Archive of Our Own

     The afternoon sunlight flickered through the swaying branches above the collonade, the shadows of rustling leaves flittering across the path below. The breeze was cool against what little exposed skin she had. Not too far away, one of the fountains burbled quietly from behind well-maintained hedgery. It was lovely. As any day was when Sakura served as her Lady’s sword.

And, she thought with a hint of a smile on her lips, a fine day for an execution.

That was, of course, if her Lady saw it fitting. It was presumptuous of Sakura to think otherwise. Even if she had seen the Court’s guests make an unseemly sight of themselves some few days before their current audience—their final judgement belonged to her Lady and her Lady alone. Sakura could, however, consider them as unkindly as she wanted. A blade was only as fine as the edge it kept, after all.

She passed through the gardens quickly. Returning to the grand halls of the castle, Sakura availed herself to a few of the servants’ halls and emerged just behind the foot of the woven dais. The branches bristled at her sudden appearance, but Sakura paid them no mind. Their displeasure was a small price to pay to ensure her place at the right hand of the throne. It would not do for her to arrive later than her Lady.

The tip of her ear twitched, picking up the sound of approaching footsteps. The cadence and measure of the gait was one she knew intimately. Although muted by the grand spell and stonework that concealed the throne room’s royal passage, it still reached her. As was natural for a servant who bore her Lady’s mark.

Sakura was quick to stand to the side of the entrance, falling in line beside her Lady as she stepped into the throne room. The lady-in-waiting that had been at her Lady’s left hand fell back, dipping her chin in acknowledgement. She was familiar, to an extent. Akin to the topiaries Sakura passed each day. Chaff, when beside the Moon of their kingdom. Heedless, the Queen continued forth ahead of them.

Sakura allowed herself to linger for a moment, her gaze sharpening as she relished in the sight of her Lady. Her elegant, authoritative stature stole the attention of the room. Her beauty assured its keeping, her glinting finery sharp-edged and cruel. A ruler with no true need for knights or protection—possessing a strength that existed only to expect exact obedience.

A swell of affection arose in Sakura. Oh, she had missed her.

They had been separated before sunrise. Sakura first, as it had always been, forced by duty to depart before she had received her fill. The day had come to be a regretful one, too, as the majority of it had seen them separate still. It was only the inherent value of her service that kept Sakura’s displeasure at bay.

A service that had brought her back to her Lady, here at the heart of her Lady’s dominion.

As the Queen approached, the branches of the dais returned to their places, sturdy and silent so as not to offend their mistress. Sakura kept to her Lady’s right hand, her own placed at the ready—featherlight against the hilt of her sword. The Queen was enthroned between one breath and the next, Sakura stationed beside her. The knight brought her arms behind her back, palm cradling back of hand.

“Ebisu.” Her Lady’s voice cut through the silence that had fallen upon the whole of the room. The footman stepped out from the line of servants that stood along the far wall, kneeling at the foot of the dais. “It is the Hour of the Ram.”

“Yes, your Majesty.” The footman’s agreement was tinged with nerves. Strange, but Sakura did not recognise him, either.

“Am I expected to wait?” The question was unlike her Lady. It had the intended effect, however, and Sakura could see a bead of perspiration slipping down the footman’s neck.

“No, your Majesty.” His voice wavered only at the end. A trait bled usually bled out of the servants early on into their service. Sakura’s brow furrowed imperceptibly. Ah. It smoothed just as quickly.

The footman belonged to the visiting delegation. Borrowed, she presumed. For this exact purpose. It was not often that her Lady was able to play with her food.

“Indeed,” the Queen murmured, her voice striking and clear, “Let us see them drag themselves forward, then.”

The footman managed to reply a, “Yes, your Majesty,” before retreating back into the line of servants. Perhaps he thought it would protect him. Render him beneath their notice, should things play out the way they were expected to.

That in itself proved him a stranger more than even his blatant fear. The servants at his side would sooner throw him out than conceal him—a fact unchanged by his pitiable display. But the Queen allowed it for now, and so they did not expunge him forthright.

Perhaps she found some sort of amusement from it. As was her Lady’s right.

Silence befell them once more. Each passing moment notched the guillotine blade higher, and were it not for her Lady’s clear will, Sakura would have brought it to the Court’s guests herself.

But she did not. Her Lady praise her, she did not.

