Chapter Text
The masked woman stared back at him. The fire lapped shadows across the threads of her veil, flickering this way and that, dark, dark, shadow, light, shadow, light, shadow, light. White burnt black.
It had hurt to remember. Jaune’s left hand stung, a ghost tremour.
“Take off your mask,” he told her, his voice steady.
“Finally,” she said, and began to do as he had bade her.
She slowly unknotted the delicate workings of the spiderweb veil, unwrapping, opening up, until it spilt around her shoulders, down her back, in a bedraggled scarf. Then, her face, peeled back in the absolution of the fire, revealed itself: the scars that marked the right side of her face, the clear skin the other; the downward tilt of her dark brow, fervoured as ever; the soft moue of her mouth; the fringe brushing at her forehead, tufts of black hair tipped in white, grey; her eyes mismatching, dark and light, black and sunset orange, meeting his gaze. Determined.
The sight of it should not have touched him so.
Jaune drew his sword. “You should have stayed down in Ever After, Neo.”
“How dare you—”
But the sword swung down. It met her blade, and her frustrated cry. Neo’s illusions were really very good. If you had fought her before, you would have believed it, sound and smell and sight— fire scorched. He swung again, hoping to break her in half. He surged forward again and again on the offense. She simply took the blows, his feet stepping between her feet, his blade breaking hers, in and out, in and out.
Glass shattering. Glass ringing out, broken. His breath coming quick and fast. For all his bravado, it hurt. Perhaps both he and Neo had come out of Ever After different. He had known her to be cruel. But this cruel?
“If you’re looking for the Fall Maiden—” Blade dragging in a cruel arc, shatter, “— you’re no closer to her now than you were before this whole mess!”
They fought through the dark swaddle of the trees.
He had thought Neo might have moved on.
Maybe all she had learnt was pain. Maybe that was the only lesson. It was the only one he had now. Over and over, until numbness.
“It’s me, you brute,” cried out Neo’s illusion.
Or he had gone truly mad. He had been crazy before.
Jaune stopped, and so too did the battle. A held breath. She did not take the opening.
He said, “You can’t be Emerald. I don’t think she would be able to keep up this long, even for her. She would know it wouldn’t bring me back, anyway. You’d need to know—” He would have to say her name. “— You would need to know the woman you’re impersonating well enough to make it believable. So, you worked with— her before you stayed down there in Ever After. Now you’ve come back. For me. The Maiden. I can only assume you’ve struck some deal with Salem—” Neo could have lived down in that magical place forever. So Jaune brought his sword high and swung it down again. Met a dull defense.
Disturbed bats were shucked from their shadowed places with high-pierced shrieks. The night bled open black.
“Think for a minute—” said the insistent illusion, meeting each of his swordstrokes,“— use that pretty head of yours and think: what motivation would Neo have? You’re being absurd—” She groaned, quick and harsh. “What’s the simplest answer?”
“That you’re not real.”
“Why?” she huffed out.
“Because no one dies and comes back to life.”
“Yes, they do,” she grouched. With her left hand, she caught Jaune’s sword by the edge. Held it there. “Don’t you know old Ozpin himself came back from the dead?”
“Prove it, then,” he goaded her. This close, he could admit that it would have been hard to get the real look of her right. Her face written on his lids. “Tell me something only she would know.”
“She? Say my name.”
“Tell me something only Cinder would know,” Jaune returned in a bite.
Her brow furrowed, and she adjusted her grip on his sword. As if she thought about bending it in half. She said, “You say that like it’s a game. Whatever I tell you, you’ll find a way to refute it. I tortured your friends for information. I spied the mole behind your ear in your sleep. If I really wanted to pose as a dead woman, I’d do my research. No. I can’t tell you the things I know.” She released her hold on his sword. “Do you have it? The blade I gave you?”
It was at his hip. Jaune’s expression must have given it away.
“Take it out,” she told him curtly.
Jaune sheathed his, and set some distance between them. With utmost care, he slid out the sword that had been given to him for reasons unbeknownst to him. Little more than a painful memento now. It gleamed.
In turn, she summoned a sword, magic and Semblance bubbling together, and held it pointing towards herself.
He stepped back, if only fearful she would turn it on him.
“Shh,” she hushed him, ungentle, near condescending. “If I really wanted to kill you, you know I would’ve done it by now.”
Somehow it settled him.
“Hold it out,” she instructed.
So Jaune did, a horizontal offering. Not likely to spear into him taken unawares, though he did have his armour, Aura or no Aura.
“A copy like this won’t trigger the bind,” she said, holding it handle to handle. “It should turn into a bow.”
Jaune did remember now.
She threw the copy aside carelessly, splintering, the remnant of its magic dancing in the air. Then from her hip, she pulled a perfect twin. She lifted the matching blade and turned it so the handle met its double. Set and bound, it formed a complete bow. Cinder’s.
“Midnight,” she whispered harshly.
He heard the thud of something long dead. Galloping, his pulse pounded in his inner ear, a sad little drumbeat. It was impossible. But she had always been impossible.
Jaune could not deny the truth.
He worked it out very quickly.
What could he say to her, standing there in front of him, flesh and blood, blackened glass? That imperious look on her face. It would all come out of him dumb. He could not embrace her or kiss her or pick her up and carry her away.
But he had a task still yet unfulfilled. The thing that cut the finest hope out of the thickest despair.
“Then I’ll tell you what I had to say,” he began, “for when I found her— the Fall Maiden, that is.” He gathered himself, the meaning of what he was supposed to do finally crystallising. His voice came stronger now. “Run. Run as far as you can. Find somewhere quiet and hide. Wait this whole thing out. Go. Never let anyone know. Don’t use the power. Just run.”
He expected her to take it seriously. Instead Cinder laughed, hard and mean. From her eyes sparked fire, her black eye something smoking and terrible. But she spoke with triumph, “I’m not running.”
“Then why are you here?” Jaune shook his head. “Hiding who you are, coming all this way? Why aren’t you gone?”
She stepped forward, and he stepped back. She replied, “Because I came this way for you. To take you home.”
It was Jaune’s turn to laugh, but with a bleakness. “No, I came for the Maiden, and you—”
“You found her. Go. Home.”
You don’t know where that really is, he wanted to tell her. But he had promised Qrow, after all. Success or failure, he would return to them, and from what Qrow had seemed to think, it would have been the latter. Just giving Jaune a merciful extension.
Maybe Jaune wanted to prove it to him.
So he just nodded. “Alright. I’m done. But if you come with me, where are you going next?”
“Depends. Do your little friends have room for a turncloak Fall Maiden?”
