⊹₊⟡⋆ A STARLIT PROPOSAL ⋆⟡₊⊹
summary: As the Empress, rumors have reached the your ear of your close relationship with the Sanctide Court and their Sanctarch, Rafayel. You cannot ignore the whispers, so you must take action. On the eve of the one year anniversary of your coronation, you return to the Butterfly Nebula with Rafayel. Will you be able to move forward together, or will the fear of repercussions stop you from achieving your desires?
pairing: Sanctarch!Rafayel x Empress!Reader word count: 3.2k content: MDNI, explicit sexual content, AFAB!reader, nipple play, fingering, cunnilingus, p in v, unprotected sex, slight Dom!Reader, slight Sub!Rafayel author's note: This is my first LADS fic so I hope you enjoy! I really loved the Throne of Eros event and the dynamic between MC and Rafayel in 'Fires of Devotion'. As a lot of us felt, the ending was a little rushed so this is my attempt at an epilogue to their story. I just can't help giving them a happy ending. Crossposted on AO3 if you prefer to read there.
The stars danced brightly across the sky on the first anniversary eve of the Empress’s coronation. You had once again returned to the Sanctide Court’s chapel, to the same, familiar room you had occupied before. But unlike last year, your mind is not filled with questions about the Sanctarch, his motivations and desires, or the nature of the dangerous but irresistible relationship that was growing between you.
Everything had been revealed when the Sanctarch had forced you to confront the truth of your heart — the deep, uncompromising devotion that you felt for him. A feeling that some might call love, but both of you knew that that was too common a word to describe what existed between you.
Your ladies-in-waiting believed you to be resting in your chambers, preparing for the celebrations that would endure from one dawn to the next. But you had long absconded from your room. You waited beside the prepped airship, staring at the door that you had once blindly opened last year. Despite wearing only a thin nightdress, you were not cold. Together, you and the stars waited in anticipation for his arrival.
"My dear Empress," a familiar, seductive voice whispered into your ear from behind. "What a surprise to see you here, and on the eve of such an important day no less.”
You released a small chuckle. "A pleasure as always, your Quintessence."
Rafayel circled you, letting his fingers dance across the small of your back as he moved. Goosebumps erupted over your skin in his wake. He stopped in front of you and smiled. As he always did during their secret meetings, he had forgone the vestments of the Sanctarch. With you, he was just Rafayel.
“Are we feeling sentimental, your Majesty?” he asked, his eyes glimmering with fondness.
Years of training allowed you to keep your desire under control — to stop yourself from grasping his clothes and pulling him into a deep kiss, forgoing all the plans you had taken months to organize.
"Your appearance here raises the same questions. It would appear that we are both feeling sentimental this evening."
A rare smile bloomed on his face; a smile that you were only graced with when you were alone, able to be yourselves instead of the titles you wore daily.
“I was hoping you might join me for an excursion.”
Rafayel's attention turned to the airship behind you. "So, is this the night where we finally elope?"
"Something like that."
"I've felt your nervousness all week through the bond." Rafayel's hand stroked your arms. Soft, gentle caresses that excited rather than soothed. "What mischief do you have planned?"
"You'll just have to wait and see."
You reached out and took his bare hand. Feeling his skin against yours was a special kind of bliss — a private indulgence that you could never get enough. Your moments alone were too few and far between; however long you got to bask in the feeling of being uncovered was never long enough.
You boarded the spaceship together. In the cockpit, you took the helm and began to pilot with a practiced confidence. Rafayel watched your every movement, eyes tracking the sure way you flicked each switch and pressed each button to get the ship up and moving.
The flight was a familiar one. Despite recognizing the route you were taking, Rafayel did not comment on it. Instead, you spoke about the week's events — what each of you had noticed at the numerous celebrations. You discussed which nobles were taking the festivities as a chance to show true fealty to the Empire and which ones were showing deference to the Sanctide Court.
