Chapter Text
The SSV Tempest slid into port, her shining flank reflecting the morning sun. The light danced across the slightly wet bridges and walkways of the market. Evfra strode through the spaces quickly, eyes scanning the merchants and shoppers, loungers and workers. The morning was always the busiest time to traverse the city, but it was also the most invisible. Evfra could slide through the crowds milling about and disappear into them.
In the crowds, he was no longer the leader of the Resistance. He could have been an average soldier. An emissary. A no one.
But he was a bit of a no one, he realized. Other than being the leader of the Resistance, what was he? He had no friends, no family. Not anymore.
The door into the Resistance Headquarters slid open as he neared and Evfra let out a long sigh, feeling his anonymity disappear like smoke from a dying fire. Eyes rose to meet his as he walked through the room, and then they turned their gaze back to their work quickly. They knew not to stare for too long, lest Evfra notice and scold them.
“Daar, Ushior, sparring ring,” he snapped. Half of the assembled Resistance members split away from their duties and followed Evfra outside. Behind the HQ was a large circle of dirt, ringed by a calf-high stone wall.
It was in this circle, the sparring ring, where Evfra stopped and turned to those angara on the outside of the stone. “Who is first?”
“I will be,” a young angara, new to the faction and looking defiant, said, stepping into the ring.
Evfra, almost cruelly, admired the bravery at the same time he analyzed each weakness and prepared to destroy the boy in three moves or less.
“Begin,” Evfra said, blocking a fist and slamming his foot into the bend of the angara’s knee, the boy crumpling immediately with a shout of pain.
Only one move, Evfra mused to himself. Either these boys need more one-on-one training, or they are becoming complacent now that we have the aliens helping us. “Do not leave your weaknesses open,” Evfra snapped. “If your enemy sees you, they see your flaws. Protect yourself at all times.” He wondered if he was shouting this more to the recruits, or himself.
After all, he had sent a message to the Tempest to invite the human Pathfinder to come spar with him. Sparring with the alien who he had been dreaming of for months. In the best case scenario, he would mildly injure her, regain his composure, and see her more clearly. In the worst case…. We will not let that come to pass, he told himself firmly.
Ryder had arrived sometime between Evfra giving a scathing monolog about the kett, and Evfra sending a veteran fighter to the ground with a rough hit to the diaphragm. Evfra was gentler with the man, as he had been out on injury for months, but that didn’t mean he was going to let him off easily.
Evfra glanced out among the others, trying to find the next recruit, but his eyes landed on the moonbeam face of Ryder. She was watching intently, her arms over her chest, mouth drawn into a half-smile.
The humans, Evfra was discovering more and more, were incredibly expressive in their body language. Less so in their words. Evfra was beginning to admire that - perhaps because it was so much closer to his style of communication.
“Pathfinder, care to test your strength?”
She grinned, eyes glinting at the challenge. She hopped over the wall lithely, her small, slender build making it much easier for her than the angara. The veteran fighter, getting his breath back finally, limped out of the ring as Ryder entered it.
She pulled off her outer layer, the white and blue shirt of the Andromeda Initiative pooling on the ground. Her undershirt was thin and laid close to her skin. The black of the slender straps seemed to make her skin glow even more in the sunlight.
She tossed her hair up into a ponytail and, if Evfra hadn’t been so busy looking at her movements, he would have noticed many of the other angara were equally entranced and confused. She was such a small thing, so soft and so round in strange places.
Or their confusion was because Evfra allowed her onto the sparring ring, the almost-holy training ground. And instead of looking reverent, or humbled, she was grinning and thrumming with excited energy. “So, what are the rules?” she asked. No hellos, no pleasantries. Evfra was so pleased that he wanted to smile.
“The first one to the ground loses a point. We go for five points. For you, human - you are allowed to stop after the first fall if you need it.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on hitting the ground,” she retorted, stretch one arm across her body, the other hand on her shoulder, massaging the flesh there. Stretching out, making herself more limber.
The angara surrounding the ring broke into a fit of laughter and snickers which made Evfra snap, “Back to work! Daar unit, did you not receive orders to survey the northern sector?” The men dispersed quickly, but their annoyance at being sent away was palpable.
“Worried about getting beaten by a woman in front of your boys?” Ryder quipped, her voice full of playfulness. She stretched the other arm across her body, her breasts pressing against her shirt at the movement.
Evfra turned his gaze from the soft flesh peeking above her top, but he was sure she’d caught him. At least, being an alien, he could feign curiosity if she questioned him. That is how he had explained his questions to the clinic doctors who had helped patch up the Pathfinder after her drunken scuffle during a shore leave a month prior. He had asked about her injuries, of course, but also about all of those fleshy bits that bounced pleasantly when she jogged through the markets in her civilian clothes.
But it wasn’t curiosity, not really. It was desire. A desire Evfra hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“Worried about beating a tiny, fragile human in front of my men,” he finally replied, realizing that she had been staring at him, smirking, waiting for him to answer. He had been too busy trying to memorize the swell of her breasts and curves of her hips.
Ryder finished her stretches and rolled her head around, her neck popping in a strange, gruesome sound. “Okay, Evfra. Let’s do this.”
Evfra struck first, no hesitation and no remorse. His first hit went for her jaw, but she quickly deflected, raising her arm defensively. Her other arm curled up between them, fist jamming heavily against Evfra’s ribs, pain exploding out through his body. Evfra was not used to others diverging him so quickly; was not used to anyone anticipating his moves and countering. Not like that.
It became evident, the more the two parried and danced between one another, that their strengths and weaknesses largely negated one another. Evfra’s superior strength did nothing for him when Ryder’s quick, small body could duck and weave away from him faster than he could follow.