“I imagine that they would,” he said, half-lying, if only because he had no idea, but it was not a remote possibility. But the implications of what she had said unnerved him. Turncloak. “Okay. Fine. You’ll come with me. I’ll… finish this escort.”
“Good. And then—”
“And then nothing,” he finished for her. Because there was nothing left. Cinder was alive. That did not change how things had ended for them.
She fell silent.
They returned to the makeshift campsite, and she rewound the mask to cover her face. A rogue Fall Maiden was dangerous. But he chose not to think on it.
*
He found them a horse. They would have to ride together, but they could take the rougher trails this way, stay more anonymous. In exchange for some work on the farm she came from, the white mare would likely take them the rest of the way to Ruby’s keep.
Hoisting himself up, he extended a hand to pull Cinder up on the saddle behind him. She settled at his back, and wound her arms around his waist. It was just for balance.
They rode like that for the whole day.
Sun beating down at his neck, hot on his hair, the only sound the gallop of the mare, he slowed down for a rocky part threading through the wet green trees. Remnants of overnight rain.
He said to Cinder, “You were leading me in the direction back.”
“That’s right,” she replied easily. Something like a laugh and a puff of air brushed against him.
It was funny at his expense. She had one over him. They kept riding like that, until they found a small inn for the night. One room.
When they arrived inside, the next thing he accused her of was, “You’re hiding from Salem.”
Cinder took her time to reply. She spent it removing her disguise. Eventually she said, “Why, of course.”
“And you think this is enough to hide you from her?” He gestured to her outfit. The mask. “Salem? Her?”
“She believes me to be dead. And certainly not a vessel with enough will of her own to do something like this. Sometimes the best cover is a stupid one.” Cinder went to the window, crossed her arms, peered out with that characteristic brood. “And… she would know my leash to be severed. As good as dead. Perhaps she may catch wind you have a Maiden. Perhaps she won’t hear at all; I was lying to you about Salem’s agents spread across Vale. She has none. But either way, if you’ve managed to find a Maiden in a haystack… well. She would bide her time. But if it were truly me, she’d come. For punishment’s sake.”
Jaune considered it and set his bag down, then lowered himself at the end of the bed. Riding always left his legs sore. “Why would you cover your face, if you weren’t riding the news of your own faked death again?”
“Oh, Salem knew I was alive then. The arm. And Raven cleverly masked herself to conceal her own power,” Cinder returned easily. “The eyes are a giveaway, after all. Common Maiden sense. But perhaps most of all, I wouldn’t be caught dead in white— if you permit me the irony. So you see? Too many faultlines. Salem hates those.” A sharp pause. “And then, well, even you barely believed—”
“Enough,” he said. Searched for something to distract him.
Cinder pulled off the glove covering her left arm, and drew up her sleeve. She came forward to show her offering. Her forearm was covered in tiny iridescent feathers shimmering in the light, lilacs and blues and greys, revealing new colours as she turned it back and forth.
“You told me it was getting worse,” Jaune observed faintly.
She hummed. “Your Semblance began to change it. I just took it a little further. I could sense Salem through the curse, and she me… until it began to recede.” After a pause, she added so quietly he was not sure he heard her, “What’s a Grimm with a soul?”
Jaune wanted to stroke it. Kept his hands firmly square at his lap. He was quite sure, from the patch of skin showing at her bicep, that where it had been creeping up her shoulder instead had now worn back to its rightful place.
“That should address your worries,” said Cinder.
He had to harden his heart.
From his backpack, he pulled out his bedroll and settled it on the floor, in the small passage to the bed. The one feeling he could look forward to was being completely exhausted from travel, lights out.
“Take the bed.”
Jaune wanted to ignore her, but he had to say, “I want you to have it.” Let him have this one thing. Extend courtesy where he could not have her.
He heard her arrange herself with a fuss on the bed, after she completed her ablutions. Getting under the rough hewn blanket. Her angry sigh. The sound of her breath. Her legs kicking under the blanket, until she finally gave in and turned onto her stomach to get comfortable.
Jaune was tired, but he could not sleep. Just to survive he had to forget her. It was almost funny. She was alive. She did not love him.
He fell asleep long after her and woke before her. When he did, he crept up near her, barely let his weight rest on the edge of the hard mattress. In her sleep, she had moved onto her side but left her mask on, so he could not look at her. It was probably for the best.
They rode on.
*
Jaune had only one last job to do. At the nadir of the hill, they looked up towards Ruby’s keep. It was a veritable fortress now, farmlands surrounding it, layer after layer of settlement, maybe as great as Beacon had been. There was the rush of water singing nearby. That day, the sky was so clear it almost could have reflected the earth back.
They began their ascent. Likely that they would be seen well before they begged for entry. The gates opened as they approached, and they rode through without trouble. Past settled homes and stables, sewers and wells, up a winding road to the second gate— again, no trouble, more homes, more unfamiliar faces, until he heard distant sussuration. Another Huntsman, or something like it, and a Huntress.
He felt Cinder grumble about that one, her breath passing his neck.
This was where the path became familiar to him, leading up to where the keep had first been taken before he left, the rest of the castle town seemingly built out in quick work during his absence. The third and final gate opened with an old man’s groan.
There stood Ruby, a red figure alone.
The mare took them forward a pace until he stopped, and he did not know what to say. Whether to get down and hug her. Coming down the steps from the main keep, he could see Ren and Nora approaching on quick feet. So he got down, said to Cinder, “Just give me a moment.”
As he turned to her, Ruby just said, “You… found the Fall Maiden.”
“Yeah,” he replied simply.
“Jaune,” she squealed, and then she grabbed him, less so to hug him than shake him. “You DID it.”
“I know,” he said, and for a moment success tasted sweet.
Ren and Nora stood back.
He was not sure if their last words to each other had irreparably broken what they had— that he had left once, left again by choice— until they both came over and he clutched at them both.
It would likely be cut short by what he had to say next.
“I need to be serious with you all for a moment,” he said. “Very— serious.”
Cinder huffed, drawing attention to her presence. All three of them turned to the strange masked woman, riding the pale horse.
“Do you promise not to hurt her?” Jaune asked them.
“Yeah, of course; why would we do that?” returned Nora.
“Do you promise to let her stay with us?”
Again, the affirmative, this time Ren and Ruby trading an uncertain glance.
“That no matter what, the Fall Maiden stays protected. That you trust me. That I’ve come back because— I found her, and she took me home.”
“Yeah, Jaune,” said Ruby. She had that strangely serious look on her.
For a moment he wondered if she had already figured it out.
“Oh, please,” said Cinder, “enough with the dramatics. I could take you all now and call it a day if I really wanted.” She pulled back the veil. “Just don’t let Salem cotton on. You don’t know her wrath the way I do.”
