Mira showed up in my quarters.

Not in Crown property, but in my quarters. The room I rented weekly from the landlord two blocks away from the market quarter who never asked any questions and whose locks worked. Mira had been here twice previously, both times during planning sessions that stretched well into the night, and the walk back to wherever she slept was too much hassle for such late-night trips. She knew how to get in.

She knocked on the door. I opened the door.

She still wore her armor. Crossbow in its holster, backpack slung over one shoulder, the dark practical hair somewhat disheveled after a long day starting with the guardian of Floor 6 and ending up with a three-hour stint working on guild archives. She gave me that look of grey eyes which sees everything and does nothing.

"The secondary objective," she stated.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Nine days complete."

"I know."

Mira had never done anything she didn’t intend to do. It was the first thing I noticed about her. The same could have been said after every floor run and every tactical exercise and every conversation by the canal ever since. She made a calculation and this was the conclusion.

She crossed the room, grabbing my collar, bringing me to her mouth. She had to grab me because she was shorter than me, but still she kissed me the way she did everything, no messing around, nothing vague. No performance. Her lips met mine in a calculated kiss.

I grabbed her by her waist. She let out a little noise into my mouth. Not loud, not showy, just real, and pulled herself closer.

"You’ve been waiting for me to make the first move," I said into her mouth.

"I waited until the right time."

"Nine days."

"A clear guardian was the right time." She pulled away just enough so that she could see me. "There’s no need for an argument here."

"No," I said.

She stripped her shirt off over her head.

Mira had been built like her mind was; lithe and efficient, nothing like Rin’s combat-ready muscles and nothing suggesting close-range fighting, but rather the lean efficiency of good movement. Her years spent shooting crossbows showed in her arms. The INT scaling didn’t mean weak; Mira was built well, her smooth skin stretched across muscles that were just right for the task.

Her hands went to the clasp at the back of her hair, releasing it, and she looked at me with an impatient expression that was almost foreign to her usually neutral features.

"You’re still dressed," she said.

I remedied that problem. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

She kept watching me the entire time, with her coolly calculating stare never wavering, taking information in the same way she always did, processing it and cataloging it away. When I finished pulling my shirt off, she flattened her palm against my chest and drew it down until it hit my stomach, and her lips twitched into a faint half-smile.

"Better than expected," she said.

"Highest praise from you."

"Precisely so," she said. "No irony intended. Now lie down."

I lay down on the bed. Mira straddled me and looked down at me through those grey eyes that were doing what they normally do — assessing, analyzing, evaluating. Nothing escaped them.

"You’re still analyzing," I commented.

"Of course I am. You know that well enough."

"Not stopping, then?"

"No. But it never interferes." She reached down and wrapped her hand around my cock through my clothes and squeezed once, watching my face the whole time. "That is the thing."

Her hand moved and she watched my reaction with the same focused attention she gave a new monster formation or an untested tactical approach. Data gathering. When I pushed up into her grip she let out that small sound of satisfaction and tightened her fingers around me.

"Good," she murmured.

She worked me through the fabric long enough that it crossed from interesting into actively frustrating and she knew exactly when that line got crossed because she’d been watching for it. When I reached up to pull her down she let herself be pulled, mouth back on mine, and I got my fingers around the button on her trousers.

When I made to pull them off she raised her hips to make it easier.

Her skin was warm and I put my mouth to her throat and she tilted her head back and said "yes" in a tone that sounded like hypothesis confirmed. When I moved down and got my mouth on her breast and bit down she said "harder" with the same precise tone she used for tactical adjustments.

I gave her harder.

"There," she said. "That."

I stayed there until her breathing shifted and then moved lower and she didn’t stop me. When I got my mouth between her thighs she made a sound that was different from the small honest sounds before — fuller, less controlled — and said "fuck" quietly under her breath like she hadn’t meant it to come out.

I worked her with my tongue and she got her hand in my hair and this time she directed — small precise pressure adjustments, exactly what she wanted and where, because of course Mira knew exactly what she wanted and had no difficulty communicating it. Her thighs tightened against my head and she said "don’t stop" in a voice that had shed the analytical edge entirely.

I didn’t stop.

Her whole body went tense and then released in a wave, her hand gripping my hair hard enough to matter, one sharp exhale the only sound she made. Then her thighs loosened and her hand relaxed.

I came back up.

Her grey eyes were slightly unfocused — first time I’d ever seen that. She looked at me for a moment and then said "adequate" in a completely flat voice and I laughed, which I hadn’t expected to do.

"Adequate," I echoed.

"Better than adequate," she replied, almost as if she were correcting a mistake. "I misspoke."

We kissed and then she got her hand around my cock again and stroked me into full readiness before guiding me inside without any pretense.

She was tight and warm and needed a moment to adjust and her hands gripped my hips while she did — not stopping me, just anchoring herself. Once she was ready she arched up to meet me and I took that as the signal it was.

I moved and she said "slow" and I went slow and she made that fuller sound and said "there — like that" and her head dropped back into the pillow. I had my forearm beside her head and my other hand on her hip and I watched her face because it was worth watching — Mira’s face doing something genuinely unguarded for the first time in my experience of her.

She wasn’t analyzing.

She was just there.

I built the pace gradually and she matched it, hips rising to meet mine, hands on my back pulling me in, and when I hit a particular angle she made a sharp sound and dug her nails in and said "that — hold that angle" and I held it. She said my name once, just once, and it landed differently than I expected.

Her legs came up and wrapped around my lower back and pulled and I went deeper and she made a long exhaling sound against my neck and her nails were properly in my back now and I didn’t mind.

"Harder," she said. Same tone as before. Data confirmed, adjustment requested.

I gave her harder and she answered with sounds that had nothing analytical left in them — just Mira, stripped of the assessment layer, present and real. I got my hand between us and found the right spot and her whole body jerked and she said "fuck — yes — keep—" and stopped finishing sentences.

I kept.

She came harder than the first time, less quietly, her back arching off the bed and her thighs gripping and my name again in a voice I’d never heard from her before. I followed shortly after with my face in her hair and my hand gripping the headboard and the kind of finish that takes something out of you in the best possible way.

We lay in the quiet after.

Mira was on her back with her hair spread out and her breathing evening out and the grey eyes back to their usual function — I could see them moving slightly as they tracked the ceiling, processing.

"You’re analyzing again," I told her.

"I never stopped," she said. "I just had less capacity for a while."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Yes," she said. "A true one."

She turned her head toward me and the assessment was there but there was something else beside it now — something that hadn’t been in her grey eyes until tonight. Not soft exactly. Mira never did soft. But present in a way that seemed to have some kind of significance.

"The secondary objective," I said.

"Completed," she said. "Nine days ago."

"What’s the new one?"

She looked back at the ceiling. "Not sure yet. I’ll tell you when it’s generated."

I looked up at the ceiling as well.

Outside, Ashveil conducted its nighttime operations. The wiki remained silent. No alarms raised, no flags changed, no notifications from the system.

Mira remained.

She made no explicit declaration that she was staying. She simply did not depart. That, in effect, was the same thing for Mira.

MIRA — STATUS

Relationship / Kai: 97 — unchanged, nature confirmed

Corruption meter: N/A — non-game-origin

Mood: Settled / Present

Secondary objective: COMPLETE — fulfilled

New objective: GENERATING

CURRENT STATS

STR: 27

AGI: 31

INT: 29

Skills: Friendly Conversation / Moral Support / Observe / Evasion I / Throwing I / Fast Learner / Precision Shot II / Enemy Analysis I / Pattern Recognition II / Threat Assessment I / Combat Instinct I

EXP: 3,685/5,000

Rank: B