After twenty minutes of circling and taking hits and doling them out, the pair were slowing down, making mistakes, taking risks. When Ryder lashed out with her foot, Evfra grabbed it, twisting, and the Pathfinder spun as she fell to the dirt, grunting, breath heaving in her chest.
“Do you give up?” Evfra challenged. And despite his best efforts, he was smiling, smirking, and his voice was - dare he admit - teasing. He reached his hand down to her to help her up.
Ryder was smiling, too. She was also panting, her hair beginning to fall out of its confines and fan across her glistening cheeks. “Evfra, you could learn a lot from me.” She placed her hand in his and then yanked.
Evfra landed on her, but only for a moment. She spun out from under him and, as he turned over to get his bearings, she descended on his waist, legs to either side of him. She leaned down, her forearm pressed firmly into his neck.
“I think I win,” she breathed, face so close to his that he could see the faint lines on her rosy lips. Evfra stared up at her, and she stared down at him, and the silence slowly stretched between them.
And then he kissed her.
He hadn’t planned on it, hadn’t even come close to thinking about it, but it didn't seem to matter. His neck raised, his face lifted to hers, and his mouth covered hers. More shocking was that she did not pull away.
Her lips were softer than anything he’d ever felt, like exceptionally creamy nutrient paste, but solid. His hands rose to her sides and the exposed skin there, and that, too, was luxurious. So smooth and pliable under his fingertips, but also firm like the tension line of water.
Evfra grabbed her hips and flipped her over. She was on her back in the dirt, staring up at him with those startling eyes. She was still panting, but it was less about the sparring, Evfra was beginning to think. “Seduction to get me on the ground? You angara fight dirty,” she breathed.
“Sparring isn't exactly on my mind,” he replied, lowering himself over her. This time it was her lips that found his. Needy. Hungry. Her tongue was in his mouth, caressing. Her fingers were sliding under his under armor, finding the seam between layers and pushing them apart. Her fingers moved with expertise as if she had done it before. And for a moment, Evfra felt jealousy flare thought him. Had she and Jaal…?
Her fingers on his skin were cold compared to his bioelectric heat, which only caused more of a rush. Evfra's jealousy forgotten, his body responded with small currents of electricity, which made Ryder jump, and then giggle, and then moan.
“Oh God,” she whispered suddenly. Evfra pulled back, concerned. He’d overstepped. It had all been such a mistake. Ryder’s eyes opened, and she frowned at him. “Why’d you stop?”
He blinked. “You sounded… unhappy.”
Ryder’s confusion grew, but instead of saying anything, she wrapped her legs around his waist, using them to pull him further down. He was pressing against the length of her, feeling every inch of her against him.
And it nearly made him weak.
He was kissing her again, hands running over her skin, lifting her shirt up and over, exposing the sharp curve of her ribcage, her full breasts, the indent between her hips and abdomen. Every part of her was a new adventure and Evfra was drunk with a desire to explore all of it. He pressed his face into her stomach, kissing across the tight skin, running up across her sternum. The feel of her bones beneath her skin beneath his lips was something he couldn’t even fathom, but it made his blood sing in his veins. She was beginning to move her hips against him, moaning, her back arching as his mouth descended on her breast, tongue exploring the hard peak of her nipple.
“Evfra?”
Evfra startled back to life hearing the voice of Moshae Sjefa. Ryder, too, was suddenly flailing in an attempt to get out from under Evfra, her cheeks as red as the sunrise that morning.
“Oh God," she said again, but this time the tone was completely different. Her arms went over her breasts as she sat in the dirt, too far from her shirts to cover herself adequately.
The Moshae chose not to say anything other than, “Evfra, you were late for our meeting. Perhaps you could see me when you are done training?”
Evfra looked between Moshae Sjefa and Ryder, whose face was slowly twisting into an awkward smile. “Hi, Moshae,” she called.
“Ryder. It is good to see you enjoying yourself,” she replied with a hint of mirth.
Evfra was suddenly glad that the Moshae loved the human Pathfinder so much. Otherwise, this could have been a much more severe discovery. “I will be right in, Moshae,” Evfra said.
“Good. Perhaps the next time you two decide to spar, do so after a nice dinner and somewhere private?”
“You’re brilliant, Moshae Sjefa,” Ryder said kindly. To Evfra she added, “Dinner tonight?” The Moshae smiled before departing, leaving the pair to compose themselves.
Now, without an audience, Ryder dropped her arms away from her skin, stood, and began slowly dressing. Evfra took the time to admire the plainness of her skin, which somehow made it more exotic. While watching her pull her undershirt on, he decided that he couldn’t determine his favorite part of her body yet. There was still much left unseen. Unexplored.
His mouth watered at the thought.
“Evfra?” she asked as if she was repeating herself.
“Yes? What?”
“Dinner tonight?” He nodded affirmation. “Your place?” she added with a slight grin.
As private as he was sure her quarters on the Tempest were, he was not particularly interested in finding out if the others could hear them. At least his home was quiet, secluded, and would offer him the time and space to see just how flexible the small alien could be.
“Mine,” he finally breathed, getting to his feet and stepping toward her. She turned her head up to him, catching his lips with hers, hand caressing his cheek and down his chest. “I’ll send the navpoint.”
“I’ll bring some drinks,” Ryder murmured against his mouth.
“The only thing I am planning on drinking is you,” he purred.
“Oh my God,” Ryder whispered, voice a heady mix of surprise and lust. Evfra chuckled throatily. He was beginning to like the phrase.