Mirror watches Slate in silence. Her eyes drift shut. She turns away, and takes several steps toward the wall with a heavy breath.

"Boss. I was kidding, you know. Kinda. It's fine if you don't feel like--"

"Yes."

"Huh?"

"My answer is an emphatic yes. You should take your clothes off. Or rather, you should take off mine. I. Will remove yours."

She turns around, wielding a smile and a pair of ornate curved ritual daggers. 

"With these~"

"Hssstffffftht-- [i]what?![/i] Boss, what? I can't fight worth a damn, that's why I'm a Maker in the first place! If you want training, wait for Kiriala!"

"No," says Mirror, gently pressing the handle of one of the daggers into Slate's hand and curling her fingers around it, "I want you. Right now, only you. I have burned with want for you since the moment you pulled me out of my spiral. I could barely see straight in my fight with Dala Hunters Seven Quetzal for how much I wanted you."

"Yeah but, this? I can't give you... this. And I don't wanna be used as a surrogate for Combat Slu--"

She's halted by a kiss. Mirror is in her face in the blink of an eye, lips to lips, punctuating each lift for air with a soft brush of her tongue across Slate's lips. Mirror does not watch for the reaction, her eyes are practically welded shut. The dagger she did not give away plays with the shoulder of Slate's right sleeve, slicing tiny breaks into the fabric until her shoulder fur tufts through it.

"Not a surrogate. Promise. This is about you. And me. But I need... this. I need. To know. How it feels. I want. To share it. With you. With the one. I trust. My life to."

Mirror backs away again and settles into a loose combat stance, dagger held in front of her. She twirls it playfully, and her eyes burn as she locks them with Slate's. The mechanic's fur ripples in a blush, and the argument is over. Instinct and desire take over, and she pounces.

Their dance is not graceful. It is not delicate. But it is intimate, and it is dangerous, and it is theirs. Mirror fights the same way she did against the Red Band, patience and redirection and control, but as much of that control is about bending her body to [i]take[/i] attacks this time rather than overwhelm them. Slate's dagger thrusts are clumsy and aimed too directly for easy cuts, to expose the parts of Mirror she wants to see too quickly and too much. So when she bends to stroke her own blade down Slate's thigh, she twists her body to accept her lover's kiss along the waist of her coat instead of across the chest.

And so on. And so on. And so on. The ritual lasts longer than most mecha fights. With each pass they wear a little less, or a little less well. Extremities and hints at first, then favored spots and stripes, the best places to kiss or to knead, the artifice of exposure that dominates Hybrasil fashions giving way to actual exposure until their stances grow sloppy and their tatters hang as little more than the suggestion of modesty. 

Mira tosses her weapon away. It clatters across the ground and sticks in a pile of what had been her business suit. She leans forward, pressing into Selin, and slowly drags her tongue across her partner's collar bone, up her neck, and along the length of her jaw. Selin shudders and clings to Mira to avoid toppling over. Her spine is tingling so much it's made her knees weak.

"This, haaaaa, doin' it for you?" she gasps.

"...More than I imagined. Thank you, Selin."

Her body flushes with intense heat at the sound of her own name. Even alone, she's always struggled with it. It makes her feel exposed and vulnerable in a way that she is simply unprepared for. Alone like this is the only context she can hear it and not instantly melt through a floor, but today, but right now even that is!

"D-d-do you, mmmmmmf, ha, have to say my name?"

Mira spends a long moment doing nothing but stroking Selin's hair. She plants a kiss on the top of her head that presses their bodies close enough together that their fur starts to mingle.

"I do," she says at last, "Because I have stripped you. Nudity is nothing to either of us. Our names are what bare our feelings. My. Desire. Your..."

"I. I know, M-Mira. I know. But now that you've said it..."

"Now that I've said it?"

"Now that you've said it," she repeats, lopsided grin half flustered and half horny, "You're not leaving this room until I've gotten all of what [i]I[/i] want, too."