Author's Note: Just a little fluffity-fluff-fluff for my OTP. For the If You Dare Challenge, prompt "When The Light Goes Out, You'll Understand".

Shards of Light

(In the Capitol before the seventy-fourth Hunger Games, Cinna and Portia have one happy day.)

The sunlight streaming in through the glass doors of the bedroom balcony is perfect at this angle, all illumination and no glaring reflection. Bright, warm colors streak the canvas under the light, and Portia takes a step back to mix some more paint. She's covered in all the shades she's tried, mixed with the old ones she can never seem to wash out of her painting clothes, her too-pale hands, her hair, choppy brown layers to her shoulders.

She sets the brush down for a second and just looks at it curiously.

"—You always look so beautiful when you're painting," comes the familiar murmur from the doorway, interrupting her thoughts. Cinna watches her fondly, with a gentle grin, and a few steps later, she's in his arms. He spins her around once happily, sets her back down and kisses her, a hand tucked under her chin, clasped in a so-delicate embrace, as if both of them fear that if they touch the other any more, they'll shatter. She's getting more paint over him, too, although he doesn't seem to mind, even though he's not much of a painter, himself.

He draws back the slightest bit, letting their faces nuzzle together, nose pressing against her cheek.

"Hi," she gets out, giggly.

"Hi," he echoes, mischief playing in his eyes. Before she can respond, he picks her up and spins her again, tosses her towards the bed while she squeals from dizziness and the surprise of the fall. He goes with her, lying propped up on one elbow, pressing his lips to hers again, warm and soft.

After a second, she feels his fingers digging into her ribs. She pulls away, laughing, squirming. "Cinna, stop—ach—Cinna!" She tries in vain to tickle him, too, but it isn't working, and she gets twisted up in the blanket underneath them.

He stops the onslaught and chuckles at her, looking down at where her hair has fanned out around her face like a halo, over the pillows. He blows a few static-y strands out of her eyes, making her giggle again breathlessly.

Then Portia grins, and tries to go after him again, but he says, "Oh, no, you don't," and then she's squirming away from his tickling one more time.

Their laughter fades out to relaxed silence, and they watch each other. "I love you," he informs her, and leans over to kiss her once, light, quick.

"And I love you," Portia smiles at him.

He takes her hand. "Come on, I want to show you something." They get up, and he leads her to the spare room they use for stylist work, closes the door. The curtains are already drawn shut. He pulls out one of the torches and lights the cape draped across the desk, sets it down again. The synthetic fire they've been trying to perfect for weeks is barely visible in detail, and she looks at it curiously, before he turns the lights on dim, twilight, almost off.

"Oh," she breathes, because now it's breathtaking, the new formula with just the right vividness for the colors. The flames are almost real, alive, bright.

Cinna loops a gentle arm around her shoulders and squeezes, says, "I think we might just have it."

"Amazing." She swipes a hand through the fire. "Finally got it right."

"Finally," he repeats, with a tired smile.

"Maybe we'll actually be able to help the kids."

"Maybe," he says quietly after a few seconds, and kisses her temple to counter it. They watch in silence for a couple more minutes, before Cinna decides to extinguish it with the canister. "At least that's done."

"And now on to bigger and better things," Portia says, with a grin and an eye-roll.

"Precisely, sweetheart."

END