Braden filled his nose with Yuriko’s scent. Her hair had a light floral smell, from her shampoo and soap, he thought. He had his arms around her waist and his head rested between her shoulder blades. A moment later, she leaned her head against the top of his.

It was both titillating and somewhat humiliating. The gap between their heights was that much.

Still, she was wonderfully soft, though she was quite firm underneath. He carefully kept his hips away. Hopefully, he’d calm down by the time they returned to the ballroom. With how tight his slacks were, there was no hiding his condition.

After a few glorious minutes, Yuriko tapped his hands which he took as a signal to let go. He did so reluctantly and stepped back. Her ears were slightly flushed, and honestly, with her pale skin, it was impossible for to hide her flush. Still, she regained her composure easily, nodded at him and started back into the ballroom. Braden took several deep breaths, and followed behind her.

The fifth dance was ongoing when they returned to the table. Braden saw Orrin being spun around by his partner, and when they caught each other’s eyes, Braden winked. Orrin chuckled but was soon forced to concentrate on the dance.

A heated glare from across several tables came from Heron. Braden turned his nose up and smirked. Was the other boy grinding his teeth? Ah, surely he could hear the faint crunch even from a dozen paces away. Hehehe.

The server topped up Yuriko’s mead glass and the girl tossed it down, her cheeks and neck forming a charming and intoxicating flush. Braden had barely touched his glass, though he took a couple of sips earlier.

“Are you sure you should be drinking that much?” he whispered in Yuriko's ear.

She flinched in surprise and gave him a lidded stare, which caused his heart to beat rapidly and forced him to cross his legs. It also made him want to swallow his words, and he suddenly imagined how a mouse would feel after being stared at by a cat. Still…

“That’s mead. It’s, er, alcoholic. You’ll get drunk.”

“Oh?” Yuriko crossed her eyes, and for a moment, a golden glow showed off her skin, though it disappeared by the time Braden blinked. “Huh.” She took another sip. “It’s tasty.”

Braden chuckled awkwardly.

They sat quietly while watching the sixth and the seventh dances. By the time the entire rotation had finished, it was close to midnight and the Celestial Refraction. The entire group moved to Aneurin’s central garden and waited with bated breath for the current year to end.

One moment, the Half-moon and the Chaos streams were clearly visible, but the next, the exact moment midnight came, the plane was shrouded in darkness. There was nothingness in the skies, no light, no streams, no moon, and certainly no sun. A moment later, the very air around them lit up in green motes.

The ambient Chaos of the plane finally became visible after all the other lights stopped drowning them out. Braden held his breath and enjoyed the view of the motes floating in the air. The complete darkness was normally impossible to see unless they were underground or inside a room with no windows. The ambient Chaos didn’t shed any light, they just existed.

Right beside him, he heard Yuriko take a sharp inhalation and he blinked when he saw that the motes were drawn to her, gathering in front of her face in a vortex. The next moment she breathed them in and puffed out a turgid puff of air.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

Yuriko glanced at him and grinned. Her skin was glowing gold with her Animus, flickering tongues of flame licking at the motes of ambient Chaos.

“Training.”

“Uh, can’t you rest instead?”

She tilted her head at him and shrugged. “But it’s the best time to do it.”

Braden sighed and shook his head. Well, she wasn’t the only one glowing with Animus amongst the students and the other adults attending the viewing. They spent the next ten minutes quietly sitting on the garden, on stools, and on blankets spread on the ground. Yuriko had spread her skirts over her folded legs, tucked a strand of her fringe over her ear and patted the blanket beside her invitingly. Braden happily complied.

“Is this how you spend your Refractions?” He asked her.

“With family, mostly. We share the wrongs we’ve done to each other over the past year, little things that annoyed us but weren’t serious enough to have a confrontation over,” Yuriko said wistfully.

“Ah. My family mostly sat around a feast table and ate,” Braden shrugged. “We usually had the best foods my Uncle could buy. We had a lot of roasted Kadrac Beef. Haveena’s just south of Cierra after all.”

Speaking of Uncle Colin, he hadn’t heard from the man since the last time they deposited a sum of coins into his account at the Imperial Bank. He supposed the man was on another foray into the Federation of City-States and when he came back he would have a new trade deal, a new product to push, and coins to flow into the coffers of the Foster Family.

“Ah, I miss Rami,.” Yuriko sighed. “Since Mum left, I’ve been the one keeping an eye on him. Marron was already in Agaza and Kato was almost there. He’s quite the sweet kid.” She trailed off.

“Aren’t you going home for the semestral break? That’s at least five weeks,” Braden suggested.

“Oh, I probably shouldn’t. Kato and Marron only came home after the academic year ended and usually spent the mid-Water break earning merits for graduation.”

“You’re not in Agaza so different rules might apply.”

“Either way my goal is still to enter Vagaris,” Yuriko declared firmly.

“Right.”

A few minutes later, both of them were already yawning into their fists. Some of the students had already left the gathering.

“May I take you back to the Willow?”

“Oh, sure.”

They stuck to the Academic Roundabout on the way to the dorms rather than cutting across the Central Reserve. The street lamps were brightly lit, shedding little pools of light across the road. They weren’t the only couple walking this way, though a good half of first years were headed the opposite way, to the main gates where they would take the specially commissioned Circuit Tram on their way home.

Soon enough they were on the path leading to the Willow’s entrance. Yuriko turned to him and said, “Thank you, Braden. It was fun.”

