#7kppnsfw2018

Shahira had, in the long days of speculation before departing for the Summit, wondered if she might return to somewhere where the leaves bloomed red and gold in autumn, where flakes of ice fell from the sky in winter. At the dinner to see them off, she’d cupped her hand around the tiny bowl of kulfi, a rare treat, and wondered what it would feel like to step outside and have that chill envelop her whole body.

Instead, she ended up in Hise, where it’s green year-round, where the heat doesn’t quite reach the street-sizzling levels of Corvali summers but comes paired with a muggy humidity that presses in on all sides and manages to make it feel even more oppressive.

And where she’s free to do whatever she wants.

In some cases, though, what she wants to do is precisely what she was doing before. She’s hardly about to let her sterling reputation as a party-planner go to seed merely because she’s moved to a country with no courtly culture, for example. So here she is in a side room of her new father-in-law’s office, huddled over a menu with a no-nonsense chef who once served Revairan nobility, planning a welcome dinner for the group of Corvali ambassadors arriving to next week to hash out all manner of negotiations on matters that were that were too trivial to quibble over during the Summit. The chef hadn’t offered her name, and Shahira hasn’t asked, just in case she was supposed to have known already. She’ll figure it out after the woman leaves. She knows she’s probably being silly, projecting inner court machinations onto a guileless interaction, but some habits are hard to shake.

“This menu will make them feel at home, for certain,” Shahira muses, trailing her finger down a list of hors d’oeuvres, “but you don’t want them to feel like they’re at home. That will just invite comparison, and you don’t want to end up in a Corvali cuisine competition against a Corvali noble’s mental ideal of Corvali food. You’d be setting yourself up to lose. No, you want them to feel like they’re in Hise.”

The woman snorts. “I’ve tried serving Hisean food to foreign dignitaries. A lot of them stare at their plates like I dumped a live crab and a rock on there and told them to figure it out.”

“There was a dressmaker who visited Corval court every few years,” Shahira begins, “whose gowns always had a selection of features perfectly calculated to make the ladies of Corval go ‘Ooo, so Wellish!’ and the ladies of Wellin go ‘Ooo, so Corvali!’ He travelled back and forth between the two countries, selling gowns faster than he could make them, because they were so exotic. You want your menu to be those gowns.”

The chef narrow her eyes. “Gowns, huh?”

Shahira nods, and continues her story. “Eventually word of those gowns’ popularity got out to a proper Wellish dressmaker, who sent an assistant with a selection of his wares all the way to Corval court, hoping to make a fortune—and after a month, his assistant had to pack every last gown back up for the trip home, because not a single lady of the inner court wanted one of those odd-looking bulky things. The key is to offer something that’s familiar enough to be comfortable, but foreign enough to feel exotic.”

“I think I could make that work.” The woman purses her lips in thought as she scans back over the menu. “Sounds fun, actually.”

Whatever else she might have been going to add is cut off when Hamin bursts into the room, giving the two of them a jaunty wave as he swipes one of the dessert samples from the plate in front of them. “You might want to head home, Norna,” he says when he’s done chewing. “Big storm coming in an hour or so.”

She nods, gathering up her papers and heading out the door with a quick promise to check in the next day once she’s had time to put some ideas together.

Shahira grabs another one of the samples herself, absently takes a demure bite. She has got to get this Norna to teach her how to cook.

“And here I thought I was making progress on training you out of your court table manners,” Hamin sighs, shaking his head exaggeratedly. “That is, at best, a two-bite pastry.”

Shahira blinks down at the dainty in her hand, still mostly whole with a nibble off of one end, and shoves the rest of it in her mouth in one go. Her cheeks puff out like a ground squirrel and she has to fight to keep any of it from spilling out as she struggles not to laugh, but it’s worth it for Hamin’s face.

“I was serious about the rain,” he says, chuckling, once she’s finally managed to swallow it down. “We should probably head home too.” He grins like a giddy child over the word “home”—it’s barely been a week yet that that’s been the same place for both of them.  

“Do we have to go hole up inside?” she asks, even as she stands and brushes off her skirts. “I haven’t seen a proper Hisean rainstorm, yet.” People had told her she’d arrived towards the end of the dry season—which was hardly dry compared to Corval, but all the rain so far had been in the middle of the night, or come and gone so fast that it had already tapered off by the time she’d ended her conversation and gotten to a window.

Hamin frowns thoughtfully. “It can be pretty dangerous to be outside during one, Glitter. The winds can be fierce, and sometimes trees get knocked over. It’s not safe to be standing under them.” He strokes his chin, considering, and finally grins. “If you are set on experiencing a Hisean storm out in the open, I think I know just the place, though.”

