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Firefly’s back pressed into the firm surface of the wall, into paneling and brass trim. Hot breath fanned against her cheek. A satin-clad finger carved a burning path along her bare shoulder, peeking from the gap in her dress.
Constance smiled. Neared. So close, so hot…
She frowned.
“We don’t have time for this.”
Constance paused. “Oh, darling. Of course we do. Don’t you think?”
It was hard to think. She could feel every single point of contact they shared, blinking unavoidably in the back of her mind not unlike all the hostiles she registered in a room during a mission. Breath, fingers, claws but a touch away from her waist, and most of all, the heat. The room — their little operations center in the Reef — was an exteriorization of Constance’s psyche splayed across memoria, and the cloying air itself was ripe with the essence of her inner fire. She was surrounded, enfolded by her. Each breath, falling softly on her cheek, so close…
But no.
“We need to be ready to take our next steps.”
She needed to be ready to catch Stelle.
Even the thought of her name had Firefly drifting far away.
Stelle.
It had been so long… and yet, she could almost believe nothing had even changed.
No, that wasn’t quite right.
She could almost believe that everything was perfect.
She could be the girl who needed help driving off Bloodhound bullies, who went exploring through the Golden Hour with her friends, who took them out to eat as thanks. She could be a fyrefly, and not a dying flame. She could be something beautiful she took pride in, not the blaze lab-bred to render the cosmic agents of unending hunger to bitter ash.
She could… be the girl who had an embarrassing crush on her best friend. (Even if she didn’t even remember her.)
Except for that nasty little scene with Dormancy (a pang of guilt spiked in her heart there, and her lips pursed)... an apology wasn’t enough for that. But still, within the terrible and inevitable parameters of the script…
She felt alive. Living as she had never been. She felt she was a girl.
And Constance could smell the feelings on her.
Firefly remembered the Trovys job. That day, her ambient pain had been achingly substantial—she’d been confined to cryo-pod hibernation the whole week prior. She hadn’t told anyone. She’d just soaked in the jagged pinpricks of fiery pain, the disgust of utilizing Fyrefly Type-IV for an extended period, of inhabiting that self she did not wish to be for so long, the numbness which was companion to mass-slaughter.
She could remember it as clear as yesterday.
The way Kafka had looked Constance had wrinkled her nose and ran a claw through her hair—that inaudible whisper that had brought shivers to her spine. “Oh, honey.”
Even stonefaced, even sealing off her feelings to just complete the mission, Constance always knew.
So, it stood to reason that the Cremator was probably a little high off how she was feeling, right now. The anticipation, the excitement, the love. The possibility. Constance could get so overwrought, sometimes. She really shouldn’t encourage this.
“Oh, but we have plenty of time, Firefly,” Constance said, voice soft.
They didn’t.
She opened her mouth, but —
A quiet giggle. The kiss of plush lips at her temple. The sudden flare of hot flame against her. A crimson glow. She blinked. Her mouth parted slightly.
They didn’t. They had just enough time.
“Oh, darling,” crooned Constance, grip on her waist already a little firmer. “Let’s have some fun, hmm?”
Firefly blinked again, rapidly. What…
“O-okay…” she whispered, unable to deny the warm little pulse in her stomach at being spoken to so softly, so gently, like something worth cherishing. “Maybe just a little bit…”
Another giggle. “That’s my good little girl~”
Oh.
Firefly moaned, sagging a little against the wall. Her clit jolted.
She sank into Constance’s arms.
“Yes, that’s right, baby,” Constance murmured, pausing to yank off her glove with her teeth in a haste quite at odds with her tone. Those lips caressed the shell of her ear. Firefly shivered at the delicious agony of all those points of fire against her body. “My girl…”
She felt dizzy.
“That’s what I’ve always wanted,” she whispered, faint as though divulging a secret.
“To be mine, honey?” She sounded a little surprised.
“To be a girl,” Firefly admitted.
The vivid purple of Constance’s eyes darkened. Firefly watched, entranced, as the woman bit her lip. “Oh,” she breathed.
Suddenly, the hand at her side was squeezing her waist, claws digging into her skin through her dress. She whined, panting. “C-Constance… ah…”
“My pretty girl,” she murmured. Soft fingers slipped under the hem of her dress. Firefly flushed, tensing just a mite.
