Death Becomes Her

And then her eyes find him, a smile creasing her rouged lips. Not the bright smile she had left him with in the study, but something steadier, made of calm water and quiet certainty. She moves with an ease he has not seen in many nobles, a subtle grace that he has never seen before in anything human before. The crowd flows around her like water parting around a rough stone jutting from the river, more because she towers well above baselines as Llewellyn does. 

But for a single moment, the briefest of seconds - imperceptible to any baseline - the hazel of her eyes catches him between the ribs like a blade. That same soft-edged spark she had given him over the Regicide board, a spark he has not been able to forget. He's lain awake too many nights, the gold in her eyes haunting his waking hours. Llewellyn notices him a second later, expression brightening to a vivid beam, a smile splitting his full brown beard. 

“Lord Guilliman! Emperor above boy - you snuck up on me!” His laugh is jolly and warm. “It's been some time.”

Roboute inclines his head, carefully controlling his movements like a finely tuned puppet upon a string, “I find your company most agreeable, Lord Captain. Tis always a pleasure to see you.”

Llewellyn barks a laugh, a deep and fatherly sound that spreads warmth through his chest like a hot liqueur. Echoes of his adoptive father flicker in his mind like a flashing warning lumen, he’d been young, walking beside both of his parents and Konor’s laugh had rumbled out of him like rolling thunder. There are touches of his adoptive father in the Rogue Trader Prince, perhaps in the way his eyes gain a certain fondness as he regards Narcissa and her sister. His gaze turns to the heir apparent, her smile curving, subtle as a crescent moon, yet warmer than any lumen in the hall.

“Lord Roboute,” She greets, curtseying low, his name curling pleasantly against his hearing. A spark flares in his chest betwixt his ribs, choking upon a lack of oxygen as it attempts to gulp down scraps. A spark, smouldering embers that he cannot bring himself to acknowledge yet. 

He dips his head to her, “Lady Narcissa…”

They stir at the mirth that brightens her features, fighting to burst into flame as his mind scrambles to piece together where he has seen her countenance before. Her coloring is of Llewellyn, of that there is little doubt, but her facial structure is… odd. He has seen the high cheekbones before, though far more gaunt, precisely boney layered by nigh translucent skin. The point of her chin and sylphlike slope of her jaw could be far more cadaverous and she would be. However, there is a resemblance of humanity in her… No, thinking about it would will it into existence. 

Llewellyn glances between them, eyes brimming with an unabashed glee, a slow grin creeping over his features, “What brings the Primarch of the XIIIth to my den of void-rats?”

Roboute chooses his words with the precision of a man defusing something volatile, “I wished to speak with you regarding an upcoming matter of diplomacy.”

Llewellyn arches a brow, “This wouldn’t be about the Amarah I situation, would it?”

“In part. The endeavor requires someone with diplomatic acumen and familiarity with both frontier tensions and noble courts.”

He wanted her as soon as the report came across his desk. No one else would suffice, and he'd been a witness to how her mind functions. The words are swift and as precise as a blade, “You want Narcissa.”

Roboute allows himself one heartbeat of honesty and nods. The silence that follows is all consuming, and it would crush lesser men beneath its great weight. If he knows anything, it is that the Lord Captain is hardly a fool and that the man in front of him is merely a facade well crafted from years of floating between many different courts. A calloused hand rises to stroke his beard, and he can't help but feel the tight squeeze of his hearts beating. 

“Well,” He begins, seemingly playing at thinking deeply about this topic. “I’d be foolhardy to ignore what you wish to speak about. Perhaps this should be discussed elsewhere.”

As her father turns, Narcissa steals a glance at Roboute again with the same soft heat she’d regarded him with in the study. A warm, quiet sort of intensity that reaches him before he can brace for it. A promise wrapped in gentility, something blooming between them too bold for fear and too soft for courtly posturing.

If I am not careful, she will undo me.

