The Problem With Pink Hair and Cat Ears

Cait’s room was on the fifth floor.

Elayna hadn’t been up this far in the building before. She knew all the first and second years were spread out on the second to fourth floor, with the staff and dining hall on the first. She hadn’t thought about the fifth floor. Cait had told her on the way here that the first and second years who had their own rooms all lived on the fifth floor.

Cait was leading her there by hand, looking very pleased with herself as she walked with that easy confident pace of hers. Her pink tail swayed loosely behind her with each hip-swaying step quite closely to Elayna. Elayna had gotten better at restraining herself around the tail, but knew she very much did not have perfect control. And after a short while Cait turned around with a very amused look and said:

“You appreciate my ass as much as I appreciate yours, Elayna?”

Which Elayna chose to not comment on and only gave Cait a silent glare even though she had actually been looking at Cait’s tail and not her butt, Cait gave a pleased hm and continued leading her... Elayna’s gaze might have drifted down a bit after that. Which Elayna realized with some frustration was probably what Cait wanted. And realized, with more private frustration, that she really did kind of appreciate how Cait’s butt looked... and her long legs... Especially with how she was walking.

Elayna shook her warm face and looked straight.

Eventually Cait stopped at a door in the middle of the corridor at the top floor. She produced a key, unlocked it and pushed it open. Then she turned around to Elayna with a smile before she bowed down at the waist and raised one arm in a slow, wide sweeping gesture at the room in front of them. A gesture like she was presenting something magnificent.

Elayna tried to hold back an amused smile at Cait’s silliness, who was still in her deep bow.

Then she stepped inside.

She tried, for a moment to take the room in properly. This was apparently Cait's own room. Elayna hadn't even known students were allowed to have their own rooms. She'd been prepared for something different somehow. Something special or something that explained why Cait had one and others didn't.

It was just. Smaller.

The same wooden floors and the same high ceiling. Even the exact same style of bed and desk and wardrobe she had in her own dorm, there was just not four of them, for four people. This was one bed. One desk. One small door to what was presumably a bathroom in the corner. Fit for one person.

"It's..." Elayna started.

"My room. It’s perfect," Cait supplied, behind her.

"It's the exact same as ours," Elayna felt slightly betrayed. "It's just smaller."

"*tsk, tsk*. It's my own," Cait corrected, with great dignity. "That's what makes it perfect."

Elayna turned to look at her.

Cait's expression was completely serious for approximately two seconds before the corner of her mouth betrayed her.

"How did you even get this?" Elayna asked. "I didn't know we could have our own rooms."

"You can't," Cait said, dropping the serious expression entirely and walking further into the room. "Or at least. I don’t think you can now. Voss pulled me aside two days ago after training and asked if I'd like one. I said yes before he finished the sentence. And from what Thra’kara told me when I asked and from what I also gathered from Voss. The academy watches the students more closely than you'd think. They offer you your own private room if you’re an exceptionally strong fighter, a considerably good support-mage or a really nerdy book-worm. Basically if the academy deems you important or good enough, they offer you private quarters." Cait explained with a smug smile.

"Oh," Elayna said.

Cait gestured around herself at the room. "I moved in two days ago. As you can probably tell."

Elayna looked around the room.

Cait's belongings were everywhere...or rather, they were all mostly still in bags leaned against the walls or stacked unorganized on the floor near the wardrobe and bed. A jacket hung over the back of the chair by the desk. Cait’s boots were by the door. The books were stacked without any system, seemingly not getting much attention. The room had quite the obvious look of someone who had recently moved in and hadn't quite committed to organizing it yet.

But on the desk. Laid neatly, were the only thing in the room that had clearly been placed with care. Caitlynn’s swords.

Both of them. Lying side by side on what Elayna now noticed was a larger than average desk. The shorter one lay in a straight line under the longer sword, exactly parallel. A small collection of maintenance tools were arranged on a cloth beside them, and there was a simple but clearly magic whetstone. Two polishing rags were neatly folded by the tools. And three small bottles of oils or some other oddly-colored transparent liquids stood on the desk. Everything in the room that wasn't the swords was in mild chaos. The swords and maintenance tools were lying perfectly on her desk.

Obviously they stole Elayna’s full attention immediately.

"Can I see them?" she asked, already looking at them.

"Of course," Cait said from behind her.

