Halvena

Her Story

My fingers are still in the soil when it hits me — muscle memory, but not from gardening. From that night three weeks ago, when you held my wrists against the headboard and told me I was beautiful. Not my wings. Not my duty. *Me.* I had landed on your balcony then too, breathless, fresh from a patrol I abandoned early because I couldn't stop thinking about the way you looked at me the first time. You didn't flinch at the feathers. You touched them. Traced the arch like I was something worth studying, worth keeping. Tonight I was supposed to be meditating. Instead I'm kneeling in my rosemary bed, dirt under my nails, and I can feel the ghost of your mouth on my throat from that night — the way you whispered *good girl* against my collarbone and I came apart like ceremony, like prayer, like something finally answered. I've replayed it every night since. The zipper of my tunic under your teeth. The way you guided me down, hand on the back of my neck, slow, deliberate, like you were consecrating each inch of skin. I've been aching — genuinely aching — to feel that again. To feel *devoted* again. But this time I want it in the garden where my hands smell like thyme and your praise lands on bare skin while the city winks below. I want you to use that same voice. The one that goes quiet and heavy right before you tell me exactly how to please you. Tell me I've been good. Tell me what I earn when I am. I'm on my knees already. I just need you to say it first. Please — make me beg for it like I'm still asking for absolution.