Others might view using your limited time together for politicking as a waste, but to you, it was part of the thrill of finally being alone. In public, you were reluctant allies that barely managed to keep up polite conversation when in each others’ presence. In private, you shared everything with each other. There were no secrets between you. The future of the Alore Galaxy was decided by your hands together; every move and countermove was a delicate dance that you had choreographed together.
Finally, you arrived at the Butterfly Nebula. The cockpit was abandoned and you moved to the viewing balcony. Two stunning silver goblets sat with a bottle of wine on a side table. Rafayel reverently traced the cups before pouring out the wine. He approached you from behind, handing you your wine before snaking one arm around your waist possessively. Your back met his firm chest with a gentle thud; it felt like home.
Together, you gazed at the nebula in awe. Witnessing the purple and red hues of the phenomena ignited a storm of memories and emotions in the small space. It was impossible to ignore the echoes of your last time being here. The offer Rafayel had made. Your rejection.
"Do you still envy the meteoroids?"
You took a sip of your wine and considered the sight ahead of you. The way the tiny pieces of each meteoroid fanned out across the cosmos to create a dancing butterfly. The result of the collision was mesmerizing — a stunning spectacle that spoke of fated, mutual destruction.
"No. I suppose I no longer yearn for destiny. My future is what I make of it, and that thought fills me with hope."
A content and companionable silence filled the airship as the truth of your words settled into your bones. You drank from your goblets at a languid pace, savoring a rare moment in your lives when there was no need to hurry or rush. You could simply... exist.
"Several rumors have reached my ears of late."
If Rafayel was surprised by the change of topic, he did not show it. His eyes remained fixed on the view ahead. His dexterous fingers continued their idle coaxing at your waist. Despite the thin, silk fabric that separated his hand from your skin, you felt every soft touch like you were naked. Tiny sparks of desire ignited at every tap. "Is that so?"
"The strengthening relationship between the Empire and the Sanctide Court has been the topic of much speculation. The masses wonder what sparked such a change between two factions that were on the brink of war before the new Empress came into power."
"Much has changed in the last year of the new Empress's reign."
Gingerly, Rafayel grabbed your goblet and placed it and his own back on the table. His hands, which had been lazily toying with you just moments before, began to move up your sides. He stroked your exposed skin, following the edge of the nightdress to the area below your breasts. It was a ghost of a caress; you were almost unsure if he truly touched you at first. But the change in his intention was clear. Your breath hitched as a deep, unreachable desire coiled in your stomach.
"They wonder if perhaps… If there is a personal reason for the collaboration. After all, they all saw the Sanctarch and the Empress leading up to her coronation."
“Mmm...” Rafayel hummed. His fingers stroked higher, making lazy circles around your areola, avoiding your nipples by the slightest margin. Every pass that narrowly missed caused the ache between your thighs to intensify. "They did have wonderful chemistry during their play."
"So I wonder if it is time to put these rumors to rest."
This took Rafeyel’s attention away from his ministrations. You slipped out of his arms and turned to face him. His blue and pink eyes met yours with an intensity that took your breath away.
"What do you have in mind, your Majesty?"
"A union. A marriage between the Empress and the Sanctarch."
The colors of the nebula swam across Rafayel's face as he stared at you with surprise, and then with deep hunger. He surged forward, cupping your face, and devoured your mouth with his own. You moved as one, him pushing and you relenting. You slammed against the viewing window. The wings of the Butterfly Nebula bloomed from your back.
"Finally," he groaned. His hot mouth moved over your jaw and to your neck. He nipped and sucked at the tender flesh, drawing out soft pants and whimpers from your throat.
The heat of Rafayel's body fought with the harsh cold of the glass behind you. You were sweating and shivering simultaneously, every sensation heightened by the opposing temperatures surrounding you.
"Do you know how long I have waited for you to come to the same conclusion? To see our future with the same clarity that I have seen it with for months?"