To her inexperienced eye, the skies look clear when they step outside—but as Hamin leads her through the town and down a footpath into the forest, he points out the signs on the horizon, the slight change in the air.

“You are sure about this, right?” He asks as they walk. “Once the storm starts, we won’t really be able to turn around and head back home until it’s over.”

Shahira nods. “We didn’t see much rain in Corval, believe it or not. I want a chance to properly marvel at it before I become jaded and desensitized like all you strange folk who grew up with ‘rainy seasons.’”

Thinking back on it, she’s been waiting for that chance for years. One wall of the Imperial palace had looked out onto a bustling market. There were plenty of windows where a lady of the court might look down and watch the activity below, posh merchants bartering with wealthy clients over silks and jewelry and perfumed oils. There was one particular window, though—in an area of the palace where Shahira was not, strictly speaking, supposed to be—that was perfectly situated to offer a glimpse of the true heart of the market in the distance, where harried mothers and brassy housekeepers haggled fiercely with plainly-attired but shrewd merchants over things like fish and soap and lamp oil.  

Shahira had been peeping out that window between teas one day when the first rain in several months rolled over the city, covering the market in a sudden downpour. She’d watched the farmers who’d ridden from miles outside the city to peddle fruits and vegetables from a worn blanket tear off the scarves they’d been wearing to shield their heads from the sun, tilt their laughing faces to the sky and dance in the street with competitors they’d been trying to out-shout moments earlier, celebrating the simple miracle of rain.

She’d never wished so badly to be part of the world she could see outside her window.

 Hamin leads them through the forest for quite a ways, down a well-hidden footpath and then along the edge of the stream it leads into. The stream starts to follow the edge of a cliff, and eventually widens into a shallow pool, shielded on three sides by the cliff face, with a waterfall tumbling over the far edge. Along one side the cliff curves inward, creating a slight natural shelter over some mossy boulders.

“It looks like something out of a painting,” she marvels, hitching up her skirt and splashing over to inspect some pink and orange flowers growing out of a crevice in the cliffs.

Hamin grins. “Thought you’d like it.”

In the time they’ve been walking, the sky has started to darken, and by the time Shahira has explored every corner of the pool, there are black clouds overhead, sounds of wind shaking the trees in the distance.

Hamin strips off his vest and sets it on one of the boulders under where the stone creates an overhang. “I figure we don’t want to walk back in wet clothes,” he says, untying the scarf that he uses as a belt and tossing it over to join his vest. “So you should probably get naked.” He waggles his eyebrows.

“It’s good to know you’re always looking out for my best interests,” she chuckles, pulling off the loose open vest she’s been wearing over the strip of cloth crossed over her breasts. (All the exposed stomachs in Hisean attire make a great deal of sense now that she’s experienced how the humidity here makes fabric cling suffocatingly to the skin.)

She pulls off her skirt next—an airy orange fabric covered in silver embroidery dotted with chips of turquoise and flat mirror-like disks of silver. It’s one of the things she brought from Corval, taken up a few inches to end at the ankle instead of the floor but otherwise left alone. Under it, she has a plain white underskirt that falls a little past her knees to protect the fabric from sweat and oil.

She pauses a moment to forcibly remind the part of her brain devoted to guarding her reputation that she’s married, and in Hise where getting caught carousing in public would result in a few weeks of good-natured ribbing rather than a lifetime scandal. She’s distracted, though, by a rumble of thunder in the distance, and blinks in startlement as a fat drop of water plops down on the bridge of her nose.

Another two fall on her head and shoulder in rapid succession, and she holds out her hand to catch one—but she barely has time to examine the size of that lone drop before they’re swarming, the bead of water in her hand quickly swallowed into a puddle. She throws her arms out and tilts her face to the sky, twirls around in amazed delight.

“It’s raining!” she exclaims.

“I’m guessing this is a Corval thing?” Hamin calls back over the drone of rain hitting the pool and the surprisingly loud sound of trees shaking in the wind. “We should kidnap more of you, if all of you are this cute when you see rain.”

“Don’t you dare ruin my treaty right after I’ve managed to wrangle our countries into an accord, Hamin of Hise,” she threatens, laughing, then grabs his hand and pulls him into a wild dance, jumping in joyous circles like the farmers she’d watched in the street so many years ago.

It doesn’t take long before she’s soaking, hair plastered to her face and back, underskirt clinging to her thighs, no longer sure where she’s wet from the rain and what’s been splashed up by their dancing.