The Ram’s Hour waned. As it thinned, so did the dregs of Sakura’s patience. She contemplated the blade at her hip, the just punishment that such contempt of her Lady called for, but found that indignation quelled with a single hand. It kept her own tucked behind her back.

The exchange of greetings rushed past her ears. Whatever business they may have had mattered little, now, though Sakura could not have forced her attention to keep upon the discussion even if it had. So she waited. Simply and knowingly, as any blade did when kept at one’s side.

“Hm.” The sound her Lady made was quiet in comparison to the squabbling below them. Seemingly neutral, to those unfamilliar. It’s inflection proved otherwise. Sakura glanced toward her Lady, finding the Queen’s hand already calling her near. “Sakura, dear.”

Sakura leaned forward, relishing in the slide and press of two fingers beneath her chin. “Yes, my Lady?”

Her Lady’s gaze was hooded, a searing heat against Sakura’s lips as she replied, “Dispose of them for me, won’t you?”

The words were measured. Intimate. Reaching only Sakura, and drawing a pleased warmth into her chest. She turned toward the chattering delegation, grasping the hilt of her sword and pulling as she naturally answered, “Yes, my Lady.”

(Art by Marie (ionahazuki on Tumblr)

Sakura descended. Upon the toll of the Monkey’s Hour, the head of the delegation lifted his head just in time to be relieved of it. His compatriots lasted little longer than that. They certainly attempted to, but they had overestimated themselves. Near the end of the showing her Lady’s servants produced the footman from before—just as she had expected them to.

Sakura turned on her heel, the ensuing bow brief, but deep. “It is done, my Lady.”

The Queen met her gaze, keeping it captive for a long moment. The glint in her Lady’s eyes was predatory. Were it not for— 

“Excellently so,” her Lady interrupted her thoughts, releasing and complimenting her all at once. She was pleased in both tone and expression.

The Queen then rose from her throne. The branches of the dais beneath her rustled and shifted at her silent command, creating steps directly toward the royal passage she had come from. She turned away from the room. Without further ceremony, she departed.

None protested the lack of procedure. The requirement of such was already dictated at her Lady’s leisure, given only at her command. The audience and attention of the Queen was not decided by something as paltry as tradition. The servants knew that much. At the Queen’s absence, they spurred into motion. Sakura allowed them to buzz around her. Her gaze remained upon the vanishing point of her Lady.

The bodies at Sakura’s feet had not deserved even the handful of perfunctory respect they had been given in life. Had hardly deserved the ‘effort’ it had taken to dispatch them. All of it a waste, were it not for her Lady’s amusement.

She took in a slow breath, releasing it as she flicked the last of the blood from her sword’s edge. The servants would take care of the rest.

…

   Sakura was favoured, truly, but it was not without position and the responsibility inherent to it. She ensured that her Lady’s every command was carried out. At current—the corpses hung by noose and wrist above the third gates. An example for kingdom and stranger both. Let the fools who yet believed in the Queen’s softness earn the same fate. Her blade would cleave them as easily as those who had come before.

The Northern Courts had no need to seek allies in their neighbors—that was a proclivity better suited to the Southern Courts, given they were willing to entertain those who found Elven culture of interest. A fact hidden by neither set. It was wasteful to engrave the lesson in blood, much as it was already done.

Returning to the throne room, Sakura found a pair of maids cleaning the last of the blood. Much of it had already soaked into the roots of the throne’s dais. It did not surprise Sakura to catch sight of a retracting tendril, fat and sated. Her aide stood a pace behind her, careful of the splatter that had not been supped.

“Dame Haruno,” a third maid called as she appeared not too far from the servants’ halls. Sakura looked at her, the faint impression of a name arising at the back of her mind. Hanabi. A studious young elleth who knew when to still her tongue.

Sakura turned to face her properly, order expectant. “Speak.”

“Her Majesty bids you to her chambers for evening meal.”

“I will be there.” The response was immediate. She kept the maid’s eye long enough to command, “Inform her Majesty.”

“As you say, Dame Haruno.” Hanabi bowed quickly before scurrying away.

A new sense of urgency settled across her shoulders, an anticipatory eagerness curling low in her stomach. The Hound’s Hour would soon be upon them—and with it, the very meal that would hasten her audience with the Queen.

Sakura turned back to the task at hand, glancing sharply at her aide as the man walked up beside her.