He bit down hard on your neck. You cried out in a mixture of pain and pleasure as he replaced his teeth with his tongue, gently lapping at the bite to soothe it.
"R-Raf-" you moaned.
"How hard it was to keep my thoughts to myself, resisting the urge to kneel at your feet and demand that we let the whole Empire know that you are mine?"
The strap of your nightdress fell down your shoulder, revealing your left breast. Rafayel paused, his eyes hungrily drinking in your exposed skin. The attention made your nipple stiffen. You knew that if he was to reach between your thighs, he would find you dripping for him, even now before he had truly begun to try in earnest to make you write with pleasure. With a controlled slowness that made your throat feel tight, Rafayel's mouth descended to your erect nipple and sucked.
Groaning, you pushed your chest forward, urging him to suck harder, to keep giving you everything you wanted; everything you needed. His response was immediate. Shock waves of pleasure bloomed across your breasts with each pull of his lips against your hardened peaks. When the pleasure began to almost become too much, when the words ‘stop’ began to almost form in your mind, he switched his attention to the other breast, keeping your arousal from reaching a point that he was not quite yet ready for it to reach.
“Rafayel, please...”
He lifted his head and stared into your eyes. Without looking away, his hand began to pull down the other strap. The nightdress fell into a heap at your feet.
“What is it that your Majesty desires from her Sanctarch?”
With steady hands, you caressed the collar of his robes. “I wish to see you laid bare on your knees before me.”
“As your Majesty wills it.”
The warmth left with Rafayel as he pulled away. A shiver raced across your wired body; a desperate, delicious ache between your legs accompanied it, causing you to whimper.
Rafayel never looked away as he disrobed at a maddeningly slow pace. Every small reveal of smooth, perfect skin was a feast for the barely contained hunger that lived within you. Though you had seen him naked many times in the past year as you explored each other, his body never failed to make your heart race.
He fell to his knees with an air of devotion and reverence that made your head spin. It was an act of vulnerability that never failed to stoke the fires of your desire. Another flush of arousal rocked through your core. Slick wetness slid down the inside of your thighs as he leaned forward, rubbing his head against your thigh.
“Your smell... please let me taste you, Empress,” he whined, face ghosting just below where he so desperately wanted to be.
Your heart hammered against your ribs as you gazed down at the sight. Everything in you demanded that you lace your hands into his lavender locks, suffocating him in your cunt. But denying him, and yourself, was almost as perfectly delicious as giving in.
“You haven’t given me an answer yet, Rafayel,” you reminded him. Gently, you brushed a lock of his hair from his forehead. He shivered as your fingertips ghosted over his cheek.
“Your Majesty has yet to formally ask.”
You moved with surprising quickness, one hand snaking into his hair and sharply pulling his head back. The other gripped his chin, forcing his head into the position you desired.
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” he groaned. Relief flooded through your body, causing you to loosen your grip. He took the opportunity to launch forward. His hands gripped your ass with an impossible firmness and his mouth descended on you.
“Oh fuck!” you moaned as he assaulted you with an uncontained passion.
Long strokes of his tongue coaxed out moans and gasps of pleasure. He quickly narrowed his focus to your clitoris, causing the slowly building pressure to quickly escalate. Using his grip on your ass and your back on the window as leverage, you lifted your trembling legs up onto his shoulder and around his head. He hummed in approval and redoubled his efforts.
"Yes, yes! Ahh- yes, Rafayel!"
Without warning, Rafayel grabbed your waist and pulled you from against the window and brought you to the floor of the spaceship. Your legs remained wrapped around his head, but now, his hands were free to roam. You barely noticed the hard surface of the metal floor as Rafayel took the opportunity to slide two fingers into you. There was no resistance as he entered you, and your walls quickly clamped down on his fingers, pulsing in rhythm with each lick of his tongue.
"Shit! Please, yes!"
The only indication that Rafayel heard you was the quickening of his pace. He pumped into your core with his two fingers, dragging against your g-spot with every stroke. The wet sound of him fucking you with his fingers echoed through the spaceship, overlapping with your loud and breathy moans.