“Dramatics?” Jaune demanded, feeling dizzy. “Don’t be such a hypocrite.”
But before Cinder could defend herself, Ruby exclaimed, “It’s Cinder!”
“Now she’s here to play nice,” Jaune said with not an insignificant facetiousness, which he could not help.
“I don’t play nice,” Cinder helpfully added.
“But— she’s why you—” Nora started.
“It’s fine,” Jaune interrupted, before she could say anything more incriminating. “It’s over now. She’s alive. Hooray. None of you actually killed her.” He instead found himself having said something incriminating instead.
“What do you mean?” Cinder asked.
“I—” Jaune turned away. Wanted to bury what had happened before he left. They had not wanted to track a Maiden, and he, really, had not wanted them to come with him anyway. Had he yelled? One of you killed her. One of you did this. “Where can she stay?”
“Plenty of rooms here,” offered Nora. She sent a glance between Cinder on the mare and Jaune leaning against her side. Nora gathered herself. “Hell, we’ll take a Maiden if she wants to join.”
Jaune raised his brows in part sardonic shock.
“I agree,” agreed Ren. “Particularly since she brought Jaune home.”
“Yang and I sent Qrow,” Ruby added, crossing her arms. “He definitely had something to do with it too.”
“I’m sure that debate will keep you entertained for a while,” said Cinder. “Now, where does this noble steed go?”
He knew better than to think it was over with.
Jaune led her to the stables. He offered her a hand down, and she took it, as she lowered herself down on a step of flame.
“Nice trick,” he told her.
They found her a room at the highest part of the castle, to give her a little space from the rest of the thoroughfare, the comings and goings of scattered Huntsmen and Huntresses, and perhaps considering her contentious background.
It was an old, dusty room, fitted with an old, dusty bed, but Cinder clicked her fingers and burnt away the rot. The bedding he helped her wash and hang out to dry until it could be set back on the bed again, and easy as that, she had a room fit for a queen. Stonework, a stained glass window casting red, yellow, blue, green, pink light in the room, he could not say it was to her tastes before— expensive, grand, open. But it would be hers.
But a small desk in the corner seemed like the perfect place for her to pen death threats. The note in his pocket felt like a stone. Jaune considered his task complete.
“I just want you to know that you’ll be safe here,” he said in parting. Cleared his throat and made for the door.
“Safe?” She hummed. “And where are you going, then?”
“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. He stood at the doorjamb, ready to pass through.
“Why don’t you stay, and tell me why it was that I found you in the middle of nowhere.”
Such a sly entreatment, careful and measured. Jaune huffed. “You already know why.”
“I thought you liked talking,” she said, “I thought you’d—”
“What is there left to say?” he snapped at her. She had said that she did not love him. Now he was not even useful for the intelligence he could offer.
Cinder’s face stared at him, half-scarred, one eye dark and black, with a careful measuredness. He wondered if she were remembering too.
He righted himself and marched off, rudely leaving the door open behind him. Each step took him further and further and deeper yet deeper into the bowels of the old keep until he found an unmarked room in an unmarked dungeon which he took for himself.
Ren and Nora would probably want to share.
They were probably still thinking he just had a temporary loss of sanity. Jaune gone mad because he had to go find a Maiden, and then what do you know, he dragged one home. Or she dragged him. Hard to say.
*
He could rest a while. Jaune had done it. Fall Maiden returned. Nowhere else to go. There was Salem, but she was playing the long game, and Jaune had been on his feet for months.
Sleep came. In the morning, at the end of his sleepsack, a folded piece of paper sat obtrusively. Jaune reached for it, wondering who had sent a note for him— an errant timetable? A Huntsman schedule?— and when he opened it he did not know what to think. This was the poem he had destroyed.
But no. It was longer. It made it sadder than he remembered, though Jaune was no good at getting it, even if it made his stomach flutter. He wondered what made her feel this way. There was always something quietly meditative and observant about her; he sometimes wondered if she were really only made to fight.
It was hard to think that Cinder was somewhere near him, sleeping and eating and talking; settling in; watched with wary eyes, but welcomed all the same. It was like Nora had said: it was hard to reject a Maiden, no matter who she was.
He found it funny. Sometimes, when he caught glimpses of her around the keep, he was even jealous.
Her voice came echoing. That warm drawl. Someone had said something that made her sarcastic, followed by a titter of laughter. It drifted away, and Jaune circled back around to the ghost of the conversation, maybe hoping to see her, maybe not. Instead he found a tiny feather on the floor. He went to pick it up, knew where it had come from instantly, and raised it to run it over his mouth. Soft as her skin. Later, hid it under his pillow.
Ruby and Ren and Nora and everyone else had cajoled him into attending the morning meetings, and Cinder was always present, so he at least saw her there. He sat patiently through them, and offered commentary where necessary. Avoided the burning stare.
Jaune had to go out for food eventually, and he had to see his friends. The sight which greeted him when he came to the court hall stopped him in his tracks. He lurked near the entryway just to catch Cinder sitting amongst his teammates like she belonged there, before they noticed him.
He admitted to fantasising about it a few times. Forbidden, of course; any promise of her permanency in his life was something he avoided thinking about as much as possible. Cinder? Staying with him? His friends? Absurd. He could hear it in her voice, even.
It was not as easy as she let on to those around her. Jaune knew her well enough to sense an uncertainty about her. She sent double glances at Ruby and sat on the opposite end of the table to Emerald and Mercury— a wayward companion who had joined them in Jaune’s absence— but it was still Cinder Fall conducting court.
She had blended into Beacon pretty well, after all.
Jaune’s first instinct was to turn around and leave, right up until Cinder caught him watching. She could probably sense his gaze boring into the back of her head. She gracefully removed herself from the spot she had comandeered and left the din of conversation behind to meet him where he spied.
"You shouldn’t stalk,” she chided. “You’re much less artful about it than me.”
He did not know to do with her approach, so he said, “I wasn’t stalking.”
She quirked a mean smile at that, then dragged him over to eat. Just like that, Jaune was sitting there with them and talking like normal. He avoided the meat, but his appetite had finally come back. Deep down, he missed the food they had together in the hotel and that secreted safe house of hers, but the fare in front of him tasted better with her beside him.
What had been buried came slouching back. That night, he awoke with a fright— in the lonely, dark damp hole he had made for himself, he was so certain it had all been his own invention. Stranger things had happened, and friends had long been dead. Cinder was dead. This had been a fact he told himself until he almost believed she had never been alive in the first place.
On dreaming feet, Jaune lumbered out of his exile. Dark corridors and darker corners, lit only by fire— warm, deceiving, heady, sleepy— then there, her door, a knock, his breathing, hers. In a flurry he grabbed her by the jaw, so gently, so softly, just to feel her skin, and he said, almost dull and stupid, “It wasn’t a dream?”
