Before the Masquerade, you (Elf!MC Raine) ask Tyril to teach you a dance, and teach him one of your own.
“If you hold your arm out like this…” Tyril demonstrates, and you try not to laugh at the seriousness of his expression as he holds his arm out like a statue, pointing directly at the wall with all the attention of an archer.
“You look like you’re about to go into battle.” You snicker, biting your bottom lip, and the laugh reverberates around the empty room. The elf looks thoughtful for a moment, letting his arm drop to his side, then turns to you.
“I suppose it does bear some similarity.” A few moments pass in his reflection, then he lifts his arm again and gestures for you to do the same. “Since you have more experience there than here, perhaps you can transfer some of those skills?”
“Can I also wear my gauntlet?” you ask as you follow his lead, resting your hand against his. Tyril’s lip trembles for a moment as he tries not to react. “You never know when the Grobtars are going rear their ugly heads.”
“Perhaps not right this second,” he says, turning to you again, “we’re not in battle now.” His words settle around you, but you aren’t so sure. Not the kind of battle you’re used to, perhaps.
Tyril directs you to position your hand so your shoulder is relaxed, standing back to watch. You take up his hand again, feeling the warmth of his palm against your own. A different kind of battle. He nods, faces you again, and you shudder as his other hand rests high on your waist.
“Now if you place your other hand on my shoulder,” he advises, “that is the starting pose for the Masquerade Waltz.”
You look down to where his hand sits securely on your waist, fingers parted for a surer hold. Warmth flows from his touch, reaching your cheeks, and you drift from the room for a moment.
“Raine?” He says warily, and when you don’t answer, begins to withdraw his hand. You are quick to hold it there, returning to the room, and shoot him a wide grin.
“Guess this one gets close, huh?” Once sure he won’t move his hand again, you place yours atop his shoulder, and swallow a reaction as his thumb glides over the fabric of your outfit.
“If you’re uncomfortable…”
“I’m not,” you say, perhaps a little too quickly, and he nods, that perfect tiny smile gracing his lips before his focus returns to your task.
“I’m glad. That we can continue, I mean.”
“Uhuh.” You smirk. “Come then, Teacher Lordling Tyril. Instruct me in the ways of the Elvish Dances.”
He smiles again, in his eyes, and an approving sound comes from his throat. “We’ll move slowly to begin,” he says, “but if you can learn as quickly here as you do with new skills, you will be proficient very soon.”
At first grinning, you lose yourself to concentration after only a few beats. Tyril’s grace has you awestruck, and you can’t tell if the heat in your cheeks is from exertion, proximity, or the knowledge that you cannot possibly match his skill. As if he can read your thoughts, Tyril sighs, squeezing your linked hand.
“I have spent more years that you have yet lived perfecting this dance, Raine.” He watches you for a reaction as you continue the repeated steps.
“Are you claiming perfection, Lord Starfury?” You flash him a smile, and he lets out what might be a chuckle. He isn’t wrong, you think to yourself, but the teasing is too tempting.
“I only mean that if you bested me here, on this… battlefield, of sorts… it would be only a slight to my honour, not a necessity of yours.”
“And now he challenges me.” You shake your head indignantly. Tyril stops your dance and takes both your hands, holding them by your sides so he remains in your space.
“And if I were to do so? How would you respond?”
“On instinct? With my sword. But in this,” you release one of his hands to gesture around the empty hall, “perhaps a start would be to change the context.”
“Oh?”
“You were raised in stone halls, Lordling, but I was raised beside a forest. Surely you can think of a more natural setting for us to practise?”
“This is a famed dance hall.” Tyril looks around the stale, rectangular room; raised stage at one end full of unattended instruments, curtained arches along both sides, closing you in completely. “A very suitable location to learn to dance.”
“For a noble elf, perhaps.” You step back from him, straightening your outfit, and drawing his attention again. You project your voice, which echoes around the room as you say, “show me where you go to relax.”
“Within Undermount?” Tyril frowns, glancing away from you thoughtfully. A few moments later, he smiles, and nods to you. “Come with me.”
Gladly, you think, smiling to yourself as you hurry after him and glad to leave the hall behind. He takes you through a different exit, down new halls, until you emerge to a narrow walkway, and your breath catches. One side is the glittering stone of the halls, and the other a line of open colonnades, slender pillars and low barrier between you and a view out over Undermount, reminding you how far you climbed to reach this point.