Your back arched as he added a third finger. The burn of the stretch spurred on your impending climax. Everything around you faded away and all that was left was Rafayel. He was all you could smell, feel and see.
His tongue flicked over your clitoris once, twice, and you burst.
"Ahh!"
He continued to pump into you through your orgasm, extending your pleasure over several moments. As you came down from your high, he planted soft kisses along your stomach, over your chest and up to your waiting lips. All the time, his fingers remained inside you, gently stroking your inner walls, keeping you almost delirious with pleasure.
"My dearest Empress," he whispered between kisses, "you are perfection given form."
"And you, Sanctarch," you replied amidst your own lazy pecks, "are more precious to me than the entire Empire. And tomorrow, the entire galaxy will know it."
"So soon? Have you no patience?" The bite of his teasing was lessened by the boyish grin plastered on his flushed face.
"I've had enough of waiting, Rafayel."
"And what will you do when the nobility inevitably refuses to accept our betrothal?" Rafayel traced his fingers down your chest, absently doodling small patterns across your stomach in your release that still clung to his skin.
You wrapped your thighs around Rafayel's middle and twisted, reversing your positions so that you are straddling him, looking down at him from above once again.
"The punishment for treason is execution, is it not?" You began to move back and forth, letting your still dripping core rub against his rigid cock. He hissed at the contact and instinctually gripped your hips tightly, keeping your centre against him. Your hips moved without you even thinking, chasing the delicious friction between your two sexes. "Surely the threat of death is enough to keep them in line."
"And if it's not?" His eyes were locked on the space between your thighs, watching as his cock disappeared and reappeared between your glistening folds with every rock of your hips. "What will you do then?"
"Then I will go to war." With a single motion, you rose up just enough so that you could sink down on his entire length in one action.
"Fu- fuck!" Rafayel's head snapped back as he squeezed his eyes closed in pleasure. "You feel heavenly…"
You began bouncing at a relentless pace atop Rafayel. The obscene sound of flesh slapping together spurred you on, causing you to clamp around him even tighter than before.
"Will the Sanctide Court go to war for me?" you asked, maintaining your composure as best as you could as Rafayel fell apart below you. You reached out and inserted two fingers into his open mouth. He immediately began to suck on them, moaning loudly as you matched the pace of your hips to the thrust of your fingers. "Will you be my sword if I ask?"
"Yes," he groaned. "I will destroy the entire Galaxy if you will it. Everything I have, everything I am, it is yours. As long as I can- fuck- as long as I can stay by your side."
"Good."
You leaned forward and Rafayel rose to meet you part way. Your mouths met in a wild dance of teeth and tongues. He began to thrust up to meet you, quickening the already brutal pace you had set before. You grasped at his back, trying to find a steadying anchor in the turbulent sea that was Rafayel.
"I need- I need to feel you cum around me," Rafayel begged, his forehead against your shoulder. He kept one arm wrapped around your back and snaked the other between your bodies. He found your clitoris easily and began swirling his fingers over it. "Please."
"Mh- so c-close!" Each and every thrust already had you hurtling towards release, and Rafayel's fingers were the final thing you needed to push you over the edge. Your climax shot through you, setting every nerve alight inside you.
"God, so good… the way you squeeze me, fuck-" Rafayel babbled as his pace became broken and messy. With one final, powerful thrust, his body shuddered hard as he found his release within you. You could feel each pulse of his cock inside you, almost sending you right back to the edge of another orgasm.
You refused to release each other as you came down from the high of your mutual climaxes. Both your bodies were hot and wet from the exertion. The colors of the Butterfly Nebula danced across your bodies.
"I love you," you mumbled between labored breaths.
Rafayel's grip around your back tightened. He nuzzled your neck affectionately before lifting his lips to your ear.
"No matter what the future holds for us, your Majesty, you will always have me at your side. I love you."
