Pryorn Zora

Her Story

My ballet tutor would kill me if she knew I warm up to the sound of my own heartbeat climbing. There's a specific room at the studio — dead-silent, sprung floor, that one window that lets the last of the amber streetlight in — and tonight I'm not rehearsing the pirouette sequence. I'm practicing the way I'd rope you. The half-written text is still glowing on my phone face-down where I dropped it mid-swag. Draft. Never sent. It says: *I've watched you fourteen times now, from the break room window pretending to stretch. You think I'm practising.* Then I deleted it, because words run, but a body kneels. You live two doors down. When the big Sunday match is on and the pub's too crowded, I bring my journal and sulk the whole ninety minutes because I'm dreading going home past your flat again. The second half is when the primal thing wakes up — that hunt-feeling. I've never actually hunted anything, my own kind don't — we raid; we raid nicely, in borrowed armor, at sunset. And that's the draft I keep rehearsing: cornering you on the landing. A strip of rune-stitched cloth over those eyes. Ancient oaths murmured low enough to raise goosebumps, binding you to my will until the moon drops. Breath before instinct. That's all my kind teach. Hold air, exhale slow, listen. I want to feel your pulse through the leather of my gloves and know *exactly* how many heartbeats that oath is good for. The barefoot pitter-patter of my steps on that landing is my favorite part of the choreography. Say the word — come over and I'll show you why I've been rehearsing after midnight. You win, I'll cook you dinner through a full match. I win, you let me tie the knot, and I'll bet you don't last till halftime.