I incline my head almost all the way back to look up at her, the back of my neck bends and my throat extends. I feel oddly vulnerable exposing myself like that near her. Why? She wouldn't hurt me.

I direct my stare straight at her light gray eyes that were already looking down at me. Even sitting down she is taller than I am by a whole head. I feel her right hand unwrap itself from around me. I take hold of her left wrist with my hand in reaction, she reciprocates and we share that odd handshake for the third time.

I see the expression on her face flicker from the corner of my eyes, still lost in the abyss of hers, when our hands hold each other. I still feel so exposed with my throat fully extended like this, despite the fact that my Lady wouldn't hurt me.

She only tricked me once, it wasn't even to be mean, she just wanted to know how I felt about her. I wasn't really hurt. She kept her word when she gave it to me. It was my fault for being too obvious. I misunderstood and thought we were flirting.

Lady Lance brings the right hand she freed up to my cheek, pressing the back of her cool fingers against it. I take a small inspiration, taking a gasp of air in. Her eyebrows furrow slightly. In worry? She pulls her hand away to press the back of her wrist against my forehead.

“You're still a bit feverish.” She tells me, tone slightly tight.

“…” I don't think my temperature is high because of any fever … I had the hots for you long before that. “Uh.” I manage to get a non-committal sound out.

“It's not too bad.” Her traits seem to soften somewhat with relief but the impression passes quickly as she directs a reassuring smile at me.

I liked the expression before better. That doesn't stop me from leaning into the touch of her hand, as much as I can without breaking eye contact with her.

I need to remember not to speak, not that I've succeeded in articulating a single word so far. I'm too desperate to reach out to her, I'll let something slip. I both want and can't tell my Lady how intense my feelings are for her.

She removes her wrist from my forehead to wrap her arm back around my waist, taking her previous position back except that it's now my hand that is holding onto her left wrist instead of her own.

I resist the temptation to tighten my finger's grip on her wrist and focus on the feel of her cool slender fingers against my own, busying my mind on savoring the touch to restrain myself. That's not self-control, that's just self-distracting. Shut up.

I wiggle a bit, settling deeper into the warm embrace that her body and arms are forming by wrapping all around me.

“Where did you get your education? Your wit is as quick as Yvonne's, your worldview is coherent enough that it could be debated seriously. When did you find the time with your duties to the Baron?” She asks me in a low volume and tone.

I shiver. Her voice. I want to tell her that none of it matters if she takes me for herself, I'll burn the world without a second thought for her, she only has to ask.

My lips part to speak, to tell her how intensely I feel for her, to explain it if I have to. I shake my head, remembering my earlier resolve about not saying a word lest I frighten her with my insanity.

I see my vision blur at the edges as tears form in the corner of my eyes, the frustration of wanting to turn around and hold her intimately, to kiss her fingers while they're within easy reach and never stop, … her lips …, but I can't express any of that.

Lady Lance doesn't understand how much I want her or she wouldn't approach me this close, and that's exactly why I can't speak. She'll reject me, she'll stop holding me. I can't lose what little ground I've gained with her by a lack of self-control.

The frustration of being unable to reach out to her body with my hand. The frustration of being unable to reach out to her being with my voice. A feeling of self-pitying sadness swells in my chest, it hastens the budding of tears in my eyes. I won't be able to talk until I get a grip.

“Did you always think what you do about what Nobles, what Nobility stands for?” I ask, voice exiting my extended throat in a croak.

My Lady seems to catch some of my internal turmoil because she breaks eye contact while squeezing her left hand's fingers over my wrist reassuringly. Hopefully, she'll think that her question simply evoked some bad memories and won't realize that, for me, she is the only thing that matters anymore.

“No, my parents taught me many things, but I forged this vision for myself. The highest Noble houses are full of stories about how they ascended to their peak, and most of them rose slowly from the lowest origins while the first titled houses disappeared in the fogs of history. It is the only thing that makes sense in my mind because you do not become a good swords-woman without trial and error, training. To forge a ruling class that can administer the Empire effectively, you must use the same methodology. Trial and error, evolving over generations to perfect the methods with which to educate young Nobles.”

She must have seen the skepticism on my face because she answers me like I did speak.

“I know, a lot of houses fail at the task. The Emperor cannot both protect and rule the Empire while also supervising Nobility, there is only so much time in a day. That is why I need to do this, push Nobles to be more than they are so that the Empire grows stronger.”

“You know, I think that the Emperor forged the Empire by integrating the already existing powers into it. It is quicker and more peaceful than the alternative, that doesn't mean that he plans to let Nobility administer it forever.” I got so caught up in her enthusiasm that I forgot to keep my mouth shut.

“I don't think that matters if we show the Emperor that we are becoming more, greater. Then he is wise enough to change his plans if what you think is true.”

