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Their courtship is a tentative thing for a whole raft of reasons. As fraught as it is, as difficult to navigate, Zavala feels nothing but gentle warmth when Caiatl gestures her honor guard away to a reasonable distance after the briefing.
“Commander,” she says, their agreement that political titles remain without exception in any official spaces doing nothing to quell the obvious affection in how she says it.
“Your Imperial Highness,” he responds in what is no doubt the shakiest Ulurant, but her smile is worth any potential embarrassment from the hovering honor guard.
“Your tongue is loosening. We’ll have you arguing with my council in words they all understand soon enough.” She rests one hand on his shoulder. “This evening? 2300?”
Zavala nods. “If I’m waylaid, Targe will update you.” He lifts his hand in return, laying his palm against the inner curve of her tusk and stroking his thumb along the carved edges.
He knows something is wrong in the rapid, sharp huff of Caiatl’s breath.
“Remove your hand,” she says, terribly softly, but she picks his hand up in hers when he pulls away to ease any hurt.
The hovering honor guard are strangely quiet, and Zavala’s stomach twists. “I—”
“All is well,” she says, but she’s staring at him harder than she ever has before. Her next words are even quieter. “I will explain. In private.” She raises her voice for the benefit of the guard. “Until this evening.”
Zavala squeezes her hand as she lets go. “Until then, Empress.”
The few glances some of her entourage throw his way as they file out are not lost on his unsettled heart.
*****
It’s well into the early hours of the morning when he transmats into the antechamber of Caital’s private quarters aboard the Eligos. Often, if time got away from them, they would simply reschedule. But Zavala has been ruffled all evening, focused on the phantom sensation of Caiatl’s tusk against his skin and the sharp intake of her breath when he’d touched her. Sleep would have eluded him.
Caiatl is comfortably dressed down, her sleep tunic leaving her shoulders and back bare to the warm humidity of her rooms. “Zavala,” she says when she sees him, her tusks lifting in a smile. “I’m glad you could still make it.”
“My apologies for my tardiness.” He sits beside her on the lounge, flexing his fingers.
She laughs at that, laying the datapad she was reading on the table in front of them. “Given who we are, we will spend more time apologising for broken meetings than simply enjoying them if we start down that path.”
He nods in distracted agreement. “Caiatl, I–”
“Quiet yourself,” she says gently, taking his hand. “I know you have no doubt been thinking far too hard about this.”
She is, of course, not wrong. “I can presume my touch was inappropriate. I want to–”
Caiatl shakes her head. “Do not apologise. I have been remiss, not taking time to convey necessary information for you. However, I took counsel earlier this evening, and I understand what has occured." She presses one palm against his cheek, incredibly soft and warm, her fingertips resting on the nape of his neck. "This is a chaste touch, for a human."
He allows himself to lean into her warmth, just a little, and closes his eyes. "Yes. But… it’s not amongst the Cabal, is it.”
“Not to lay hands upon another’s cheeks thus, no. Doubly so for another’s tusks.” Caiatl’s fingertips stroke at his spine. “Upon discussion, I believe it is of similar weight to a more intimate kiss. A private, carnal kiss.”
The sideways looks from the honor guard snap into focus, and Zavala winces. “Ah.”
“Indeed.”
When he opens his eyes, she’s regarding him intensely. There’s very little space left between them, and the bubbling of physical intimacy is a tangible thing under his skin.
“Thus,” she says, the continued pressure of her hand on his cheek and neck increasingly heavy with intent, “the appropriateness of such a touch is measured not in the action itself, but in context and consent. Earlier, neither was present.”
"I understand," he says.
"Now, however?" Caiatl tilts her head, as if weighing her next words. "You have both."
It's an implicit invitation that makes Zavala's chest pound. "Caiatl. Are you asking me to kiss you?"
"Ha! I suppose I am." Her touch on his neck shifts marginally. "Come, Zavala. Put your hands on me."
It would be a lie to say he hasn’t been considering this, anticipating it, the inevitable shift from chaste affection to more heated intimacy. But now, with her explicit request hanging between them, Zavala has to admit to the nervous knots in his belly. He reaches out, fingertips barely brushing her cheek, and it’s her shaky, affected breath that bolsters him. They both want this, and they’ll find their way together.
He slides his palm into full contact with her skin, catching her left tusk in the v of his thumb and forefinger. He curls his other fingers around her right tusk as he shifts to his knees on the soft cushion to more easily lean up, to press his face against hers and share the sudden rapid pace of her breath. His lips brush hers. Her breath is warmer than would be anticipated for a human, the heat of her lip piercing startling him.
When Zavala flexes his fingers against her tusk and she licks hotly at his mouth, he feels clumsy, like it’s the first kiss of his life. But by the same measure, it’s slow and easy and effortless to press into as her other hand slides up under his shirt to splay over the breadth of his back and urge him closer. The air is even more humid between them, sharp with new desire, and Caiatl thumbs sweat from the dip of his spine.
“If our climate is too much for you, I can have my rooms adjusted,” she murmurs, nuzzling into his cheek with the flat softness of her nose.
“No, no. It’s fine,” he says, pressing a kiss to the delicate peak of her mouth. She shivers ever so slightly, and he stores the reaction away as something precious.
“I want you to be comfortable here. Even if you were to be exerting yourself.”
Zavala leans back a little. Caiatl’s implication is not subtle, but she probably didn’t intend for it to be. “It seems perhaps there are some… further conversations, for us to have.” He slips his finger under the strap of her sleep tunic, displaced during their touching, and pulls it back up over her shoulder.
She regards him for a moment. A slow smile shifts the sharp angles of her mouth. “I would like to have these conversations with you soon, yes.”
He places another soft kiss to her cheek, just at the root of her tusk. "I should leave you to your rest now, though. It is unfortunately late."
"Mm. Stay." Caiatl says, nudging one tusk against his cheek. "I promise there is no hidden impropriety. I may share my bed with whomever I choose, be it merely for comfort or more… intimate pursuits."
Zavala thinks about waking to her scent and warmth, about the lingering promise embedded in her words. He thinks about the deep, devoted parts of him that haven’t been alive in centuries, now thrumming with words he’ll have to relearn how to say.
He smiles. "I'll stay.”