Chapter Text
It takes Irikah a long time to lower her guard around him.
She knows better than most what Thane's capable of. The twists of his moral reasoning to justify it, she finds nearly impossible to accept sometimes. Yet there's something in him, something deeper, and his interest is clear - and compelling. So she starts challenging him in return. Asking him to prove himself as a person, not just someone else's weapon. Asking him to meet her in her world, not just expect her to understand his.
Somehow, that's led her into a dare she hadn't actually thought he'd accept.
He's in her home tonight, surrounded by her family; he's being quiet and respectful and is seemingly trying to blend away into the sandy landscapes painted across every wall, but he's here, sharing their dinner, engaging in careful conversation afterward. Her nerves tingle from the strangeness of it.
And her family's trying to talk her into singing.
She never does, except here. She'd surely be the jewel of her troupe if she could sing as well as she danced, but her voice isn't suited to hanar music. They like things clear, high and fluting; to her regret, her voice isn't any of these things. Drell music, which she is perfectly suited for, is… different. It's low and rich, making full use of overtones, strangely atonal by some measures. She does enjoy it, privately; she just has no idea what Thane will think. Hopelessly traditionalist, probably. Unfashionable. Most people do.
But at last she gives in to her family's urgings, and thinks that if she's going to do this, she might as well give it her all. And she does.
The thing that nearly breaks her mid-note is Thane's reaction.
Gods, the way he stares… all night he's been cooly reserved, but now he's purely and honestly surprised, and he looks captivated. Almost awed. She's never seen him that unguarded. And when he speaks to her after, he seems dismayed at her excuses for not singing like that before. "You shouldn't ever be ashamed of such a thing," he tells her. "Not something that beautiful. Not for anything you are."
She does go breathless then, and her resolve toward caution finally falters.
Oh, Iri, you're in trouble, she thinks. Yet when he whispers his own challenge to her, a soft and tempting suggestion, she only hesitates a moment before saying yes.
...
Ryel doesn't trust a thing about him.
One night, after watching this man of Irikah's over dinner and gnawing at her own suspicions far more than the food, she retreats to the station. It's dark and empty but for the glow of her terminal, and she doesn't do anything to counter that. She just sits there, digging through files, for hours.
She's chasing after nothing but ghosts and suspicions, but something's worrying her that she just can't shake.
Something about Thane unnerves her. He's too poised, too precise, too… trained, for something that she doesn't like. She's seen men who moved like him before, and they were rarely up to anything harmless with it. She hasn't overtly recognized him, though, so she has nothing specific to chase. The best she can do is to scan through criminal records and profiles, hoping for a match one moment, hoping she's wrong the next.
She starts muttering about how much easier this would be if she could just upload her memories direct and have the computer cross-reference everything for her, and then when she realizes she's talking to herself, shuts herself up with another enormous mug of coffee and keeps working.
It's at an appalling hour of the morning that she begins to suspect she's in the wrong files.
They keep a separate directory marked Agents under Primacy protection: a catalog of those employed by the hanar at high enough levels that they enjoy a certain…diplomatic immunity, outside the reach of civilian law enforcement. Everything about that boundary chafes her, but she has no choice but to honor the agreements. Ryel scans through photos with her heart in her throat, and all too soon she finds what she supposes must have been inevitable. A familiar face. A complete name, this time. Irikah hadn't told them. Thane Krios, it's marked. Terminal negotiations.
Ryel reads those two words four times, then swears, succinctly and vehemently. It's every bit as bad as she feared. Those listed in this file, she can't touch no matter how dangerous they are.
And her beloved little sister, she of the whipcrack wit who should know better, is in love with an assassin.
"Shit," Ryel says again, seeing nothing good coming of this, and puts her head in her hands.
...
She moves like water, like the hanar taught her, when she dances for them. He's gone before to watch in secret, crouched in the rafters or hiding in the shadows, and he found much to admire then - but something about it never felt quite right, not quite like her.
Now that she's agreed to those hints he's been dropping and is dancing just for him for the first time, he's beginning to understand why.
Irikah's learned her own dances, too, just like she did her own songs, and these are truly something different. In the last rays of sunset that crept in through the clouds, she nearly glows; color shimmers off her scales, green coruscating into gold. He can't stop watching the graceful lines of her arms, the flare of her hips.
He's also seeing something that's strangely familiar.
These forms were meant for combat, once, she'd said. She's clearly right. Slowed down and softened, these steps hide their potential beneath the grace of the dancer and the melody she moves to. But he can nearly feel what would happen if she unleashed herself. There's fire in her, and his blood sings with the desire to join her, match and counter every step until they're too tangled to distinguish one body from the other, moving as one.
She must have recognized that in him by now. They've danced around each other like this for weeks: almost touching, almost slipping past their arguments and indignations into understanding, and almost - almost - moving past this game of goading each other, poking at one another's barriers. Now it's a different sort of challenge, for she's tempting him purposefully now. He thinks it's finally time to answer. Slowly, Thane gets to his feet and steps closer.
"Irikah," he says. She doesn't stop moving, doesn't respond; instead she makes a sudden, neat pivot. To his surprise, her hand flashes out - and her fingertips stop just shy of his throat.
She stops right there, smiling at him.
It takes a second to react. Even his training master might have been impressed at that move. Thane's hopelessly beyond that point, and knows it. Poised there on the edge, he takes a deep breath, reaches his own hand up to clasp hers and corrects himself.
"Siha," he murmurs this time.
Her lips part softly in surprise, but she tries to keep her balance. "Don't just flatter me again," she says, in a voice that trembles only a little. "Prove it."
He smiles back, and gladly meets her challenge -- and presses her hand to his heart as he bends to meet her in a soft, all-consuming kiss.