She wasn't exactly trained in stealth.

She was absolutely certain she didn't know what she was doing.

But, well...

She'd spent most of her life being seen as desirable, and being told that that was all to the good, so...

So now we see where it leads...

She carried the towel Akari had suggested, still a bit puzzled by the concept, and was not exactly dressed for making a formal impression- her hair was down, and she wore what she had laughingly called "half a kimono" when she'd acquired it back on the mainland- very, very short, it only reached to about mid-thigh. It was meant to be worn as an outermost layer, to make a rather daring accessory to a more proper kimono.

But in the island's heat, it was about all she felt able to wear over her fundoshi and still get some sleep.

Maybe I can design something lightweight but more... socially acceptable. Wait. No. You already have a thousand projects competing for space. Steady, Yukari. You always try to come up with more to do when you're nervous.

And boy was she nervous.

Akari hadn't been her first kiss. She had been Yukari's third, as it happened, following on the heels of young Shiba Tsuji, who had made a couple of hairpins for Yukari before being married to a lovely young Kakita, and then Mirumoto Gorobei, who had clearly been after no more than a brief flirtation during a diplomatic mission.

But she was the first woman Yukari had kissed.

And she's really good at it. Maybe I could-

Before her mind got away from her again, she spotted the flower. Paused. Picked it up and stuck it behind her ear, before scratching at the door.

The door slid open, revealing Akari in a festive, loose fitting, lightweight yukata. Likely what she wore to bed frequently.

She didn't say anything for now, nodding and inviting with a gesture closing the door behind. Once they were both in and behind the privacy of the door Akari took the time to truly appreciate what she was seeing.

Oh, she came to play.

Hungry eyes traced the lines of the kimono against bare skin. She then stepped closer and took the towel before tossing it aside for now.

"We're definitely going to need that towel, Yukari-san.

"I'm.. still not sure what you're getting at, but, ah..."

Yukari swallowed. Nerves.

"Glad I brought it, then? You look... lovely."

"As are you Yukari-san," the Miya replied, taking one of Yukari's hands and guiding her to a place they can sit together.

Yukari's heart was racing- and she was relieved that evidently some preamble would be involved.

"I think you can drop the 'san' here..."

Not that she presumed she could do anything of the sort to the Imperial of course. There were rules.

Even if I'm a bit hazy on how many I'm breaking by being here...

"And in this place, and space, it is Akari," she says, returning the courtesy.

Sitting next to Yukari, she adjusts so that she can touch the other woman's hair. Running her fingers through it. "You really do take quite good care of it. My hair is not nearly as soft or smooth."

She was breaking out in goosebumps again at the intimacy of the gesture.

Silly- they'd already kissed, after all, but... this was... more private.

"Thank you. Akari. Again, I spent a month just on perfecting the brushing technique. I think it was something to do with how tejina are performers just as much as anything else. Our... personal presentation is another art to perfect."

She reached up to remove the flower from behind her ear.

I'll have to cultivate a few of these...

Before her mind could kick into project overdrive, she opted to nip that in the bud by reaching out to brush her fingertips across Akari's cheek.

"I think my sensei wouldn't have found much to improve with yours, though. You're so... confident."

"Patience has it's place, but we should seize the opportunities we're presented. Regret and desire are both sins. But we can only truly control one of them. The heart wants what the heart wants, so why compound the sins by not accepting the truth it tells you?" It was the twisted logic of someone that wanted to justify their feelings and actions to themselves. But justify she did.

"And for some reason, I suspect a sensei that spent a month on strict hair brushing instruction would likely find more than a few ways to try and improve me."

She takes the removed flower from Yukari in one hand and holds her other hand in her lap, starting to trace the lines on the back of her hand with the petals of the flower.

"Not that I'm not in need of some correcting at times. But I rather think I like myself as I am."

Yukari gave the slightest shiver.

"Liking yourself as you are was the first two months with that sensei, as it happens... so you'd have been advanced student..."

The flower continues its dance on the back of Yukari's hand.

"To be fair, most people need that lesson. It's one that I have had to grow into. Accept who I am. But if you have learned it as well, I suppose you know how difficult it can be.
To accept your have flaws and weaknesses, not let them define you, but rather own them instead."

The flower slowly makes it's way up her arm until it reaches the hem of her sleeve. Akari's fingers lift the sleeve an inch or two and the flower plays on skin it could not reach previously before lowering once more.

"When we accept ourselves, it makes it easier to accept others, no?"

"That's part of why it was that sensei's first lesson... she said that where a Crane might focus on changing to look perfect, we would only work on perfecting what was already there."

At the touch of the flower, she bit her lip.

"Perhaps a silly stance for an illusionist to learn, but I've found it a helpful one."

"Why would it be silly?" she asks.

Akari then moves slightly closer, the flower making its way down her arm. When it reached the Shiba's hand once more she pulled it away before lifting Yukari's hand to her lips. While she kissed that hand however, Yukari would feel the light touch of the flower around her knee. And considering the path it took last trip...

Yukari made an odd little noise at the back of her throat- and her free hand moved up to stroke Akari's hair.

But for once, her over-busy mind wasn't trying to jam up the works, so she wasn't assessing anything- just appreciating everything.

The sudden quiet was met with a smile that made a promise. A promise that there would not be any unfulfilled wants tonight. But her movements suggested that those wants would not be rushed to. Each action was an intentional tease and invitation for Yukari to play along. She might be willing to do this until the Shiba went mad and tackled her.

But Yukari wasn't the tackling type... at least not yet.

She settled for making eye contact instead, giving the Miya the full benefit of her excitement, her trepidation, her curiosity, her concern, and most emphatically, her trust.

Her teachers had privately and not so privately worried that she gave her trust too easily. She wasn't at all sure she was proving them wrong, but...

But we're all in this together.

She bit her bottom lip as she held eye contact.

The flower brushed it's way up the outside of her leg, stopping at the hem, moving to the middle, then played it's way back down.

The flower started working its way up the inner thigh but stopped short. She leaned into Yukari's body against body, lips to her ear, breath warm and heavy, "Say yes."

She nibbled on the earlobe while she waited for the reply.

Yukari gave another of those not-entirely-verbal noises at first.

This was well beyond her experience- and not simply the level of physical closeness.

Although that's not to be ignored...

Her own scanty attire- a single layer of silk in most places- coupled with Akari's similar degree of undress, made her acutely aware of the contact. The warmth.

But moreover... having spent her adult life primarily as the object of the attentions of others, the fact that Akari was asking her to express her own desire was... entirely novel in Yukari's life. She was being asked to actively request that things go further.

True, it probably wasn't a fair question- having come this far, feeling the way she did, feeling Akari's breath on her skin, feeling her own hear racing in something a biut like fear, but also totally unlike it...

The answer was never really in doubt.

"Yes."

Akari was not one to play fair, not when it came to what she wanted. Her lips found Yukari's neck, as she laid the Phoenix back. Producing a strip of silk and twisting it into a thick rope of silk and placed it in her hand. "Bite down on this, if you think it will be necessary to keep your voice quiet."

The Miya smiles hungrily at her partner for the night, burying her fingers in Yukari's hair, and kissing her deeply as her fingers...

/ftb