“I trust you can handle the rest?” The question was rhetorical. Neither the maids nor Shisui had need of her supervision—the maids in need of neither of them. The burnished broach upon each of their breasts spoke of their seniority. The floors would be clean of cattle stain by the coming Boar’s Hour, as if it had never been.

Her aide looked at her askance, a knowing smirk on his lips as he assented, “Of course.”

“Good.” As she passed by, she hissed under her breath, “Wipe that smirk off your face.”

“Good eve, Dame Haruno,” Shisui bid, his tone somehow even more smug than before. Sakura refused to dignify it with anything more than a huff of disapproval. It was times like this that made it difficult for her to believe the man understood the meaning of the word ‘discrete.’

She swept out of the room, her pace not at all quicker than it usually was. Not at all.

     Each hall she passed through was empty. Rather, it emptied just as she approached—her Lady’s servants knew to make themselves scarce around the Queen’s chambers once the day waned. A lesson taught through blood. No small amount of which Sakura had drawn herself.

She turned another corner, knowing that she would find a pair of grandiose doors at the end of the corridor. Knowing that her Lady would be waiting behind them. Waiting. Something she did for none else.

The doors were a thing of tradition, of course. Myth found itself painstaking carved into the panels stretched between bevelled edges. Goddess-touched, the Elders claimed when the Queen was away. Evidence of divine favour. It was not out of the question. It was not proven, either.

Beyond the bevelled edges was the spellwork of three queens. Her Lady, of course, and the two high elleth that preceded her. It was the work of her Lady that she placed her faith in. The strength of the liege she had bound herself to.

Nothing as frivolous as fate could compare.

Her knuckles fell softly against the wood, the triplicate sound quickly swallowed by the silence of corridor. The door she knocked against clicked and drifted open within seconds. She pressed her fingertips against it, allowing the door’s weight to widen the gap.

She felt almost… shy. She always did, when her Lady called for Sakura to attend her. No matter the days or years gone by—what need did she have of initiative when she has the very Moon of her kingdom to guide her? Though she could admit that was not the only reason for it.

She took in a measured breath, noting the hard cut of her pauldrons against her shoulders. Her chainmail fell against her clavicle as she exhaled. Both a stark reminder of the armour she currently bore. The weight of it reminded her of the first time her Lady had called her to the Queen’s chambers.

It had been all but forbidden after that.

Sakura stepped inside, pushing away the memory. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the low light. A familiar pulse of magic appeared behind her, the door almost drifting shut.

“Sakura, dear,” her Lady greeted from her place upon the chaise, her every inflection like velvet. Her eyes narrowed, the delicate chain strung between her horns glinting as she tilted her head. “Remove your armour.”

“At once, my Lady,” Sakura hastened to agree, her fingers to undo the knots and buckles with experienced precision. From shoulders to heel she removed each piece and set it to the side. Pauldrons first, followed by her her tabard and chainmail. Her grieves came away in pieces. Sakura could feel the weight of her Lady’s gaze following her as each was placed atop the rest.

“All of it.” The command was given before Sakura had lifted her head. Her left sabaton hung from two fingers for nothing more than a moment, clicking against the floor next to the other. Only her small clothes remained. But even that, she knew, her Lady was displeased with.

Sakura hooked her thumb into the waistband of her stockings and the gentlecloth beneath, pulling them down. They stretched around the fat at her lower waist and hips, clinging. She could feel the last of her Lady’s irritation dissipate at the motion. Her gaze remained heavy and singular—focused entirely on Sakura. The attention was a heady thing. Her body warmed, almost wavering as she bent further to free her heels from the garment.

As she straightened, Sakura’s fingers rose to the hem of her shift, tugging and pulling it over her stomach and chest. Once past her head, Sakura found her eyes drawn to her Lady, a wave of warmth washing over her as she felt the Queen’s gaze upon her chest. The fabric fell carelessly to the ground. Her weakened fingers twitched. Now, the whole of her was bare.

“Very good.” The words were a heady reward, tempting and all-consuming. “Now, come here.” Sakura went. She stood before her Lady, both heart and body now in obedience. “Kneel.” She knelt. Peering up through her lashes, she was unable to keep her gaze from the figure before her. Sharp features, full lips—a large, shapely form hardly hidden by the translucent chemise draped across her form.

