118. Gorgeous Ladylove

Christie was really, really happy to finally get that skating date. She loved spending time with Agatha, but sometimes that wasn’t enough, it needed to be a dedicated date. And that urge had especially grown as of late as with the academic year all over them again they hadn’t been able to spend as much time together. Either she was busy exercising, or Agatha was busy with golemancy and Shayla.

Christie wasn’t jealous that her ladylove was spending that much time with Shayla – even if she was a snake of a woman – because the warning she had given her at the end of the previous academic year did seem to stick on the Intaksolfani’s mind.

“Are you just going to stay sat there?” Agatha said as she approached skating towards her. The petite woman had a superb control of her inertia even on a surface with very low friction as she casually summoned agates around her body to drain her momentum.

“I... am not as graceful as you,” Christie softly spoke. She sat on a pillar of stone rather than agate as due to the quirks of her sea of stone that would have made any agatiferous seating dangerously slippery. “And I am more than satisfied by just looking at your dance.”

“You dummy doll,” the blonde seamstress giggled, a blush forming on her visage. “I am not dancing! I am just... awkwardly flailing around.”

“If your movements are ‘flailing around’ then I must be spasming when I skate,” the tall redhead added with a hint of self-deprecation.

“Oh, do not exaggerate!” Agatha grabbed her hands and softly pulled them on. “Come on, join me!”

“Mock sapphire, if you continue pulling, you are going to slip,” the nouveau riche looked downwards at her ladylove’s feet. They had no purchase in the slightest as they continuously slipped on the agate film.

“Then so be it!” She giggled. “What is a bit of skating without a bit of falling on you’re a-bottom!”

Christie giggled at her girlfriend’s correction. She loved how cute her ladylove was when she tried to correct her vocabulary or etiquette, even if she had told her countless times that there was no need for such formality.

“You can be crude, you know?” The redhead planted a kiss on the tip of the blonde’s nose and smiled at her. Perhaps she couldn’t be as radiant as the petite lithorist, but she still wanted to gift her with some smiles.

“And you can skate, you know?” Agatha pouted at her, then continued pulling on her arms. “Come on! Come o-”

And inevitably tripped.

Her ladylove could have done many things, like keep holding Christie’s arms to mitigate – if not outright save – the fall, but instead she decided to let go of the arms, kick hard on the agate ground, and perform a somersault. And of course, in characteristic Agatha of Malachite fashion, she landed perfectly on her feet with her arms extended and open in a welcoming manner. The only thing that she lacked was a ‘Tadaa~’.

“Showoff,” Christie scowled.

“Perhaps you could perform such acrobatics if you skated more~” Agatha teased her. Which only came out as cute as her body kept sliding away due to the ground’s low friction.

“I highly doubt it,” the redhead grunted and heaved her body out of the stone pillar, her feet awkwardly placed on the slippery agates, “but I will still take you up on your offer.”

Christie was nowhere comparable to Agatha when skating. Not only was her ladylove already quite prodigious in everything related to acrobatics, but the lapiloquist also had the disadvantage of being tall, which moved her center of gravity a bit too upward for her liking. Between her body weight and height, a fall could be potentially lethal, even if highly unlikely. And the same couldn’t be said for the petite lithorist who could just shrug it off.

“If you waddle that awkwardly, you are only increasing your chances of falling!” Agatha taunted her.

“Thank you for the moral support!” Christie shouted back and tried to regain her composure, but the more she tried to make her back upright, the more hunchbacked it became. “Uhhh…” She grunted nervously as she fought for her life to stay upright.

The only saving grace she had was that the skating field was virtually infinite for her as more agate film coated the ground whilst she was on the move. The same didn’t apply for her ladylove who had to always keep herself within ten meters from Christie, but at the same time, that wasn’t a problem for the acrobatic blonde.

“D-do you think actual ice skates would have been better?” She tried to make conversation as her body wasn’t making much progress. The thick uniform boots no longer brought her much comfort.

“I highly doubt it,” her ladylove snorted in an amused manner. “It is better if you have more surface to balance yourself on. On your feet you only risk tripping, but on skates you risk falling on your ankle, and let me tell you, that is a nasty and painful thing.”

“Y-yeah, I will trust you on it…” The thing about being a sickly child was that, even if pain was always around the corner, Christie had never experienced any actual physical wound. The only thing remotely similar she had suffered from was muscle soreness from training. Though, to be fair, there had been a lot of muscle soreness, especially during the first year.

Agatha effortlessly glided in front of her. “You know that talking will not endow you with better balance, right?”

