I'LL BE YOUR SWEETEST MOUTH IF YOU LET ME - watch me reach down my throat, cut my teeth / on a new name. If you open wide / and swallow deep, you can even forget / the taste of all that blood.
I am looking at my corpse from ten feet away.
It might be wrong to call the bloody body in the mirror “mine.” That is my last moment as her, but now I am Nicnevin – we are not quite the same, or not even enough of the same to make me turn my head when she took her last, ragged breaths around the blade caught between her ribs. I stare at it, caught somewhere between utterly detached and strangely curious. I had nearly forgotten the look of my own face, as her; I had certainly forgotten the green of my eyes, glossy and veiled in milk-sheen as they are in death. It only hurt a moment. It doesn’t hurt anymore.
I only remember this part of the story in fragments. I know, at some point, that my body will be found. (I do not know how it will be found; I do not know who will find it. I wonder if they will collapse to their knees, sobbing, or if they will look at my body like a stranger, with no expression on their face at all.) I know that it will be skinned, at least in parts, and I know that one of the rib-bones will be taken from me. (I do not know how I will be skinned. I do not know who will commit the careful deed of scraping away my fur, then the meat that keeps them from my bones. I do not know why they chose the rib. I do not know why they cut me up, though I know – I feel – that it was an honor.) And then I know that my oldest friend will carve me, press divots like vines and blooming flowers into the white canvas of my bone. Even this I only know from my reflection in other mirrors, his form slumped over me as he worked. A sword does not know what it looks like. It only knows what it means to cut.
I have seen myself as many things, as I have walked through this maze of mirrors. But – standing in the very center of a circle of jagged, toothy outgrowths of crystal, staring my dead body in the face – I finally freeze. I am not quite perplexed. I am not quite disturbed. (I accepted her death countless years ago.) Still, I don’t want to tear my eyes away from her. I don’t need closure, and I’m not upset about that life; I don’t even miss it. As I stare at her eyes, which are cooling and becoming less like eyes and more like glass marbles with each passing moment, however, I cannot help but think that this might be like what closure would have been.
(But, of course, there is no closure for your own deaths. No one is ever granted that.)
I only see the unicorn because of her emerging reflection, which is cast over my corpse – because of the thin red spire of her horn, which seems to catch in the light in the way that most dangerous things do. I turn in a flurry of chestnut hair to meet her, and I find that I don’t know what to say. I don’t know anything about this land; I don’t know what to say about my reflection, which is so different from Nicnevin. I don’t know what to say when I look at her eyes and find that they are red – in a different way from the one of mine. I settle for a soft, “Hello.”
My past life lingers behind me, curved like a pale, bloodied halo.
@Danaë || terribly excited to write w/ you again!!! & terribly sorry to add to your list|| aline dolinh, "unbecoming extraterrestrial" "Speech!"
Golden hour light is filtering through my studio windows as I stare at the half-carved limestone block—at the half-baked, half-formed thought—that is supposed to be the centerpiece for the Lunel family’s courtyard. The more I look at it, the more I hate it. The more I look at it, the more its raw curves and unfinished details stand out.
I hate it.
I hate it because it is not him.
Nothing my hands ever carve again will be like him, and that is perhaps the worst realization I could possibly have. Nothing will have his eyes, his softness, that perfect curl to his lips.
The more I look at this incomplete, inferior hunk of stone before me, the angier I become. Until I am red inside, until I am burning. I pick up the mallet laying upon my tools cart and swing. And swing, and swing. Each ring of wood against stone sounds like release. It sounds like his name, over and over and over again. Santi, Santi, Santi.
When I finally stop, there is nothing left but a mangled half-statue, edges broken and jagged, sticking out of the block. Light filters through the dust lingering in the air. Pieces of limestone are scattered over the floor of my studio. I grit my teeth.
“Is everything alright in here, Sir?” I turn toward the door to find Arvid standing there, one of the Academy’s custodians and assistants. The hard look in my eyes turns to something more companionable, something more easy. “Everything is fine, Arvid. Just an accident is all,” I say smoothly, locking my bright blue gaze with his earthen one.
