They stayed on the dance floor for far too long and returned to it far too soon.

When Dhret finally told him she had to stop her forehead glistened with sweat and a few locks of hair had broken free from the knot she’d tied it in for the party. The party was winding down by then. Podmandu lay on the table with a cup in one hand and a plate in front of him from which he slowly consumed cheese dumplings while Ajap slumped in his chair opposite and Cathay swayed on the dance floor in the arms of one of the older Iblanie executives.

Athesh stood over a table with a few of the remaining guests, a gathering of men in half a dozen different uniforms beside women in conservative robes, all with glasses or cigars in hand. Marroo spotted Dhruv at a table at the edge of the dance floor as they spun. The old man smiled when he caught his eye and raised his glass in a toast.

They whirled away, across a floor emptied of all but a half dozen other couples. The music swayed to a stop and Dhret clutched at Marroo’s arm to keep from falling over as they slowed to a standstill. She clutched her chest and leaned on him with a smile.

Marroo looked up at the band, then back to her. “

“Do you want to go again?” He asked her.

She eyed him as her chest heaved then pushed a flyaway bit of hair plastered to her face back into her bun. “I don’t think I can. Can you?”

Marroo just grinned at her. She wrinkled her nose back.

Dhruv appeared in front of them as they recovered, his secretary on one arm decked out in a dress and glittering gems far too expensive to be anything on the girl but a gift. He gave them each a lazy smile. “You make a beautiful couple,” he said. His smile dropped onto Marroo, “Are you enjoying the party?”

Marroo just nodded and gave him a thin smile.

“Good.” Dhruv’s smile widened by the barest margin. “Your father was never much for these sorts of things,” he said, glancing at the party goers that remained dancing in front of the stage, “he received enough invitations, but if my impression of him was any kind of accurate he was never a dancing sort of man.” His smile turned back to Marroo. Dhruv shrugged. “I have always enjoyed them though, no matter how many we throw each year.” His gaze lingered on Marroo for a moment, then flicked to Dhret before he gave a nod in their general direction. “Well. Enjoy the rest of your evening.” Then he wandered away with his secretary to offer the same pleasantries to a couple sitting at another table.

When Marroo turned to Dhret he found the laughter in her dried up.

“Are you alright?”

She looked up at him but didn’t seem to see him for a moment until she blinked and shook her head. “It’s late,” She said, “I…” She glanced after Dhruv. “I could use some quiet.”

She led him to the couriers’ lounge. After the noise of the music and the guests and the whirling dance across the floor the lounge seemed as quiet and dark as an abandoned grave.

They didn’t turn on any lights as they entered. Dhret just closed the door behind them and led the way out onto the balcony where their bikes were parked in a row facing the city at the deepest part of night.

Marroo could see the curving horizon beyond the towers but only as a shadow, blackened by the same titanic structure that cast the city into darkness. Fireworks from other towers cracked and splashed their lights across the night while aircars and familiars passed in a stream of brilliant lights and windows sparkled in the nearby towers like gemstones. The music from the band only a few floors above echoed back at them off those buildings as though from across some deep chasm between them and another world, one where the Dhret who’d danced with him was very different from the Dhret who dropped onto the seat of a bike to look out at the twinkling lights while he stared at her and she chewed her lip.

When she saw him looking at her she looked away. “Stop it.” She said.

He smiled. “Stop what?”

“Just…” She looked at him, but couldn’t help smiling herself and looked at her hands. “You look like an idiot when you smile like that.”

He turned his attention to a banging fireworks display going off a few towers away, shooting gold and red light in a shower over the city. “I…” He hesitated, spun a gyro on the bike he leaned against with one shoe, listened to it tick in it’s track around the bike. “I had fun tonight.” He said. He looked up at her. “I… If you’d like…” He added. “We could… do it again? If you wanted.”

The ticking stopped. The girl in front of him held perfectly still, bottom lip sucked in as she stared out at the night.

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He jerked his eyes away, back out to the fireworks still spilling their light like blood across the shadowed heavens. “Or not.” He finally said. “I’ve never..” he shut his mouth, clamped it tight and felt his breath churn at the edges of his aura, felt the party above them in his perception and yanked it away.

The moment passed like an eternity as he held still.

A hand touched the back of his. He looked down to see her hand resting on it while the girl herself remained perfectly still. He waited, and eventually she looked at him but when she tried to smile it faltered half way to her eyes and she jerked her hand suddenly away from his and practically fell off of her bike.

“I’m sorry.” He said.

She clutched her hand to her chest as she backed away from him and he stood up.

“It’s not-“ She seemed to choke on her words, shook her head. “I can’t.” She said at last. “I just can’t.”