The warning feels distinct within his chest, a door half opened, a possibility that tempts even the greatest of men. He follows them with a sharpening mind, yet two hearts that assure him that he is ever so certain. Roboute realizes he is not entirely certain whether he fears the unraveling, or quietly welcomes it. Yet, he follows them down the side hallway, trailing behind with renewed purpose. It's a reasonable request, truly. Never before has he encountered a person who is so effortless in their ministrations. And as Narcissa departs away from them to stand sentinel at the door, he flicks his gaze over to her once more, catching the ever so small point of her ears while drops of beaten gold hang from her ears as the door closes with a soft click.

The antechamber is smaller, lined with old star charts and the worn banners of past Armengarde expeditions. A decanter of amber liquor sits untouched on a side table, and Llewellyn waves Roboute toward one of the reinforced chairs but does not sit himself. Instead, the Lord Captain studies him with that same keen, hazel-gold gaze his daughter has inherited so wholly.

A gaze that sees much, almost like a great eagle surveying a plain for prey. 

“So,” Llewellyn begins, hands empty, but coming into parade rest at his back. “Tell me why I should allow Narcissa to accompany you?”

Roboute answers before he can second-guess the instinct, “Because she is exceptional.”

The Rogue Trader presses lightly, brows raised, “And?”

“I favour her for her intellect. Lady Narcissa demonstrated remarkable aptitude during our discussions. Her perception is beyond what I commonly see in diplomats. Her ability to read a situation would be invaluable in negotiations with the Amarah I's leadership.”

“You trust her,” Llewellyn says quietly, voice softening as the truth sits between them, warm and undeniable. 

Roboute hesitates, hearts stuttering as a small betrayal of flesh. The Lord Captain brushes a hand over another chart, fingers tracing faded ink with the fondness of a cartographer who has traveled every klick of the Segmentums he governs. 

“I saw how you two looked at each other in the hall,” He remarks in a tone that reminds him of Konor, that mournful sort of happiness. His jaw tightens with the instinct to deny, and shield them both from implications neither of them have earned. But Llewellyn stops him with a raised hand, lowers it, and grants him a smile that reaches his eyes. “Spare us both the courtly falsehoods. I’ve eyes, and I’ve lived long enough to recognize affection when I see it, boy.”

A heavy silence follows after the Lord Captain’s words like a listing ship, and his expression softens into something paternal, protective, warm in a way that reminds him of simpler times on Macragge. “Roboute, she will change the course of her life by walking at your side. Whether you intend it or not. So I must know now before you leave - will you keep her safe?”

The ache nearly reflects upon his own hearts because  Llewellyn isn't masking his emotions beneath the facade of a man never bothered by anything. There is a fatherly sort of worry in the draw of his eyebrows, and his eyes seem to darken to a shade of umber.

Roboute’s answer comes without hesitation, “With my life.”

Llewellyn studies him, as though weighing the truth of those words on a scale only fathers know how to read. Like the old myths, he feels like his hearts are being weighed against a feather.  A long breath escapes the old man, but out of relief, or resolve he can’t decide yet. He nods, “Then she may go with you.”

 A jolt of pure joy lances down his spine and twists his insides. The Lord Captain, however, holds up a finger to signal he is not yet finished, “Cissy and her sister are my greatest joys.. And you must understand that they have been courted, adored, envied, and nearly devoured by those who would use them for their own gain.”

“Of course, Lord Captain.”

 He holds Roboute’s sapphire gaze with a severity that could kill a grox, “You must swear that she will never be one of them.”

Roboute’s reply comes low, steady, and absolute, “I would never.”

Llewellyn nods once and finally sits in a nearby chair, “Good. Then let us discuss logistics.”