“My Lady—” Sakura began, cutting herself short. She lowered her head and laid her cheek against her Lady’s thigh, murmuring, “Kaguya-sama.” A hand rested against her cheek. “Kaguya—”

“Hush.” A thumb brushed against her lips, the pad of it slipping inside. The nail pressed down against her tongue. The feeling of not-quite pain flared to the back of her throat, hot and keening. Only when Sakura went quiet did her Lady speak again, crooning, “Close your eyes for me, won’t you?”

Sakura did so, unable to help the shiver that ran up her spine. The thumb left her mouth. Gooseflesh rose from her skin. Her nipples hardened, the delicate parts of her twitching as they grew more sensitive. Almost inanely, heat began pooling low in her belly. The sensations only worsened as a cloth made of silk was laid against her eyelids. The material was cool to the touch, surely as expensive as it was indolent in its softness.

The hands left her. She breathed slowly—each breath measured, counting the pace at which the sensitivity of her skin heightened. Her Lady remained close, but did not touch her. Did not speak. The quiet dark crept across her body, looping around her inner thigh and smoothing across the swell of her breast. Places she ached for her Lady to touch—

“Well done,” Kaguya spoke, breaking the suffocation. The praise drew a gasp from Sakura’s throat. Her skin prickled as the tension broke. Her Lady’s voice was relief, and it did not yet grow quiet, the pleasure of it quickly easing into query. “Oh, but you always do well, don’t you?” Petal-soft lips brushed against the corner of Sakura’s mouth with each word. Teasing and mocking. Refusing to kiss. Punishment. She realised its cause in an instant, the collection of armour unseen but damning.

She had forced her Lady to wait.

Some form of regret arose in her chest, inseparable from anticipation. It would be a long road to absolution, surely, but it would come. Her Lady always rewarded as it was deserved.

“Stay still.” The order was spoken against the hollow of her throat, the faint pressure of lips following an unseen path down the line of her body. Heat bloomed at the site of each not-quite kiss, magnified by barest presss of nail grasping at her thigh. Both disappear as quickly as they come—leaving Sakura aching and bereft of an anchor.

Both hand and mouth come to her in turns, unseen at their coming and mourned in their going. Nails flick against her nipples at regular intervals. They poke and tease and spark heat from them, the fire striking and returning from her sex akin to lightning. The touches are incessant—they are not enough, robbing her of clarity and promising the balm of her Lady’s affection only to renege upon it time and time again.

Time that she could not grasp. Time spent trembling, her body betraying the discipline she had thought herself capable of as her chest heaved and gasped for air. The muscles beneath her skin spasmed—begging to move. She had long lost the sensation of the floor beneath her, limbs abuzz both with desire and the numbing hold of stagnancy.

To comprehend anything beyond the touch of her Lady was impossible, now. She was unable to distract herself with the Queen’s visage—unable to think of anything but the burning across her skin—unable to profess even her remorse, throat choked into silence by the tension strung across her body.

She cannot even beg—ashamed to be driven to such a state without even a kiss against her womb.

And she could not rid herself of it now that the thought had come. For all that her Lady had done, she had not once brushed against her sex. Had left it dripping and swollen. Breast, thigh, shoulder and calf—oh, she touched Sakura without truly touching.

Spoke without truly speaking, even. Her low murmurs fell into droning hum, no different than the quiet that had once threatened to swallow Sakura whole. How she wished that her Lady now would. Wished that this torment would end— It was all too much, too little. She could not—

“Well done, my dear,” Kaguya spoke, abruptly forcing everything to abate for a moment. The strength and clarity of her voice was all Sakura had to anchor herself with. “You have done well. There’s a dear—give those to me.” Warm fingertips wiped away the tears that she had not realised had formed and slipped down her cheeks.

“Very good,” Kaguya crooned, her other hand pressing and rubbing against the small of Sakura’s back, “You have been so good for me.” Lips pressed against her forehead, full and weighted. The full affection soothed the worst of it. But as its predecessors, it was brief. As it went, the longing in her tightened worse than before, every rib all but groaning.

Sakura could not tell if she quieted the whimpering keen that escaped her or not. What thread of lucidity that lingered at the back of her mind doubted that the Queen would feel little else but satisfaction from it.