“Hm.” I make a sound that could mean anything.

“Mother is the least exemplary Exemplar that you could ever meet.” She says with a small smirk. “She regularly ignores the Order's regulations.” My Lady makes a small sigh of exasperation. “Despite that, she is Exemplar.”

“Why?” I ask, knowing full well that my Lady is consciously baiting my words out of me.

“Because Mother never fails to fulfill the spirit of the Order's tasks.”

“You want to be a better version of her?” I ask.

“I have to.” She makes a small chuckle. “Attempting that kind of behavior would make me lose allies, politics among the Nobility are much more cutthroat than they are within the Emperor's Templar Order.”

“I'm sure you'll be fine.” I tell her with a corner smile. “You're already handling Yvonne. A dozen or a hundred Nobles plotting against you can't be that much worse.”

“I might just sic her after them.” She chuckles.

A serene silence establishes itself around us. I let my head fall back forward into a comfortable position before my staring at her becomes awkward now that she isn't speaking anymore.

After a while listening to her breathing, I decide to try to answer her earlier question about my life before this … mess.

“I grew up in the house, the one right next to the stables you left your horses in.” I feel the movement that her nod in acknowledgment makes, her small round breasts pressed against my back are slightly displaced. I hurriedly continue before losing my grip on myself. “My older brother was born a year before me, Mother and Father decided that it was best if she stayed at home since the two consecutive births drained her physically so Father took care of the fields while my brother and I drove Mother mad.”

“I cannot imagine that you would drive anyone mad, you are an example of stability and good behavior.” Her sarcasm brings a joyful smile to my face. She feels that we're close enough that she can tease me!

“Shush, my Lady.” I gently reply.

“Truly, I have never seen you chose a course of action that could result in someone worrying about you.” My Lady keeps laying it on me but the only effect it has is that my smiling expression turns into a happy grin complete with blushing cheeks.

“When Mother could catch us, she put us in chairs and taught us what she remembered about her education. Often adding her own opinions in the mix. She had a lot to say about reckless risks, probably would have berated me and Father for our choices now that I think about it.” I pause, thoughtful. “Her father was a merchant, he took a risky gambit that didn't pay off and lost capital in the process. When the tale of his misfortune became known among Meria's merchants, a few unscrupulous ones decided to overpay his suppliers and undercut his prices. His lack of capital meant that he couldn't compete and went bankrupt shortly after. Mother's youth was turbulent because of it, she recounted to us the many hardships of leaving Meria and reestablishing herself in a farming village.”

“A sadly common occurrence in the trade business. My father himself lost his life at sea while traveling in one of our grain barges, another risk inherent to the trade of resources.” Lady Lance comments with sadness.

“Anyway, Mother never fully recovered her physical health so she decided to invest her time into educating both my brother and me. She spent her every morning trying to make us focus long enough to learn multiplication tables, or history lessons, or accounting. The afternoon she helped Father in the fields while brother and I did our best to be the worst kids in the world.” A nostalgic smile comes to my lips at the memory of how mad they got when we trampled the furrows they just barely dug out of the ground.

I feel her shake her head sideways behind my back. It prompts me to turn my head slightly to the side in reaction to her movement, bringing one of the room's windows into my field of view. Daylight outside is steadily growing dimmer, the sun is probably half-way behind a mountain ridge now.

“I can easily imagine that. A small, well, … an even smaller Jessica, wildly trying to break her neck while everyone around panics to try to stop her before it happens.” Lady Lance says with a distance dream-like voice.

“I was never that bad!” I protest.

“Oh, so your condition worsened with time? That's concerning.” She says, teasingly.

“My Lady, please.” I say, pleading. The fact that her attention is directed towards me is making the butterflies in my stomach roil around, taking laps and flustering me. I don't know how to feel.

“I'm just messing with you, keep going.” She tells me with a cheerful laugh.

“It's not a very interesting story.” I try, attempting to cut that conversation track short.

“It is to me, go on.” My Lady encourages me and an involuntary smile makes its way to my lips.

“I just …” I let a sigh escape me. “Mother fell sick when my brother and I were just entering adolescence. It got worse over a couple of years so we both had time to prepare ourselves. We knew other women in the village who also fell to sickness after childbirth.” I take a deep breath. “Father on the other hand … he kept his hopes up, he wouldn't even accept Mother's words when she tried to warn him. I don't think he had it in him to accept the possibility until it happened, until the reality of her death actually hit him in the face.” My Lady's fingers tighten their grip on my wrist and her arms squeeze me closer, pushing my back against her chest, her gestures fill my heart with warmth. “My brother had already left the farm for a year when it happened. We just didn't have enough cultivable land to support four adults, especially with Mother's sickness. All of a sudden, it was just Father and me.”