Time passes differently in the study, and when he had arrived at noon was glimmering through the swirling armaglass, yet when he leaves stars bleed through like white-silver tears pouring down a midnight blanket. Other planets are but brief winks of color, Holy Terra is naught but a far star of gold. The door hisses open with a sigh of old hydraulics, and Roboute steps into the corridor only to halt. Narcissa awaits him just outside as still as the finest marble statue, dressed in a gown of obsidian black with a high collar and stitched with roaring drakes. Her hands are folded neatly in front of her, the same obsidian gemstone winking on her finger in the lumen light. Autumn-wrought gold eyes, bright as sunlit amber, flicks immediately to his face, tracing the tension still coiled in his jaw. 

“Lord Guilliman,” Narcissa dips her head in a greeting that is too formal for the closeness of the hall. “My father asked that I wait until your discussion was complete.”

A polite framing for a well practiced lie. Roboute clears his throat, aware that his voice might reveal more than he intends. “My lady, how long have you been..?”

“Long enough. All is well, I take it?”

“Yes, your Father was candid with me. And, of course, fair.”

A breath leaves her, something in between relief and anxiety, a fragile thread pulled taut. She lifts her chin, the soft corridor light catching on her lashes as she studies him with an intensity far too bare for a public passageway.

“Come - I would hear the fruits of this endeavor then - in a place without ears,” Her gaze sweeps the hall, as if expecting walls, portraits, even the flickering lumen-strips themselves to be listening. 

Then she looks back at him, the gold of her eyes steady and determined, and for the first time Roboute realizes she is bracing herself. She steps back just enough to gesture to him to follow, the movement graceful, controlled, yet he notices the faint tremor in her exhale, a quiet betrayal of nerves. Roboute inclines his head in answer and falls into step beside her, their pace matching as though rehearsed. Too close for propriety, and too far for honesty. The air between them hums with something he cannot name, not without risking everything. He offers her his hand, letting her far more slender fingers to rest just upon the edge of his palm. 

Her touch is impossibly light with fingers that are so soft, so delicate, as if they’re spun of finely wrought silk. He forces himself to think of something else, anything else, because the realization hits with the weight of a bolter round. Kissing her hand would be wretchedly easy, and part of him wonders so intently what her skin might taste like, but he knows better. Mother taught him better, and would chastise him for even entertaining the idea. 

Narcissa’s words snap him back to reality after she shoos out several, lingering enforcers from the conference room where a hololith lies, cold and dormant. She has abandoned his hand, and is standing with the hololith at her back like an empress upon a dais, skirts elegantly twisting around her form, “There… Now, I will hear the judgment that was made.”

For a moment, his mind considers her before he can truly stop its assessment. He has beheld beauty up close before, in order and symmetry, but none draw his attention so fully. He tries to muffle a great exhale as stress claws his ribs, because deep down - truly in the darkest pit of his hearts - she is a being that could make him forget himself, if he allowed it.

“You are aware of the unrest on Amarah I,” He begins with deliberate precision. As he speaks, his mind takes note of how her gaze stays upon him the way cats regard birds through a window. “I proposed to your Father that you accompany me as a negotiator for the Ultramarines. You have proven to me that your insight and judgment are just in the face of unprecedented danger.”

He allows the pause to linger, aware of the weight of his words between them. The soft glint of her eyes holds his attention far longer than propriety allows. Roboute continues, yet a softness has taken hold of his voice, one he tries to rein in, “There is no one else I would place at my side.”

She smiles ever so softly at him, the same true smile he saw above the Regicide board. That lovely smile that reaches her eyes, “I suppose I would be remiss to refuse such a request.” 

Her words settle in the space between them, measured and deliberate, yet they carry a weight that makes his chest tighten. Roboute feels the shift like a quiet tide, gentle but undeniable. He inclines his head, letting the faintest of smiles tug at his lips, a rare, almost unintended thing.

“Then it is agreed.” 

“I will do my utmost and hope that I can expect the same from you.”