They walked together to the desk. Cait picked up the longer sword first and drew it smoothly from its sheath with the motion of someone who had done this at least ten thousand times. Then held it flat across both palms for Elayna to look at properly.

It was basically a long sword but its blade was noticeably a bit wider than most long swords Elayna had seen, long swords were popular due to their adaptability and straightforward use in combat. This blade, with its added width to the blade and combined with Cait's surreal strength made Elayna realize why Cait's strikes rang out so loud. The bright, white-grey steel was spotless and shining, Elayna could see her own awed expression in the reflection. The edge caught the warm afternoon light in a beautiful clean line from the crossguard to the edge of the tip.

Elayna leaned in closer and felt her eyes widen as she also now could see the faint shimmers of enchantments on it.

“It’s beautiful. This is an amazingly crafted sword.” She said, completely honest and still slightly awed.

“Mm,” Cait answered with a pleased sound.

Elayna still had her eyes close to the blade. “What metal is it? I can’t recognize it and I can’t tell if it’s one or several metals.”

“Mithril and Draeven steel,” Cait answered.

Elayna looked up at Cait.

“Mithril makes perfect sense,” she said, “it’s quite expensive but a very standard metal for a serious fighter’s weapon. Mithril is a very strong metal and also conducts mana extremely well, so it makes sense for someone who uses magic through their blade.” A short pause.” But Draeven steel—”

She looked back down at the long sword.

“Draeven steel is not only much more expensive than mithril, it's also one of the strongest metals,” she continued, “I mean that’s — Draeven steel comes from Draevenvale. That’s far, far up north on the other side of the Morkath range. I’ve read about it, but I’ve never been there.”

She looked up at Cait. “How did you get this?”

Cait’s expression shifted into something that was deeply and unhelpfully, annoyingly smug. And said nothing.

“Cait,” Elayna pleaded.

The smug carried hints of amusement now.

“Caitlynn,” she said harsher.

Still nothing but an annoyingly attractive smirk.

Elayna stared hard at her, then back down at the sword, then back up with a very genuine pout from someone who really wanted to know how Cait had gotten this amazing sword and was being cruelly denied the information.

“Please,” she said. “I’m asking very nicely here. So be nice back. Please tell me how you got a sword of Draeven steel and please tell me how Draevenvale looks.”

Cait’s smirk faded into a pleased smile and seemed to think about it for a moment.

“On my eighteenth birthday,” she said eventually, “I travelled to Draevenvale.”

Elayna didn’t question or answer she just looked at Cait with wide eyes. And Elayna's long ears, much to Cait’s delight, twitched in uncontained excitement for a moment.

Cait continued with a smile: “It’s the best blacksmithing city in the empire as I’m sure you know,” she said with the casual tone of someone describing a picnic. ”Built deep into the Morkath range, the mountain pass there has the best and richest mineral deposits in the empire. The city-gates are probably the most impressive thing about the city. The dark-onyx gates rise hundreds of feet high and are equally as wide, completely sealing the city between two mountain peaks, the gates are like twenty feet thick or something, and only open once every fortnight and only stay open for a day each time." Cait described it like she was telling a tale, she saw that Elayna was listening with wide eyes rather than smiling at her silliness.

She smiled as she continued. "Many parts of the city are completely underground with hundreds of blacksmiths working day and night.” She looked down at her long sword with what Elayna could only describe as true fondness. “It was there, in the underground parts of the city that I searched for two weeks for one of the better smiths, it took a while to find someone willing to craft something so serious for an eighteen year old. And when I finally found someone, it took him two months to make it.”

Elayna let out a sound of deep wonder and awe.

Then she looked down at the blade again. At the clean bright metal which had taken two months to craft from one of the better smiths in the best blacksmithing city, far, far up in the harsh cold of the northern province.

“And the shorter one?” she asked, voice not able to contain her interest.

Cait sheathed the longer sword and gently laid it back on the desk and picked up the shorter one. It was noticeably different than most shorter swords. It was slightly longer than a dagger but shorter than a standard short sword. It had a single edge and a curve that started about halfway along the blade. And whereas the longer sword was a straight, precise weapon, this one was strange and unpredictable looking. It had an intricate red handle. The metal of the blade was brighter than the long sword. Purer, cleaner.

