Chapter Text
If the old men had started any more pissing matches, the diplomats would’ve needed umbrellas.
Alfin let herself collapse onto the pale velvet couch, her hi-heels sticking up in the air. The hotel’s top floor shivered beneath a the rumblings of whatever-the-people-up-there-did. Probably some politicians going crazy, swilling the dregs of their egos and drinking vintage Calvardian wine.
But in this suite, at least, the air was different: a faint, sweet trace of Kloe’s hand lotion and a calm atmosphere. Alfin peeled off her ceremonial jacket and dropped it, uncaring, onto a glass table. Kloe followed her in, closing the door with a deliberate click. She was still in full regalia, every star-shaped pin and silver cord in place, at least her hair was short enough not to be extremely stylized. Her bob was both easy to style and always a looker, her rare purple hair making it all the more striking.
“I thought the summits would go smoother and more importantly, less chaotic after Erebonia agreed to pay the reparations for a year longer.”, sighed Alfin. Kloe rolled her eyes, then smiled—a gentle gesture showing real affection for Alfin, a contrast to the forced politeness at the political summit.
“Less chaotic, maybe, but I doubt there’s any version where the Prime Minister of Remiferia and the Republic’s Foreign Minister don’t try to out-toast each other until one of them starts to faint.”
Alfin giggled, melting into the cushions.
“I’m surprised the summit even moved forward at this point, but it’s going to take ages to change something significant.”
“Diplomacy in action,” Alfin deadpanned.
Kloe glanced down at the little travel bag she’d brought in, then up at Alfin, lips quirking.
“So, you really want a rematch?”
Alfin put a hand to her heart, feigning shock.
“Kloe, please. I’m so going to kick your ass today.”, said the blonde princess with a grin. Kloe just shrugged.
“Well, you can try at least.”
She kicked off her heels, sending them skittering across the thick carpet, and stretched her feet lazily.
“It’s been ages since we were able to play “POMPOMParty!” Besides, I need to do something that doesn’t require seven layers of etiquette.”
Kloe set her bag on the table and carefully unzipped it, taking out her Xipha.
A relaxing evening, casually chilling by eating snacks and playing "POMPOMParty". What could you want more?
“How about some real fun, both of you act like old grannies!”, said Shizuna.
Shizuna strode in, silver hair swinging, aura less divine blade and more “high-heeled homewrecker.”
Her sleeveless blouse was already misbuttoned, as if she’d undressed on the elevator ride up and just barely thought better.
“POMPOMParty is cute, but isn’t it a little… boring?”
She propped her elbows on the back of the couch, looming over Alfin’s shoulder. The two princesses exchanged a look: Kloe’s was confused, Alfin’s was cautious and eager in equal parts.
Alfin grabbed a cracker and lobbed it at Shizuna, who caught it in her mouth with ease.
“We’re decompressing,” Alfin said. “We had enough chaos at the negotiations.”
“Cute,” Shizuna purred, “but if you want real fun, we’ll need something more interesting than snack food and block puzzles. Don’t you think so princess?”
Kloe, who’d just booted up the game and was tapping through menus, didn’t look up.
“If you’re that bored, you can help set up the snack trays. Or,” she said, glancing meaningfully at the drink cart, “you can start pouring. The wine’s from Ruan’s Aqua Rossa Bar. It might not be the most expensive wine, but it’s aroma is great and it packs a punch.”, assured Kloe.
Shizuna was already pouring. She filled three glasses with a mischievous flourish, balancing them on the crook of one arm as she whirled to the sideboard and returned, her eyes flashing.
“Then let’s toast to end of this summit,” she said, offering the drinks with both hands, as though presenting a blade for inspection.
Alfin grinned, then downed half her glass in a single, unpracticed go. The wine was fruity, sweet and singing on her tongue. She almost immediately felt the tips of her ears grow warm. She dropped her head back, resting against the cushions, and watched Kloe take a slower, more measured sip.
They played the first game with easy laughter. Alfin lost spectacularly, which caused her to pout and demand two out of three, and then lost again. Kloe’s victory pose was mortifyingly cute, and Alfin could see Shizuna’s smirk reflected in the dark of the window behind them.
“I think I liked you better when you were shy,” Alfin said, feigning grumpiness.
“You just want an excuse to keep playing,” Kloe replied, navigating the menues in the digital game with infuriating speed.
Shizuna let herself fall onto the couch right between the two princesses, sprawling sideways, empty glass balanced on her navel.
“You both play so nice,” she drawled. “It’s almost tragic. Do you know what they used to call me in the Red Moon Players Gamble Club in Longlai?”
Alfin looked sideways, genuinely curious. Kloe, nose pink from the wine, gave the tiniest snort.
“The Silver Chaos? Or was it—wait, no, don’t tell me, it’s probably dirtyyyy.”
Shizuna made a show of thinking it over.
