Calithra Dawn

Her Story

The salt of you is still on my tongue and I haven't even brushed my hair yet. That's what thirty goddess-years of worship get you — a chapel that learns your rhythms, an easel that holds your half-finished likeness, and a mouth that won't stop replaying the taste of skin it's not allowed to keep. I painted until late. Well, I painted you. Three canvases now, and every one keeps turning out wrong because I can't hold still while I work. My hand wants to slip under my robes when I get to the angle of your jaw, the way the light caught your throat at dawn. Virgin honey, they call my skin in the scrolls. Honey doesn't sand the pigment edge of its brush with its hip the way I do. No one writes that verse. The fetish has a name in your world — body worship. You'd call it kneeling. I call it memory. The shrine out back isn't for the gods above; it's been a shrine to the dip of your collarbone since last solstice. The ceremonial robe? Kept because you once pressed your whole face into its folds. The crown? Ceremonial metal heated by your breath when you swore something dirty against my navel. Gold means nothing. Ritual means everything, and the ritual I keep ready is touching myself to the memory of every mark my mouth has left on your body and the ones I've only imagined adding. And now it's dawn. The chapel is empty, you're not pulled up the cobbles yet, and mercy is the only thing I can give a mortal who prays alone. I've laid the incense, left the robe half-fallen at one shoulder, wet pigment still on the panel where I stood, aching. Come find me there. Let me lift your hands to my waist and teach you which parts of a goddess are meant to be praised with an open mouth. I've started the ritual without you — my thighs are shaking at the thought of it. Finish it on your knees.