Disclaimer: I do not own nor do I claim to own any characters or concepts related to Sym-Bionic Titan. This is a nonprofit work of fanfiction.

I first posted this to livejournal in mid-March 2011, with three episodes left to go. As I haven't yet been able to bring myself to watch the final episode (I don't want it to be over! It can't be over! And yet, it is), I've no idea if this is feasible or not. Anyway: future fic, set several years into the future. Please note that this is rated M for sexual content, and I mean that entirely. Consider yourself warned.

Edit: Ack, ack, ACK. FFN inexplicably ate the first two paragraphs when I first uploaded this! I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

The Queen's Guard

A letter arrived from the Helesin delegation, which had taken up quarters in the embassy reserved for the southern continents. An embassy now, a palace before. Scars from the occupation still marked the stones; a spiderweb of lines marred the eastern face, cracked by a concussive blast. Galalunian, Mutrudi. It did not matter. Ten years, and still they rebuilt.

She found the letter on the desk in her private office. A minor minister of the coffers had once occupied this office. Ilana remembered him as a thin and dour man who had given her candies from a glass dish. He'd smoked cigars imported from Duramn, far to the west, pungent cigars that spat out thick trails of smoke. The stink lingered in a few corners. She had asked once how he had died, but no one could say. Records from the occupation were few.

Ilana slit the envelope open upon her knife. Dried petals from a Helesin sunrose - a dull pinkish red shading to orange - dripped from the corner. She set the knife down.

"What is it?"

She skimmed it. To hope for such an alliance with our Most Honored Queen...

"Another offer of marriage."

Lance looked up from his reports. His arm hung off the back of the chair. "What, another? Didn't that prince guy already propose?"

"Mm. This is his second cousin. Which," she said, with a pointed look at Lance, "I would hope you'd know given you're supposed to be the captain of my guard."

"Duke Colum. His family controls the Diethelm province."

Lance smiled sleekly. He'd need of a haircut, his dark hair wild about his ears. A line of stubble showed, a shadow on his jaw.

"Feet off the sofa, please," she said.

He dropped them accordingly. His heels thumped on the old stones. Lance rifled through the reports. His brow pinched; that familiar crease deepened, then eased. With the fire at his back, he looked - for a moment she thought of him in blue jeans and converse sneakers, slouching in his seat. Arms bare, his throat too.

Ilana rubbed at her eyes. Her head ached, a low pressure building at the base of her skull. She looked to the clock, then to her desk and the reports which awaited her and the bits of dried flower which clung to her knees. So much to be done; always so much to do. She felt restless, restless and cooped up in this office that stank of a dead man's cigars. Ilana pressed her thumbs to her temples.

"Let me."

Lance rose and tossed the reports into that vacated chair. He stretched: arms above his head, legs out before him, his jaw tensing so the corners popped. His jacket drew tight over his chest.

"I need a break from all this paperwork."

Ilana leaned back in her chair. His fingers were callused but cool, and the pressure of his thumbs on her temples relieved. She leaned into his touch.

"You didn't have to take the job."

He snorted. "You don't have to do everything yourself. When's the last time you got a full night's sleep?"

"When's the last time you did?" she countered.

He pulled a face. So recently as three years ago he would argued it wasn't the same. Now he sighed out through his nose and brushed her hair behind her ears with his thumbs. Her earrings, long silver bones from the artisans of the northernmost continent, twisted against her jaw, disturbed by his touch.

His palms swept her neck; his fingers slipped down to cradle her head. His fingertips bit into her nape, working at the muscles there, and those calluses rasped over her skin.

The letter from the duke tumbled from the desk. The duke's hands were soft, his fingers smooth. His family had weathered the occupation. His was the fourth proposal this harvest, the sixth this year. She expected another from the lord Gindi before the season was out.

Lance bent to her. His shoulder blocked out the fire, and the hair wild at his ears curled against his cheeks.

She did not mean to - no. She meant to.

Ilana covered Lance's wrists. The cuffs flattened beneath her fingers; a cuff link pressed hard into her palm.

He said, "Sorry," and went to draw his hands back. Ilana held them still.

