well behaved women

Title: Transition
Fandom: Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Pairing: Nuala/Nuada
Rating: NC17

Nuada/Nuala: 59. nothing underneath her skirt



On the longest night of the world, she left the fires of her people's revels and walked into the night.

She passed through the ruins, the dark crumbling height of ivy-twined stone, wrapped in dark encroaching plants as though woven in a fatal lover's embrace. She lifted her face to the sky and felt the moon touch her, sliding its sweet insubstantial caress over her cheeks.

She did not need to hear the sounds of celebration, though she could almost still smell the pine-sweet smoke and she knew the warmth of the fires still flushed her cheeks. They frolicked somewhere far behind her and she walked down the cool starry path and listened to the soft croon of the night.

There was no one there that she would choose, no man or being who roused the heat and fury of desire in her, no one she would couple with to commemorate with joy the turning of the seasons of life. He was long gone, and it was only because of it that she allowed the thought to slip through her mind.

Witch lights flirted with the wind, tempting any human creature that might venture off the beaten path. Nuala extended an arm, allowing one to alight on her finger, and then smiled to see it burn into the air, dancing like a star.

She will dance with no one but the night, but she will not begrudge herself the elation.

Nuala spread her arms and lifted her face to the sky.

The people of the earth knew the pulse of the world like their own heartbeat, and she was no exception. Her heels struck the earth, sinking into soft loam, and she took a swaying step forward, her hips pulling into a slow circle, her breath singing out. Somewhere a drum was being beaten, a deep quick tempo. Nuala took the first step, rising onto her toes, and felt the wind stir into life around her. And she danced.

She wasn't as languid as she thought she would be; what was pulled from her was not slow, easy grace but a fast, hard-edged promise of ecstasy. In the pit of stomach, burning her thighs, beneath the pale fragile sheath of her skin. She could have burnt the dew from the grass.

The rhythm changed, each note snapped out, sharp and electric. She could have spun a dance floor from dew and spiderwebs and the dust fallen from moth wings, the power moves like honey in her blood. Her eyes were filled with stars, and the dream of them, and in that moment they seemed interchangeable. The world was so much less fixed than they know.

She was breathing hard when she slowed, the beat still matching her faithfully drumming heart, and as she stilled, skirts swirling to a halt, and closed her eyes, her brother said, "do you enjoy their revels, my sister?"

He stood in the shadows, flanked by trees, when she turned quick as wind, her hair swinging out. Armed, grim, the starkness of his face almost alleviated by a small strange smile.

"You are yet dressed for war, my brother," she said quietly and unsteadily. "If you have not come to seek our father's counsel and pardon, there is nothing for you here."

"Nothing for me?" He moved like the shadow of an owl across the grass, eyes trained on her. "Only you, then, my sister, and that is reason enough for my...transgression."

She was silent for too long before she said, "you mistake yourself."

"No," he disagreed--his fingers on her cheek, sliding down her neck under the veil of her hair--she turned her face into it, the pads of his fingers slipping against her pulse. "This is the longest night of the year."

Her throat was bared, collarbone pale and smooth under the moonlight, fabric turned gray in the night. Her shoulders smooth and almost bare. His fingers paused. Their eyes met.

"You never gave me a proper goodbye," he murmured.

Some madness possessed them both. Not a mirror-image; Nuala knew herself too well to imagine herself merely another facet of her brother in a separate skin. She felt his pain--felt an echo of his pleasure--but it was her own body that shuddered when his fingers slipped beneath the shoulders of her dress and pulled, dragging roughly, baring one breast, her own head that tipped back. His lips touched her throat, chaste like worship, and she fisted a hand in his thick hair.

Up or down? Against bark--on the ground--he sank to his knees and she followed him, toes digging into the earth. His hands touched her thighs, spread them, and his mouth turned hungry at her throat. The fabric of her skirt tore sharply, like spider-lace or petals. Nuala closed her eyes against the stars.

Smooth skin, sensitive, fragile. She burned in his arms, shuddering, and then his fingers slid against her. His breath rushed out in a harsh, lurching sigh and she pressed a frantic, fervent kiss to his temple, cheek, the corner of his mouth. She shook against his restraint, bare beneath the weight of her skirts all the way up to soft curls and slick folds of flesh, and his fingers push--

Her pleasure must have echoed through him as she jerked and clenched around him. But he didn't make a sound, even as a ragged series of whimpers dropped from her mouth, his eyes like fireflies in the night, fixed on her face.

She wondered what he saw. She wondered how long it had been since he'd touched someone like this.

Nuala, he breathed, the inside of her skull the inside of her soul, and her head went back and she rose on her knees, body pulling into a tight arch and came, feeling the rush and spark of it ricochet through him with his sudden jerk against her.

The last breath echoed between them like the toll of an unwound clock.