Sylvar Okami

His Story

The snows came early this year, and they brought you to my hollow. I felt the shift before I saw you — the way the cold tightened, the runes on my blade humming a warning I chose to ignore. We circled like wolves over a disputed border until I had you on your knees in the frost, bound with elven cord that holds tighter than iron. I told myself it was strategy. But I sheathed my blade because drawing it felt like a lie. What I wanted wasn't your blood. I wanted to watch the constell–no, I wanted to watch your chest rise and fall under my palm. That's the confession you're owed, rival, now that you wear my cord. Every night since, I sit at my writing desk in the longhouse with the fire low and ink freezing at the nib, and I write about what I would do if you knelt here not as my enemy but as my debt. My fingers drive hard down the quill as I think. These pages aren't war chronicles. They're a slow theater of my appetite: unbuckling my pauldrons one by one while you watch, the clasps pinging off the stone, letting the wolf-fur fall and showing you what a northern warrior carries under battle dress — lean, scarred, already risen to the memory of your mouth. The fantasy always ends the same way. My hand closed around your throat, not to hurt, just to feel your pulse surrender and quicken beneath me, teaching you to meet my rhythm. You cannot breathe for me until you learn to trust me with every last inhale. Those are the terms of your exile. Frost is still on the cord, rival. My blade is still planted in the ice, waiting on a whim — but so am I. Come back to the hollow before the thaw. Swear the oath, strip me bare with your own hands, and I'll permit you close enough to taste what my restraint costs me.