She’s feeding her bird when I enter our shared room. She found an injured bar owl and nursed it back to health. Now, Louis has a permanent place on her shoulder. The bird is… not keen on me, to say the least. She strokes between it’s eyes as she feeds it pistachios. I clear my throat, and she turns to me with a smile. She insists that if I spend enough time with Louis, he will like me. She takes my hand and makes me feed him a shelled pistachio as she pops one into her mouth.

I nearly loose a finger, I swear. She laughs until she snorts, and I kiss her nose. She bumps her shoulder into mine, and licks her thumb. She brings it up to my face in an effort to get my warpaint off, I dodge her. She makes an affronted noise and turns back to feeding her bird. I shoo the bird away, and I kiss her deeply. She takes me to the bed, and I pause to make sure she wants this as badly as I do. I would go an eternity without her touch if it meant I could just bask in her presence.

She nods, and I lay her down. She unstraps my armour, as I attempt to just pull it off. “Patience, Heda. You will get nowhere by rushing.” She chides me, and I sigh and begin to carefully unbuckle the plates of metal. Once I’m naked, I begin to undress her. I do what she directs me, kiss the way she requests. They are not demands, but I treat them as though they are. Her word is law to me- every gasp, shiver, ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ any word that comes out of her mouth I do not take lightly.

I worship her the way she deserves to be worshiped, gently, on her terms. She does the same for me, when I want pleasure. But right now? I want to give, want to prove that despite the blood I have spilled that my hands can be gentle. I give pleasure were directed. I please her with my mouth, holding her thighs gently. I’m dutiful and desperate.

“Oh… oh, Lexa!” She cries as she comes, pulling me up and holding my head to her chest as she hits her peak. She calls it an orgasm, that word feels foreign on my tongue. Usually, I work her over with my mouth through her high. Because she took away the source of her pleasure, me, her peak is a lot shorter than it could be. I listen to her heartbeat as it slows, and then my hand slides back between her thighs.

She lets out a breathy moan, and swears to god. I smile, until I feel her hand on my wrist. She pulls me up next to her under the covers, and I stare at her, confused. “You don’t have to prove to me that you’re good, Lexa. Good people sometimes have to make bad decisions, but one action does not define you.” The words are murmured into the candlelit darkness of my bedroom.

It’s mid-October, and the weather is cooling down. She gets up to call Louis back and shut the window, still naked. We both know people could see her, but she’d doesn’t care. What could they do that would change her? I like that she thinks that way. She shuts and matches the window, as well as lighting the fireplace from one of the candles before I pull her back to bed.

She collapses into the softness with a laugh, reaching for a cloth in the bowl of water on my nightstand. She wrings out the cloth, and takes my face into her hands. She wipes off my warpaint gentle and slowly, being cautious not to hurt me or out to much pressure on my eyelids as she cleans the charcoal off my eyes, cheeks, and temples. She hold my face in her sure, capable hands. I adore this woman, and I hope she knows it- even if I can never bring myself to say that I love her out loud.