generally took to a good roast with all the delicacy of a hungry lioness and often gave the impression that she would respond in a similar vein should anyone attempt to usurp her share. Tonight, if she did not move with the perfect smoothness of a young woman of high society, her behavior was nonetheless not too terribly far off the mark. Someone, presumably Cymnea, had been teaching her the etiquette of the Citizenry.
When had she found the time?
She ate the bite of meat as slowly as she had the berries, still watching his eyes. She closed her own in pleasure as she swallowed, and only a moment after did she open them again. "Are you suggesting that I would prefer it if you tore this dress from me and ravished me? Here? On the table, perhaps?"
Tavi's fork slipped, and his next piece of roast went flying off the table and onto the ground. He opened his mouth to reply and found himself saying nothing, his face turning warm.
Kitai watched the roast fall and made a clucking sound. "Shame," she purred. "It's delicious. Don't you think it's delicious?"
She ate another bite with the same, torturously slow, relaxed, elegantly restrained sensuality.
Tavi found his voice again. "Not half so delicious as you, Ambassador."
She smiled again, pleased. "Finally. I have your attention."
"You've had it the whole time we've been eating," Tavi said.
"Your ears, perhaps." She cleared her throat, resting her fingertips upon her breastbone for a moment, drawing his gaze there involuntarily. "Your eyes, certainly," she added drily, and he let out a rueful chuckle. "But your thoughts, chala, your imagination - they have been focused elsewhere."
"My mistake," Tavi said. "Obviously."
"Obviously," Kitai replied with a rather smug smile. Her expression grew more serious. "Though not solely for the immediate reasons."
He frowned and rolled a hand, inviting her to continue.
She folded her hands in her lap and frowned, as if gathering her words together before releasing them. "This enemy is a threat to you as your others are not, chala."
"The vord?"
She nodded.
"In what way?"
"They threaten to unmake who you are," she said quietly. "Despair and fear are powerful foes. They can change you into something you are not."
"You said something like that last winter," he said. "When we were trapped atop that Shuaran tower."
"It is no less true now," she said in a quiet voice. "Remember that I can feel you, chala. You cannot hide these things from me. You have tried to, and I have respected your desire. Until now."
He frowned at her, troubled.
She slid her hand across the table, palm up. His own hand covered it without the need for a conscious decision on his own part.
"Talk to me," she urged quietly.
"There was always someone nearby on the ships. Or else we were in lessons and..." He shrugged. "I... I didn't want to burden you. Or frighten you."
She nodded and spoke without rancor. "Was it because you think I am insufficiently strong? Or because you find me insufficiently brave?"
"Because I find you insufficiently..." he faltered.
"Capable?" she suggested. "Helpful?"
"... replaceable," he finished.
Her eyebrows lifted at that. She returned his earlier gesture, rolling her hand for him to continue.
"I can't lose you," he said quietly. "I can't. And I'm not sure that I'm able to protect you. I'm not sure anyone can."
Kitai stared at him for a moment without expression. Then she pressed her lips together, shook her head, and rose. She walked around the table with that same severe expression on her face, but it wasn't until she was standing beside Tavi's chair that he realized that she was shaking with unreleased laughter.
She insinuated herself onto his lap, lovely in the green grown, wrapped her pale arms around his neck, and kissed him. Thoroughly. Her gentle laughter bubbled against his tongue as she did. When she finally drew away, moments later, she put her fever-warm hands on either side of his face, looking down at him fondly.
"My Aleran," she said, her voice loving. "You idiot."
He blinked at her.
"Are you only now realizing that forces greater than ourselves might tear us apart?" she asked, still smiling.
"Well..." he began. "Well... well no, not exactly..." He trailed off weakly.
"But that was always true, Aleran," she said, "long before the vord threatened our peoples. If they had never done so, it would still be true."
"What do you mean?"
She shrugged a shoulder. Then she took up his knife and fork and cut another slice of roast as she spoke. "Many things can end lives. Even the lives of