The door to the study down the hallway opens and his enhanced hearing pricks to the sound of Llewellyn corralling enforcers, herding them down towards the room that they both preside in. The distant shuffle and murmurs of preparation pull him back to the present, yet the warmth of her presence keeps him tethered. Wordlessly, he extends his hand once more. She hesitates only a fraction of a heartbeat before allowing her fingers to rest lightly against his palm, her touch like the echo of a promise. Together, they step forward, side by side, moving into the hum of authority and expectation, yet wrapped in the quiet intimacy of the moment they have claimed for themselves.

The fourth time Roboute sees her, she is already aboard the Macragge’s Honour.

The council chamber is nearly silent, broken only by the soft rustle of reports and the low thrum of the hololith bathing everything in muted green-blue. Sunlight from Amarah I’s star spills through the tall windows, painting warm rectangles across the polished marble.

Narcissa stands at the heart of it, an unyielding elegance amid cold mechanisms and colder stone. Her off-the-shoulder gown—black as void, shot through with Ultramarine threading—clings like liquid shadow, the fabric whispering against her skin with every measured breath. The white sash at her waist is drawn taut, secured by the golden ultima that catches light like a brand. Her hair is swept back in heavy bronze-brown waves, a few strands already loosening to brush the nape of her neck. She studies the data-slate with quiet ferocity; the soft blue glow reflects in her eyes, turning hazel to molten amber.

“Lord Guilliman,” She begins, voice calm yet carrying a warmth that cinches something in his chest, “I’ve compiled the sector reports and cross-referenced them with the Amarah liaison’s intelligence.”

She tilts her head and gauges him. He steps to the central table; his gauntleted fingers brush the map’s surface. Their shoulders nearly touch as he leans in to study a marker. Her warmth radiates against his side; the scent of warmed amber and something darker threads into his lungs.

“Your diligence is appreciated,” He says, each word measured. “I rely on your judgment more than you know. These settlements—rising unrest, fractured loyalties, shifting mercantile currents—you see what others miss.”

Her gaze never wavers. Gold-flecked eyes hold his; the faintest compression of her lower lip sends a low, involuntary stutter through both hearts. He nudges a data-piece across the hololith. Their hands brush—once, deliberately. The contact is a spark: her warm fingertips against the chilled ceramite of his gauntlet, a fleeting pressure that travels up his arm like current. He feels the quick rise of her breath against his pauldron.

“You notice patterns others overlook,” He continues, nudging a data-piece. Their hands brush—once, twice—as they reposition it together. He feels the spark travel up his arm like current. “I trust you to advise me honestly, even when the truth is inconvenient.”

“I would offer nothing less.” Her fingertip traces the dataslate’s edge—slow, deliberate—before she sets it down. They move in unconscious synchrony now, repositioning markers. He registers every detail: the soft roll of her shoulder as she leans, the faint creak of corsetry beneath silk when she breathes deeper, the accidental brush of her sleeve against his plate sending a shiver of static across his nerves. When she stretches to study a contested cluster, the bodice shifts; the warm, resilient curve of her breast grazes his vambrace for a heartbeat. Her manicured nail taps a dossier once, twice; the sharp little clicks that echo in the suddenly too-quiet chamber.

“I would know the Astartes who will accompany me.”

A frown flickers across his face, “Is that necessary?”

“I prefer to know exactly who surrounds me, especially when Father’s enforcers are involved. Abilities matter when forced into a corner."

Her fingers linger on the dataslate’s edge as she steps back to survey the arrangement. Their shoulders brush again, and amber blooms against his senses. The contact is fleeting, yet the warmth lingers like a handprint.

“You are meticulous,” He replies, fondness creeping into his voice. “And far too clever.”

“Perhaps, my lord.” A bronze-brown strand slips free, and she tucks it behind her ear with economical grace. “But I am also practical. I do not step where I cannot see the ground.”

“Your escort will be Remus Ventanus and Aeonid Thiel.”

