Her head turns with it, her eyes closed - for that moment it hurts so utterly. No one has touched her, she has not let them, for years and years and years. A denial of herself because what is her body but something to be burned? It goes down, her spine like hot oil from a temple lamp, pooling low before she turns up and into it. Soothed and wounded all at once from so slight a thing from him.

Clouds, the monsoon, that he promised her. That he keeps promising her - it terrifies her utterly. He terrifies her. This terrifies her. She has given him so much of herself, some of it he knew, much of it, he didn't. They were bound now. To the end of this war, and maybe no further. But to that end -

A turn until her mouth brushes against the edge of his touch. Until her lips, and they part against his light movement on her skin and she bites the tip of his finger. Blunt, not hard, a soft ache of skin against skin. But purposeful, decided, when her eyes open that barely kept back thing is obvious, fills up her whole being. A hunger that sat flat behind her gaze. touch her again, please. She wants it so much she thinks she'll burn up the ground below them. "Are we still play, my Admiral? Or are you playing with me?"