A Place To Bloom

Inside Her

I woke with the first cock crow.

The sky, the world, everything was dark. High above, where the trees breached the city walls, branches swished beneath a cluster of stars like a river through the sky. Crickets sang in the woods nearby.

Her soft exhale.

Her breath on my skin.

Her back conformed to my chest, her arse in my hips, and my arm over her side. She'd clutched my hand and wove our fingers together, holding my arm to her skin. Her body filled me with every inhale.

What if I lost her?

God, what if the war stole her from me this very day? What if this was our final moment together?

I needed the smell of her. The other scent, the coconut-blossom she wore since the day we met, was her own recipe. The one she wore now lingered like summer wildflowers beneath a waterfall in the mountains. It was called Was It Real, and she'd bought it from Talys for two-hundred kren.

I kissed the top of her head.

The sound of her breathing in above the crickets nearby steadied me.

Blue had leaned across my back. He turned and pressed a different side of delightfully cool scales into my skin.

In the darkness, the cock crowed.

The darkness answered with a hiss.

She whispered. "I stole my sister's 'etʊkazu."

"What this?"

Miyani's quiet, high-pitched voice melted me in the darkness. "I grew up with my brother, my sister, my parents, my grandmother, my uncle and his wife, we all lived together. Some of my earliest memories, I would sit on my mother's lap while they brought her places—art classes, sports, 'etʊkazu, special tutoring, and she hated all of it. Then one day, they brought her to the moʃo'i."

"This is what?"

She squeezed our fingers together. "The pairing ground. For days my sister studied a list of rules, and the night before, my mother was talking about how much status it would bring the family if my sister became a sekiwa."

Her thigh lay against mine. We were skin to skin.

Her sweet voice was my leash. I could listen to her for hours, reveling in her adorable voice. "I held my mother's hand and we watched the others play. None of them took to my sister, but a small one came up and chirped at me. He was much younger than the others, and he had a blue stripe down his body. I felt this overwhelming sense that I'd found a friend and I wanted to play with him. My mother held me back at first, then his mother convinced her to let me go. We spent the whole day digging in the dirt or climbing and running after one another with his mother close by to make sure we didn't hurt each other."

"To guard against the bite to take away the hand, yes?"

"Listen," Miyani giggled lightly. "You don't know what kind of damage a human child can do when she grabs his neck at that age!"

"This makes sense!"

With one hand she laced our fingers together and held my palm against her chest. Her other hand traced the muscles in my arm, blanketed over her body.

I raised my palm to her breast, allowing her nipple to settle in my palm. After gently swirling around a few times, she pulled my hand back to her chest and giggled lightly.

I kissed the top of her head. "tʊxo."

"You boy!" She broke into laughter. "I talk, you listen!"