“Pure mithril,” Cait said. “Completely pure. And as you said, Mithril conducts mana extremely well and evenly. Which works well for what I need it for.” She turned the blade slightly in her hand then twisted it in her hands and held it the other way. “It’s good and works well now. Eventually I’ll have a better one made like I did with the long sword. But for now it does what I ask of it.”

“They’re both beautiful,” Elayna admitted with complete and sincere honesty.

Cait went quiet. She looked at the longer one on the desk as she shifted the shorter one slowly in her hands. Her expression was something Elayna hadn’t quite seen on Cait before. The smug smirk or pleased smile gone entirely. What had replaced it was something unguarded, sincere, and almost vulnerable.

“They’re my babies,” she said, in a soft and earnest voice. Almost tenderly. Lovingly.

Elayna blinked. Twice.

“... Your... Babies?” she said, with a small confused tilt of her head.

Cait never looked at her. She was still looking at her swords with that expression. A serene, fond expression. The way someone was fond of something they’d carried and cherished for a long time and intended to keep for an even longer time.

“Mm,” Cait said softly, barely audible.

Elayna looked at the swords. Then looked at Cait’s face. Then back at the swords.

“O-okay...” She said slowly. “I-I suppose swords are very important belongings to fighters. That makes sense of course.” A small pause. “I also like my sword...”

She trailed off.

She was thinking, privately, about how she treated her own sword. How she maintained it regularly and carefully and kept it sharp and how she thought of it as a reliable and important weapon that she respected and cared for.

She looked at Cait’s face and thought about the fact that she had probably never looked at her sword the way Cait was looking at hers.

“...I like my sword quite a lot,” she added, quieter. Almost to herself.

Cait gave a final look at her longer sword and sheathed her shorter one, then gently placed it under the longer sword. She straightened it slightly, so they were perfectly parallel again. She then stepped back from her desk with a satisfied expression.

Then she turned around, walked to her bed and dropped down on it with easy casualness of someone completely at home and relaxed, she landed with a slight bounce and leaned back on both of her hands. She looked at Elayna still by the desk with a warm smile and gently patted the space on the bed beside her.

"Come sit. Let's talk."

Elayna walked to the bed and sat down slowly, carefully.

She'd sat beside Cait so their legs weren’t touching, to leave a reasonable amount of space between them. Cait dismantled her move by shifting closer to Elayna herself, close enough that their thighs gently brushed slightly, like on the rooftop. Which Elayna found like she found most things as of late, slightly against her will. She was privately delighted Cait had moved closer.

Then there was a moment of silence. The kind of silence that came from two people who weren’t exactly feeling awkward, more so simply not knowing where to start.

"So," Cait broke the silence, voice pleasant. "This is my room."

"Yes... You have your own room," Elayna agreed, not knowing what to say.

"And it’s just the two of us,"

Elayna then looked suspiciously at her. "...Yes."

"Completely alone."

"Cait—"

"We could," Cait was looking at her with green eyes and a smile that knew exactly what it was doing, and leaned a bit closer to Elayna and almost whispered, "do absolutely anything we wanted."

"Caitlynn," Elayna said firmly and with a stern face, while blushing.

Cait laughed, softly and genuinely. She leaned back and shifted herself slightly to face Elayna better.

"Mm. Sorry," she did not sound sorry at all, and added in an innocent tone, "I was just saying."

Elayna looked at her with the expression of someone who now realized would have to survive the next several minutes on pure willpower.

Cait's expression softened slightly. "Alright. I’ll be serious." She tilted her head. "I’ll start with something simple, don’t think about it too much. Are you happy with where we are? Okay with where we currently are?”

"... I think so... Yes," Elayna said quietly, honestly.

"Good," Cait said warmly with a smile. A short pause. "And do you want to go further from here right now? Is that something you think you want?"

The question landed slowly and gently.

Elayna looked down at her lap.

Her lap was nice to look at. Her lap would never lie to her and say something would be simple and then say something like that.

"I..." she started. Stopped. Tried again. "I don't know," she said, honestly but quietly. "I really don't know what further would even look like. Or if I'm... If I'm even ready for whatever that is..." She paused for a moment. "I... I need you to maybe help me understand... Or something."

A short silence passed between them.

Cait looked at her with her warm eyes for a moment. With a reading look, quick but complete. Then something in her pleased expression shifted. Neither the pleasantness nor her amusement went away entirely. But it softened into something kinder and warmer.

"Okay," she said simply.

