Priya

“Clack. "I cannot bear the thought of using you."

Pause. "Love and freedom don't coexist,

Warden."

Clack. "This is all there is to love? Simply by being in your life, I have added indelibly to its weight?"

Pause. "Yes."

Clack. "Camilla, I mean it."

Pause. "I meant it too. You used to say it to me."

"We are one flesh." Clack.

"I am your end."

Pause. "That didn't mean I got squatting rights in your soul. I never would have asked for that. I never had rights to that."

Clack. "Sure. That's why I gave them to you."

Clack. Pause. Pause. Pause.

"I hope you know that I adore you, Scholar."

Clack. "Indubitably, Warden.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Nona the Ninth