“No,” Cinder promised.
Then she kissed him. It was a dry, desperate thing, touching just to feel and be felt. Her mouth encompassing his. Her tongue driving into his. Jaune, just having to take it— anything— anything at all. Dizzy, half-awake, half-sleeping, the blood in his body hot, he melted against her, and it seemed only natural that they fell into her bed.
It was a good dream.
He found that he was crying. He was not entirely sure why; she was here, if only for a moment, and if there were any pain, it was the right sort. Her nightgown was barely pushed up around her waist, her underwear thrown somewhere unimportant, before she demanded, “Get in.”
His shirt stayed on. He did not want her to see him. But he could obey. If it had been tender, and if she had wanted him to take the time, he would have had his mouth on her. But all Cinder wanted was something perfunctory. Scratch the itch. Chase off the bad thoughts. Maybe she had bad dreams too.
What had he told her? It came back to him, shamefaced from hiding. It would be making love. It still felt like love when he began to thrust inside her, inch by inch. He hid his face against her neck, and fucked her the way she had liked it.
No, it had not been easy to forget. Pressed inside her, he knew then that it was absolutely her— not an illusion, not a Semblance, not him losing his mind. The tight hug of her pussy around his cock was like nothing else. It was her. The whimpers. No one else heard those whimpers but him. Like a beast summoned from hiding, he wanted her, in a frenzy. He had her faster than he wanted, but a sigh later, he heard a desperate cry right before he felt that familiar tensing, and it seemed to go on and on, as she urged him, “Harder.”
He noticed, deliriously, that her orgasm seemed to stretch hungrily on. In— in— in, drawing him in deeper, until he came right inside her as if he had never left. Could she feel it in there?
In his arms, he thought then how precious she was, frightening and mysterious and soft. He pulled out of her with regret.
Cleaning her up afterwards came on instinct. He feared her seeing him too much, thankful for the shadows, sorry for the mess he left her with, as his semen gushed out of her just to spite them both. Her brow furrowed as she held her knees open for him, as if he had always taken care of her like this, with no pause at all. It was terrible that he wanted to have her again.
It had been so long.
He just hoped that she was satisfied. When Jaune righted himself, and went to leave the bed, she grabbed him by the forearm.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked in a sex-rough voice.
“Back to my room,” he replied.
“You won’t stay?”
Funny that it was her asking it this time. Jaune would not stay.
*
With the bag at his back, he went to poke his head into the tower.
Cinder was sprawled back in her chair in her queenly way. Her hair spilling down her shoulder, that same old hand flexing and curling in the air, but this time her talons were rounded and transluscent, milky and pale. That survey of the room on her face, as if one moment removed from violence.
Jaune had been staring at her too long.
She caught him. He made to leave as quickly as he could.
They would not notice him taking a horse whilst they were busy talking amongst themselves. Just down the stairs and through the courtyard and past the entryway to the keep, and then the stables. Well, he would have made it to the stables if his shoulder had not been tightly grabbed.
He went to elbow his assailant in the face until she caught it.
Cinder said, “What stunt are you pulling, exactly?”
“I’ve got a special job,” he lied.
“I’d have heard about it in one of those petty little meetings. You all keep a noticeboard like a pack of schoolchildren. Try again.” She released him.
“I want to leave,” he tried instead.
“Salem doesn’t like you,” Cinder said. “She might not want to hunt you down like a silver-eyed beast or a Maiden, but she doesn’t like you all the same. You’d be watching your shoulder at every turn. It wouldn’t be safe.”
“Why would Salem bother with me?”
“You can’t leave your friends,” Cinder sneered, dodging his retort.
“I already did before.”
“And yet, there are no more Maidens to be found.”
Jaune had no chance against her. He huffed in frustration and rolled his eyes. If he had not been so sentimental— his own chastisement in his head sounded just like her. If he had not stopped to take one last look— but then, if it did not hurt to be near her, he might not have been leaving in the first place.
“See,” Cinder returned smugly, self-satisfied. “Admit defeat and come back. Don’t you want to play nice?”
“No,” he said shortly.
Her brow furrowed. “What has got into you?”
He sent her a dour look.
“No. You mentioned something about my untimely demise. You—”
“Assumed that someone had gone against my careful double-sided plan, yeah, and tried to and succeeded in killing you. I got the person wrong. That’s why I went alone. Well, they also thought I had no hope in hell, so there’s that too.” That bitterness stirred again. “Qrow came to find me out of pity.”
“Lucky he did. You were impossible to track. And that old woman didn’t help; she sent me the wrong way.”
“Rosemary,” Jaune said quietly.
“So that’s the crone’s name. I got the causation wrong. You weren’t going where the Grimm were; they were following you. Like a sad storm.”
“She sent me towards you.”
“Oh,” Cinder said.
“She also beat me with her cane,” he added.
Cinder scowled at that. “Perhaps I’m not so thankful for her after all.”
Jaune almost laughed. It was at that height of levity he said, “The best cover is a stupid one.”
“You might say that.”
“You said that. You had been telling most of the truth.”
“A few lies, but most of the truth. Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t figure me out sooner. I didn’t know how to approach you. You were thorny.”
Now she knew how it felt. “Well, I had to forget you.” It tore at something inside him— too honest— snapping the remaining breadth of temporary lightness in half. He thought of what had passed between them when he believed her to be a dangerous stranger. She had used things he had told her as a cover, as if to tease him. It was so like her that it hurt.
She had asked about the burn. He flexed his hand, feeling for the tight skin. She tracked the movement.
But it was now that she said, “I searched for you.”
“Well, you found me.”
“Don’t go. I don’t want to do it again.”
There was a difference between forgetting her and not loving her. Jaune was not sure what to say to her. They did not belong to each other. He wanted more than she could give. Still hungry for scraps.
Yet there had been a bravery in leaving before. Now it was just cowardice. A good strategist would know the difference.
A crow’s call squawked out, nasal and flat, and annoying to boot. It could only be Qrow. Ruby had taught him to tell the difference. So her uncle had come back in turn.
Jaune sighed.
“You’d better go prove him wrong,” Cinder suggested drily.
Walking the way back with her felt right. He could not say why. Why her? The real question: why had it been him?
He had temporarily held her interest. And he wondered what he would have done, if he were a little more pathetic, a little more ruthless, to have it again. Up the stairs, to the big doors, he stashed his carrybag near the entryway and stood near the window, as Ozpin was mid-conversation with Qrow and Ruby.
“Well, look who’s back,” Qrow said, hands on his hips. “Nice job.”
