(D11, LE) Quantum of Solace (Expecting)

[Moto Butaj]

"I asked Hirase to pack our saddlebags. I bet he packed a few things that will make the tent comfortable, on top of my furcoat." He breathes deeply at her touch of his chest, letting her feel the extent of undulation she has caused. His lips parse the skin of her neck as hot air comes in soft blows from between them. On the path of kisses down to where her neck breaks into collar. He loosens the hem there and kisses inside the concave triangle.

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki let out a little gasp as he kissed her lower. "Ahhh, you thought of everything." She slowly let out a deep breath and lifted her hands to play with his hair, leaning her head back to explore the stars and focus on the new sensation by touch alone. She quietly bit at her lower lip, but mostly allowed Butaj to do as he pleased, trusting him.

[Moto Butaj]

"I tried to prepare for anything, my love. You and I not going back to the village included." His lips climb back, this time along her windpipe and chin, claiming the responsive succulence of hers once he finds them. He then pulls her gently toward the fire, wrapped in his fur, slowly dissolving their physical connection for the time being as he prepares to rise. When he finally does, he whistles, calling Huludai. Soon after the kumis skin is in her hands while he is digging the tentpoles in. He starts humming a melody that sounds like it was from some very romantic Unicorn song.

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki smiled at Nutaj's preparedness. What would she do without him? As he sat her down, Yuki stared into the fire for long moments, then there was kumis in her hands. She thanked him with her warm smile and took a sip. She would drink it for his sake, even if she never acquired a taste for it.

"When I spoke to Baatar it... did not end well." She finally said as she looked up from the fire. She looked like she was about to ask him a question but stopped herself and shook her head. It didn't matter to her, really, and it would only make things worse to ask. "He is unwilling to accept a marriage where his wife loves another. I do not blame him for that. Were I in his shoes, I would say the same, I think." She looked down into the fire again and took another sip of kumis. "And I cannot bear to be the wife of a man who will not let me see you."

[Moto Butaj]

"The witch has been more accommodating. She won't interfere with a life you and I create out of the public eye on our own." He stops for a moment to listen to her with greater attention. "If I unraveled this betrothal, my Clan and the Moto in particular wouldn't take me back. I thought about this and as long as the witch stays away joining the Scorpion is some way forward. Some way for me to build and protect the life we can still have together. Khulun and Kitakuhime will join the Scorpion too, so even in that hostile Clan I won't be without friends. There is also Mizuki who has already tried to involve me in her shady business in Asako provinces, with being close to you there as part of my prize for aiding." He sighs. "But would you be there? Whatever I do or don't do depends on where I will be able to find you. What are you going to do now with Baatar, my love?" He finishes spreading and tying the cover over the tentpoles and moves to her side, kneeling beside her and taking her hand.

[Asako Yuki]

She smiled at Butaj having made plans already. "A marriage such as mine would only end in heartache, cursed by Benten as it is. Maybe I will take the honorable route and retire, anulling the marriage and saving Baatar and I the trouble." She smirked. "Then, as an itinerant nun I can make my way to scorpion lands."

[Moto Butaj]

"Where I will take care of you. We will live a shadowed life, but the more I think of it the more I feel it won't be a bad one. We won't be changing the world but the world will have a looser grip on us too. I care not for great things in life, but for you. If I live through serving the Scorpion, I will retire soon enough too so that we can have yet another life together." He kisses her tenderly, pulling into an embrace. His voice turns into a whisper but does not falter nor is disturbed by throat being clenched by emotion. He is not discovering anything about himself, just recapitulation the realisations of the longest day. "I love you more than anything I can think of, more than myself, where I come from, more than any other passion in my life. Of us both you are sacrificing more now, but please know there is no sacrifice I won't make for your sake, and for whatever children we may have one day. You have both my love and my... loyalty. Beyond that, I don't think I have to prove anything to anyone that is not for your sake. That may be making me a bad samurai but I will take it as long as I know that I have your love. This is the only thing I need to carry me through life with some sense of meaning to it." He looks deeply into her eyes, past her irises and pupils, then impulsively kisses both of them, the tip of her nose and her lips again.

