Work Text:
Each time they met for their dancing lessons, Csethiro saw the effort Edrehasivar (Maia! which he had said she could call him!) expended in remaining polite. Really, it was becoming absurd.
He seemed not to want to touch her while they danced, which was truly at cross-purposes.
Sometimes, if she could distract him enough that he simply let his body go through the motions, his hands would tighten on her waist and hand just enough to make the rest of the steps more fluid. In those moments, she wanted only to keep talking, to keep his attention on her indefinitely. In those moments, she was glad to be close to him.
It was on a day that they had not found even a single comfortable moment that Csethiro forgot herself entirely. She was tired of pretending she did not like him, or even maybe that she was beginning to love him, despite how badly that had gone for the past hundred years of empresses.
"Maia, dost thou enjoy these lessons?" she asked, when they stopped because he had slightly tripped over his own feet again. He frowned and his ears dropped. She dropped her voice so the nohecharei across the ballroom could not hear them. "Because, I look forward to each time we meet…"
She let the sentence curl flirtatiously and watched as he registered it for what it was.
His eyebrows drew together with confusion. He dropped his own voice to match hers. "I… do enjoy these lessons, yes, Csethiro. I do not quite understand why thou lookest forward to them, though? I know, thou saidst that there is little to do in the winter—"
"Because thou art holding me and I like it!" she nearly hissed.
He flinched slightly, but again, he registered what she meant, and this time he seemed to stop holding the tension in his shoulders, straightening more naturally than she had seen him do all day. He glanced just slightly behind her to the nohecharei and shook his head with a single little wave of his hand.
Maia visibly swallowed, then licked his lips, looking down at her. She watched his eyes as he decided something. His hand found hers, taking it in a new way, his fingers curling around each of hers. "I like it, too. I like it very much."
He smiled the small, private smile she had seen a few times before.
This was the moment that Csethiro forgot herself. She said, "I have hoped thou wouldst kiss me one of these times."
Maia blinked, staring at her with wide eyes. Csethiro could feel her face heating all the way to the tips of her ears.
When he still did not respond, she shook her head and looked away, "We do not have to! You should not listen to us, if it does not please you."
But, Maia would not let her go, would not let her retreat into formality. "No, it does, I think… please me! Only, thou art only the second person to ever suggest anything of the sort in my whole life, and I had not thought…"
It was Csethiro's turn to stare at him. "That I should like thee? That I would wish to be close to thee?"
"For only the sake of it, and not in service of… well… getting an heir?" he said, voice nearly squeaking at the end with embarrassment.
"Yes, of course!" she said. "Maia, I like thee! Surely, this is not such a great revelation?"
Again, he seemed to decide something, and this time, the glance over her head preceded taking her by the shoulders and turning them so his back was to his guards.
Maia kissed her, pressing his mouth hard to hers, terribly awkwardly, but she just pulled him close, her hands finding his waist, then curling around his back. His lips softened and she moved her mouth against his, and then it was lovely. Csethiro thought she might have heard the shuffle of feet from the guards, but in Maia's arms, she couldn't make herself care about them.
Their lesson did not resume that day, but from then until their wedding, Maia always held her with strength and purpose in their lessons.