Dancing on Strings

Below the Castle

Mai blinked stupidly at him for a moment.

"Huh?" she said.

"Really, Mai, you can do much better than him. Think about all the proper gentlemen you could have lost your innocence too – not to mention that you shouldn't be doing such things until after your marriage but I'm hardly one to judge – yet you choose the man who got you into this mess in the first place? That is an unhealthy psyche. He didn't even stay to see you wake up."

"What?!" Mai cried, instantly awake, gaping at him. "What do you think we— No! We didn't do that!"

"Uh-huh," Kazimir said, giving her the once over again.

"We didn't," Mai growled, "I mean we—"

"No! I don't need the details," Kazimir cut in, putting a hand to his eyes, "Trust me, I can see where he put that mouth of his thanks to that nightdress and it leaves no room for imagination. Could you please go get dressed, I know we're only friends but I am still physically attracted to women – even if I prefer my kind to yours – but this is more distraction than I need first thing morning."

Mai's face turned red and she looked down at herself again. She hadn't realised quite how sheer the dress was. Snapping her fingers, her satin dressing gown curled around her and tied in place.

"I didn't know you liked women – with Cole and everything," she said, steering the conversation away from herself and his assumptions

"In terms of the physical, yes, I'm attracted to both," Kazimir said, lowering his hand and pushing past.

"And in terms of emotional?"

"I hate everyone."

"Of course... eeeexcept for Cole?"

"Gods, I want to kill him!" Kazimir snarled, making Mai jump right before one of her vases exploded in a blaze of water.

They stared at it for a moment then Kazimir let out a breath, running a hand through his hair, knocking it out of its ponytail.

"Why don't you go take a seat in the tearoom?" Mai said, the door to the tearoom opening for them. "I'll go dress."

"What a way to start a morning. A dear friend loses herself to a moron and we discuss my preferences? I need to go home and sleep for a month," Kazimir moaned, walking away.

"I did not!" Mai shouted after him, "And how can you want to sleep?"

"I haven't slept in four months, it wears on a man," he said, waving her away when she stared at him before vanishing into the tearoom.

Mai blinked, looking at the empty doorway, then hurried back to her room to change, cursing Griffin when she saw exactly what Kazimir meant by him leaving marks.

She put her hands to her face to try and control the heat flaring through it before getting water to splash on her skin in an attempt to cool it.

Once she had some sort of composure, she changed into a sapphire gown with the ever-present stars interwoven in it before leaving to the tearooms.

Hurrying back across the hall, she smoothed her hair back, tapped her wrist to place a matching bracelet there, adjusted the low collar to cover another mark, then tapped a necklace into existence – there were some things she would miss about the dream world.

She let out a breath, then walked into her tearooms.

Kazimir was sprawled out in one of the chairs, long legs stretched out, head hanging back, thumb and forefinger rubbing his eyes.