“I’m going out for some fresh air and inspiration. You’ll clean this for me, won’t you?” the corner of my lips curl up in a smile, as I brush close to him. He nods obediently and steps further into the studio, already beginning to pile pieces of broken rock off to the side. “Oh, and Arvid?”
He turns toward me, attentive. If only my students were as willing to listen to what I have to say to them. My eyes narrow slightly, “... You’ll tell no one.” I press down the halls of the Academy and out the front doors, into the bright gold evening light.
It takes only a short time to find myself within the city, where I am easily recognized on the street. If not by the school’s benefactors then by student’s families or aspiring artists hoping to one day join. But I know all of them. What I am looking for is someone, anyone, who I do not know.
I want to be happy but something inside me screams that I do not deserve it.
Some people, he knows, are made to be Cathedrals - holy, towering into the sky, indomitable and pure. Some people, he knows, are made to be a Palace - somewhere only lovely and wicked things go, somewhere meant for magic as much as it is meant for lies. Ceylon thinks, fleetingly, that he was made to be only a tomb.
He is the grave of his father's memory. "You have his eyes," his mother tells him over and over every night in his sleep. Perhaps she repeats this endlessly because that is the most common thing she ever said before she left. His mother loved him, at least that's what his sister says. Truly, Ceylon has so little to go on - vague memories from boyhood held like autumn on his tongue (they go too soon, so soon, into nothing); some forgotten scent that makes him think of the way she used to cook with spices (but never love, not really, that isn't a flavor) and make them gather around the dinner table to eat; and then there is the laughter of the wind, this reminds him the most of his mother before she left.
Wherever she went, he hopes the buildings are beautiful.
His mother never liked anything too simple, she had an eye for something beautiful. Is that why she loved his father?
Ceylon was punished for being his father's son. Stored away in a monastery with layer upon layer of dust from monks that couldn't quite keep up with the size of it. Their monks, he recalls, are a dying breed. Fewer come each year, fewer devote themselves to whatever god his father tried to destroy. It is these same men that Ceylon was entrusted to as a boy; they raised him as best they could, overseeing his studies, guiding him where they could and finding instructors who could push him further, past a breaking point he's never discovered.
If you ask him now, he won't tell you why he left. He won't tell you of the journey into this land.
If you ask, he'll just walk away and stare at another stone, another possibility written in the rocks.
Thank god no one has asked.
They've looked, but they never came near, and, were he more inclined to socialize and be concerned about the on-goings and welfare of others, he would have wondered why they never approach. Perhaps it was because he is a shadowed figure under the stars, glinting gold as he goes and nothing more. There is nothing precious on him, no valuables to be seen. He is, by definition, just a man and nothing more. If you look, you'll find nothing special to him - no astounding strength nor beauty, certainly nothing to compare to the roaring of the river that flows proudly next to him. He is blue, but not that crystal clear blue. He is gold, but not like the bellies of fish that wink from below the surface. He is alone, but not as lonely as the wishing stones swept away in the undercurrents.
It is night again (he prefers this, nights are always cooler at home where he can be left alone to work, to focus) and Ceylon walks like a man surrendered to the savage wiles that nature has to offer. Eyes follow the patterns of stone, looking at cracks and crevices as though they are priceless. Perhaps, to him, they are.
There is a world of possibilities just beneath his feet, but he wouldn't tell you about them, not really, not at all.
oh, pick us up, we're these bundles
wrapped in shrouds of muscles
—
Her companion wasn’t born like she was.
He was a thing of carved wood with bright amber eyes, so lifelike you could count each line of whisker and each rosette on his fur. But magic made him real, turned him to a cub with silver-tipped fur and a purr that soothed Aster to sleep on a hundred long nights. And time turned him to a lean yearling the same way it did her, and oh, they were both such watchful things, quick and hungry.
But only the cheetah ate meat.
Some days - like today - Aster helps him with his hunting. She never feels sorry for it (she never feels regret for anything at all) but there is still something heavy and strange in her heart, in her throat, every time she murmurs soothing nothings to a fawn or scares up a hare, sending it straight into Teak’s waiting jaws. In summer and autumn he often hunted for himself, stalking the unsuspecting deer through the grasses and running them down, a dance that always made Aster thrill to watch.
