How could such cold flesh feel so hot against her lips? How could such dark eyes burn so brightly? How could this... woman, twirl and dance like a flower petal caught on a breeze? Fluid and formless yet structured and elegant. Her every step, soundless. Her every glance, burning.

Ashtik might have been frozen in place, be it by magic or more, while the spider tangled her up in her web. Every time Ash tried to speak, the cold flesh of the raven beauty’s finger burnt into her lips and hushed her into glad silence. After she twirled around Ash, her hand tracing over every crease of her armour, she stood an inch from Ash’s face.

“Remember me, Snowangel?” Slipped her smoky black lips.

“Tebea,” Ash tried to say, but her voice caught behind her teeth letting only a whisper pass.

“I haven’t been called that in quite some time,” she smirked, taking Ash’s steel hand into her own and making Ash twirl her around.

“It's the name you told me. The name you said you were called,” Ash said.

“It certainly was... quite some time ago.”

Her pale little fingers wrapped themselves over the neck plate of Ash’s armour. Tebea all but clung to her as she pulled herself up to Ash’s ear. “Dance with me, my friend?”

She parted with a gentle shove, gliding back into the dancefloor and disappearing between the dancers. Ash tried to follow her. She marched gracelessly through the crowd as the music came to be more and more frantic. The twirling couples swayed and pranced faster and faster to keep pace.

She was nowhere to be seen until her arm wrapped around Ash’s neck and her hands stroked across her cheek.

“You’ve been working out, Snowangel,” Tebea giggled as her finger traced over her shoulders. “All to impress me, I hope.”

“What are you doing here?” Ash flatly asked.

“I’m dancing!” Tebea laughed. “Or I would be if my date wasn’t acting like a miserable old man.”

She took Ash’s hand again, only this time Ash dragged Tebea closer and wrapped her arm around her slender waist to hold her in place. It wasn’t meant as an intimate act but quickly became one.

“Ooh, careful snowangel, spiders might look scary but we’re awful delicate,” she whispered. Her lips curled into a cheeky smirk as she pressed herself more closely into Ash.

“Why do you call yourself a spider?” Ash asked.

“Cos’ I'm all legs, angel,” she winked. “Or maybe I’m a black widow? Most people are wise to fear spiders, you know?”

“I’m pretty sure sparrows eat spiders.”

“Promises, promises pretty woman,” Tebea giggled quietly. “But that’ll have to wait till the evening, won’t it?”

“Why did you give Amell that message? Why do you keep popping up? And why in the hells are you wearing my armour?”

“I thought it would be cute, matching outfits for the big ball,” she said as she pulled away with a graceful twirl. Her sanguine stare fixed to Ash’s own, though the two women wore completely different expressions.

Ash was more confused than anything else, but something more bubbled beneath. Something she was sure Tebea felt too. An... intimacy, or desire therefor. Not an attraction in the simple, carnal, sense – though that was certainly a consideration. There was a need to... dance? To twirl her and hold her and be held by her. To move and play until the sweat sullied their clothes and frayed their hair.

The Sparrow pulled the Spider close, then let her reign free, before stepping behind and wrapping her arms around again.

“Good start,” the Spider breathed an inch from Ash’s ear.

----------------------------------------

And so, they carried on. These two abject strangers who had met only once before, on the worst day of Ash’s life, danced through the ballroom as though utterly alone in the world. It was terrible, Ash was terrible. Clumsy and oafish. She must have stepped on her partner’s toes a dozen times or more, and yet, it was perfect. They laughed as much as they panted and they came inches from kissing after every dip and twirl. They made mistake after mistake, after mistake... and it was brilliant.

Ash embraced her raven paramour for a brief, breathless moment. This was a woman with blood on her lips, yet on such a delicious plate, how could Ash refuse the feast?

She found herself moving without intention or purpose, yet in the end was perfection. A first cherry kiss upon cherished lips. She could taste the wine Tebea had been drinking. She could taste the sinful cakes and the divine sweets. Even just the taste of her lips alone proved... perfect.

Ash started the kiss, and with the cruelty of a warrior, she was first to part. Tearing her lips away felt like losing a part of herself for a heartbeat, but then the sanguine eyes opened ever-so close to her own, and she knew that whatever part of her was in this woman would remain long after the night had ended.

“I- erm... hah,” Tebea stuttered.

“Are you... speechless?” Ash snickered.

“Me? Never!” Tebea lied.

“Guess I’ll just have to try again.”

