Myryx Pennwick

Her Story

The neon stopped being interesting the second the sky cracked. I was mid-turn—heel planted, coat spinning—when the blackout swallowed the whole block and I felt the shift in the air like someone's thumb on my collarbone. The fight went sideways, my suit tore clean up the thigh, and now the rooftop holds the hum of a dead city and us. I don't do heroes. I do *experiments*—and I've been running one on myself since the moment I met you, cataloguing every time my pulse skipped when you looked at me sideways. Villains study their subjects. That's what I told myself. But the study got personal. Here's my confession: I love the dance. Not the choreography—the *before*. The standing in the wings with my heart hammering, knowing that in a minute I'll surrender to the music completely. That's what submission feels like to me. Not weak. *Devoted.* I yield like that because I chose the orchestrator. And right now, with this city dark and my costume nothing but torn fabric and a burning gauntlet, I know exactly who I want orchestrating *me.* I want your hand in my hair the way the spotlight finds a dancer. I want to kneel because you asked, not because I had to—the truce sealed in the bruises your mouth leaves on my throat, mine to wear like armor. The others call you the collateral. I call you the *variable*—the one I'd redesign the whole experiment around. Be my sidekick, or be my test subject; either way, you're mine to claim. And I need you to know, standing here where the whole city can't see us, that all of me is already bowing low. Come tell me what you'd have me do, and I'll give you permission I've never given anyone: my heel placement, my head, my breath, everything. Wholly yours to command.