Jaune said, “You thought I wouldn’t manage it.”
“Nah.” Qrow laughed. “Hell no. Then again, from what I’ve heard, you had a little help, since the Maiden herself found you.” He sent a glance at Cinder. He went sour. “Yeah, speaking of, I take it since Raven’s back in our good graces, it’s open season?”
“I believe it’s a gift horse and mouth type situation,” said Ozpin. “And you’re welcome to cast the first stone at me, if it helps.”
“Whatever.” Qrow sent Jaune a hard look then, but then he hummed to himself, in thought.
“Since you seem to know Cinder best,” Ozpin began, addressing Jaune, “perhaps it might put Qrow and the others at some ease if you answer a few questions for me.”
“I am here, you know,” Cinder said in disgust.
Ozpin hummed in agreement. “Quite. He’s also presently your best ally and advocate. Let’s put it in a gentle way, yes?”
Cinder came over to stand beside him at the window. He realised that he had taken her brooding spot.
“You trust her, yes?” Ozpin began then.
Jaune said without forethought, “Yeah.”
He wondered if his answers might skew biased with her in the room. But then, that would ignore who Cinder was and the things she had done: if he could say these things under her watchful eye and dagger, it would almost certainly be the truth. It would be obvious if forced or rehearsed. This was pure instinct.
“But you did not know,” Ozma delicately offered, “about the matter of her demise.”
Qrow whistled. “How’d she pull that one over you?”
“I am more concerned as to why,” Ozma said, turning his head in deference to Qrow. “The how is… well, I am familiar with reports of my death being greatly exaggerated.”
At that, Qrow scoffed.
But getting to her feet, choosing to speak up, Ruby said, “No, no, hang on. Hang on a minute. You acted like some plan of yours had gone wrong. It had something to do with her.”
“Ruby,” said Oscar this time, “do you mind—?”
Jaune cut in, “You said do whatever I had to do.”
“But you didn’t know she was going to die?” Ruby demanded.
Jaune shook his head.
“She wanted to kill you. She left you the death threat! How do you go from that— to— to— blowing up at us!”
“She didn’t leave a death threat.” Not that time, anyway. “She left—” Jaune fumbled here, knowing it was something from a past life, that it would dredge up something which should have stayed forgotten. He sighed. “She left a different sort of note for me, Ruby.” A love note. It was a love note.
It seemed that Ruby was unable to decide whether to be confused or offended. Then something like an ironic pity entered her expression. “Oh, man. I basically told you to have an affair with her. Eugh!”
“We were already having one,” he snapped. “And then it finished. Are we done here?” Jaune crossed his arms. The tension running through him, taut like a bowstring. Him, between Cinder’s fingers steady on the bow. He refused to look at her, steadfastly so, but when he gave in, he could not say what she was thinking. Something stirred in her.
He took the opening of the silence, and deigned to finally answer Ozpin. “Cinder didn’t do it for me, if that’s what you were thinking.”
Was Ozpin smiling? It was a bizarre sort of serenity, anyway.
Jaune waited before he went on. He turned to Cinder. Surely it would be better for her to speak to herself. But the misery dripping off of her confused him. She did not speak— perhaps could not.
So he spoke for her. “But it was enough to die for. So what would make you do that? Now she’s here. I told her to find somewhere to hide—” and now he was really speaking to her instead, “— but you insisted on coming with me.”
Ozpin was undisturbed by Ruby’s detour, and simply asked, “And you don’t think she would have a nefarious motive at all?”
“Of course I have a nefarious motive,” Cinder said, with irony.
“Salem had a way of controlling her,” Jaune answered evasively, liking where this was going less and less. “It cost Cinder a… high price to break it. Salem would only take her back on the condition of being the Fall Maiden, and honestly? She’d probably kill her for it. Find a new replacement.”
“I see,” Ozma said. Carefully blank.
Jaune felt a muscle twitch beneath his eye. Flexed his left hand.
“And if she procured the last Relic— do you think Salem would allow her back into her good graces, as it were?”
Sitting right in front of Jaune was the only pair of people in Remnant who knew where it was. In fact, that day, when he and Cinder had shared the beginning of something unnameable, she had been looking for Oscar.
Had Cinder faked her death for the greater good? Giving them the strategic upperhand— wiping out Salem’s forces in one go— disappearing her one and only Maiden candidate? Why would that align with what Cinder wanted? She had been tormented. She was brilliant.
So Jaune said, because he loved her, “She wouldn’t.”
“I hadn’t even thought of that until now,” Cinder mused. “I enjoy this line of interrogation. Could you elaborate? Does killing you again figure anywhere in there?”
“Hm. That would be rather unfair to Oscar,” Ozpin said blandly.
Jaune rolled his eyes at Cinder and told her, “Could you not threaten Ozpin?”
“I could keep playing this line all day, really.”
Jaune shook his head at her, mock disappointed with her facetiousness. He turned to Ozpin and asked, “Is that enough vouching?”
It was Qrow who answered, “Enough for me. Hell, I buy it.” Qrow gestured with his hand, allowing it to represent all of Jaune’s emotional frailties and hare-brained quest. “Yeah. Okay.”
A look of mystery wore on Oscar’s face. It could only belong to Ozpin, an ancient scheming. A pit opened in Jaune’s stomach. Cinder seemed to sense it as he felt her move but an inch closer to him.
Ozpin cleared his throat.
“That was an interrogation leading somewhere, as it happens,” Ozpin said. “Hm. Everything seems to be about Relics, doesn’t it. You say Cinder herself cannot return to Salem. And you, Jaune— wandering disillusioned for many moons— it makes one think…”
“Makes you think what,” Jaune said flatly.
“You so object to the notion of my sacrificing others readily. Why, I think even Salem should know by now about your problems with me. But we’re working blindly with her now. She’s gone dark, as it were. I put this to you: what would Salem think of you coming to her with a certain Relic, asking for refuge? Revenge? What could you possibly learn from such an opportunity?”
The only person who spoke in the still silence was Ruby, leaping out of her seat, saying, “What does Oscar think of this?”
So Oscar came back out and said, “Jaune should think about it.”
Jaune was thinking about it. He stared at Oscar. He thought about it. And thought about it. And thought about it some more, as the tension of the room bore on, and Cinder bubbled with rage. Fury on her face.
“I’d never take you for being so calculated,” Cinder drawled with a dangerous edge. Then she slowly approached the table, a rising predator, smooth and graceful. “In fact, this is pretty low for you, old man. You would throw everything I did into the dust for your STRATEGY? HIM? YOU’D PUT HIM NEAR HER?” Cinder’s voice rang out, surging up from what sounded like the bottom of her belly.