Their hands meet briefly again as they move a holo-piece together, her fingers grazing his gauntlet. The micro-moment is electric, a charged spark that lingers longer than it should. Both hesitate, neither retreating, both aware of the tiny battlefield of restraint. The Regicide game replays in his mind, Narcissa glances toward the door, the slight tightening of her jaw betraying the careful composure she normally maintains. 

Her smile is gentle, voice softening to a caress, “Tell me about them.”

“Ventanus is unyielding. Steady judgment, immovable discipline. He will place himself between you and any threat without a second thought.” His voice drops, threaded with something unguarded. “Thiel is… different. Brilliant, uncomfortably sharp, always three moves ahead of me, though he pretends otherwise.”

Again their fingers brush, longer this time. The air thickens. Roboute’s gaze drops to their joined hands, then climbs deliberately back to her eyes. Her pupils have widened; the hazel has darkened to something molten.

“I chose them because they will treat your safety with the same gravity I do.”

Her fingers linger against the cold edge of his gauntlet—too long to be careless, too brief to be an invitation. When she finally withdraws, the absence feels like violence.

“Then I am doubly reassured,” Her gaze darkens, voice low, steady, carrying a tremor of meaning that he feels like a touch across his chest. “If they value my safety as you do.”

The hololith hums. The chamber seems to contract until the world is only the unclosed space between their hands. It would be simple, he thinks, to turn his palm, to catch her fingers, to draw her the half-step closer and learn whether her lips taste of roses and salt as he has imagined. Whether she would gasp—sharp and soft—against his mouth, but her hand retreats. A delicate flush climbs her throat, spring-pink against pale skin. She glances toward the door, jaw tightening for a fraction of a second.

“We… I should prepare.”

Roboute nods, the motion less controlled than he intends. His hand twitches, wanting to reach, to anchor her there. He masters it, but perhaps she sees.

“My Lord?” The way she says his name - soft, questioning - nearly undoes him.

A trill passes down his spine at how wonderfully she says his name. He should step back. Restore distance. Be the statesman, not this man who wants. When he speaks, discipline fails him. The words slip out too quickly, too weighted, as though torn from him before he can temper their gravity, “You will not be alone on this mission”

Something gentler flickers in her eyes, as though she hears the unspoken vow beneath the reassurance. It is not the reassurance of a commander to a subordinate. It is something far more intimate, far more dangerous. And he desires it all the same, for her.  She offers a small, knowing smile, “I know.”

He draws a slow breath, forcing steadiness throughout his body, “You should rest. Tomorrow will demand much from us both.”

Us.

Her ears pick up the sound of his stride in the hall long before she ever knows his shadow haunts the doorframe. He trails after it without a retinue traipsing after him, leaving him unguarded, and - as he strides more into the room - is unarmored.

“Lord Guilliman,” She greets with a warm smile, but her voice betrays her the moment it leaves her lips. The warmth blooming in her ribs is unmistakable.

He pauses, regarding her with a curiosity that smothers itself with the smallest, betraying flicker of a breath. His beautiful sapphire eyes widen but a fraction. He looks at her as though she has caught him unawares, and that alone is enough to make her heartbeat jump. It’s an adorable sort of expression, one that threatens to have a laugh bubble in her chest. 

Roboute tilts his head slightly, curiously. A gesture she has come to recognize over the many days and nights spent at his side, something between curiosity and an unarmored kind of wonder. But there is a softness that she places immediately. Something she does not yet dare name. Her fingers tighten in her shawl, eyes lowering to the floor because she struggles holding his gaze. 

“Lady Narcissa… ” Narcissa steals a glance at him as he approaches on far quieter, booted feet. The syllables of her name curl around her like velvet against her skin, “The hour is late.”

Her rosy lips twist in a playful smile, “My Lord.. I could say the same to you.”