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki smiled warmly at that. "I'm not sure a monk's life is one you would be suited well for just yet, love. Maybe once you and Huludai slow down a little." She giggled and kissed his chin again as he impulsively kissed her. Yuki's hands slipped down around Butaj's waist. "I would give up more, gladly, for you if I had to. Man cannot deny what the fortunes have decreed."

She broke away with a grin. "But I am distracting you from finishing the tent, and we may need that before the night is out."

[Moto Butaj]

"Then why don't you help me a little? You can arrange the inside while I fasten the last few things." He smirks as he reluctantly rises to finish their love spot shelter.

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki considered that for a moment and then nodded. "Hai." Was all she said as she slipped quickly into the tent, a sly smirk on her face.

She spent a little time setting up the furs, but more time preparing herself, sliding off her obi and piling it in one corner. She fluffed her hair up and tossed some of it in front of her face, like she'd read in those pillowbooks. Laying down on one side she slipped her kimono off of one shoulder and made certain her upper legs were miserly covered.

Then she waited.

[Moto Butaj]

Working on the outside, and humming, Butaj gets glimpses of the motion happening inside through the chinks in the tent fabric, but certainly not getting and full picture, just making conjectures. It is enough for his body to surprise him with an upsurge of heat that makes him toss away the loosened vest without further thought. Once the tent rests firm and steadfast on its pole, He kneels and slips inside.

The enrapturing beauty silhouetted by the fiery halo of their fireplace gives his pause before it speeds up his blood circulation akin to an Otaku horse race. For a few seconds he is at a loss of words as his body processes the strong impression, mounting excitement taking strides and leaps across him. He puffs his lips and flexes his muscular torso without the intention to do so before he finds words.

"Elongated shades in shelter discreet
Shan't obscure flames in my body lit
By lashes fanning like fire-lined wings
of rarest beauty; hereupon hearts meet"

He scoots close to connect, to collect one of the dispersed wisps of hair and give him a clear line to search for passion in her eyes.

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki was about to stand to try to saunter over, but Butaj's quick reaction surprises her and she giggles a little, still smiling at the reaction she got out of the man. Yuki looks right back for a moment, revealing passion and an intense nervousness that forces her to look down quickly, the red in her cheeks spreading down her neck and across her chest. Seeing her for the first time like this, Butaj can see that Yuki does not have the body of a courtier, with visible muscle structure just visible in the fire light. Her modesty is still kept at the moment, barely.

[Moto Butaj]

Butaj's expression at the increasingly revealed beauty of his beloved is not sultry but joyful, enthusiastic in his eyes but considerate in actions. As he has had no prior experience with willowy pillowy women of eastern courts, her body is what he would expect of a warrioress, so there is no confusion, just admiration and wonder about the things she can physically do with him deeper into the night. He does not prey on her modesty, at least not yet, but moves to challenge and overcome her anxiety by cherishing the parts of her that already reflect glimmers in the firelight. "I love you. Be mine. Now and ever." His hand sweeps the remaining strands and his lips claim hers, the kiss channeling devotion like when a steed is gathering pace. He wants to intoxicate her with breathlessness, make her bashfulness, however sweet it is, subside. with his stalwart arm around her waist he stems simple collapsing into the furs, and chooses to keep her floating, hovering.... As his lips grant hers reprieve and descend down the flushed neck.

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki returns the kiss with equal passion, her arms once more traveling to his waist and fumbling with the belt she finds there. She moans quietly at all the touching and kissing. "Yes. Forever." She murmurs as seductively as she can. As Butaj descends, Yuki lets out a light gasp and her fumbling with his belt ceases as she allows Butaj to take control of the night, with the promise that there would be many more.

/ftb?

[Moto Butaj]

Once inhibitions break down, an unhurried intensity ensues. Hirase's earlier advice, very in line with Butaj's own thoughts and feelings about how to make the first of of their many nights extraordinary, is followed to a t or even further down the gaijin alphabet, and then spelled all the way back. The songs of their bliss will rise and fall many times until dawn breaks, joined with the nocturnal music of the steppe.

Their new beginnings are nor what they hoped for, but if love is measured by the amount of bridges one must burn, people one must hurt, dreams one must sacrifice, and pressures one must withstand to have it, then theirs is when and where burning coals become diamonds.

/FtB
/Scene
/The End