I touched your lips while my own trembled. Dry, cracked, flaking. When I dreamed of this moment I imagined how soft they'd be.
Yes, Shizuka. I imagined touching your lips, your cloud-soft skin. I had for at least two years. Other girls my age had boys paying their bride prices already. When my mother asked if I wanted her to find someone I shook my head.
I wanted you. Only you.
From the day we met I've known this, as my heart has known to beat. That it took me so long to recognize is my own great shame.
And I saw you there, a ghost of yourself. You still had so much to do, Shizuka. We were going to slay gods together. The Empire of Hokkaro needed you, too–you had to found your own dynasty, had to raise children, had to ascend to the Dragon Throne. Empress O-Shizuka you would be, and no one in the land would be permitted to write your name without dropping a stroke out of deference.
You could never be mine. Much as I wanted you, much as we were destined to spend our lives together, we could never be together the way I wanted us to.
I licked my lips.
A fever. That such a mundane thing would lay you so low...
"Shefali."
At the sound of my name I jolted back to reality. The fog on your eyes had lifted.
"Shizuka?" I said. "Do you need anything?"
Weak as you were, you squeezed my hand. Again fire burned in your gaze, all the more bright against your pallid complexion.
"Shefali," you said, tugging on my hand. "Kiss me."
My mouth hung open. I drew back, a chill running up my spine.
"W-What?"
You screwed your eyes shut and forced yourself to sit up. From somewhere within yourself you found strength enough to pull me onto the bed.
"I don't care how wrong it is," you said, almost shouting. "I am not going to die without kissing you at least once. Hurry up!"
How I wanted to! But what if this was just your fevered raving? What if, when you recovered (you had to recover) you regretted it? A thousand questions raced through my mind. This could not be happening. You were going to be Empress one day. You could not want to be with me that way.
"We're both girls," I said.
You grabbed me by the flap of my deel. Mad with strength you rolled us over. Hot tears fell on my chest and face.
"Did you hear me?" you roared. "I don't care! In all the lands of the Empire, I've only ever wanted to marry you. You fool Qorin! You do not hesitate to slay a tiger, but you hesitate to kiss a girl?"
I stared at you, your cheeks flushed red, your whole body trembling.
"Are you not a warrior?" you said. "Are you not a leader? Act decisively! Don't sit there and gawk at a dying woman!"
I sputtered. No words came to me.
But this was not the time for words, was it?
And so I wrapped my arms around you. So I held you in my arms as men hold women, as Grandfather Earth held Grandmother Sky. And as Tumen Bayar loved Batu Mongke, as O-Shizuru loved O-Itsuki, so did I love you.
Yes, Shizuka. The sky is full of stars beyond number, each one representing a life. And yet in all those lives beyond number, in all those millions of years lived by those before us, in all their shared experience, none have loved so thoroughly as we. None have loved so completely.
When our lips met the stars grew jealous of us. Your lips might've been dry, but Shizuka, I cannot begin to tell you how it felt. How my whole body rang with the sound of temple bells.
A boy receives a puzzlebox from his uncle. For days he struggles with it. The trick of it does not come to him. Uncle says to him that when he returns from war, he will tell him the solution. But Uncle went beyond the Wall of Flowers and he did not return. The days of the boy's struggle become years. He gets so frustrated with the puzzle box he hides it. He, too, goes to war. When he returns, jaded and angry, he finds the puzzle box again. Two turns of a single piece and it is solved. The elation he feels after decades of consternation would not compare to the elation I felt kissing you.
When we parted I could not remember how to breathe.
I stared at you, eyes wide, fear creeping back in. What if you had not liked it? I'd never kissed anyone before.
But you tugged me down towards you again.
"Keep going," you said, "Until I tell you to stop.'
And so I did. Our mouths met again. You wasted no time slipping your tongue between my lips like a lick of flame. My hands traveled the wall of your spine. I touched your skin and felt the muscle hiding beneath, felt the bones that made you up. Your hands, too, wandered. With a calligrapher's grace you danced across my ribcage and collarbones.
There was no time to breathe. Whenever we parted you redoubled your efforts. You kissed me like a monsoon, you touched me like lightning. You tugged at my deel, too weak to take it off. Whatever doubts I had disappeared when I looked into your face. I rid myself of my deel and pants. I paused with my hands on the brocade edges of your dress.
"Are you–"
"Keep going."
When I slid off your clothing I think I died for the first time–for no one can live through such a divine vision. For an eternity I sat up gaping at your beauty before you tugged me back downwards.
"Fool Qorin," you whispered into my ear. "I did not say stop."
And then your mouth pressed against my neck. Heat and pressure and pain against that tender skin made me moan. You smiled as you kept at it, knowing full well you'd leave a mark.
"Shizuka, everyone will see," I whimpered.
"Let them," you said. There would be no arguing.
Still, my hands kept traveling. I left the delicate road of your spine for something softer. Your breasts have always tantalized me, Shizuka; this you well know. Now that I was touching them for the first time I hardly knew how to contain myself. I kneaded at them as my heart hammered in my chest, as warmth spread throughout me. Burning within me was the desire to be near to you, to burn in your flame, to show you just how much I'd wanted you all these years.
I took your delicate pink nipple in my mouth. As my tongue ran over it you made the most wonderful sound–a half-moan, half-whimper. It only drove me on. You took fistfuls of my hair. As best you could you rocked your hips against my knee.
