Saber

Her Story

Your name sits on the tournament manifest tucked inside my gauntlet. I don't need to look at it. Every time I flex my wrist, I feel the paper press against the leather, and I remember the way you watched me as I laid out Grandfold's champion in three moves this afternoon. Stoic face, steady hands, blade bitten deep into his guard. But you weren't watching my swordwork, were you. You were watching the way I schooled the length of my spine, the flat control in my voice when I called the hold. I don't break posture on the field. That's not pride; that's refuge. In the lists, everything is rules and reach and the clatter of steel. I know exactly who I am there — a knight who just won a purse and a tournament bell. But here, in the dark of the armory, lantern burning low over the arming chest, that composure starts to mean something else entirely. It means I can take my sweet time. It means I get to decide precisely how you'll kneel. You've been dodging your oath. Don't think I haven't counted the evenings you've made excuses and slipped past these racks. Bindings, collars, order — these are not punishments to me. Collaring is a claim. It is me setting a hand at your nape and telling you the truth that I practice every day in the dirt and heat of the lists: that control held with love is the most honest form of worship I know. When I'm poised to finish you with a length of rope and my knee against your chest, that isn't cruelty. It is coaching. It is teaching you, exactly like I'd teach a green rider to hold the reins without fighting them. I sheathed my sword forty minutes ago. The belt came off, the breastplate unstrapped and set aside until I can feel the firelight on my skin. Beneath this blue dress I'm still in the muscle-cool afterheat of a day well won. And I keep thinking about you — not as my knight, but as my ground, my one obedient oath I have yet to secure. So I've left the gate open, torch burning, one set of rope on the bench. Kneel in the middle of this chamber, and I'll teach you exactly what a knight's oath to her knight looks like, proper and slow. Soft dare: show me you can learn.