SONGS OF OURSELVES

❦ prayer

honey on your knees

when you look at me

i'm dressed like a fucking queen

and you're begging "please"

i rule with the velvet tongue

and my dress undone

and i'll get you lost

but i'm having fun

❧ king princess, "holy"

Then came Urfan.

Urfan, Urfan, Urfan.

The trouble didn't start with Urfan, nor did it end with him, but boy did he insert himself smack dab into the middle of it.

To the uninitiated, he was Urfan the Great.

To the potentate, he was Urfan the Indefagitble (until he wasn't).

To Sunkanmi, he was just Urfan.

The Man. The Lover.

So they slept together. In the same tent. For far longer than either of them really had to, being of such high stature and rank within the Misaelse Empire.

Early into their heretical campaign, a fiery cannonball pierced the aid station ceiling and burned everyone and everything in it to a black husk. To negotiate more space for wounded soldiers, Urfan hauled his trinkets into Sunkanmi's tent (or maybe it was the other way around?) and they maintained the arrangement ever since.

Even after the potentate's guard personally delivered a new medical tent two months later, there was no question of packing up and separating.

Urfan and Sunkanmi effectively shared a bedroom for over a decade, their cots laid no more than ten feet away from each other, which understandably only inflamed the rumors about the lurid nature of their relationship.

But Sunkanmi didn't pay it any mind.

Sleeping within a stone's toss of her best friend and commander made sense.

It was only logical, after all.

It was just business.

❦

Regardless, their physical and metaphorical closeness didn't prevent Urfan from inviting various, um, guests into his wooden cot.

Urfan usually scheduled his liaisons while Sunkanmi was out training the troops or managing their war camp's logistics, but sometimes his lust got the better of him or their agendas didn't line up. Whatever the reason, it didn't necessarily matter.

He was a tactical genius, sure, but he couldn't account for every eventuality of Sunkanmi interrupting a hot, sweaty tryst. His mind was simply focused... elsewhere.