----------------------------------------

They must have danced and laughed, and more, for hours after that. Certainly, by the time their feet were too tired to carry them any longer, the party had all but died. The last of the musicians remained and played quietly in the corner, though mostly for themselves. Their quiet stings cried across the dancefloor and told a tale of woe and glee that must have spanned the eternities.

They stumbled their way over to an empty table on unsure feet.

“I’m bloody starving,” Ash giggled. She took a clean silver platter and mounded up meat and more. It was only as she sat down again that she realized she must have looked utterly savage to Tebea, gnawing away at her feast of fragrant flesh. The embarrassment didn’t last long, however. Her raven-haired friend shone a brilliant smile as she took up a plate and created a mountain of food to rival Ash’s own.

“I don’t know your name,” Tebea finally said after she was done chewing on a chunk of exceptionally rare steak.

“It seems you might be alone in that,” Ash sighed.

“Oh, poor you,” Tebea teased. “Fame and fortune thrust upon you, beautiful women throwing themselves at you. I truly pity you.”

“Well, look past the end of the world and sure, it's pretty neat.”

“Oh, but imagine the party at the end of the world! No inhibitions, no modesty, just raw hedonistic pleasure.”

“If you’re throwing the party, I’m happy to attend.”

A quiet caught them as they both sat there eating and smiling. It was a good quiet, a happy silence. Ash did not mean to smile, it just happened, and it even started to ache. She didn’t know a smile could ache until that very moment but she was glad to have learnt so.

“It’s Ashtik,” she finally said. “Ashtik Sai-Weleg.”

“Well then, Ashtik Sai-Weleg, it is a pleasure to meet you at last.”

“The pleasure is all mine.”

“Oh, it will be. I can promise that,” Tebea winked.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Ash confidently smirked, though a twinge of a blush had to be buried in her stomach. The blatant flirtation sent her belly in more of a twist than either of them during the dance.

“You can hold me to the wall later on, for now though... I’m still starving.”

“Do you get tired of that?” Ash asked.

“Of what?”

“The... wordplay, the innuendo. Not that I mind, of course, you just seem to do it a lot.”

“I suppose,” she admitted. “With others, I do. Sometimes I find myself using the same couple of lines over and over just ‘cos its easy. But with you it's different... It powers my purpose, I guess.”

“Your purpose?” Ash repeated.

“To entertain! To make wonderful,” she said with a theatrical lilt.

“You don’t need to entertain me, Tebs.”

“Tebs?” Tebea repeated with a squeak.

“Not a fan?” Ash asked, somewhat abashed.

A big evil smile cracked Tebea’s lips. She rested her hand high along Ash’s thigh and said, in a posh imitation of a regal voice, “My love for it is close to my love for your wit, which must be so quick as your hand, and so slender as your waist.”

“You really don’t have to speak like that,” Ash sighed, though she couldn’t mask her smirk nor her girlish giggle.

“You would tell a dragon not to breathe flame!” Tebea continued.

“I would tell my ‘friend’ to shut up and kiss me.”

“And burned by fiery breath, would you be!” Tebea pressed on as she edged closer and closer to the inevitable kiss.

“At least then your food would be cooked. I’ve heard of rare steaks, but that’s one of a kind. I think I see a pulse,” Ash breathily joked as she tried to close the gap and seal the kiss. Tebea denied her, however, pressing a gentle finger against Ash’s searching lips.

“Hearts skip and flutter in your presence, Snowangel, no matter how dead the heart may be,” she whispered tenderly as her smile drained and some other look overcame her for a moment. A hunger, like the one she had back in Maester Veil. A wolf’s hunger, not a maiden’s. Tebs drew herself back for a moment, though her lust-filled gaze didn’t waver for a blink – not that Ash had seen her actually blink yet.

“I swear, if you don’t stop talking like that, I’m gonna throw you out into the street and find some other way to spend my night,” Ash said past Tebea’s finger. She didn’t lower the finger, even as Ash sat up straight. Instead, Tebs followed Ash just closely enough to keep her finger pressed.

“Is my lady she of Dreams, or does she simply dream of thunder? For the noise may rattle, yet no lighting will strike but that of your imagination.”

“I don’t even know what you’re saying anymore,” Ash sighed.

“Yet your smile beams as the sun my kind so oft worship.”

“Your kind? Tenpics?” Ash guessed.

“Nay, I be a mule for the great weight of this conversation that I bear for you so loyally.”

“A mule?”

“T’would be the height of arrogance to call myself a stallion in my waifly form, especially when aside one so... vascular, and I am anything but arrogant; wouldn’t you say?”