Braden smiled and stepped up close. She blinked in confusion but didn’t recoil. “I had a wonderful time too. Thank you for choosing me.”

“It was Fate,” Yuriko giggled. “The coin just favoured you.”

“Ah, yes. Well,” Braden bowed and took her hand, pressing his lips on her knuckles for the second time that night. The scent of the yellow lily wafted up his nose. When he straightened, Yuriko’s ears were red. “Good night.”

“Yeah…good night.”

She spun on her heels and hurried inside the lounge, though she glanced back at him before she disappeared into the threshold.

Braden whistled happily to himself on the way back to the Wild Oak. And he could barely keep his silly grin off his face.

_____

“How is your relationship going?” Kale’s mother, Lucille, asked as soon as he arrived back at the manor.

“Slow, and steady, I would hope,” Kale sighed. “Miss Davar isn’t really interested in a relationship, a blessing, I believe. Among her suitors, she has not committed to anything more than friendship. That applies to me as well.”

“I see. That is…unfortunate.”

“Well, I believe my chances are better than those currently around her. After all, I can satisfy her deepest desires.”

“Oh?”

“Her need to better herself. After I showed her the calibre of my skills, she always sought me out during our shared classes for personal training.”

Mother raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious in those spars?”

“For most, no,” Kale smiled. “But I’ve come close.” He tapped his chin, “though she’s coming close lately.”

“She’s a Novice?”

“No, she said she’d advanced to Apprentice a few weeks earlier, but her strength and speed match a third-order Journeyman, or perhaps a weak Knight.”

“You mean she’s advanced Strengthen Physique to the 2nd Tier?”

“I believe so.” Kale shrugged. ”Her weapon skills are decent, a bit too straightforward though. She avoids striking at vital points when we spar, even when I deliberately open myself up for it.”

“Hmm, understandable. Anything else?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“I see. What else did you observe during the Daffodil Cotillion?”

“Well, I looked at the guardians and parents who attended. I saw Mori Esras talking to a merchant, I’m not sure from which Emporium. They looked quite serious and there was a subtle privacy shield around them.”

Lucille just nodded and motioned for him to move on.

“I think one of the Sharines is close to proposing an alliance with the Canterils. I saw two elders of those houses sharing mead. The Gentin house is still quite beholden to the Esras faction, I saw their heir waiting hand and foot with a member of the Greenwood household…”

Kale kept on talking until the wee hours of the morning before his Mother let him go to bed. He was her heir, after all, and more than physical power, cunning and a perceptive mind was needed for their House to survive.

His attempt to woo Miss Davar was part of their House's move to secure their power in the plane of Rumiga. The two Ducal houses had shared power for far too long that it was becoming unbearable.

Rumiga was too far from Realmheart to be ruled over by a Prince or Princess, but too large to have a single Duke to govern. There were two Legions nominally calling it home, Agminis and Vagaris, where other planes only had a single home guard Legion.

There were many hostiles around too. Notwithstanding the Chaos Courts, who each had a stronghold in the surrounding Sea, the Federation was backed by a larger conglomeration of nations spanning multiple contested planes.

Still, his suit wasn't without its own merits beyond the likely alliance with a powerful clan. The girl was nothing but gorgeous, and her lineage was impressive. Of course, that rounded back to her Clan. Still, he listened in when Emyr reported to mother and his younger brother had nothing but praise and admiration, and not a little bit of envy when it came to Yuriko Davar.

He had also observed her with her partner during dinner and the dance. He wasn't worried.

Though the kid had some background with her, Kale ultimately thought that if she had to choose, she would choose him over that boy, or even that other boy, Heron Muryh.

Kale's lineage was much more impressive than theirs. Of course, she may harbour romantic feelings for them but the greater clans rarely allowed unions based purely on feelings.

Well, he would be magnanimous. He wouldn’t hold it against her or them if they let their feelings rule for a bit. After all, as long as there was no by-blow then nothing would ever come of it.

He wasn't a stranger to such matters and he was hardly inexperienced.

Still…the thought of her being with someone else was unexpectedly irritating. Hmmm, maybe he was being drawn in as well.

Not good, not good. A leader must not let himself be ruled by emotional attachments. Perhaps he needed to meditate and expunge such feelings.

Kale walked into his bedroom and shed his clothing, leaving the servants to pick them off the floor. He took a quick shower and scrubbed the oil off his face. Proper skincare was quite important. No way was he going to class with his skin breaking out.

He tossed himself in bed as soon as he was done with his ablutions. The Refraction was often a time to examine his life. It was a time to slow down and think. Come to think of it, he hadn’t presented his suit to her yet but from how things were looking, if he attempted directly, he would be rejected. His method would be to worm his way into her heart, where she couldn’t imagine living without him.

He was far from it yet, but as long as he presented himself well and helped her achieve her goals, he should become an indelible ink in her heart.

‘Huh, I remember Master Antiga’s lecture to her back during our trip home.’ He thought. She wasn’t used to fighting against humans.

Well, the Academy would call for volunteers for the push up north. The report on the jadeite deposit turned out to be true but the Iron Skin tribe’s presence there is strong, though not in Cinderfield specifically. Not to mention that they often raided the border forts mid-Water. It would be a good chance for her to overcome her reluctance to battle humans to the death.

Well, Iron Skin were barely human so maybe they didn’t qualify. Still, he should recommend that chance to her. And of course, he would be there to catch her should she fall.