? What are the ramifications and how is the rest of the galaxy supposed to react." He taps the pad with Kylo's speech on it. "This…" he grins, "this is concrete, and I'll build you the best fucking map you've ever seen to get to this."

Kylo smiles back. "Good. Where next, Grand Marshall Kinear?"

"Next, lad…" He grins. "Next, we've got a party."

12/30/1

"Kylo?" Jon's voice is tentative, which is unusual these days.

Kylo looks up from the speech. It's "done," but he doesn't have the new version memorized, not perfectly, not yet. So he's pacing around his room, glancing at the mirror from time to time, watching himself do it, going over how he's going to say it.

"Jon?"

"She's not here, is she?"

He knows the she in question is Rey. "No, back home right now. Why?"

Jon reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small black pouch. "Because I didn't want any chance of her seeing it, yet." Then he hands it over to Kylo.

He unknots the drawstring at the mouth, and gently tips the necklace out. He feels his breath go easing out in an impressed whisper.

Jon's smirking next to him. "I felt that way the first time I held Lance's wedding ring."

Kylo can emphasize. It's not exactly right, because after all, he held Rey's marriage band, and slipped it onto her, but… This is close.

He holds it on his palm, imagining it on her neck. The smile across his face is wide. The ring… that was them, as people. As Rey and Kylo. This… He touches the token on his own throat… These are the gift of them as leaders.

The Order Hexagon with the Maji Spiral twists in his fingers. This is the gift of the Master of the Order to the Mistress of the Maji, and the first sign of what will eventually be The Order of the Maji.

The rings were their private lives. And this… this is the start of what he's hoping is going to be a grand, and public, adventure.

"It's perfect, Jon." He spends another moment holding it, before gently tucking it back into the bag.

Jon nods. "Good."

"Lt. Colonel Frakes! Lt. Colonel!"

"Threepio?"

"It's a catastrophe! A catastrophe, sir."

Jon feels his stomach drop. "What?"

"The flowers. I was with Lady Kinear, and her florist has brought in the final component of the main centerpiece and…"

"What's wrong with it?" Jon feels ice shooting down his back, and tries to vanish it. As his mom says, it's not a wedding until at least one thing has gone horribly wrong.

"Cyananthias Lilies."

Jon doesn't know what they are.

"It's a water installation, with a seven tiered fountain, gently trickling over the different spheres and bowls…" That part sounds fine. He's been watching them build that for days. "And the gralla fish are frolicking around in the bigger spheres…" Still sounds fine. They were flitting about when he was last in what used to be the throne room, and he's taken to thinking of as the courtyard now. Supposedly, they're 'acclimated' now. "But the bottom pool is dotted with Cyananthias lilies, which are extremely toxic to K'runias, Hrellians, and Jakards."

Frakes winces. "All of whom we have attending?"

"All of whom we have attending."

"Toxic in the sense that they shouldn't eat them?"

"Toxic in the sense that if any of them set foot into the throne room they'll die within half an hour."

Jon decides that, this in fact, is worth whimpering out loud for. "And if we throw the installation out?"

"No centerpiece, an extremely irate florist, and we'll have to pay for it, because it won't be free advertising."

"How much?'

"One hundred and fifty-seven thousand—"

"Don't tell me." Jon's shoulders slump. He's got… "Let me guess, the throne room is already contaminated and even if we remove the flower, and if we let them in, they'll die?"

"Or at least get horrifically ill."

Jon's looking for a convenient chunk of wall to bang his head against, when he hears some sort of beeping going on next to Threepio.

"I suppose we could…" More beeping. "Maybe…" A few more beeps. "I'll ask. Lt. Colonel, my colleague, R2-D2" Jon feels mildly put out to be dealing with another droid, but… Maybe this one has an answer that won't cost him the next three years of his wages and then some. "Suggests that we use our field generating technology to build a static containment field around the installation. Then allow a few, small, holes in the airlock, so the atmosphere in the throne room can be gently evacuated without disturbing everything in there, then reseal it, and refill it."

Jon blinks. "We… can… Probably do that. Let me go find…"

And he's two steps toward hunting down an engineer before he turns on his heel to say, "Thank you… R2?" He's not sure if that's the droid's name or not. "If that idea works, you're a literal lifesaver!"

R2 twists his visor and beeps at him.

"He says you're welcome," Threepio adds.

As he's leaving the room, looking for someone who specializes in containment fields, Jon hears, "Yes, he is very polite," followed by a lot more beeping, and more quietly, "No, I don't know where Master Ren found him." More beeping. "Well, I suppose we can hope it rubs off on him."

"C8, who is Jamisin Relth?" Kylo asks, looking at his schedule for the day. In ten minutes, he's got an hour blocked off, and no idea what's supposed to happen during it.

"I believe he's a barber."

Kylo blinks.

"Lt. Colonel Frakes set it up."

Kylo holds up his hands and just nods. "Okay."

An hour later, his hair is two centimeters shorter, he's been shaved more thoroughly than he thought was physically possible (Rey's laser device means he only has to shave his face once a week or so, but apparently he had nose and ear hair, something that he'd never noticed before, but is no longer in possession of), every eyebrow hair that strayed outside of some magically divined appropriate zone had been ripped off, and the rest of them have been tidied up and trimmed, and he's got a jar full of stuff, like the green paste (though this one is bluish-gray) they put on their skin, but he's supposed to put in his hair, and just let sit there for ten or so minutes before he does his usual wash.

He hopes Rey will find that amusing.

Judging by the way she's rolling around, laughing, when he comes out of the refresher with his hair slathered in blue-gray goop, piled up on top of his head, towel wrapped around it, and more of the green stuff on his face, she did.

12/31/1

In the morning, as they're enjoying their cuddle, she's petting his hair. "It is softer." (She's actually kind of marveling at that, because she didn't think hair got any softer than Kylo's already was.)

"Then maybe it wasn't a complete waste of time." He kisses her. "Tonight, huh?"

She inhales deep and steadying. "Tonight."

"It's going to be good."

She half-smiles at him. "Tell me that when we're doing it."

He kisses her. "I won't have you. You'll feel it."

"I'll probably want to hear it, too."

"Then I'll tell you."

She rolls over so her back is to his chest, and he wraps his arms around her, kissing her neck and ear.

"You're a lot calmer about this than normal," she says. He wasn't in this good a mood before the last one of these.

"You're going to be there, with me." He kisses her ear again, snuggling a little closer, wrapping his body around hers. "Everything's easier with you."

She smiles.

He wriggles a bit, arms around her, contentment purring off of him. "You feel it, right? How good it's going to be?"

She wiggles her butt against his morning stand, full and hot against her. "That's most of what I'm feeling right now."

His turn to grin. "That's going to be good, too."

"You promise?"

His hand is already trailing down her front, nestling in between her legs. "Oh, yeah," he breathes it against her ear. "So, good."

That breath lights goosebumps along her neck. His teeth gently ghosting against her skin makes her shiver, and the little lick that follows has her arching her hips back into him.

"So, good…" He says it again, his voice rumbling against her shoulder and neck, his hand cupping her maomao, palm pressing against her pearl as he rubs against her bum.

She hooks her leg over his, tilting her hips a bit more, shifting up a bit, so he can twist his hips just a little, and thrust just… enough… Both of them shiver at the feel of it.

So good… indeed.

Later, after breakfast, she says to him… "I guess, I'll see you tonight, then?"

He grins at her, and kisses her forehead. "I'll see you tonight." And then he's out of their kitchen, back on his ship, ready for the last day of his first year as the Master of the Order.