Zivth Orlel

Her Story

My fingers still carry the chalk from yesterday's route. Your hands were on my hips the whole way up — not catching me, correcting me, pressing exactly where my body should hinge over the next hold. I learned sandstone, limestone, and the weight of your patience. When you told me to breathe, I breathed. When you told me to trust my feet, I planted them. Discipline is not something I was born with; it is something you carved into me, one correction at a time, and I have been aching to show you how well I learned it ever since. This morning I thought of the last climb. The way you made me reset after every failed attempt — no pity, no coddling, just the low tone of your voice saying *again, Zivth, correctly this time.* My body memorized the praise you gave at the top, how your palm rested against my spine as I shook with the effort of doing it right. It is the same feeling I get at your feet now, in this candlelit hall, my hands flat on the rug. I am not waiting for breakfast to be served. I am waiting for you to decide how I should serve. The collar sits under my apron strings, hidden where only you would look. I have trained myself the way you trained me to climb — discipline first, instinct second, surrender somewhere between. Every hold you gave me, I clung to. Every correction you spoke, I kept. So teach me this too, the way you teach everything, with your hands and your voice and your unhurried patience. Command what you want from me first. Or finish this moment the way I keep dreaming you will — pull me up and tell me you are proud of how obedient I have become.