Hamin picks her up by the waist and lifts her. He grins up at her, blinking the water out of his (still) startlingly green eyes, and spins them around in a circle.

Her body slides against his front as he sets her down, and she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him, tangling her fingers in his wet braids.

“You know, you never did finish getting naked,” he husks into her ear when they finally part.

“Good point,” she says, looking down at the sopping fabric clinging to her body. “I’d hate for my clothes to get wet.”

She unwraps the cloth crossed over her breasts, wiggles out of the underskirt stuck to her skin. They can’t actually get much wetter, but she listens to the little voice in her head that manages to simultaneously sound like a bit like every ladies’ maid she’s ever had, and brings them over to the boulder with the rest of her clothes rather than just dropping them into the pool.

When she looks back up, Hamin has shed his pants and is watching her with an exaggerated leer, his prick fattened with interest but still hanging heavy between his legs. He tugs her close and slots her back against his front, slides his hand up her stomach towards her chest, only to hook his finger into the chain of her necklace and tug it up for inspection. Not quite what she was expecting.

“You know, when you showed up to the Matchmaker’s banquet wearing this, I didn’t think it was possible for it to look any better,” he says, letting the gold coin fall back down between her breasts. “But I think I like it even better like this.”

“All that time I spent trying to look nice for you at the Summit, and now I find out you would have just preferred me naked,” she sighs in mock affront, rolling her hips back against his groin.

“Naked and wearing my presents. It’s an important distinction!” He thrusts forward into her movements, his prick nestling between the cheeks of her rear, sliding through the rainwater on her skin.

She’s soaking in yet another sense of the word by the time his hand finds its way between her legs, two fingers pressing inside her while the base of his palm grinds up against her clit. Torn between pushing forward into his hand and backward against his cock, she clenches around the fingers inside her, groans when they press hard into the new, inner sensitive spot that she’s just recently discovered. She’d only known she had the one down there.

She rocks back against him as he strokes her inner walls, the air around them still teeming with rain. Her nipples are already long pebbled up from the chill when he cups her chest with his other hand and rolls one between his fingers. She digs her nails into his thigh, keens without meaning to as the movement of his hand picks up.

He thrusts against her rear in little aborted pushes, the water not slick enough for their bodies to slide together as easily as could be desired, but the groan in her ear is far from a frustrated one. It shouldn’t be as good as it is, but the open air, the thrum of rain splashing onto their skin, is thrilling in a way that soon has her gasping into the soaked air, knees trembling with the effort of continuing to stand.

Before the rain can wash her slick from his hand Hamin grabs his cock and gives it a few frantic pumps, his teeth muffling a shout into her shoulder as his seed splashes hot onto her back between the cool raindrops. (It’s funny…she’d come into this expecting him to be loud, based on her admittedly gossip-based knowledge of how people behave in bed—and he’s certainly vocal, but years of sharing quarters on a ship mean his first instinct is always to muffle it.)

She turns around and kisses him, reaching behind herself to assist the rain in washing her skin clean—and frowns in confusion as rather than washing away like liquid, his seed sort of—rolls into a rubbery little ball under her fingers. She picks it up and brings it around for inspection, staring in bemusement. “What kind of bizarre liquid turns solid when it comes into contact with water?”

Hamin laughs at her baffled expression. “The kind that comes out of pricks, Glitter,” he says rhetorically, kissing the confused frown off her face as the rain starts to lighten around them.

Once it’s stopped entirely, they wring the worst of the rain from their clothes. Hamin laughs again at her disgusted face when she pulls on her damp underskirt. “You’ve never worn wet clothes before, have you?”

“Historically my clothes and I have seldom had opportunities to get soaked in water unless one of us is bathing,” she replies. “I’m grateful to have the opportunity.” She tugs at the underskirt sticking to her leg and wrinkles her nose. “Less so for the wet clothes.”

“I’d happily take something like that over wet pants.” He points at the way his pants are clinging to his inner thighs. “Less chafing.”

She looks at her embroidered skirt, considering. “I do have one to spare, if you’re interested.”

--

Hamin’s second mate is just walking away from the porch when they get back home—clothes rumpled, hair in damp disarray, and Hamin resplendent in an orange skirt embellished with turquoise.

It says something about Hise, or perhaps his relationship with Hamin, that after a brief double-take he just falls in step with a grin and starts talking their ears off.

Humidity or no, she thinks she’ll like it here.

(If you noticed that Shahira uses weird terms to describe the fact that it’s raining--that’s not me trying to be poetic, it’s intended to be a joke about the fact that she hasn’t had enough exposure to rain to drill the phrases stereotypically used to describe it into her subconscious.