“I know you can continue to be,” Kaguya assured, her breath pleasant against Sakura’s skin. “Just,” Kaguya paused, swiping her thumb across the swell of Sakura’s cheek. A hand pressed on full against the plan of her stomach. “…for a little longer.”

Her body shuddered, her head falling forward as she bit the flesh of her cheek. Good. She was good. Could be good—for as long as her Lady required.

“That is why you did not return to my throne, is it not? You wanted to do well,” Kaguya mused aloud. It staved the return of the murmuring drone, at least, and Sakura relished that. There was an intake of breath, a flick against her nipple, before her Lady spoke again. “And you knew.”

The wood of the floor creaked as the weight of the Queen’s presence moved behind Sakura, all but touching her naked skin. Sakura wished she would. Was tempted to fracture the game at play, if only to press herself against the promise that eluded her. But she would not.

She would do well. She was good—could be good, as long as her Lady desired.

“You knew I would have taken you then had you asked,” Kaguya murmured against the shell of her ear, the words heavy with promise. Sakura could imagine it. She had the memory of such a rarely granted reward worsen the ache of desire in her chest, too. Fabric shifted, as did the weight of the Queen’s presence. A soft breath brushed against the other side of her neck. “How considerate of you that you did not.”

The featherlight touch of her Lady’s nail across the small of her back set a renewed trail of fire across her skin. It curved around to her stomach, creak and footsteps placing the weight of Kaguya’s presence at Sakura’s front once more.

Then, without any indication, two fingers pushed inside her.

“You prefer blood for offering.” Sakura could barely hear the words, the whole of her attention on the slide and spread within her. Fear spread like frost across the nape of her neck as the fingers pulled back. It fractured as they pushed in, once more stretching and teasing the walls within.

Her flinch was blessedly ignored. The fingers are not taken away. Instead, her Lady’s other hand grasped and lifted her chin to force her attention. Kaguya continued, not yet done.

“Yet allow none but your own to be truly given to me.” Despite the sharpness of the words, the Queen’s pleasure was starkly apparent. As was her possessiveness. Sakura was glad for all of it. “How considerate.”

Sakura did not miss the third finger as it was added, nor the quickened pace of the thrusts. It almost distracted her. As if such a thing was anticipated, Kaguya’s grip on her chin grew harsher. Her thumb pushed against her lips, indicative of the command before it came.

“Open.”

The thumb thrust inside. It slowly ran along Sakura’s teeth, finding the point of an incisor before pressing down harshly. She could taste the blood before it welled, breathing in the scent of ichor as soon as it was exposed.

Kaguya held her there as the wound slowly dripped—the blood sticking to the back of her throat and forcing her to swallow. It borrowed the teasing fire from before, the trail alighting down her throat. It did not settle as it reached her belly. No, it burst and stretched as starlight, the very core of her as eager to sup from her Lady’s favour as the rest of her.

It was not absolution. Not yet. Here and now it was but another way to entrench her punishment. Yet it was blessing, too, to be forced to take the magic of a Queen such as her Lady. To be given that intimacy.

“Wider, won’t you?” Sakura’s jaw ached, no matter how it pleased her to obey. “That’s a dear.”

The blood continued to drip and pool—it would stop for none but her Lady. That Sakura’s incisor had pierced the Queen’s flesh at all was already by Kaguya’s will. It was by that will that the wound bled at all.

The blood continued to drip. And so Sakura swallowed.

The pace of it was inconsistent. Much as the press of nails and brush of fingers against her skin had teased her, so did the burst of magic induce a sensation that refused to fully grant her pleasure. Worse yet, the fingers thrusting into her cunt were at odds with it. The only thing they shared was that they were inevitable.

It was this that broke her lucidity—her attention left to ebb as slowly and quickly as the pooling of blood in her stomach.

Sakura came back to herself only as the hand supporting her chin allowed it to fall. Fingers pet against the line of her jaw. The thumb forcing it open left, instead pressing against her lips and allowing her mouth to properly close. It slid down to the column of her throat. After a moment of petting, Sakura swallowed.

“Did you like my gift?” The question demanded answer—It was the voice of her Lady that said it. A voice that came again, encouraging and gentle. “Go on.”

“Thank,” Sakura gasped, tasting her Lady’s ichor with every breath, “…you.”

The magic coating her tongue warmed in satisfaction.

“Mm.”

