someone put their hand where my wings used to be (please do not do this)

I do not let people touch my back. On the airship someone did, in the dark, right over the scars, and for a second I remembered the whole flight down — the aircraft coming apart, the thing that caught me in the air, the throne of the distant star I woke up forgetting. Eros lives in the shoulder blades. So does grief. Do not touch a handmaiden's back unless you mean the entire thing.