She leans against the observatory railing as he draws near and stops across from her. Without armor, the man beneath is laid bare: a military coat of rich Ultramarine blue, edged with gold cufflinks and buttons, every tailored line declaring the commander rather than the Primarch. The high collar bears the golden ultima of the XIIIth Legion, yet his fingers are already working the fastenings free, one deliberate button at a time.

The sight is almost too much, even across this careful distance. Each undone fastening tightens something low in her chest. He always stands too far, yet never close enough. The measured space between them is exquisite torture, enough to fray the composure of anyone less disciplined. His hand lifts to trace the newly exposed line of his throat; her gaze follows the motion before she can stop it.

“I am more surprised to find you here,” He says, voice low and warm, “After how late the delegation ran last night.”

Her dress is primarily azure, cut more militarily than the gowns she favors; beautiful in its restraint, cinched by a gilded belt whose tail ends in the golden ultima, finished with sapphire drop earrings that catch the dying light. He had designed it for her, for this exact occasion which the knowledge makes her heart stutter. Her sister would have faulted the lack of intricate Necromunda or Scintilla embroidery, but Narcissa feels only quiet gratitude.

“I find myself unable to sleep.”

Fondness threads through his tone, “I am told you performed exquisitely.”

A breathy laugh escapes her, a smile creasing her face. His praise is always exact, always earned; it lands warmer than it should. She draws a careful breath, “Exquisitely may be too generous.”

He steps closer, like a pawn advancing across the board toward its opponent. Every movement is calculated to preserve safety, respect, and restraint. Yet the distance narrows, and the air between them thickens. The fading light of Amarah I haunt his features, seemingly hewing him from the tales of legend. Dying sunlight shadows the strong line of his jaw, the bow of his mouth, and the faintest bit of gold weaves in his wheaten hair. 

His eyes move over her face—studying, searching—as though she were an equation he has almost solved. A hard knot rises in her throat. The mere imagined brush of his hands on her shoulders makes her fingers flex and curl beneath the shawl. Roboute’s voice—deep enough to still stormy seas—draws her back. Part of her aches at the small, private smile he offers because it should not summon such sharp, unwelcome heat beneath her skin. Above all, she longs to master these fragile, fey emotions that rise unbidden.

“I heard how you navigated the final negotiations,” There is a warmth in his eyes. “Thiel himself praised your clarity, and Remus told me you held warring states in balance.”

Her smile widens despite the quickening of her pulse, “Then I'm glad that I made such an impression.”

The mask he so often wears ebbs away, revealing something unguarded beneath, “I find myself pleased at the result.”

Tension climbs the nape of her neck in slow, prickling waves, threading through the fine hairs at her scalp before settling heavy into the vertebrae of her spine. The sensation coils her stomach into tight knots, drawing her fingers to clutch the shawl closer—soft wool rasping faintly against her palms—as though a sudden, inexplicable chill has stolen the chamber’s warmth.

She lifts her gaze slowly. His eyes rest on her like sunlight piercing low storm clouds: steady, warm, flecked with gray that swirls like distant thunder over deep, restless ocean. The light catches the silver in them, making the blue seem deeper, almost liquid.

“You should not look at me like that, my lord.”

He blinks, startled like a bird to a new noise, “Like what?”

“Like I am worthy of you.”

The admission hangs between them, fragile as frost on glass, trembling with truth. Roboute’s breath stirs; soft, uneven, carrying the faint scent of parchment and leather warmed by skin. His hand twitches at his side: a fleeting, involuntary reach, fingertips brushing the seam of his coat before he stills them.

“Narcissa…” The name falls from him gently, warmly, lodging deep in her chest like a key turning in a long-rusted lock. Without title she feels flayed open, skin too thin beneath his regard. His voice soothes the sting, low and resonant. “You are worthy of far more than attention.”

Her heart stutters—sharp, sweet, almost painful—each beat loud in her ears. The viewport hums a faint, mechanical lullaby; the ship’s distant engines throb like a second, larger heartbeat beneath the deck plates. In the vast, star-strewn silence the moment tilts, drawing them inexorably closer without either taking a step.