Marroo stepped towards her but she shook her head more violently and threw “I’m sorry!” at him as though it were a weapon, then she turned and fled.

He heard the elevator come for her outside the lounge. Stood, as he’d been when she left, and listened to her heart beat until she’d made it almost all the way down to the ground, and was gone.

He took a long time to return home.

His apartment was darker than the courier’s lounge. Quieter. The noises of the world beyond died in the layered dust and paperback books he’d stacked into every corner of the room. It looked shabby, after the party, the shade ragged in the dim light of his familiar, the décor cheap or non-existant, the paper peeling from one corner of the wall.

The sword waited for him beneath his bed. He felt it from the floor above, like a malingering spirit that promised a night of bad dreams and worse sleep. Agitated by the dancing Marroo’s breath leaked out of his aura to wrap itself around the blade while he was still coming into the room and memories not his own shot through his mind before he could pull it back.

“Weak.” His father whispered through the darkness. “Worthless.”

He sat on the edge of his bed, dropped his shoes to the floor, and just, sat there. Alone, while his familiar did slow loops in it’s normal setting, throwing a low red glow from the woman’s shape he’d programmed it too when he was just a boy. Alone, at least, until his hands found a book amidst the stacks and he pulled it out to stare at its cover.

He’d only sat there for a short time before a knock came at his window. He’d heard the footsteps coming up the fire-escape but assumed they were headed for some other apartment. When he set his book aside and opened the window he found Dhret silhouetted on the fire escape looking out across the city.

She didn’t say anything for a long time after he opened the window, and didn’t move. When she did, finally, look at him, her face shown as though she’d been crying.

“Can I come in?”

He moved aside and she crawled through the window to straighten in the middle of his apartment. The room was crowded with one occupant, two made it feel cramped.

She looked around then sucked in a breath through her nose, arms crossed over her chest. “You live like a slob.”

Marroo looked away, found his hand still on the window and pushed it closed. “Did you come here just to insult me?”

Dhret tossed her hair and turned to face him. Half her bun had come undone since he’d seen her last and her face on that side was flushed beneath the track of tears that shone in his familiar’s dim light. “What if I did?” She glared at him.

The hand he’d left on the window clenched into a fist and he looked at it for a moment before he turned to her. “Then you can go.” He said. He reached for the door, pulled it open. “By the stairs this time.” He looked at his bed, rumpled beneath the light of his familiar. “You made your feelings clear.” He didn’t look at her.

Dhret grimaced and turned away from him, back to the window. “No… I…” She looked at the floor. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” Marroo remained by the door staring in turn, down at the floor.

Dhret scowled when he didn’t say more and wrapped her arms tighter around herself. “I… I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said, “My father-” She glared at the floor, then at Marroo, then at the wall.

Marroo looked into the hallway. Lights burned intermittently along the plastered ceiling, illuminating others doors behind which he could hear the even rhythms of their occupants sleeping peacefully behind them or the music of a Ring Festival Party still playing for those gathered late into the night. He felt a hand touch his arm and he turned to find Dhret standing near him, eyes bright with unshed tears as she studied the floor. “Please.” She whispered. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Marroo considered, then closed the door. They stood like that for a couple of moments, neither of them looking at the other.

“You can use the bed.” He said at last.

She looked around. “Where will you sleep?”

“I’ll go on the roof,” He said. He shook off her hand and maneuvered around her in the cramped space to pull the window open again.

“You don’t…” She began, and stopped, looking at the floor, “You don’t have to.“ She looked up at him with her arms wrapped around her chest and gave him a tentative smile. “You don’t have to… to sleep alone.”

“You said-” He began.

“I know what I said.” She snapped. She looked away again, then moved closer without meeting his eyes. She put a hand on his chest and studied it, then looked up into his eyes. She tried to smile but it flickered and died on her lips. He opened his mouth to say that he’d be fine on his own when she kissed him.

Her lips were warm and sweet, and it made the breath churn within him against his will. She looked away when it was done, then stepped back and undid the ribbon still tied around her waist.

“Please,” she said, “I’ll be cold on my own.”

He didn’t dream of violence that night.

His spirit wrapped around her, when they were done fumbling and finding one another in the dark. He felt her breath stir within, and never once did his attention drift to the sword waiting beneath his bed. He woke, only once, when he heard Dhret crying and realized she wasn’t next to him anymore in the bed.

“You shouldn’t have let me stay.” She whispered when she pulled herself back into his arms and wrapped the blanket around them. She kissed him and pulled her face into the crook between his neck and shoulder as she clutched to him. “You should have sent me away.”

He kissed her in response, and held her until they both drifted back to sleep.