“Not dirty, but… let’s call it educational. They called me ‘Lady Drinkalot.’ I led a drinking game for the entire third floor and no one walked away with their dignity intact. Do you want to know what that looks like, Kloe?”
Alfin sat up, jostling Shizuna’s head off her lap.
“I am not playing strip POMPOMParty! Again,” she said, and then just as quickly, “unless she's into it. I mean, Kloe’s never done that before, right Kloe?”
Kloe turned red, blinking while turning her head away.
“No,” Kloe said, voice wobbling, “and I don’t intend to start. I’d like to keep my slip and bra on.”
“That’s the beauty about games,” purred Shizuna, one thigh draped over Alfin’s knees.
“The rules of games change all the time. All the best games get expanded further and further. Strip POMPOM is boring, we can just use other rules!”
Alfin, emboldened by wine and mischief, leaned forward and poked Kloe’s upper arm.
“I bet you played all kinds of “games” with different rules together with Joshua and Estelle.”
“Alfin—!” Kloe’s protest broke into laughter, which only made her cheeks pinker. But she did not move away when Shizuna’s hand crept around her shoulder, drawing small circles with her indexfinger, pulling her close until their faces were nearly touching.
“Let’s compromise,” Shizuna said, her voice the velvet dark between lightning strikes.
“One hand of POMPOMParty, loser has to do whatever the winner says. No takebacks, no moral high ground, just a clean dare.” She produced her compact and flicked it open, the device’s holographic tiles shimmering between her fingertips. The game was ready, the stakes unspoken and all the more electric for it.
“Deal,” said Alfin, slapping her palm to the table. It was a little too loud, a little too eager, but she didn’t care—something about the heady air of the suite, the tension in Kloe’s perfect posture, the way Shizuna’s smile curled at the corner like a knife, made her want to see just how far this spiral of mischief could unwind.
The match started. Kloe, even tipsy, was an unfailing machine—her blocks lined up with demure, mathematical precision, combos stacking in quiet, lethal cascades. Alfin played bold, frantic, and reckless, her avatar’s pom-poms flailing with every move. Shizuna, though—Shizuna was in another league entirely. She played slow at first, as if savoring the unfolding drama, then shifted gears: tiles fell in lines of five, six, seven, an impossible tide, her eyes never leaving Kloe’s face.
That was the tell. Kloe’s cheeks glowed, her brow furrowed, but her gaze never broke from Shizuna’s. The tiles on her side of the screen began to surge in jagged, frantic bursts, and Alfin could sense the shifting current, the way Shizuna’s tempo lured Kloe into riskier plays, until—three moves later—a critical error. Kloe’s blocks overflowed, her avatar’s wail echoing in defeat. Alfin, who’d been one panic-click away from collapse herself, stared at the result in disbelief.
Kloe grumbled.
Shizuna’s smile was pure satisfaction, but not unkind. She set her glass aside and propped her chin on her hand, fixing Kloe with a predator’s patience.
“A deal is a deal. Ready for your dare, Highness?”
Alfin bounced her knees, barely able to contain her anticipation.
“Oh, this is going to be good. Kloe never backs out.”
Kloe met Shizuna’s gaze, lips pressed into a thin line, but there was a current of intrigue beneath the surface.
“Fine. What’s the dare?”
Shizuna surveyed the suite, the citylights, and the three empty glasses. Her eyes glinted, and she reached out to toy with the hem of Kloe’s skirt, feather-light, a suggestion rather than a demand.
“Out there,” she nodded to the balcony, “you’ll find the best view in Heimdallr. I want you to go onto the balcony, remove your underthings, and stand at the edge for precisely one minute. Just you, the city, and the night air.”
Alfin nearly choked, hands pressed to her mouth to stifle a delighted squeal. Kloe’s chin lifted in what might once have been defiance, but it was soft at the edges with curiosity—and, unless Alfin was projecting, a flicker of anticipation.
“You’re not serious.”
“Completely,” said Shizuna, holding up three fingers in oath.
“Just…lift your gown three times completely. Imagine airing it out a bit.”
She leaned in, her lips almost grazing Kloe’s ear,
“Let the night see you. It’s dark, nobody will see you…”
“No,” Kloe said at first, voice shrinking to a stubborn hush.
“Absolutely not.”
"Or you do me a favour later. You can trust me, I'm just an Ikaruga Jaeger."
Kloe was grumbling.
Moments later she was standing outside, smoothing her skirt and glancing at the glass doors with a kind of fatalism. Her cheeks had gone from strawberry to a deep, bruised plum and it was with that stormcloud blush that Kloe unlocked the balcony, stepping out into the summer night. The city, alive with a million eyes and not one of them truly watching, sprawled beneath her, a quilt sewn from golden towers and the neon veins of traffic.
Behind her, through glass, Alfin and Shizuna pressed close, twin silhouettes in the light—waiting, watching, the air thick with anticipation and wine-soaked awe.