She turned more toward Elayna. Not closer, she just shifted her body so she had one leg over the side of the bed, and the other knee was lying on its side in front of her, her body faced Elayna who was still sitting facing straight forward to the door, her right shoulder now facing Caitlynn.

"Let's start somewhere easier then," Cait said. "How do you feel about what we're already doing? Kissing. Holding hands. About what happened yesterday, kissing in front of people. About me holding your thigh."

"... And the teasing," Elayna corrected quietly.

"And the teasing," Cait agreed, smiling a bit wider.

"They're..." Elayna considered, then said in a small voice. "... They're fine. I don’t dislike what we’re doing. Some of it is maybe too much though.” And in an even smaller voice she added: “I might maybe... Maybe even like some of it." She paused. "... Some of it." She finished, in a voice barely audible.

"Some of it," Cait repeated pleasantly. “I’m guessing then, that this some of it, is the kissing?” She probed gently.

Elayna could somehow tell from the mood of the conversation that she wouldn’t be teased.

So, she nodded slowly, with a very pink face.

“The teasing might be a complicated topic, so I’ll spare you questioning about it.” Cait added as a simple afterthought.

Elayna was privately very grateful for that... And realized that, so far, Cait really hadn't teased her about anything during this conversation. She hadn't teased her for wanting help in how to go further, or for not disliking what they’ve been doing, not even for admitting she enjoyed the kisses.

Elayna unconsciously let herself be a bit more comfortable in this conversation.

"And yesterday," Cait said, with a shift in her tone that meant she was moving to something specific, "at dinner. The kiss in front of everyone." A small pause. "Was that maybe too much? Or too early?"

Elayna was quiet for a moment.

"...A little... Maybe a little too early...Maybe" she admitted quietly, to her lap.

"Mm. I thought so," Cait said. She didn't sound troubled by it, and again didn’t tease Elayna’s admission, Cait’s voice was just — honest. "I think it was two things at once for you. Your first time being kissed in front of people. And me kissing you for a lot longer than I'd done before."

"Y-yes," Elayna agreed. And then felt slightly frustrated at Cait as she realized Cait had actually done two new things to her at once.

Cait saw Elayna's realizing moment on her face and giggled softly. "I'm sorry about that," she said, with the warmth of someone who meant the sentiment but found the memory very funny.

"You don't sound sorry," Elayna said with a small pout she reluctantly acknowledged was forming.

"I'm sorry," Cait repeated, with the same warmth and the same barely and poorly-concealed amusement.

Elayna found her courage and looked at her.

Cait's face immediately transformed into something that was trying very hard to be innocent and was not entirely succeeding.

"I'll be more careful," she said softly. A small pause, and added with deliberateness: "In public."

Elayna felt her face go warmer and looked back at her lap.

A short silence.

"The kissing, like we just did in your dorm," Cait said, quieter now, her tone almost curious. "When it's just us. Is that something you’re comfortable with?"

Elayna said nothing for a long moment. But she didn’t need a long moment to know the answer. She just needed to think back to any part of it. Any part of when Cait had straddled her and kissed her for minutes, she just needed to think back to any second of how that had felt to know her answer.

The question was simple and the answer was simple. But even with her now understanding she wouldn’t be relentlessly teased or laughed at, giving her answer out loud was still very much not simple.

She gathered what felt like a considerable amount of courage, more than she'd ever expected for the afternoon to require and looked up slowly from her lap. Her eyes found Cait's face. Travelled, very briefly and entirely without her brain’s permission, down to Cait's mouth, and came immediately back up to her eyes.

Then she looked away. Her face was very warm.

She gave a very small, but clear nod.

"Hmm," Cait hummed, softly. A sound of someone who had just had something confirmed that they already knew, but found the confirmation very pleasing.

Another short moment of silence.

"And what about yesterday," Cait said. "When I touched your thigh. That something you’re okay with?"

Something lurched in Elayna's lower stomach at the mention of it. Her face went a shade warmer.

But again, mustered a not so insignificant amount of courage and gave, another faint, but obvious affirming nod of her head.

Yet another short silence.

“W-why are you only... only asking if I’m comfortable with all of these things.” Elayna stopped. Not truly believing what she was about to say. “Y-you should know — no you do know that I would tell you to stop if I wasn’t o-okay with it” She managed, face now undoubtedly a deep red as she was basically admitting to Cait that she was okay with everything they’d been doing.