“Mayhapssss,” Christie accidently elongated the ‘s’ sound like a snake as she almost tripped. “Er…” She blushed hard enough to make someone mistake her visage for her red mane. “It does soothe me. Make me less nervous.”

“Then I fret how nervous you would be without talking,” the graceful skater chuckled and did a completely needless pirouette in front of the redhead. All of this whilst skating backward.

“Ah-Agatha! Stop doing that!” The nouveau riche pitifully screamed. “You are making me more nervous! Please look forward!” She also added a yelp at the end.

“Hehe,” and her girlfriend responded by grinning like a fool. “There is no problem whatsoever, Christie. I have a Watch agate flying over us,” Agatha pointed at her big sapphire with a finger and then reinforced that point by putting her hands behind her head in a relaxed posture. Which made Christie’s heart sank.

Even further would be the utmost correct description.

“That does not reassure me in the slightest!”

“Why are you so nervous? You did not get this neurotic even when you were scared of heights.”

“I never said I was no longer scared of heights!” Christie bit her underlip whilst fighting against her rapidly declining sense of equilibrium. “I was only able to ignore it due to the fact that…” She stopped for a moment as she nearly tripped again. “Due to the fact that I could break any fall with a thought!”

“You can still do that, dummy doll,” Agatha giggled.

“No! No, I cannot!” The lack of balance – and therefore control – was getting on the redhead’s nerves. “My reflexes are nowhere as fast as the rest of lithorists! Remember that I am still on the First Stratum? It takes too much thought in too little of a window to summon agates with Control to stop my fall!”

“We could practice it then!” Her ladylove added with a bit too much enthusiasm. “I can stop the fall for you if needed!”

“No, Agatha! I do not need to train stopping fa-“

She finally lost her balance after what felt like ages of fighting to recover it. Due to the fractured conversation, Christie’s first reflex was now to summon agates instead of using moving her body around to limit the damage of the fall. And as previously stated, she didn’t have enough time to react. She was moving too fast and gravity liked vertically cursed people a bit too much.

Fortunately, her girlfriend did instantly take on the offer.

Unfortunately, she was even more dummy than Christie.

Agatha, far from the most polished agate in the pyxis, tried to stop Christie’s fall with her own body instead of her lone agate more than capable enough to carry several people. If it weren’t for the fact that Agatha’s reaction time was so heightened that she could even correct for such unconscious decisions, Christie might have fallen on top of her thin arm.

Instead, she fell on the whole girl.

“Ugh!” The petite lithorist groaned underneath her, their bodies still sliding around.

Christie thought for a moment to cancel the Friction command, but they stopped before she could organize her thoughts as they lost most of their momentum due to the impact. Her low-quality agates couldn’t make the ground that frictionless after all.

“C-could you remove from on top of me?” Agatha mutedly grunted.

“Sorry, sorry!” The redhead panicked and tried to stand up, only to be met with the realization that she hadn’t removed Friction yet.

She slipped again.

At least this time she caught her mistake in time and managed to remove the Friction command, allowing her to stop herself from falling as she was already on all fours.

“You really should practice how to fall,” her sciurine ladylove teased.

“Bold words for someone at kiss range,” the lapiloquist grinned. She had tied her hair before skating into long braids, but the whole ordeal had made some strands loose, which now hung between her and the petite lithorist pinned on the ground.

“Wait whuh?” Agatha mouthed in bewilderment, but she didn’t have time to even blush as Christie started kissing her.

The first peck was a proper one on the lips. If Christie was religious – or worse yet, scholarite – then that would be kiss as divinities mandated. The next pecks were faster yet not any less vicious, as she kissed her ladylove’s temples, nose, cheeks, chin, and she finally went for the neck. At that point the smooches became far… damper. And far suckier.

“Christie…” Agatha first spoke with also a yearning tone. But when the hickeys started, her reaction quickly changed. “Christie!” Becoming far more violent. “Not here! We are outdoors!”

“There is no one in one kilometer around us,” Christie exhaled the words, her tone heated. It had been three months since they had shared the bed for the first and last time, and her body didn’t fail to remind her so.

“You cannot know that!” Her ladylove protested aloud, which made the redhead snap out of her trance.

“I…” She tried to speak but found herself gagging at the words. “…sorry.” That was everything she could utter as she sat on the ground and freed the petite blonde from the pinning.

“That… I…” Agatha clicked her tongue. “No, you do not to apologize, Christie…” The seamstress recovered from her prone position and placed herself on her knees to put herself on eye level with Christie. She then grabbed the nouveau riche by the cheeks and pressed their temples together. “It would be alright if we were in private.”

“We are in private,” Christie weakly corrected.

