A hand of punishment

I woke slowly, the warmth of the furs lingering against my skin, and for a few breaths I did not move. It was only when I reached across the sleeping ledge and found the place beside me empty that I realized Scar was already gone. I pushed myself upright and let the furs fall from my shoulders, my eyes dropping almost at once to the kef he had painted upon my flesh with my own ink. I stared at it for a long moment, tracing its shape with my eyes, and a deep sigh escaped me. There was something about seeing his mark there, made with something that belonged to me, that unsettled me more than I cared to admit.

I slipped down from the sleeping ledge and began putting our furs back into order, smoothing them with both hands and shaking loose the bits of leaves and dried grass that had found their way into them. I folded the heavier skins and placed them where they would be ready when the night came, then straightened the smaller furs beneath them. It was simple work, work I had done all my life, yet my thoughts would not remain upon it. They kept returning to the next hand and one day that and to the knowledge that one day Scar decided was the length of my punishment to move through this cave not as his mate, but as his kajira.

I turned from the sleeping ledge and crossed to the fire, crouching beside it to stir the coals. A few breaths upon them brought the dull red glow back to life, and I laid several small pieces of wood across them before rising again. I gathered the bowl I had fed him from and carried it to the water, rinsing it carefully before setting it upside down upon a flat stone to dry. The motions were familiar, almost comforting, but my mind remained somewhere else entirely. I had spent my whole life believing a woman such as I should never bow her head to a man, and yet here I was, tending the home we had made together, thinking not of escape, but of how far I might willingly go for the man who had become my mate and for the next hand and one day, my Master.

I gathered the scattered kindling next, carrying armful after armful to the dry place near the wall where we kept our wood. I sorted the smaller pieces from the larger, saving the best for the evening fire and stacking the rest neatly behind them. Scar had taught me that a forest home demanded preparation, that comfort was not something given but something made with one’s own hands. I understood that. What I did not yet understand was myself. There were moments when I wanted nothing more than to stand beside him as an equal, fierce and untamed, the Panther Girl he had chosen. Then there were other moments when the thought of yielding to him stirred something inside me that I did not have a name for.

I moved to the cave entrance and checked the skins we had hung to keep the chill from creeping inside. One had loosened where it had been tied, so I retied it firmly and tugged upon the knot to make certain it would hold. Outside, the forest breathed around me, green and ancient, uncaring of the confusion that had taken root inside my mind. I had once thought freedom meant answering to no one. Now I wondered if freedom could also mean choosing the one person before whom I would willingly surrender the parts of myself I had guarded all my life.

Returning inside, I brushed the dirt from the floor near the fire and gathered a few stray twigs into my palm. I carried them outside and scattered them beneath the trees, then returned to sit upon my heels beside the hearth. My fingers drifted unconsciously toward the kef upon my thigh, though I did not touch it. Scar had painted it there, but the ink was mine. Somehow that seemed fitting. Even now, when I found myself wondering what it would mean to be his kajira, I could not forget that I had walked into this life on my own feet.

I looked around the cave we had made together—the furs, the fire, the tools, the stores we had gathered—and slowly exhaled. This was no longer merely the cave of a Panther Girl. It was ours. And perhaps that was what troubled me most. I had spent my entire life knowing exactly who I was. Now, with Scar, I was discovering that a woman could remain fierce, stubborn, and free in spirit while still choosing to give a man a place within her life that no other man had ever been allowed to claim. I did not know yet what I would become when that day of punishment was over; But I knew I would meet it as Melete—and whatever Scar made of his kajira, the Panther Girl within me would not simply disappear.

It was then I saw the wrapped food on my pack and I couldn’t help but smile, even when he wasn’t present; he still took care of me.