But in winter his shock of color makes him stand out, and he scowls every time he has to trudge through snow.
He is scowling now, and with his mouth and chest scarlet with blood he looks almost menacing. Aster stands nearby, nibbling at each of her long flight-feathers, her nose wrinkling at the smell of the viscera staining the snow. She hadn’t felt a twinge of guilt, drawing the young mirestag out from the border of the swamp; he was lean with winter, hungry for a fight they way they sometimes were. It wasn’t much of a fight he’d gotten, with only enough time to squeal and buck against the weight of the big cat.
The pegasus had watched with interest, the way she always did; but at the impolite sound of Teak’s eating she turns away.
And tenses.
It is not easy to see across the gentle slope of plain, as the dark gray sky begins to shed fat white flakes, but there is movement at the edge of the wood. At her snort, Teak looks up too, the tip of his tail twitching, and after a moment’s stillness he comes to stand beside her. Together, with matching golden eyes, they watch.
He walks in the land of mirrors, lost to his thoughts, lost to his dreams. Around him, they reflect a starless sky, hazy and shadowed like the thoughts which clouded his mind. For Azrael was lost. For several weeks he’d been like a ship at sea, simply drifting about without purpose or meaning. His body had been numb, his mind fraught with all manner of emotions – rage, shock, jealousy, grief. But most of all, regret.
For now, Azrael blamed himself.
If only the shed-star had spoken the words within his heart. Perhaps if she knew the way he dreamed of her, with stars in her mane and the sea at her back, Elena might have given herself to Azrael instead of sinning with the monk. Even now, the thought of Tenebrae lying with her was enough to sour his expression. He imagined the way the man’s lips trembled against her, the way their breath mingled as one, the way she opened herself to his touch. And all the while, Azrael cannot help but feel the twinge of jealousy as he wished their stolen kisses had been meant for him.
Find me again.
Her words echo in his mind. They drive him mad when sleep evades him, when his stars blink with each passing night as he turns from their shining light. In dreams, she comes to him, bathed in white moonlight with a promise of affection on her lips. It is his name she whispers breathlessly, his turquoise light awash on her instead of Tenebrae’s shadows.
But dreams were far from reality, the magician knew. In dreams, Azrael could wrap the outcome in any way he wished. There were no consequences, only fantasy. Not for the first time, he sighed away the hurt, marching onward through the world of crystal and letting wanderlust take him somewhere far from his own thoughts.
Here, there was only illusion which stretched for miles. Where once he had found endless starlight, Azrael now finds something winding and cold. Behind every turn, something new waits to be discovered – mirrors to another world or another dimension of time and space. Many hold no interest to the male at all, so he simply wanders past… but then Azrael comes to one crystal window which takes his breath away.
She watches him, pale as the morning sun, her eyes soft and pleading as they find his. A thousand thoughts jumble in his mind as Azrael struggles to name the emotion which twists within him. Part of him wants to turn from her, warring with another piece of him which longs to wrap her in his embrace. But he gives into neither, simply standing and staring at the her golden form while blinking quietly in disbelief, unable to move for fear that the illusion might shatter like the glass which held it.
Posted by: Juniper - 08-25-2020, 12:26 AM - Forum: Archives
- No Replies
Juniper
so i wait for you like a lonely house
First, she thinks, she's missed the swamp the most. Horribly, wretchedly, completely with every fibre beating in her sparrow-boned body, every cell screaming for the soft touch of the humidity that wraps her round and round and round like the vines on the trees that are twisted and strong. Second, she knows it is a long way still before she would reach home; oh, but adventure awaits and she does not shy away, how could she when it begs and begs for her to hold it, to taste it, to love it as dearly as she loves the mosquitos and snakes that would rather fight than give up their life? Third, she realizes that she is not alone, not at all, and never would be so long as she lives and breathes and moves, and the place she is the most likely to be the least alone is home, home, home in the Tinea Swamp that seems to buzz when she walks over the first fronds struggling to stay alive.
Winter holds much of the continent, grappling with Veneror, holding tight to Vitreus, skipping through the Illustor Meadows. Oh, but an ocean does not gobble up snow and demand more. An ocean melts and melts and melts that which would fall. Her swamp is too warm, too full of life that is teeming in every branch and pool of water and copse of trees, to ever let the snow fall so fully into it and blanket her world in white.