Her heart stutters with a sharp, sweet ache. The viewport hums faintly, and the ship’s distant engines murmur like a heartbeat. And in the midst of that immense, star-lit silence, she feels the moment tilt, pulling them both forward without a single step taken.

She exhales, the breath trembling across her lips. “My lord…”

Roboute speaks before she can retreat, voice low and unshakeable. “You and I have worked beside each other long enough to be past such titles.. I needn’t be addressed thusly anymore.”

The world seems to stop.

“Roboute," She tastes his name ever so slowly, syllables lingering on her tongue like something forbidden and sweet. His inhale is sharp, controlled; yet she hears the sudden, unsteady cadence of his hearts beneath cloth, a quiet, rapid double-thud that echoes in the space between them. A minute shift in his posture but the air contracts, charged and thin, carrying the faint warmth of his nearness.

Silence stretches; a delicate, quivering thing, broken only by the soft rustle of her shawl as it slips from one shoulder. She scarcely registers its fall; heat blooms across her throat in slow scarlet petals, prickling her ears, impossible to will away. He regards her as one might approach a sacred relic: reverent, uncertain, hunger flickering beneath the reverence. He closes the final distance until she feels the radiant heat rolling off his skin in gentle waves, breathes the layered scent of parchment ink, worn leather, and something deeper like sun-warmed amber.

“If I stay,” He murmurs, voice roughened at the edges. “I will forget myself.”

The words ignite her faster than lightning across open water, heat flashing through her veins. By rights she should not entertain the thought. After all, she is promised, someday, whenever Laertes returns from wherever he lingers and ceases his endless delay. Yet she cannot step away from the man before her. Could she ever, once truly entangled? The question terrifies her more than any void or xenos threat in the galaxy.

Her voice comes soft, not quite her own, lips barely parting. “Would that be so terrible?”

His laugh is scarcely more than a breath, a tremor hidden in the rise and fall of his shoulders, like tectonic plates shifting far below the surface. “Perhaps… Yet I find myself caring less and less about what others might think.”

In this hushed chamber he is no longer Primarch, no longer legend, only a man. One she has come to crave more than any other living thing. Laertes never asked what she wanted; he takes, careless of her flinching when his grip tightened on her chin or wrists. Roboute has always handled her with care—as though she were a bloom that might bruise without light. The flush climbs her ears now, fierce and unhideable, the skin there hot beneath her own fingertips when she presses them there instinctively.

Her voice steadies, “I don’t believe forgetting yourself—just this once—would be wholly terrible. You might even… enjoy it. As might I.”

With grasping, needy fingers she draws him backward until her hip meets the thick guardrail. With only the lightest lift from his hands, she hops onto it—legs parting instinctively to bracket his hips—as easily as descending stairs. For one suspended heartbeat, she catches his pupils flaring wide, black swallowing sapphire. Then his hands frame her face again and he seals his mouth to hers in a kiss that feels like final surrender.

His palms burn against her cheekbones, as though the sun itself has poured into his skin. She melts under the caress, boneless, every nerve alight. Blood thunders in her ears like war drums rolling across a distant plain, hands release the railing to splay across his chest. Beneath the coat she feels the frantic, double-time thunder of his hearts—wild, unguarded, alive against her palms. The rhythm syncs with hers for an instant, like two storms colliding in a dizzying rush.

Without the ring weighing her finger, freedom threads through her like wildfire, combing heartstrings taut. Her hands grow bolder as the kiss deepens, drawing her further into the undertow of him. She tastes salt and restrained longing on his tongue. And he answers every slow stroke with one of his own, deliberate and devastating until she's boneless in his arms. Cool air kisses the newly bared skin of her thighs as his fingers bunch the azure fabric higher in slow, reverent gathers. The contrast pulls a soft, involuntary gasp from her lips. He swallows it whole, drinking the sound like it belongs to him.