Kloe’s fingers gathered the hem of her skirt. She felt ridiculous, and then, at the cruel, perfect intersection between embarrassment and exhilaration, she was curious. The back of her knees went weak. She shimmied her slip and panties down her thighs with careful, trembling hands, the damp fabric gliding over her sweaty skin, catching for a heartbeat at the sharp, electric peaks of her goosebumped thighs. The weather outside was warmer than she’d expected.
At first, exposure was nothing but shame: the soft slap of her own bare skin, the refreshing summer breeze, the unmistakable feeling that her entire nervous system was crowding into her face. Kloe’s vision telescoped. She could hardly see the city at all—only the marble whiteness of the balustrade, the faint reflection of herself in the glass, a spectral girl with her skirt bunched in trembling hands. Her heart gave a double-time stutter, as if it could vault her back to the safety of the suite if it pounded hard enough.
But the world did not end; instead, it expanded. The air on her thighs was bracing, but also clarifying, like the slap of cold water after a long run. The streetlights below lost all power to threaten or judge, and when Kloe dared a glance, she saw that the city was too busy being itself to care about her, or anyone, for even a fraction of time. It also helped that it was nighttime and that it was next to impossible to spot her up on the balcony.
She wore nothing now below the waist but her own nerve, her skirt bunched high on her hips, bare to the world and to the next floor’s worth of distant windows. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the humiliation, but the second her eyes shut the night leaped in to fill the space. The city’s chorus of neon and brake lights faded, replaced by the whispering hush of altitude and wind. The breeze licked her thighs, an impossible contrast of chill and heat against the sticky warmth pooling at her core. For a moment, her skin felt as thin as the silk she’d shed, every square centimeter awake and screaming, a thousand tiny nerves running from her bare ankles to where the hem clung bunched at her waist.
Goosebumps lifted along her calves and up her thighs, making her more sensitive until even the movement of air felt like a caress. She let the skirt drift higher, exposing more, until the edge of it tickled just below her ribs. Kloe’s breasts—the delicate, sensitive curve of them, despite their big size—strained against her dress, nipples stiffening as the air toyed with them through two mere layers of fabric. She imagined the view from below: the slow, trembling reveal, the way her silhouette must look framed against the balcony light, purple hair sharp as a flag, hips squared to the metropolis like some debauched statue. It was humiliating and impossibly erotic, and she felt her knees start to tremble. the city right below her aroused body. The night was only cool in theory; in practice, the whole city radiated a fever, and Kloe felt it on her skin, everywhere at once.
She straightened, acutely aware of every inch of herself. The breeze licked at her thighs, teasing up to where she was suddenly, breathtakingly exposed. Goosebumps swept her arms, but when she looked down, she saw her nipples pressing hard and helpless against the thin fabric of her dress shirt, pink and impossibly erect, as if they too had been dared into awakening.
The pulse in her ears was loud. Kloe glanced back—Alfin with both hands over her mouth, eyes round as moons, Shizuna smirking with lazy, predatory interest. Their attention, more than the wine or the dizzying drop below, made her body feel electric, trembling on a wire between fear and desire.
The second lift was harder than the first. She gathered her skirt again and yanked it up, this time higher, enough to bare herself completely to the world. The city lights painted her pale, inner thighs blue and gold. She felt the night air kiss the delicate lips beneath her crown of purple-trimmed pubic hair—she’d trimmed it to a neat landing strip for the diplomatic trip, thinking it would make her feel in control, but now it only made her feel helpless, exposed, and lewd.
What shocked Kloe most was the heat between her legs. Even out here, wind lashing her, she felt slick and swollen, a pulse of need that wouldn’t be denied. She almost fled, but the memory of Shizuna’s fingers at her hem and Alfin’s bright, hungry gaze held her there.
She did it a third time. This time, she lingered—hips angled, dress bunched at her waist, nothing between her and the city but the dark. The pulse in her core grew unbearable, each throb matched by a fresh bead of wetness slicking her tender folds, one hand subconsciously grazing her wet tender slit. The city couldn’t see her, not really, but Alfin and Shizuna could, and that was what made her want to scream with shame and want and something she didn’t have a name for.
She counted the seconds. At the end of the minute, Kloe let her skirt drop and sank to the cool tiles, legs wobbly, chest heaving. Shame flooded her, but so did triumph: she’d done it, she’d stood naked above the world. The door slid open behind her and Alfin all but tumbled onto the balcony, hands fluttering uselessly as if to wrap Kloe in comfort or maybe in congratulations.
Shizuna followed, slower, and crouched behind Kloe, hands settling onto her shoulders—firm, warm, and so steady it made Kloe’s shivers more pronounced. Shizuna leaned in, lips brushing the rim of Kloe’s ear.
“That was awesome! Let's go back inside, Alfin still needs to do a dare."
Alfin's eyes widened in shock. But if Kloe managed to do it, so would she. She had doubts that Shizuna had any more devious dares in mind than what she just witnessed.