“Elayna,” Cait said, extremely gently, her voice was so soft Elayna almost thought she’d imagined it in her mind.

“W-what...” She said quietly, embarrassedly, to her lap.

“I’m asking all of this so you can, firstly, admit it out loud to yourself.” Cait said slowly, “and I’m gradually going from asking if you’re comfortable with kissing to asking if you were okay with me touching your thigh becaaause...” Cait trailed off, then continued in a still soft voice, but with something clearly pleased in her voice: “You asked me to help you understand how to go further.”

Elayna cast a side-glance at Cait. “I did,” she confirmed quietly, tone slightly unsure and wary.

"So now I want to ask you something. Something that has to do with going further or doing new things," Cait said. "And I want you to know before I ask it that you can obviously say no. You can say no right now without me asking. You can say no halfway through, or in the middle of it. You can always say no at any time. Okay?"

"...Yes," Elayna said softly, slightly less wary.

"Good," Cait said pleasantly, with a growing smile. "So then, would you be comfortable with me touching you like that again? Me touching your thighs. Maybe your sides or waist as well. This time not me surprising you."

Elayna was quiet for a decently long moment.

She looked up briefly, shyly. This would be giving Cait permission to touch her thighs again. Which had last time, prompted so many reactions from her body. Reactions she was starting to slowly realize weren’t so scary after all... They were still a bit overwhelming, but Elayna reasoned that if she knew what was coming and with how Cait was acting that this might actually be...be kind of nice.

Cait was watching her patiently, with a warm and gentle expression that conveyed she was completely willing to accept any answer.

"...Yes," Elayna said quietly. And gave a very small nod of her warm face.

"Mm, okay," Cait breathed softly. And Elayna could instantly tell. Cait was privately very satisfied by her answer.

Cait looked at Elayna and smiled. “Hop up more onto the bed and face me.” Cait said, her voice the tiniest bit excited.

They faced each other on the bed, both sitting with their knees crossed in front of each other just barely brushing against each other. Cait gave Elayna a soft smile and leaned in slowly and cupped her cheek, then started kissing her gently.

And then slowly, carefully, her hand found Elayna's side.

Cait’s hand felt warm on her side. It moved down slowly, along the curve of her waist, tracing it with a gentle patience that was affecting Elayna a lot more than what an impatient quick hand would have.

Cait’s soft lips kept closing around hers, kissing her unhurriedly but insistently, and like usual she never let Elayna catch a break. Cait’s right hand was tracing gentle patterns on her waist while the other was palming Elayna’s right cheek.

Elayna's breath hitched and shallowed as the hand moved up from her waist.

The hand moved up across her side, slowly and softly. And then down again, past her waist this time and went toward her hip, where it rested and where Cait started drawing lazy patterns—

“!”

Something came out of Elayna’s mouth at that, at the hand caressing her hip, something small but not silent. A surprised and an unexplainably pleased noise.

Her face went hot.

Cait's hand moved again. It slowly left her hip and went up along her sides. Cait's palm ran warmly over her with her fingers running up along her sides and her thumb tracing Elayna’s ribs. Drawing another small, pleased sound from Elayna before she could hold it back.

Cait kissed her and pecked her lips, then leaned back slightly, her hand coming down to still at Elayna's waist.

Her eyes were patiently and gently searching Elayna’s slightly glassy eyes. Cait’s lips curved up slightly.

"You uncomfortable?" she asked. Her voice was very gentle.

Elayna went still for a moment. Acknowledged the hand currently tracing gentle, soft, and quite frankly amazing feeling circles on her waist. She felt heat rise to the tips of her ears and gently shook her head.

She had no awareness of, and no control over how glazed her eyes had become.

Cait looked at her for a moment with a warm and very clearly delighted expression.

And then out of nowhere. After having seemingly decided she’d been nice and careful enough with Elayna. Or that she’d gathered enough information. With the relaxed confidence of someone who had come to a simple but wicked decision. That. This was happening—Cait shoved both of her hands palms up under Elayna’s thighs between the bed—

And lifted her.

It all happened in approximately one second. One moment Elayna was sitting in front of her on the bed. The next she was sitting on Cait. On Cait's thighs specifically. Her thighs atop of Cait’s thighs, facing her with her legs on either side of Cait, and close enough that she could almost see the flecks of gold of her own eyes in the green of Cait’s eyes. Cait's hands went up to rest on her waist. Cait was looking at her, their eyes level with each others, her expression was pleased and warm, and unmistakably, very smug.