He said, "Ilana," and she tucked her thumb into the small of his wrist, and she rose just so from her chair to kiss him lightly once upon his parted lips. She wondered that she had not thought to do so before. She supposed she had not wanted to. His lips were very dry, and his teeth behind them were hard.

She could not step away, and so she sat again. His hands cupped her jaw. He breathed in and let it out. His eyes were very wide. She wanted to laugh. It seemed very silly to her right then, the surprise on his face, but if she laughed he might remember duty, so instead she pulled on his arms so he leaned toward her and she kissed him again. He exhaled, his breath warm upon her cheek. She pressed more firmly against him and he exhaled again, then he softened, then his fingers wound in her hair and she rose once more from her seat.

"You're doing it again."

His tongue flashed between his teeth, and she chased after it.

"What am I doing?"

"That thing you do," he said, then she hitched her knee up against his hip and slanted her mouth over his. Lance ran his hands down her sides; his fingers swept her bottom, his thumbs her thighs.

She pushed him back against her desk. More papers fluttered to the floor, and she thought: oh, oh. She needed to pick those up right away before she forgot where they went. Then Lance fumbled for the buttons at the back of her dress, and she wished she hadn't worn the petticoats.

"You get an idea," he said, "and you just go for it—"

She pulled at his jacket. Lance arched into her fingers. Why did the uniform have so many clasps? He'd worn t-shirts on Earth, thin ones that stuck to his skin but peeled easily from it. She hadn't appreciated them then.

He pulled at her skirts, rucking them. His fingers ghosted over her thighs. She wanted, oh she wanted. A heat deep in her gut pulsated. A length of wood in the fire cracked, spitting sparks.

"Ilana." He gripped her thighs. His mouth was warm on her throat, his kisses aimless but fierce, lips peeled back and teeth on her skin. "Ilana."

Ilana gave up on the jacket, its clasps too many, its workings too strange. She pressed her palm to his groin, his erection hard through the layers, and Lance groaned. His fingers flexed high upon her thighs. He tipped his head back, straining against that unyielding collar. The firelight glinted off his skin, showing red highlights where no such hairs grew in the dark shadow of his coming beard.

Her heart shivered. She touched his jaw, the short bristles rough on her fingers.

"You need to shave soon."

He stroked her thighs. An easy, delicate touch, as if this were something they'd done before.

"Didn't have time this morning."

"If you wake early enough, there's always time."

"You were late for this morning's breakfast with the cultural ministers."

"I was not!" she said indignantly.

His nose wrinkled, and Lance grinned. That little huff of breath as near a laugh as he would come. Her stomach twisted, then her heart. Twelve years. They settled on her shoulders not like a stone, but a winter's blanket wound about her and about him as well, something warm which held him near to her. She smoothed her hand down his roughened jaw.

"Lance," she said, "I'm going to kiss you again."

"Sure," he said. "Okay." His thumb rolled across her thigh, pushing at the fat. He said, "Ilana," and she bent to kiss him.

His mouth was wet, his tongue sure, and his teeth on her lips pinched. She ran her fingers up his chest and down again, tracing the buttons, the clasps, the stiffly starched folds of each pocket. Light grenades in these two pockets, a knife in this one and another in the pocket opposite. Recharge packs for the pistol and rifle assigned him. Lance pressed his knee to her hip. He arched, his back bending. His hands on her thighs drew her down.

Ilana dropped quick kisses along his jaw, first down the right then down the left. The hairs there scratched at her lips. When she kissed the soft skin behind his earlobe, first with lips and then with teeth, Lance said, "Ilana." His hands tightened on her hips. He turned his head, and his teeth flashed against her throat.

At a formal dance once her father had allowed her a glass of tilia. The bubbles had burnt her throat and her tongue curled at the bite, but she had tipped the spindly glass and drank it all. How cool that twining stem had been as she twisted it between her fingers, heady with the knowledge of her coming maturity.

Lance rolled up against her. His mouth on her collar was fierce, but his hands on her thighs were gentle. Ilana felt as if she drowned in tilia, hot bubbles spilling through her, her tongue and toes and heart curling. She wanted to strip his jacket from him, his light grenades, his knives, all the accoutrements with which he protected her until only his skin showed. She wanted his hands on her breasts, his mouth at her heart. She wanted him to say her name again, as he always said her name.