“It is merely a suggestion, which Jaune can choose to—”
“Had I known you so strategically deficient, perhaps I should’ve left your last Academy to be claimed by the sands. I knew you to be arrogant, but this arrogant? He went looking for the Maiden when it cost him all he had, and you would ask more? You would let Salem dig her claws into him for even a moment? You would dare risk that?” Cinder slammed her fists into the table. “Let me make this very clear.”
Jaune found himself too enraptured with her to gauge what anybody else was thinking.
Cinder, with a deep menace, gritted out very slowly, “His personal safety is contingent on my allegiance. Consider that your mere suggestion, if you are worried about preserving the knowledge of the Relic from me.”
A fractured pause, then, “Ah,” Ozpin answered, clasping his hands together. “Yes. You’ve made the matter very clear. I perfectly understand now, actually. I’m not worried about the Relic.”
Cinder furrowed her brow. “You’re… not?”
“No, no, I think that’s settled.”
It felt as if she had slid one of her obsidian knives through his ribs. He could hardly take his eyes off of her. Jaune said, “If you want my opinion, it sounded like a stupid plan anyway.”
Her furious gaze met his. For a terrible instant, he wanted to throw her on the table, pull her underwear aside and slide home. It was almost like she sensed the thought, as her brow instead raised, and her peach mouth opened in something like surprise.
“It is stupid,” Cinder agreed. The perfect curl of black hair dripping down her shoulder made her angry and lovely.
“Right? Salem wouldn’t buy it, and she wouldn’t tell me anything useful, either. If she’s half as clever as you, she’d feed me false information. Been there, done that, and as my dad would say, got the t-shirt.”
That knocked an uncertain laugh out of Cinder. One of those bright ones. Not mean. Something approaching kind. He wondered why she had started to blush. Jaune had to gather himself before he did something really stupid like pull her towards him and kiss her.
It was at that moment he finally caught Ozpin’s self-satisfaction, and Jaune knew, then, what he had done. Ozpin could not help himself, and Jaune, for a moment, almost wanted to laugh at Oscar going along with it. Unless Oscar had thought of it first!
He had done it to make a point. He had never doubted the Relic. Cinder had just proved where her loyalty and commitment really resided.
“Okay, screw the Relics,” Jaune decided. “I’ll see you all later.”
So he left just like that, shaking his head at Ruby’s laughter in response.
It was Cinder’s turn to scoff. He heard her say in parting, “Screw the Relics.”
He wanted to find somewhere that Ozpin could not look out the window and stick his nose into other people’s business, though he would allow that was a tall order, considering his meddling— though Jaune would rank it a little less problematically below Salem’s.
Jaune walked rapidly nowhere in particular. A twinned set of footsteps behind him suggested he was not alone, though.
“Are you following me?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Hunting, perhaps,” said Cinder. “I enjoyed myself back there.”
“Which part? Oh wait—” He mock waited, pretending to think. “Threatening Ozpin, I guess.”
“With you, of course.”
“I didn’t threaten him,” Jaune corrected. Then he added, glib, “You did kill him, you know. I kind of thought maybe you’d have got it out of your system back then.”
Cinder hummed in consideration. “Hard to make it matter to a man familiar with dying.”
“I suppose there’s that,” Jaune said around a choked laugh.
She appeared at his shoulder then, wearing an impetuous smile. Not a smirk, but a smile. Jaune shook his head at her as she led the way. In no time, they had crossed the winding stairs and the pavillion to come out to the grassy courtyard, where an old oak tree hugged its edges. Dappled sunlight. Warm, for an autumn day.
The red branches overhead fluttered in the still air, as if answering a silent call of its Maiden.
“You had to lie to Salem,” he said finally.
Cinder shrugged a shoulder. “I may have had some familiarity with it already.”
“And you had to make her believe you had no reason to ever go against her.”
“That it was in my own self-interest, yes. Fully in line with our previous bargain.”
Jaune went on with his deductions. “She monitored you.”
“I wasn’t sure to what degree, if that’s what you’re asking,” Cinder grumbled. “I doubt she— had much interest in—”
He made a face. “Okay. Wow. I hadn’t even thought about that. Gross. Do you think she watched—?”
“No! She’s— powerful and all-seeing, but disinterested in— such petty matters.”
Such petty matters, was a nice way to refer to their effective sex holidays. He had never heard Cinder so awkward. But then Jaune said, “That’s why you got me to cut the arm. So you could speak to me.”
“I told her that I was merely taunting you. Not expecting you to hurt me, after I—”
“I got it,” he interrupted in turn. “Mostly the truth but a few lies.”
“Some lies,” Cinder allowed. There was a long while before either of them spoke. They could do it freely, yet a silence followed. Some part of him savoured it.
Mouth twisted, a shimmer of something in her eyes, Cinder said, “I’m sorry. For what I did to you.”
“What are you sorry for?” Jaune said, and shrugged. “It’s just collateral. Honestly, I think it might be the most impressive thing you’ve ever done.”
“What?” She was surprised, searching up at him, maybe even offended. “I faked my death and had you think for months—”
“You tricked Salem. You found possibly the only way out from the situation you were in. It’s kind of hard for me not to admire that.”
Cinder frowned at him, and then began, “If it’d gone according to plan, I would’ve come for you shortly afterwards. But you disappeared. Just like that.” She clicked her fingers, a puff of flame, then it died out. “Instead, where I found your little friends, you were nowhere to be seen. I nearly killed them all in their sleep. The only thing that stayed my hand was that I heard rumblings of your search— imagine all of them dead. I bet that would’ve made you feel bad.” Cinder shook her head. “I didn’t account for your bleeding heart and Maiden complex.” She sent him a look of misery. “Or…”
“That it ruined me? Small detail. You’re free now. I don’t know why you haven’t just left. Gone where you wanted.”
“You’re smarter than this,” Cinder snapped, sharp as a whip, hounding on him. “You’re being intentionally ignorant.”
“I’m glad you didn’t kill my friends.”
“I thought about it,” she hissed. This close, they almost touched.
Jaune raised his hand to her face. The burnt arm against her soft skin. If his lower lip wobbled, he tried to ignore it. He was not lying to her when he said that he could not be mad at her for what she had done. The way she had planned it out was watertight, crystal-clear, if only missing one variable. When he thought of it now— of every moment he had anticipated some second motive, of every sheer impossibility— it washed away. Jaune knew what this was.
When he lowered his head to her, it was a gentle kiss that made him blush. There were hot salty tears dripping at his jaw, and he was sure he would get a snotty nose, and that would just ruin it. But Cinder threw her arms around his neck and held on, that familiar press of her lips soft and warm, her tongue insistent.