Trembling, her hands glide upward over the hard rise of his chest, the sharp ridge of his collarbone until they knit at his nape. Her fingers itch to rake through the wheaten gold of his hair, to lose themselves forever in the storm of his sapphire eyes. He is a bastion that only she is allowed to enter, her mind snaking through the labyrinthian depths. 

She surfaces only when his sun-warm hands settle on her hips, thumbs pressing into the soft hollows above bone, pulling her impossibly closer. Their bodies align flush. Her delicately pointed ears catch the ragged cadence of his breathing, the heavy double-thud of his hearts pounding against her ribs like twin siege engines. Heat kindles low in her abdomen, sharp and insistent, demanding more. Before she can cage it, a low moan spills against his mouth—soft, desperate, pleading.

Roboute pulls away from her quicker than lightning.

Through the haze of lust crawling up her spine, a look of pained regret mars his most handsome features. His hands hold her by the waist and help her down, her own fingertips gracing his forearm as hurt, rejection, and the stinging dismissal burns like acid in her throat.

“Cissy,” The bastion snaps closed and she is thrust out, spine vibrating with an unforeseen chill. Her nickname pierces her heart like a shard of glass in her chest. “We cannot continue like this.”

Her voice fractures with a wounded tremor, each word laced with raw ache, “Must I forget this - all of it?”

For a moment, he turns and grabs her shawl from its place upon the floor. When he returns, he settles it over her shoulders with a tenderness that twists the knife deeper between her ribs. The warmth of his hands is strong and sure, seeping into her skin long after he adjusts the fabric, a cruel echo of what they’ve just shared. An emotion she cannot place echoes through the valleys of her mind as his touch lingers upon her skin, raging through her as grief stings her eyes. Hot tears well in her eyes, and her throat works into a suffocating vice. Rogue Traders never shatter, never weep, no matter how devastating the tragedy—even one that rends the heart like this.

“Cissy, I swear to you…” His voice cracks, heavy with unspoken torment. He kneels before her, taking her hand in his with reverent care, pressing his other atop it like a knight swearing fealty to a princess he can never claim. Her hazel-gold eyes lift to meet his oceanic sapphire ones, finding them stripped bare. “Words cannot begin to express what I feel for you—what I have felt since the moment you first looked at me without fear.”

Roboute nods and rises once more, towering slightly over her. Her hands slip free of his grip on instinct, smoothing the mussed lines of his coat, leaving him to fasten the buttons at his throat while she tends to the ones at his wrists. For one agonizing heartbeat he turns away, and her heart crashes into her stomach as rejection floods back cold and merciless, splintering every coherent thought. Her gaze scrambles across the bulkheads, desperate for any anchor, any distraction from the ache tearing open inside her.

Then his boots return and her traitorous heart leaps despite everything. His hands lift to cradle her face again, thumbs brushing away the tears that have already escaped, warm against the chill of her skin. She blinks hard, and more spill over.

His forehead settles against hers. She presses back fiercely, as though she could fuse them together and stop time. Inside her a hurricane of grief, longing, fury, and love howls, raging against the cage of her ribs. Roboute speaks in a broken whisper, each word carved from somewhere deep and bleeding, “It is not for a lack of love, but I cannot - will not - take someone who is freely chosen.”

“You mean Laertes.”

“With due respect, yes.”

“Do not weep for what could have been.”

“I know,” She manages, the words splintering in her throat. “But that does not lessen the blow. It never will.”

His lips curve in an almost apologetic smile, fragile and devastating, the kind that reaches his eyes only to shatter them. The sight squeezes her heart until she can scarcely breathe, pain radiates outward in sickening waves, echoing through every bone and hollow space. Agonizingly, he disentangles himself, fingers lingering on her cheeks, then sliding away, thumbs tracing one last path along her jaw before falling to his sides. He murmurs a soft and final good night before disappearing into the corridor.