"Lance," she said. "Please—" Her wants were too many; they stuck in her throat.

He said, "Whatever you want." His breath caught. He pushed up against her again. He said, "Ilana. Ilana."

She ached, and in her belly those bubbles popped, rising higher and hotter and wetter. His hair spilled out across her desk, black curls tangled and tangling. The fire cracked and hissed, spitting sparks, spitting light. She pulled at his belt, searching for the hook.

"Lance, I need you to—"

He caught her skirts in his hands and dragged at them, hauling layers more fully up to her waist. Ilana squeaked and jolted against him, her breasts crushed to his chest, his erection hard on her thigh. Lance looked sheepish, his pupils black but his cheeks red.

"Sorry." His fingers hooked in her knickers. "I didn't mean to pull that hard."

"You'll just have to make it up to me," she said.

She popped his belt free and worked at the three small buttons which held his trousers tight around his waist. Her wrist brushed the heavy swell of his hardened penis, and Lance made a ragged noise, like but not a laugh strangled in his mouth. Her chest, her hips, her thighs felt weighty, as if they dragged her down, but her head was light as air, heated and rising.

When she sank down upon him, taking small breaths and going slow, Lance shuddered; his hands convulsed at the backs of her knees. Her sleeves, long gossamer strands that hung from her shoulders, swept over his chest. The cloth glittered in the firelight. In the shadow she cast as she rose above him, his jacket showed red like old blood. She felt as if she'd burst, so full of heat and longing and the years between them, and of Lance, who said her name again and surrendered. His chest rose; his shoulders bowed to her.

Ilana ran her fingers through his hair. Her hips snapped down again and again, quicker now and harder. The heat in her breast redoubled, a wild thing inside her. Lance strained against his jacket, those buttons shining, his collar stiff against his throat. A paper tore beneath his shoulder.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, oh."

"Il-Ilana," he said, and he reached for her, sweat on his throat, his face flushed, his hips pitching as she drove downwards to take him deeper.

Her heart beat and beat against her ribs, and Ilana fisted her hands in his jacket over his wide breast, and she kissed him wildly so their lips mashed and his stubble scraped her jaw, another hard burn to match the itch in her skin and the slickness of her thighs and the fire which snapped again. The heat rose higher still, washing over her, and Ilana fell to it.

"I think your pen's poking my kidney," Lance said.

Ilana stirred. Her skirts rose in strange clouds at her back. Lance ran his hand up her thigh and wriggled beneath her. His leg nudged her hip, the muscles thick in his thigh loose.

"'M sorry," she said.

Ilana rose and patted first at her hair then at her skirts. She slid down from him, and her heels clicked one-two on the floor; then she wobbled. Lance surged up and caught her arm. She steadied.

"I'm fine. Thank you. You can let go now," she added. He did so.

Lance pressed his palms to his eyes. Sweat stained the joints of his jacket, and his trousers gaped low on his hips; his belt parted.

Ilana looked away. Her knee trembled, and she smoothed her hands down her rumpled, twisted skirts. The duke's proposal had come to rest against the chair. Three small petals stood out against the white stone. Her breath came out uneven and too loud.

In the silence, Lance fumbled for his trousers. Cloth whispered over his hips. A button clicked. Ilana turned to him. Her sleeve susurrated, and Lance lifted his head. A curl fell against his brow.

The captain of her guard. Her friend. Lance.

She took a small step toward him. Lance straightened and then bent again as she reached for and cradled his jaw. His lips were thin and still dry, but softer now. He touched his fingertips to her shoulder. A question waited in that.

Ilana slid her hands down his throat and around to cradle his nape. She smiled up at him and she said, softly for the newness of it, "Please stay," and she rose on her toes to kiss the little bruise she'd left at the corner of his mouth.

He smoothed his hand down her arm. His fingers wound about her elbow.

"Yeah," he said, "yeah. I'll stay. If you want me to. Ilana."

fin