You realise Tyril hasn’t paused for the view and extend your stride to catch up, your heart quickening in anticipation at his enthusiasm. Past the hall, the carved city becomes a little less perfect, with less jewels in the walls, a few weeds poking through the cobblestone, and ivy crawling up pillars which give the illusion of supporting the ceiling. The garden is manicured as others are, but not as often as the rest of Undermount. When you can no longer see the stone building past tall bushes, you slow to a walk, and realise Tyril is no longer ahead of you.
“This is beautiful,” you call, assuming, hoping, he can hear you.
“I’m glad you approve.” His voice travels from nearby, but you aren’t sure exactly where. Cautious now, you move along a hedgerow path, a little closer to the wilderness you know well, though ‘closer to’ is not much a competition in this place.
“Tyril?” Your voice is nearer a whisper as you turn a corner. “Where are–”
“Welcome.” Familiar hands catch your shoulders before you collide, breath knocked from your lungs, momentarily stunned at the contact. Blinking, you find his face, and snort.
“Tyril, is that… a playful smile?” You press both fists over your mouth as he drops his hands, apparently more taken aback by your words than you were at being caught. He quickly recovers, and the smile returns.
“Perhaps.” Though he turns away, you see the violet colouring his cheeks, and bump his shoulder gently with yours as you pass him. “It has been many years since I visited…” he runs a hand along the closest pillar. “Is it suitable to your taste?”
“We can make it work,” you say, turning to see that, like the colonnades you came from, one edge of the courtyard is exposed to the rest of the city.
“We should return to your practise, as you suggested.” Tyril steps closer, but his expression is less serious as he offers his hand, drawing you gently to the starting position. The climb to the garden has left your breath a little shorter and warmer, and you feel his warmth too when he takes your hand and waist. You shiver, focusing as much on the dance as you can, and fall in step with the elf.
“A fast learner,” he remarks as you cross the stone, forced to tighten the turns to avoid the bushes.
“I’m offended that you expected any less,” you match your tone to your words, but break the illusion with a wide grin.
When you run through the routine flawlessly – in your opinion, at least – you both pause. In the focus, your proximity had been forgotten, but now that you’ve finished, you realise you are bare inches from his body. He still holds your waist, and you his shoulders, with both hands now, and you can’t meet his eyes. As soon as you release each other, you have to return to his home and to the others.
“Raine…” he says softly, and you close your eyes at how perfectly your name sounds from his lips. One of his hands leaves your waist and you frown, unwilling to release this moment. He lifts your chin to face him, and you open your eyes to the sincerity in his. Tension melts from your body, and you swallow hard, moving your gaze between his eyes and his lips, suddenly much closer than you remember. Reaching his eyes again, you see the question in them, and you tilt your face even closer, feeling the warmth of his breath on your cheek. He leans a little closer, then pauses. “Do you…”
“Yes,” you breathe with a small smile. You close your eyes once more, aching to feel more of him, then the impossibly soft lips brush yours, his breath against yours, and you close the distance with fervour, linking your arms around his neck to hold him closer. Tyril reciprocates and your heart flutters, warmth rising in your chest as he presses one firm hand on the small of your back and the other behind your neck, ever closer, bodies flush together. Through your nose you breathe him in so as not to break apart, moaning as his lips part yours to deepen the kiss.
An energy builds inside you as your fingers snake through his hair and his tongue runs along your bottom lip before pushing in a little further. The light in your belly grows in heat and intensity, and almost of its own accord your hand leaves him to hold outstretched, palm up, and your brow tightens as you feel the light leave you, escaping to your palm. Sparks of magic against your back widen your smile.
“Let me help you there…” Tyril mumbles against your lips, extending his own hand over yours, and you feel your magic intertwine, growing, until Tyril mumbles something else, a spell you don’t recognise, and you gasp as your magic leaves your hands and spirals above you.
“Tyril…” you pull back reluctantly, opening your eyes to a smoky, electric barrier around the two of you, your magic and his dancing together, a space that is only your own. “Beautiful…”
“Truly.” He whispers, but when you turn back his eyes are on you, the pure magic around you dancing within them. You watch him for a moment, your limbs tingling, and meet his lips again, intensified by the power that surrounds you, trying to pull him closer through a space that doesn’t exist. He moans your name, and the sound sparks new passion in you. This is different to the last you shared… this is new. This is perfect. This is your dance.