“Shh, honey,” Constance consoled. Another kiss, lower this time, on Firefly’s warm cheek. So close to her lips… right at the corner… “Shh,” she repeated, running a touch gently along the inside of her thigh. Firefly made a squeak. Her legs trembled. Her clit was hard. Ah…
“That’s right. My perfect, pretty girl. So sweet. You feel so good, honey,” Constance moaned, breath kissing Firefly, hand trailing higher, higher, to the wet spot in her panties. “You feel just like a girl should.”
Her clit twitched. She whimpered and slung her arms around Constance’s back, burning hot as a furnace, and enjoyed the long, sleek black of her hair against her touch. A plump thigh slid between her own, those nails dug into her side, and her fingers…
“Please,” Firefly pleaded, mind too hazy to imagine anything else.
A trickle of scarlet ran down the corner of Constance’s bottom lip, pierced by a fang. She stared as it ran down her chin, disregarded.
“You burn so, so brilliantly, Firefly. So beautifully,” the other woman panted, cheeks bright.
Firefly shivered.
“I just…” Constance began, “Aeons… Can I? Please? Let me have you, princess. Right now.”
Firefly’s breathing caught. It was everything she had ever wanted, all the validation she craved, as if dredged from her own subconscious. It was addicting.
Absently, she nodded.
The flame deep in Constance’s eyes swirled, as if adrift, unmoored. She muttered something.
Plush lips caressed her own, so soft and intoxicating. Fire poured down her throat, bled through her limbs. Firefly moaned into the touch and pressed her thighs together, only to meet Constance’s. Her skin was so hot. It scorched at her, the living flame. Those gentle fingers caressed her delicately through her panties, the pad of her thumb stroking at the wet spot.
She whimpered. Constance shuddered suddenly, and, with a low groan, bit into Firefly’s lips. Gnawing pain was her constant shadow, yet this sharp bite sparked a hot conflagration in her belly. She twitched against that soft touch. “Firefly…” those gorgeous inescapable lips mumbled against her mouth. “Princess…”
She twitched again, eyes falling shut.
A breathless laugh. “You like that…”
An impatient yank, and she feels her panties fallen to her knees. Constance wraps herself around her clit and drags her thumb up just so and—
“Ah! O-oh, Constance…”
She could feel herself dripping. Her face burned. It just felt so…
The woman giggled in response. “Good girl…” The words licked against her lips.
Firefly panted, then moaned again as a long tongue forced its way into her mouth, rough surface stroking its walls. She ground into Constance’s hand, whimpered at her caresses. The way she was handling her made her feel so… cute. Soft and gentle as a hug, as if she were beautiful. Profoundly beautiful within, like a dancing cloud of fyreflies in the night.
“That’s because you are,” Constance muttered hotly against her mouth to the thoughts. “You are, princess. So, so perfect. I need to taste you inside. Goodness…”
Her hand grew swifter, a little sloppier. Jolts of hot pleasure burst in Firefly’s stomach and radiated through her limbs. She couldn’t help the pathetic whine that slipped out against wet lips, couldn’t help the buck of her hips into sinfully soft hand, wet with pre, couldn’t help the white that flickered beneath her eyelids when those claws wound into her long hair and tugged. All the blood in her body seethed to Constance’s tune. She shuddered wildly, then let out a harsh exhale when the other woman slowed.
“Too soon, baby,” those omnipotent lips crooned. “I need to savor you…”
Another tug of her hair. Her eyes rolled back, but then she stuttered a reply—”P-please be, mm, careful with it…” She didn’t know what she’d do if Constance damaged it any.
A smile.
“Of course, princess—” here, another long stroke, and Firefly’s mouth fell open under a hot bubble of bliss, “—I know how much you care about it. Even before you took this path. So pretty and silver, so soft and wavy,” a caress against her scalp, a shiver. “It’s perfect. Just like you.”
Her eyes squeezed with pressure. Warm tears beaded up. It just felt so good to be understood. No battle, no cruelty, no horror had ever drawn leaky tears from her. Only herself, only Stelle Stelle Stelle Stelle, and Kafka Kafka Kaf, and—and Constance. Constance.
Beautiful Constance, who’d been there for her as long as they’d known each other. Sweet, doting Constance. Unusual, passionate Constance.
(Hold on…)
The woman giggled, nipped at Firefly’s lips, and sank to her knees in one fluid motion. Her dress pooled around her across the carpet.