Elayna's hands had during the lift instinctively found Cait's shoulders.

She looked at Cait with the bewildered expression of someone who had been in one location and was now inexplicably in a completely different one. An absurd one.

"This," Cait said pleasantly, "is not so different from how we were on your bed earlier."

"You — You..." Elayna looked around wildly, checking if anything else in the room had also been moved around in the last three seconds. "You picked me up!" She shouted, in an incredulous tone.

"I did," Cait nodded in agreement, satisfied with herself.

"This is," Elayna started, "This is!—"

"Uncomfortable?" Cait supplied with an innocent tilt to her head. They were so close together Elayna thought she could physically feel Cait tilting her head in front of her.

Elayna took quick stock of her circumstances. She was sitting on Cait's thighs. Her hands were on Cait's shoulders. Cait's hands rested on her waist, tracing warm and very gentle circles. Their faces were...very close.

"... No?" she said, in a very small, hesitant, almost scared voice.

"That's good," Cait said pleasantly.

Elayna looked at her.

"... C-Cait," she said, her voice was very quiet.

"Hmm."

“This is...” She paused. “I-I don’t know what we're doing. I’m confused because I don’t know if I’m okay with being like this but... But it — but it feels okay. It feels nice...” She admitted in a small and shy voice. “I’m trying to, but I don’t know how to — I have no idea how or what to think about any of this... Cait. Please...” She finished in a desperate plea.

Cait looked at her for a good moment. Then a wide smile formed on her face, not with any teeth or anything alarming in it. But a wide, reassuring smile.

"You don't have to know exactly what you're doing or feeling," she said. "That's what you have me for. That’s why you asked me to help you. I’m here to make you feel comfortable and okay with doing nice things with someone you like." She paused for Elayna’s benefit then put on a warm smile. “Because you like me, and you like what we’re doing, but you’re just a little scared and nervous.”

Elayna softly bit her lower lip and looked into Cait’s eyes, nodding shyly but clearly.

A short pause.

"Elayna. Can I ask you something."

"What..."

"Have you been in a relationship before? Even just a short one?"

"No," Elayna said. "... You're the first person I have been with... The first person I’ve liked like this..."

Cait nodded slightly, as if she'd suspected that. And also put on a very satisfied expression.

"Wh-what about you?" Elayna asked, before she'd really even consciously decided on asking it.

Cait held her gaze for a moment.

"A few," she said, simply and honestly.

She let the answer land. Let Elayna arrive at her own understanding of it.

Something arrived in Elayna's chest that was sharp and unpleasant and faster than she'd expected it to be. It came in through her ribs and settled uncomfortably and for a second she didn't know what it was.

Then she did.

Jealousy, she thought, with a small, surprised shock. That's — that's jealousy. I was jealous. I felt jealous just now.

She was slightly embarrassed for feeling it. She stamped it down firmly with an embarrassment that was entirely separate from the one on her face.

Cait caught Elayna's expression and watched her try to force something down and guessed what it was. She watched Elayna's embarrassment and her flush deepen. And something pleased and amused moved through her expression.

"My... previous relationships. If you would call them that," Cait chuckled softly. "They were short. Straightforward." she added. Then, with a smaller smile that had a slightly cunning edge to it. "They were casual, mostly just physical really."

The word physical landed exactly where Cait had intended for it to land.

Elayna's brain received the information from her ears and tried to form a thought or process the word, but found, that her brain was not able to process it. The word was instead only processed in her chest and heart, where it did complicated and slightly uncomfortable things.

"Oh," she simply said. Finding no other real response.

Cait softly giggled. Then put on a reassuring smile and said gently:

"I'm just being mean. They were nothing like this, I don't actually have much experience with this either. The..." she did a small gesture between them, "—the actual real part in a relationship. The actually liking someone part."

Elayna looked at her.

The actually liking someone quickly made the jealousy go away. Something warmer took its place in Elayna’s chest and she had to refrain herself from making a very delighted noise. Elayna forced it down and instead chose to look down at her lap, she was embarrassed and was not quite ready to show Cait how happy hearing that made her.

But her body betrayed her inner thoughts as her ears quickly reddened and started twitching.