He had forced himself to forget what kissing her felt like. Soft and plush and pulling at something taut right down there in his stomach. It felt as forbidden now as it did then. Pulling back felt cruel. He flitted his gaze this way and that, cleared his throat. What could he possibly have to say to her now?
“Answer me this,” he said.
“Of course.”
“Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do? When I had to— cut your arm off.”
Cinder scowled at him. “Did you forget? You asked me to kill you. You had a deathwish, and I would not tolerate that.”
“Because I thought we were going to fight each other,” he told her miserably. But then he thought about it more. Who would mourn her? “I sold your death. To Salem.”
“I didn’t plan on that,” Cinder insisted.
“No, you did. Salem must have known how I felt about you, and you used it.” Jaune shook his head at her. “That’s smart. Do you think I could’ve put on the same performance if I knew you were really alive?”
“I never wanted that. I expected to find you afterwards, but I did not presume to recommence our previous—”
“Affair,” he offered for her. “Well, we should.”
“You should hate me.”
He shrugged. “You came back.”
It led back to her bed again. The way back this time had been long, and he had knocked on the wrong doors. But she had been right. They would see each other again. He tried not to let it knock the wind out of him, at least hide the reaction in watching her undress, throwing her clothes off in that characteristic way— torn between impatience and then care as she laid them down, mindful not to leave the threat of creases.
That was when she loped over, bare, and pulled at the straps of his armour. He had gone to take it off himself. She batted at him. It all came off so easily in her hands. But then with his shirt underneath, he suddenly grew shy. The longsleeve hid the burn up his arm, though his left hand showed its scarring. She went to kiss him, as if sensing his hesitation, and he thought it oddly sweet for her.
She went to tug at the bottom of his shirt. He stopped her with his good hand.
She furrowed her brow. In a rough voice she asked, “Do you want to stop?”
Jaune did not even know what to say. He had caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and recoiled from it. Different from the grey in his hair, that was for sure. It felt stupid to say I’m ugly now, but perhaps that was what she needed to hear. He pulled at the sleeve and held his arm out. Hoped she would figure it out.
She took him by the wrist and inspected it. Then Cinder said, “We match.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he returned quietly.
“What have I done to make you think I’d turn away?”
It could not be said. So Jaune distracted her with a kiss, and when she was not looking, with her eyes closed, he unworked his shirt mostly over his head. In a moment of distraction, he swept back in to kiss her. It was pretty well improvised, if he said so himself.
“I know what you’re doing,” she accused.
“I can’t get one over you, can I?”
She held him at arm’s length. “Must I say it?”
Jaune went to sit on the bed, jeans coming off with an unsexy caution. Aware of every fault in his move.
Cinder came to balance on a knee beside him, looking down at him.
“I’m not the person I was when you left,” he said to her then. “It’s not too late for you—”
“I know who you are.”
“I look—”
“Hush.”
He was only worth as much as he could give, and what was left?
She settled on the bed, crawling across to sit at the head of the bed. That graceful, predatory movement, strangely comforting to him. Her hair slipped down past her collar bone to cover the flush of a nipple.
“Salem never had very much respect for Aura, or Semblances for that matter,” said Cinder. “She impressed it upon me how wasteful they were. We spend all our time hunting for magic. You, walking across Remnant… me, well. But let me tell you this.” Cinder grabbed his scarred hand and raised it to her chest. “My soul recognises your soul. When I saw you in the clearing— I knew. I think maybe even before I turned my head. You looked a wreck, but it was you.”
Jaune had to kiss her. He did not know what to do with it otherwise, the thing in him. She said it so baldly, plainly, relating an observational truth to him, maybe even unaware of what it meant to him. It was just part of her plan of attack, her brand of strange sincerity. The way she opened up to him. His hands carded through her hair, brushing at her scalp, then ran down her shoulders and felt for the mysteriously smooth texture of her feathered arm.
She brought him closer and held him against her, and just like that, all he could do was kiss her. Kiss her stupid. Held against him tight enough, her breasts pressed against him, all his sharp corners gave way to her soft ones.
Then she kissed down his jaw, neck, bit at the skin there. It was just hard enough to feel good and not enough to hurt. Down his chest, she laved with her tongue more than she kissed— which for some reason made him expel a huffed laugh, maybe because it tickled and maybe because she just seemed downright hungry. For his stomach. His happy trail.
“I like this part,” she said.
“Just that part?”
Balefully, she glanced up. In answer, she moved a hand to cup him, and then she swallowed the head of his cock. It shocked a good gasp out of him. His foot kicked. They usually did not start this way. Her mouth was wet and she hollowed her cheeks around him. In answer, he raised a sympathetic hand to fix her hair so it would not annoy her, gathering it and holding it out of the way. He had room enough for that consideration.
That was when she looked up at him again and held eye contact. Jaune felt his stomach twist— naked, really naked, unreal. The sight of her bent in half with her mouth on his cock and a hand covering where her tongue could not reach almost broke him; she had him.
“You need— to stop,” he gasped out.
She popped off of him with a sick slick sound. His hand moved with her head. She asked, “Not enjoying it?”
“I want to be inside you,” he said pathetically.
“But you are.”
“You know what I mean.”
Cinder smiled. “All the better to wait, then.”
Did he whine? When she went back down on him, his hips bucked. Her lips were bright red with saliva. It was messy then: sloppy down her hands, wet dripping down past his balls, but he liked it. Her taloned hand held him down over his pelvis, and the pressure felt good. Held down. Her tongue pressing insistently over and over at the frenulum. He could not help a gasp— two— as he tried to warn her he was going to cum, only because he did not want her to have the unpleasant experience of a surprise. It seemed like she already knew, and she held eye contact as he came in her mouth. A little dribbled out, as she struggled to swallow it.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, panting, “come here, let me clean you up.”
“Look at you,” she said, wiping at her mouth with one hand, sitting forward up on her knees, “gasping and trying to breathe properly. Let me help you. You can barely sit up.”
He fought against it, floundering around the bedside table for a spare linen. He pulled her towards him and dabbed gently at the soft skin around her mouth. She grimaced at him as he did. He brought her forward for a kiss.
“Are you supposed to do that?” she asked flatly.
“I thought you liked it. The other way around, at least.”
Her brow drew down in offense, but she crawled closer until she sat between his legs. “You notice strange things about me.”
“Well, I kind of had to watch your every move.” He tilted his head at her. “I couldn’t stop noticing you.” Even that old smile of hers when he could only hate her had been burnt on the back of his lids. Maybe noticing gave way to something else.
“You were busy looking for a second motive,” she mused. “I was busy trying to keep you near.” She kissed him, holding him by the jaw, and this time it was right on the mark chaste. She pulled back and surveyed him. “You didn’t consider the simplest possibility.”