Transfixed, Firefly watched the dark flames in her eyes dance playfully.
“Can you be a good girl for me, darling?”
She bit on her own finger. “Y-yes…”
“Aeons, you’re perfect,” the tall woman whispered, lips approaching Firefly’s dripping clit. “The most beautiful girl. The most brilliant flame, poised to burn away to nothing. I need to see it. Desperately, little Firefly.”
“Mm?” Firefly hummed, unable to focus on anything but the soft breath against her, unknowing of anything then but the delight of being alive.
“When you explode,” Constance moaned, eyes impossibly wide and dark. The woman shivered, rubbed her thighs together. Firefly keened.
“F-fuck, y-yes, please, please,” she whined, grabbing impulsively at Constance’s horns like handlebars, feeling up the rough, bumpy, ridged texture. Constance’s resultant gasp shot a molten bolt through her, and the way she wrapped her lips around Firefly’s clit as though compelled by the inevitability of gravity destroyed her. Something deep within Firefly melted.
When Constance licked her with that long tongue, she screamed.
Everything went white, just for half an instant.
Another, slower lick around her head.
She groaned, long and heedless. Her knees buckled, and nails dug into the softness her hips, bracing her. The hold, the sting, and most of all the feel of her own body drove her mad.
Her eyes fluttered shut after she peeked downward. The dull, glazed look in Constance’s purples, the little droplet of her own slick running down her chin, the muss of her straight, black hair, her own hands gripping her horns, her own neediness…
Fuck.
Constance moaned against her. Her tongue flicked upward, and suddenly Firefly was left gasping, strained and beautifully high-pitched. “Please,” she whimpered. Please please please please please…
A full moan below her. She twitched in Constance’s wet, hot mouth. Oh, Aeons…
So good…
The world, the room, the scene blurred to her. She dully registered the smooth trail of Constance’s tail as it wrapped itself around her thigh, the shuffle of a hand away from her hip and down between Constance’s legs. All that remained to her was Constance’s mouth, her tongue, the look in her eyes, adoring and blissed out and burning red, and herself. All that remained to her was that. Constance, Constance, oh, Constance.
Her head buzzed. Pleasure flickered under each of her pores. She shuddered.
“——” Constance. Constance.
That perfect tongue flicked at her glans, and Firefly forgot to breathe for a second. She could feel what the woman had been telling her. This was what it meant to feel beautiful, like a pretty girl should. She was beautiful. Her struggle for life, the agony of dissolution — she could feel that growing sprout, cupped in her hands. She could feel it. She was soaring.
Her lips fluttered. She pulled her closer, thrust herself deeper into her mouth, felt herself drag across that tongue, along those walls, felt the gentle stroke of her sharp tail-tip against her perineum, so light and adoring, and—
Everything lit ablaze.
“Ah! Aah—” she squeezed her fists tight over bone and keratin, threw her head back away from scorching crimson eyes, and jolted, her vision whiting out.
This woman. This woman who had been with her so long. Who had been there for her. Who had—
“Stelle, S-Stelle, love, fuck, Stelle, pleasepleaseplease, aaah, fuck—”
When her sense seeped back in, she found herself twitching with every greedy lick of her tongue, heard the low groan of her partner’s own release, felt the confusion she just couldn’t quite place. Or, not quite confusion — discombobulation. Feelings were muddled together in wrong ways.
She panted. Constance pulled off of her with a pop, breathing heavy. Her lips curled as if to say a particular word, but she never did.
She blinked.
Calculations ran like jets of chill magma in her mind.
She yanked her panties back up. Covered her face in her hands. Swallowed.
“Pretty girl,” Constance began.
What a convenient thing to say, Firefly thought.
Ravenous purple stared into her, face wholly empty but for the quirk of an invisible smirk. The room’s ubiquitous heat seemed muggy now.
Firefly approached aporia with the same resolve she gave everything she cared about, not considering any thought in particular. She simply relaxed as she did on the occasions she managed to find a nice field to rest in on a lull after a mission. Silent and receptive. Breath in, breath out. Oh, so quiet.
Constance pouted the same way she did when Firefly turned down dying with her. Something off. Something off. She couldn’t place it—
Firefly said, “Um. We need to go. It’s coming. I can feel it. The next part.”
Constance looked a little puzzled too. Firefly’s stomach twisted.