I continued worshiping your body. My mouth moved in unspoken prayers at your other breast, your throat, your collarbones. You threw your head back as I kissed you. How you purred, Shizuka! How I treasure that sound above all others! Pleasing you like this brought me such...such fulfillment. I needed more. I needed to be with you, as completely as I could.
"Lie down," you said.
I did as I was told. And though you were sick, when you positioned yourself over me I swear I was looking up at the Eternal Sky.
And I remembered that night you saw my uncle and aunt rutting for the first time. I remembered how red you got looking at them, how you stared and sputtered. That was the first time you'd ever seen anything of the sort, you said. No one in Hokkaro spoke of such things.
But here on the steppes there is no privacy. What goes on between man and wife has long been known to me. Qorin girls are supposed to ease their shy husbands into it.
How amusing, then, that you should be positioning yourself over me like this. Was I your shy husband? Or were you mine?
You took another handful of my hair. I could not help but notice you held my warrior's braid.
Gods, but the sight of that part of you. It, too, was beautiful–pink and glistening like an orchid slick with dew.
"Shizuka, are you sure?"
"Keep going!"
I did. I savored you like the most succulent fruit. My tongue ran along you from top to bottom, bottom to top. When I reached that sensitive mound I pressed the tip of my tongue against it. You bucked and moaned, and I knew I had to keep going. I dug my fingers into your thighs. You closed them around my head as you bucked your hips against my mouth.
You fell forward and braced yourself with one shaky arm. With my hair still in your hand you rode me–a canter at first, then a full gallop. Your wetness covered my mouth and jaw and chin and I could not get enough of your taste. Again I licked and suckled, again I teased your opening. The louder you were the harder I went.
"Don't...don't you dare stop..."
I could feel you throbbing against my tongue. You tugged my hair so hard I thought it would fall out, you squeezed my head so tight I thought it would pop off of my neck. As you reached your peak you moaned my name and fell forward onto the bedroll.
I was covered in you. Gods, the smell, Shizuka. How I wish I could smell you again. How I wish I could take a bit of your spirit into me again.
For a few moments you lay on top of me catching your breath. Worry caught up with me. Perhaps you shouldn't be engaging in such strenuous activity in your state. But I could not say I regretted it. How could I ever regret being so close to you?
"Shizuka," I asked. "Was that...did you feel...?"
In response you rolled over and smiled. You looked like your old self if only for an instant. My spirits soared. You were going to make it. You had to make it, now.
But...well, there was another matter to attend to. My inner thighs were slick, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't desperate for you.
You clambered on top of me and bent to kiss me. I turned away.
"You shouldn't–"
"You're only a mess because of me," you said. "Let me kiss you."
Your kisses were more insistent than mine, and your hands more needy. You grabbed me as if you were going to die in the morning, because there was a very real chance you might. Your long nails left trails wherever they went; your flashing teeth nipped at my nipples and skin. You cupped my bottom and squeezed.
Our eyes met. Your fingers hovered a hairsbreadth away from my center, from the heat between my legs. My breath hitched; I needed you inside me more than I'd ever needed anything in my life.
"Shefali," you whispered
I licked my lips. I was so eager, Shizuka. I was a bow string waiting to be fired.
"Before I do this," you said, "you should know that I've loved you since we were children."
"I love you too," I said.
And just like that your fingertips rubbed against me. Pleasure sank into me like an arrow. I clutched you tight and rode your hand. Even the slightest movement was enough to start the waves of pleasure again. I could hardly think.
"Ready yourself," you said.
But how could I when I was so overwhelmed? Your fingers slid inside me and I moaned loud enough for all of Sur-Shar to hear me. I bit at your shoulder to try and keep quiet after that. You thrusted your fingers in and out of me, hooking them with each stroke. Our lips met. I moaned into your mouth as the pressure built up at the base of my spine. Soon I was going to explode like Dragon's Fire. My nails dug into you.
And then it all came to a glorious climax, to a small eternity of bliss.
When it was over I leaned against you slick with sweat. We both needed a bit of time to catch our breaths–to process what we had just done. Women did not do this with other women. I couldn't think of anyone who'd done such a thing. And even if one of us was a man, we were unmarried. If your uncle tried to find you a husband now...
Yet I could not feel bad about it. No, if this was not how the gods intended us to live our lives, then I'd rather be executed at your side than never touch you like this again. Looking at you with your eyes so wide, panting, your chest flushed red, I thought this must be the point of it all.
You were the point.
And you were also the first to speak.
"I see your shy nature does not extend to the bedroom,"  you said.
We both laughed. We linked hands underneath the blanket, and I hid my face against your shoulder in mock embarrassment. We stayed that way for a while.
"Thank you," you whispered. "I've wanted to do that with you for some time."
"Since you saw my aunt?" I asked.
A blush came to your cheek, but you nodded.
"I've always known I wanted to be with you," you said. "The same way a child knows who their parents are, so I knew you were the one for me. But I did not know what it meant until..."
I kissed you on the cheek. "You stared."
"I did," you said. "Because I wanted so badly to do the same with you."
You huddled against me. We had done the same now, and we could never go back.
No one could know.
If anyone found out you would not inherit. Of this I was sure. And much as I loved you, the people of Hokkaro needed you...no, I cannot say they need you more. I need you more than any hundred thousand people put together. But they are the ones to whom you should turn your attention.
Do you pay attention to them now, in my absence?
I did not know what the future held that night. So I held your wasting frame in my arms and I prayed to every god I knew that we'd wake together in the morning.