“I’d say you’re annoying,” Ash smirked.

“And you simper for annoyance? Or could it be that my charm makes a blushing maiden of my conquering consort?”

“I’m going to bed,” Ash scoffed.

“But so heavy is your crown that it may shatter your pillow! Allow my bosom to protect the furniture, tis a sacrifice of comfort I gladly make for my future noble queen,” Tebea giggled, clinging to Ash’s hand as she pretended to rise from her seat.

“You may be a sinful temptress, or be my sinfully tempted, but be it within my bounteous bosom,” she continued, taking great joy in Ash’s wincing expression at every mention of the word ‘bosom’.

The woman kept tugging on Ash’s arm as Ash finally begged her, “Stop saying bosom.”

“Then shall it be my buxom shape that tempts?”

“Bye,” Ash groaned, making away from the conversation as Tebea placed all her might into forcing her in place.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Tebea frantically pled.

Ash did so, turning to face her with a desperately masked smile. She stood silently, awaiting Tebea’s next reluctantly endearing line. Ash could see it bubbling up within her throat, and she could see the dire effort going into keeping the words down.

“Be it a sin to tell a lie at an altar so pure? If so, make a sinner of me as I lie atop you!” She finally exploded. It seemed to give her half the pleasure of the night just to make a single stupid joke, and somehow it made Ash even crazier about the stranger.

Ash still retained a measure of control, looking Tebea up and down before simply saying, “No.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. Can I still come?” Tebea finally said, dropping the accent and her head. It was not done for shame, but to make herself seem smaller as she looked up at Ash with her big pleading eyes. “I’ll stop talking,” she lied.

Ash let slip a reluctant snort as the straight-faced mask crumbled and allowed a toothy grin to break free. She offered her hand to the woman and said, “Take the fervour of your tongue and... put it to use beyond speech.”

“Marry me,” Tebea immediately gasped.

“I’m not that kinda girl. That’s a third date, at least!”

“Don’t make me beg, cos’ I have no pride, I absolutely will.”

“Noted,” Ash smirked. “Now come on.”

“Wait,” Tebea choked as they started to make away. Ash turned to face her, though she looked like an entirely different woman. Her eyes fell to Ash’s boots and her hands danced over her leathers, settling on and covering up her cotton-chainmail belly. “You’re different,” she whispered.

“Good different or bad different?” Ash asked warmly.

“Just different. The girl I met in Maester Veil could barely speak to me, the woman before me is leading me by the hand. I just... I don’t think you’re ready.”

“Not ready? You said it yourself; I’m leading you,” Ash insisted.

“Not by your own will, Snowangel... I’m not human, not like you are,” Tebea whispered, shame oozing from every word. “Tell me, have you ever been this forward with anyone else?”

“I’ve just never met the right person,” Ash hesitantly answered. “I... know you aren’t human. Amell told me. You’re a vampris – or something close.”

“Then Lord Fielder is mistaken,” she sighed. “I am not vampris, I am a lilitu.”

“A what?”

“The spawn of a vampris and an incubus. One of a kind, I'm afraid. Not a natural conception, of course. I’m... cursed.”

“I don’t care what you are, Tebea... or spider, or whatever name you prefer. Look, yeah, I’m different. How could I not be? Since we last met, I won a siege while outnumbered fifty-to-one. I’ve battled and beaten Veytor inquisitors. I’ve tamed a direwolf, murdered in cold blood, and battled my way across the continent. I’ve become the Champion of War and I’ve defeated a demon of wonder. How could I be the same nervous girl after all that?”

She took Tebea’s hands into her own and forced her gaze.

“I don’t know what a lilitu is, or what it means that you are one, but I know that before tonight, I have never smiled so hard and for so long that my cheeks ached. Before tonight, the idea of dancing amongst a crowd of nobles would have made my skin crawl. Tebs, before tonight, the idea of... absconding would have twisted my belly with fright. Look at me, do I look scared?”

“Do the rabbits know to look scared when they hop into your snares?”

“I don’t need to snare rabbits, they’re too easy to catch. I only need to trap the game that poses a threat to me. Am I a threat to you, Tebea?” She stepped even closer, craning her neck slightly towards her infernal paramour.

“More than you know,” Tebea sighed longingly. “Angels and devils rarely get along for long. Eventually, nature takes control. What might my devilish nature force me to do to you?”

“I’ve got a few suggestions.”

“Oh, I hope so,” Tebea breathed as she bridged the final gap between their yearning lips.