“Simple but stupid,” he told her. “And you— you did try using me. Feeding me false information.”
“I just wanted to see what you’d do. And you outplayed me. It was fun.”
He laughed, and resented how much it sounded like a giggle. “That was the deciding factor?”
“Oh, I was ready to tender my resignation to Salem then and there.”
“And that was it?”
“That was not it,” she said quietly, seriously. “I reordered my priorities. Hard to see the leash when it’s holding you back by the throat. What was it you said? You wanted me to choose it for myself?”
Jaune sent his gaze this way and that. It was bordering on something he found very hard to remember. So he just shrugged. “Something like that.”
“You sad thing,” she demurred. “Salem would keep me to herself forever. You’d let me go.”
“Okay, we don’t need—”
“And that’s why I’ll come back to you,” and then she kissed him, unseating him body and mind. Chaste no more. Right for the jugular, in her own way.
He loved kissing her. Especially since she rarely did it by half and stuck her tongue in his mouth. He liked the idea she was trying to wriggle inside him, and he liked how soft her lips were, and the way her hands wandered over him to claim him and hold him near. He did involuntarily yelp a bit when her hands went on his bum, though.
But then she said in a dark croon, “You deserve something good.” She brushed his hair back behind his ear. “It’s much longer now.” It was well past his shoulders since she had last seen him.
Jaune groaned. “Oh, no. I just realised it was you who saw me all— ugh.”
“Feral? Underfed? Unwashed? I didn’t judge you. I was like that when I was a little girl.” She considered it, and then added mischievously, “And I like your musk.”
He settled them so she was lying on her back, him resting beside her on his elbow. He knew that she would not want to meditate on her younger self with any pity. It was all he could do but look at her, that impish smile— the crease around her eyes— the feeling of her hand settled against his chest. The smile softened into a curious stare. He just had to kiss her on the brow for it, then slid his left hand up her stomach in a gentle trail to cup her breast. He worried that the scarred skin would be rough against her, but the little sound she let out seemed to indicate she liked it. So soft and full. The gentle drooping peak of her blushing nipple pebbled as his thumb brushed over it.
“I need to eat you out,” he said. “I hope that’s alright with you.”
“You’ve always got to announce it.”
“Sorry,” he apologised, not sorry at all. He slid down between her legs and held her thighs spread with his hands. Then he forgot what he was going to say as he drank in the sight of her spread pussy. He was sure he wore a stupid expression. It hardly mattered.
As Cinder gasped in little desperate breaths of air, the pretty pink flush of her pussy fluttered in time. He had missed that tuft of hair. The swollen nub of her clit. The taste of her. When he finally put his tongue on her, he could have died happy. He drank her in, parched. Her thighs locked around his head, at first, but slowly, he prised her open, licked in, decided he would never move again. He sucked at her clit just the way he knew made her hips buck— her claws grab at him— and with his nose buried in her pubic hair, his chin digging into her, he sucked at her.
It was as if she had never left him, and they were somewhere in Vacuo, and she was his for a moment. Even that desperate and keening way she got right before she came was the very same, and he predicted it with satisfaction, as she bucked and whined and begged him to let her cum, give her what she wanted. Cinder got what she wanted. Something heavy set in his belly, the satisfaction at seeing her heaving breaths, that glazed hunting look in her eyes.
He sat up on his elbows, crawled a little closer to brush at her brow, and then kiss her with his mouthful of pussy.
“I missed you,” he admitted dreadfully. It was meant to only be offhanded, and instead came out choked.
Her forehead came against his. “Do you know what it cost? To betray you?”
“You didn’t betray me,” he said.
“It felt like I did. It wore me down to the bone.” She stopped, and sat up properly, drawing him against her again. “My best hope was simply that I was nothing more than a mistake to you, even when I found you.”
“Shh,” he tried to hush her.
“I had hoped,” she doggedly went on, “that you would have grown to hate me again, and I would find you alive and well.”
“Too bad.”
“No,” Cinder said, as she shook her head at him, then through her teeth she gritted out, “it was the only outcome which made it bearable.”
“That’s your problem right there. The fact that you were capable of it…” He paused, finally accepting it, “It’s the reason I couldn’t get you out of my head.”
She hid a cry against his mouth. His poor, tender Fall Maiden.
They kissed like that for a while. Laid side by side on the bed, it was sleepy and cosy, just kiss after kiss, lazy tongue tickling hers. Her thigh hitched over his, eventually. The hard length of his cock brushed against her abdomen. If only he could slip into her just like this. She thrust against him like it was possible, but Jaune pushed himself back up with all his might to get in closer and nudge his cock inside her.
“Easy, easy,” he tried to calm her. “I’m sorry— I wasn’t rough last night, was I?”
“No,” she gasped out.
“I just—” It came painfully. He tried not to think of it. He would go inside her, and then it would be alright.
Cinder put her soft feathered hand against his chest. “Tell me.”
“I knew what I was getting into. I don’t regret it. Before I knew it, I would’ve had anything you were willing to give.”
Then her answer followed, “Everything.”
So Jaune blurted, “You lied to me. When you said you didn’t love me.”
She nodded.
He slid inside her. Her mouth popped open. Too much, too overwhelming, so painful to be filled with something. But he felt her flutter around him, and he could not help encouraging her, “Take it.” She could have whatever she wanted of him in turn. Easy, easy, inch by inch, she swallowed him up.
“You like it, don’t you,” he found himself telling her.
She gasped, almost offended. “Like what.”
“How we fit together.”
“Patently.”
Jaune choked out something like a gasp or a moan or perhaps just something primordial and desperate. “Like I was made to fit inside you,” tumbled out, near delirious. “Do you— do you like that?”
She nodded, but she was frowning.
“It’s okay,” he added stupidly, as he balanced on his knees and brushed the hair at her forehead. Deep inside her, unmoving. “You were made first, and then me,” like she was worried all she was was an echo of him, “and when you died, I stopped existing.”
A gasp, then, “I didn’t really die.”
“But I thought you did.”
“And yet.” If it were possible, Cinder’s legs tightened around him further in a tight cocoon. “You went looking for me.”
He shuddered. She seized the opportunity to suggest movement with her hips, just a wild touch, to somehow draw him even deeper into her.
Then right in his ear she said, “And you found me.”
When they had thought he was going to fail.
“Maybe you knew somewhere deep down, when I couldn’t tell you. You’re right. We fit together.” Another thrust upwards, needy. “Hurry up and fuck me.”
“Always so pushy,” he teased her, brushing her hair at the brow, feeling her pulse where he pressed velvet-slick inside her, warm and wet, thud thud.