"Clear quartz. I use them for certain healing applications." The explanation comes automatic even though my attention stays fixed on the way she fits against me. "Light focused through crystal can help with meditation and pain management."
"That's fascinating." She turns her head slightly, looking up at me. "You'll have to tell me more about your healing methods sometime."
The angle puts her face inches from mine. Close enough that I notice details I've catalogued before but never let myself truly see—the delicate structure of her cheekbones, the way her brown eyes catch light and turn almost amber, the slight upward curve of her mouth that transforms her entire expression.
Beautiful doesn't begin to cover it.
I force myself to step back before I do something catastrophically stupid. "I'll get the crystals."
The supplies sit in my healing bag a few yards away. I retrieve several clear quartz pieces, along with a reflective metal disc I sometimes use for light therapy. When I return, Ressa's created another rainbow, her movements more confident now that she understands the technique.
"Try this." I position the largest crystal in the spray's path, angling it to catch both water droplets and sunlight. The rainbow fractures through the crystal, colors multiplying and intensifying into something spectacular—prisms dancing through mist, light splitting into impossible variations of red and gold and violet.
Ressa gasps. "That's incredible!"
"Physics," I remind her, but my own voice carries wonder I can't quite suppress. The effect is stunning when done right.
"Beautiful physics." She reaches for another crystal. "Show me how to position it."
We work together, adding crystals at different angles and watching how the light changes. She moves closer each time, unconsciously seeking proximity, and I let her. Tell myself I'm just helping with crystal placement, that the way our hands brush when passing quartz pieces is coincidental.
I'm lying to myself and I know it.
But she's smiling. Actually smiling—not the careful, controlled expression she wears around other orcs but genuine joy lighting her features. And I'd do almost anything to keep that expression on her face.
"Here." I position her hand holding a crystal at precisely the right angle. "See how the rainbow splits when the light hits the edge?"
She tilts the quartz slightly and the colors explode outward, creating overlapping arcs that shimmer in the spray. "It's like magic."
"Just light refraction."
"You keep saying that." She laughs, soft and delighted. "But it feels magical anyway."
The sound wraps around my chest and squeezes. I can't remember the last time I heard her laugh like that—unguarded and free, no trace of the trauma constantly lurking beneath her surface composure.
She's so close now. Standing directly in front of me while we both hold crystals angled to catch the mist spray. Her back brushes my chest when she shifts position, and I register every movement with hyperawareness that has nothing to do with healer assessment.
"If I angle this one lower—" she adjusts the crystal and gasps when the rainbow doubles, colors reflecting off both the water droplets and the quartz surface. "Oh!"
"Perfect," I manage, though what I mean has nothing to do with light refraction.
She turns to look up at me, grinning with unfiltered happiness, and something in my chest just... breaks. Shatters completely. All the professional distance and careful boundaries and rational reasons why I shouldn't feel this way disintegrate when faced with Ressa looking at me like I hung the actual sky instead of just helping her create rainbows.
I'm not sure how it happens.
One second we're standing close together with crystals and rainbows and her face tilted up toward mine. The next, my mouth is on hers and I'm kissing her like I've wanted to since approximately the third day of this ridiculous festival.
She tastes like morning tea and possibility. Her lips part slightly under mine, soft and warm and perfect in ways that make rational thought scatter like startled birds.
Then reality crashes back.
I pull away abruptly, my heart hammering against my ribs hard enough to hurt. What the fuck did I just do? She's my patient. She's traumatized by orcs. She's vulnerable and I just took advantage of?—
Ressa's hand fists in my shirt and pulls me back down.
The crystal I was holding hits the ground somewhere nearby, forgotten. Her other hand comes up to cup my jaw, gentle but insistent, and she kisses me again.
This time it's slower. Softer. Deliberate instead of impulsive. Her mouth moves against mine with careful exploration, testing and tasting, her touch feather-light like she's mapping new territory.