There was no anchor beneath her, and yet she found it lost to her in an instant. The only sensation beyond the aching emptiness of her sex—an emptiness that grieved her much as she did not recognise when it had happened—and the two hands supporting her back and the crook of her knees. Even that did not last long. Within a moment she was laid upon what she could only imagine to be a bed as it somewhat gave way against her.

Pillows supported her back, allowing her the sort of leverage she no longer had the strength to maintain herself. The position eased her breathing, too. Favourable signs, though she was quick to stave her relief.

Something pulled away from her eyes. The once dim lights burned in the corner of her vision, bringing forth a strong, if brief, discomfort

“Sakura, dear,” Kaguya called from between her legs. It was then that Sakura recognised the weight there. She tucked her chin, forcing herself to look down.

“Yes,” Sakura caught her breath, “…my Lady?”

“Stay still for me, won’t you?”

Almost in absurdity, a flare of heat pulsed at her sex. Sakura closer her eyes and allowed her head to fall back.

“Yes, my Lady.”

The moment Kaguya’s mouth laid against her sex—the moment her lips sealed around the bead of it and sucked, Sakura’s vision was overtaken by bursting nebulae. Her body drew taught as a fully strung bow, pleasure coursing through each and every nerve to the point that she knew none else. It shuddered, then began again. In waves and constellations—endless.

Pleasure left her in spurts. All of it swallowed by the Queen between her legs, the sound of Kaguya’s enjoyment wet and suckling.

Once she had taken her fill, Kaguya pressed a lingering kiss against the bead. She rose. Pulling herself across Sakura, she allowed the the whole of her to settle against the knight. She covered Sakura in her entirety. Kaguya’s breasts were firm against Sakura’s own—a thought quickly lost to the pleasurable kisss that the Queen stole from her lips.

Kaguya swallowed each moan as she drew it. Her tongue laved against Sakura’s, twisting and pressing it down as she dominated the kiss. In comparison, Sakura’s efforts to return the kiss were lacklustre. That mattered little, of course. Kaguya wished to kiss her and so she did. Performing an endless kiss that stole away Sakura’s breath as surely as all that had come before.

It began and ended as Kaguya willed it. No matter how Sakura chased—no matter how she begged. The last dredges of a punishment she had come to thoroughly regret.

They breathed together in the aftermath. Kaguya remained pressed against her, though the weight preventing neither the lingering tremors nor Sakura’s ability to breathe. The pressure itself was pleasure. She would have it forever, if she were allowed.

The atmosphere began to shift once their sweat had cooled. She was pulled atop Kaguya, the position intimate and comforting. The intent was clear. By now, however, the magic that had once tortured her had begun to… boost Sakura’s vitality.

She shifted, pushing against Kaguya’s shoulders to sit up. She gazed down at her Lady, eager to invoke the same pleasure that lingered just beneath her skin.

“Now,” Sakura began as she sat astride her Lady’s waist, grinding her sex against her stomach, “Allow me.”

The body beneath her gentled. The pleasure lingering in the air spiked.

“At once, my dear.”

     Sakura slipped from the Queen’s chambers in the trickling moments before sunrise, swathed in shadow and satisfaction. The robe she wore was tied up higher than designed—yet she found that she could not keep the back hem from dragging. An offense she would surely be forgiven for.

“She ought to have marked your lips,” a familiar voice broke the quiet, low torchlight reflecting against the pauldrons of a guard, “At least then the swell and sex-slicked vision of them would make a further sense.”

“Do you think?” Sakura asked, turning to her friend with a besotted smile. Exagerated, of course, just to invoke the proper indignation. “Perhaps I should petition for it.” She drew a hand over her heart and offered a shallow bow. “Thank you, Ino.”

Ino shook her head, with a sigh. She concluded, “This is what I get for putting ideas in your head.”

Sakura, remembering their childhood together: “You should have expected nothing less.”

“Fare thee well, Sakura.” Ino waved her away, sweeping the empty hall with a sharp eye. The sight filled Sakura with creeping joy. Argue as they might, the other woman was a trustworthy knight under their Lady’s rule. Even so.

“That much is certain,” Sakura remarked cheekily as she turned away. A muffled scoff trailed behind her. It did little to subdue her mood. She had far too much to look forward to in just a few hours.

It would not do for her Lady to demand she forego her armour come morning duties, after all.