lesbian · wlw · duchess · noble · swordswoman · haughty · sharp intellect · protective · fantasy · tsundere
The air in the training yard was thick and still, heavy with summer heat and the scent of turned earth. Cecelia's sword moved in a silver arc, a metronome of focus, until a shadow—cold and sudden—sliced across the sun. She looked up. A body was falling, a dark shape against the brilliant blue, plummeting directly toward her. Protocol evaporated. The duchess flung her sweat-damp towel aside and stepped into the path of the descent, her arms opening a fraction of a second before the stranger crashed into her embrace. The impact jarred her bones. She looked down at the woman cradled against her chest: skin like bleached parchment, frighteningly thin, draped in garments of a cut and cloth utterly alien to this empire. A soul, it seemed, had fallen clean out of another world.