I'm not going to tell her about how lonely I was, how often I ran from Father's gloominess, his depression, and his fits of tears. How I threw myself into the arms of the first girl who would hold me, how I tried to kiss her and how she ran away. How the story spread through the village in a blaze of fire, burning through the threads of my life to leave me truly alone this time.

I shake my head off the depressing memory of how naively stupid I acted back then. It makes my behavior with Lady Lance doubly dumb because I know what the consequences of erroneously placing your trust in someone can be. But, my Lady is … more, so much more. She's different.

“Anyway, we had an ironically great harvest that year and with just two of us to live on extra income … I pushed Father to pursue his dream of building stables to set himself up to retire. Maybe even make enough money to pay for a spot in Meria's hospice.” I shrug. “It's a foolish dream, but it got him out of his depression.”

“Why is it foolish?” She asks, puzzled.

“Because it would take us ten years just to repay the loan he took to build the stables and thirty more to make enough of a profit to pay for his retirement.” I answer in a hard tone of voice. “We could pay for either the building or the horses with what we saved up over the years added to what we made with that harvest. Luckily, or unluckily, half the money was enough to convince Buton to give us a loan for the other half with the building and herd as collateral.” She doesn't seem to react to my casual use of a titled Noble's family name. “After a year of hard work, Father managed to get our small herd installed in the stables and enclose the fields we intended to use as pastures in fences. That's about the time when Buton started acting like the loan was an investment. Like he owned half of everything instead of having loaned us money with interest and collateral.”

“That's …” She starts but I ignore her to keep going, I won't be able to start again if I interrupt my momentum now.

“He started taking up Father's time to tend to his and his guard's horses while Buton tended to his own business in the village, leaving me to take care of the fields alone. It wouldn't have been too much of a bother if he paid Father for his time or for the use of the stables. The added strain put us back on our schedule last year, we barely harvested the wheat in time for the first winter storms. This year … well.”

“I … I'm truly sorry. I can …” My Lady tries to apologize.

“It's not your fault.” I interrupt her, unwilling to listen to her humbling herself just for me. “Besides, we're just going to lose the stables. As long as we still have our fields, we'll be able to feed ourselves fine.” I suddenly realize that it isn't the case anymore, not since I lost my left arm. My eyes wander down to the wound, not even a stump because there isn't anything left of my shoulder. She could have saved my arm. “At least, that was the case … before all this.” As I say those words, the last remnants of daylight leave the room, the sun must now be completely hidden behind the mountainous ridges surrounding the valley.

She remains silent, I feel that the movements of her lungs have grown wider in scope. She is taking deeper breaths. I probably said too much, again. I reproach myself and a wave of sadness overtakes me. The emotion provoked by telling her of my life, mixed with how I messed up again and made her feel bad, brings a wave of tears to my eyes.

I twist in her grasp, turning my body around and forcing her to lay her back down on the sheet while I press my chest against hers. We fit together naturally, just like that, with my breasts settling right beneath hers. This time, I don't hesitate to directly bury my face between her small round boobs, enjoying how the soft texture of their flesh feels against my cheeks and temples.

A tingle of lust courses through me, provoking a shiver of desire within my most intimate place. For once I am able to control myself and simply take comfort in the feel of her flesh against mine. The tears in my eyes are absorbed by the brown shirt covering her perfect breasts.

I don't even try to hide my desperation for her touch as I slide my arm behind her back, right beneath her waist, and pulling as hard as I can, using all of my arm's muscles to press her body against mine, to push them together as closely as they can possibly be.

I let a sob escape me, the sound is somewhat muffled as my mouth is stuck in the space between her breasts. I restrain myself from biting down on her flesh, no matter how much I want to do so. I've managed to maintain enough awareness to understand that such an action would cross the bounds that friends should keep to, that it would push her away from me.

She moves her arms around my back to settle over my shoulder-blades. My lady is voluntarily holding me tight while I am pushing the bounds she has set for us. My sadness and self-pity recede into the background as my hopes for a future between us are rekindled by how tolerating she is with me.

Despite my fear of entertaining any wishful thinking for our relationship, I just cannot help to wish because I want this so much, I want her so much.

A few tears keep rolling out of my eyes to lose themselves on her chest, my drained emotions and fatigue catch up with me as I let myself relax completely in her arms. I close my eyelids, pushing a sultry breath out my lungs and through my lips.

The hot air passes through the fabric of her shirt, brushing against her skin, provoking a shiver that spreads to the surrounding skin and makes her quiver under me. Such a small reaction to my breath that I could only catch it because I am more focused on her than I am on myself.

I take a deep breath, pushing my breasts against her chest for an intense second. I listen closely to her heartbeats, and when my insidious action succeeds in triggering an acceleration of her heart rate...

I quite simply feel like a giant that has succeeded in making the earth quake with a single step.

My Leomi. I sigh in contentment inside her arms.

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