“You know what I mean, dummy doll,” the blond lithorist rubbed her nose against hers. “I know you are smarter than that.”

“Maybe…” She hesitated before uttering the words. “Maybe I am tired of doing everything hidden. I would like to love you openly… I yearn to do so.”

Agatha softly giggled. “I know, but that is unlike you. Do you remember why we are even hiding it in the first place?”

“Because our relationship would not be well received?” Her ladylove separated their heads, squinted at her, then flung a finger at Christie’s temples. “Ouch! That is my gesture! You cannot steal it!”

“Perhaps stop acting like a dummy doll and I will give it back,” her sciurine girlfriend pouted angrily at her. “You know the actual reason.”

She did. But she also didn’t want to say it aloud in the fear of jinxing themselves. Yes, relationships between women weren’t well seen in Crocheta; though it wasn’t like they would be prosecuted. No, the actual problem lay more on their societal status rather than their gender.

“The military does not appreciate relationships between soldiers,” Christie said defeatedly.

“Sactly,” Agatha grinned radiantly, unconsciously letting her villager speak out. “We have the one advantage that people will suspect us of first being in relationships with men. So that allows us far more freedom for escapades, but we will be actual soldiers next year. So who knows what can happen?”

Even though her ladylove didn’t say it aloud, she understood the weight of that question. Christie’s memory went back to how Esmeralda spoke about her husband, Fernando, and how she had lost him whilst she was helping her with the new dresses. She had lost him in an instant. War was that cruel.

The life of a soldier was that cruel.

The memory of the behemoth flashed on her mind yet again. She doubted it would ever leave her, and she appreciated that. Perhaps they had prevailed, but it was a stark reminder of how sudden and brutality death could come.

Christie wouldn’t deny she was scared. But at the same time, she didn’t want to stop loving her. And that was the exact reason why they couldn’t reveal their relationship. If the military found out the nature of their bond, then they would be split apart, sent to different positions during the rest of their service.

And her heart couldn’t hold that.

She needed to love Agatha at all times. Being away from her without the chance of knowing if she had been hurt – or, unthinkably, even worse – was the worst of her nightmares.

“I understand,” Christie nodded weakly and defeatedly, but most importantly, she actually understood what was at stake. “But it still fills me with shame and sadness to not be able to shout at the four winds that I love you.”

“Not even normal couples do that…” Agatha’s cheeks radiated as if commanded by Heat.

Ah, my gorgeous carnelian… The longer Christie looked at her ladylove, the harder it was to restrain herself. She just wanted to pin her to the ground again and ignore their duties and their studies.

Christie grabbed a lock of Agatha’s hair and she softly caressed it between her fingers. “We are not normal, so why settle for normal, to begin with?”

“That sounds like a slippery slope…” The petite blonde avoided the tall redhead’s gaze, her blush becoming more apparent by the second.

“Slippery slope, huh?” Christie didn’t say anything at all, but her grin told Agatha more than enough as her blush suddenly looked as if commanded by Amplify.

“Christie!” She protested.

“What? I did not say anything,” the redhead chortled deviously. “You are the one having lewd thoughts~”

“It is not really my fault if you force them upon me…”

Hearing that last part of that sentence was like a bucket of cold water. Perhaps Agatha hadn’t told her to stop, but one of the last things Christie wanted was to force anything upon her. Perfect girlfriend, perfect girlfriend, she reiterated almost in a panic.

“Er… we can… you know…” All her speechcraft now failed her, she was out of her game, a leviathan out of water.

“I know what?” Agatha inquired with innocent curiosity. Her ladylove was still so embarrassed that she seemingly failed to notice Christie’s loss of composure.

“We can always get off the hook due to no one suspecting us,” she defaulted to their previous conversation. “Surely escapades as active soldiers are bound to be more exciting,” Christie teased to fake she was in control of the conversation.

“Well, it is not like ‘no one’ suspects us. There is Shayla…” The seamstress informed with a wry smile.

“Oh, so that was what she was doing at the library?” The nouveau riche mused to herself.

“The library? Wait!” Agatha jolted. “You saw us on the library?” Her blush was more potent than ever.

“Yes,” Christie calmly admitted. “I thought she was trying to seduce you, not that she was trying to blackmail us.”

“Uhm… not quite? She did not want to blackmail us, but… she did try to seduce me?”

“Oh?” The redhead failed to hide her hostility. “It seems I did well with scaring her then.”

“You did what?” The blonde squinted at her.

“Nothing, nothing. Do not worry about it,” Christie patted her ladylove on the head and smile her. Only after being a while at it did she notice how condescending she was being.