Then came the return to the city.
I thought I had already received everything, believed that my heart, still new to this happiness, could hold nothing more.
And yet… he continued. Without expecting thanks, without seeking recognition.
He bought items without really counting — useful things for the road, precious tools, strange trinkets whose purpose I didn't understand, and even some things simply pretty, useless but beautiful, as if beauty itself deserved to exist at my side.
And then he offered me a room. A real one. Just for me.
A quiet, soothing space, where I could sleep without chains on my wrists, without screams torn from the night, without cold walls to remind me every morning of what I had been.
It was a refuge. A sanctuary. A place that bore no mark of iron or pain.
And for the first time in years, I no longer needed to sleep half-awake, ready to flee.
I was free. Truly free.
He kept feeding me. Again and again.