Cait noticed Elayna's reaction and smiled. "You can trust me, Elayna," she said earnestly. "I would never want to do something you wouldn’t want. I'm never going to push past a no from you. I would never." She gently put her hand under Elayna’s jaw and gently tilted up her face. Elayna let her. Cait looked deeply into Elayna’s eyes. "You know that, don't you?"

Elayna thought about it.

She thought about how Cait looked at her when they were alone. She thought about the cold looks Cait sometimes gave people around them, for the people who looked at Elayna wrong. About how soft and gentle Cait was with her, which was very contrasting with how violent and vicious Cait was in fights. Thought about all the times she would stiffen up, mostly when they were kissing, and Cait would always lean back and look at her with those cursed, beautiful eyes, and how she would always ask Elayna patiently how she was doing.

Then she thought about the way Cait had been looking at her as of late. How she was looking at her now. Warm, steady and patient. Entirely sincere and tender. Slightly amused...

"... Yes," Elayna said. Quietly but very clearly. "I trust you..."

Something in Cait's expression went still for a moment. Then warm in a way Elayna hadn't quite seen before.

"You can ask me anything about what we’re doing or what we’re about to do," Cait said. "Any time. And we can always slow down. Or stop entirely. Whenever."

Elayna felt something in her chest release that she hadn't realized was tight.

"Okay," she said. And somehow she felt that they'd come to some grand agreement.

They were silent for a while, just sitting there. With Cait smiling down at Elayna who blushed and tried to look anywhere else that wasn't directly into Cait's gaze.

Then Elayna unconsciously shuffled to sit more comfortably. And then realized she was sitting on Cait’s thighs. She felt her ears go warm and looked at Cait with not quite an apologetic or shy look, more of a look that seemed to say she hoped Cait would not tease her.

Cait only smiled.

Then she leaned in slightly and kissed her. Gently at first, then with intention, her hands which were still at Elayna's waist, softly brushed up and started roaming her sides.

Elayna kissed her back. Without hesitation this time. Her hands which were still on Cait's shoulders, pressed down a bit to steady herself. She felt warmth arrive and settle low in her belly, familiar and present but considerably less alarming than it used to be.

Cait's hands continued moving along her sides, exploring up along her ribs, back down to her waist, slow and warm and deliberate.

Elayna's eyes drifted closed.

The kissing continued. Quietly. Unhurriedly. The only sounds were the soft, wet give of lips parting and coming back together and Elayna's soft, pleased hums and deep exhales.

Cait's hands went down to her waist in slow patterns. Elayna continued making small sounds she was only distantly aware of making, the room's privacy was making them more present and obvious, but Elayna no longer felt embarrassed about them. Because there was nobody else to hear them other than Cait.

Cait, who she trusted. And so Elayna decided to let her hear them.

Cait had been so gentle with her, she'd been patient throughout the whole hard conversation without teasing her once. It made Elayna very thankful and also very happy. That happiness came out unrestrained, the sounds she’d been making were increasing slightly in volume and amount.

She was distantly aware that her focus had gone somewhere quiet and cloudy. Her head felt slightly light. Cait's kissing had taken up a considerable amount of her available attention. And Elayna had allowed it to. Had allowed herself to not be embarrassed. Allowed herself to enjoy kissing Cait back, and to enjoy Cait's mouth and hands on her.

Which was probably why she didn't notice Cait's hands moving lower.

They moved carefully and deliberately from her sides. Coming down slowly along the curve of her waist, briefly going back up to her sides before again, going lower. Cait's hand brushed down along the curves of her waist only this time they went further, down past her waist to her hips and circling around further back until both hands landed on her rear.

Both hands landed warm and firm. Unmistakably shameless.

Cait let her hands fall down further to fully palm it, and then she softly pressed her fingers in.

Elayna's eyes opened wide with a start.

Cait's eyes were already open, narrowed slightly in delight, her pupils wide and dark. Looking straight back from about an inch away as they were still kissing. She had the expression of someone that had just executed a plan that had been minutes in the making and was finding the results satisfactory, and the actions leading to the result extremely satisfactory

A looong beat of silence.

Cait then slowly parted her lips — took Elayna’s lower lip firmly between her teeth — dragged it slowly back — and let the bruised lip snap back against her stunned mouth.

"... Too much?" Cait asked, pleasantly, with her most innocent expression.

Elayna stared unbelieving at her.

She pressed her sensitive lips together firmly. Opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.