Juniper is the palest thing she's ever known.
Snow does not touch her skin, oh but it did, it did, it did when she went to the lake to skate and dance with Anandi. It tickled her sides and made her cheeks blush (but she would have blushed readily, easily, wholly) more than they already had.
Juniper did not mind, does not, but loves her swamp the most, loves that it is not cold.
Home, she thinks, should never be cold.
So she walks forward, not quick nor slow, high-stepping tangled roots eager to trap another's ankles but not hers, and delving into its depths without any fear to grace her heart. To be fearful is to have doubt, to let shadows walk in the daylight, to know darkness when she should know only light. And she does. Juniper knows light. Light is Moira Tonnerre who glared at her when she looked at Asterion. Light is the love her sisters give her to. Light is her heart given wings when El Rey sings and croons and traces poems into the valleys of her spine.
Today, as she goes home, there is no room for fear, no room for doubt, no room for anything but anticipation, but elation, but the wind (so warm and soft) as it blows gently, gently through her dove-grey wings.
Juniper aches for the temple as much as she aches for a body pressed hard against hers.
exley takes her drink as a shot, though it comes in a champagne glass.
It burns going down. It’s something strong, a deep amber color and so viciously carbonated it stings her nostrils as much as her throat; she has to shake her head as it goes down, both to quell the prickle of pain in her eyes and the noise of surprise that threatens to escape her. (She’s lost her edge. Whatever happened to her for all those months—it made her soft. When she looks in the mirror the only sharp thing left is the line of her cheekbones. Even the jagged line of her car seems sort of… muted.)
(Who is this girl?)
The servant who passed her the glass watches in mute surprise, his green eyes blown comically wide. Bexley realizes it’s not just horror, though, at her lack of manners: he doesn’t recognize her.
Somehow the embarrassment of that is far worse. She grits her teeth and sends him off.
The party is in full swing now. The vast majority of attendees are Solterran nobles, dressed in richly-colored silks and chains of pure gold; but the crowd is broken up in some places by a Benevolent here, a shed-star there, their blues and purples an awkward velvet of the night against the sand and the sun. Music floats overhead. It’s some previously-unheard violin suite seeping in from the courtyard, at once danceable and melancholic. (The combination, she thinks, seems inherently Solterran).
Properly buzzed now, electric-edged, Bexley raises her head above the crowd from her spot at the bar and watches over it.
She sees the girl coming toward her before she really arrives: gold, and white, with a star on her forehead.
☼ RUTH OF HOUSE IESHAN ☼רות "Origin splatter. Dark matter. / I interrogate myself to no end: / What do you remember? What / is good about gold & gods?"
I have been searching for the bangle for hours.
It isn’t quite a “bauble” to me. Still, I can’t bring myself to admit to caring more about it than any other piece of jewelry I own, even though I’m sure that - in spite of its typical place at the very back of my jewelry box - I do. That would be tantamount to admitting that I care something about her, and I know that I don’t, and I know that I should.
It’s not as though it matters, anyways. When she gave it to me, there was no meaning behind it; I don’t even know why I’ve kept it for so long. I tell myself that I have only continued searching for it because the incident itself offends my pride. That is probably not the truth, but else why should it matter any more to me than any other pretty, bejeweled object in my possession?
It is useless, probably, to go to Ishak over it; he has already said that he won’t help. This is precisely why I’m not going to Ishak over it. But I have tired of searching, for the time (it is beginning to feel futile), and, if I linger in place for too long, I run the risk of having to interact with other partygoers, nobles from Solterra and the other courts - of being a proper representative of the Ieshan house. I have no desire to do such a thing.
Ishak is in the courtyard. The artists that Pilate hired - or dragged directly out of the desert - have flocked around him eagerly, which I find distinctly unsurprising. His coat is usually painted; he would find his way over to them.
He is also, I suspect, one of the few people in attendance that can understand the painters through their thick, Solterran accents.
(I can’t say that I know what his accent would be like, if he weren’t mimicking or modifying it in some way or another; I have always imagined that it is rather thick, like these desert horses, but it is hard to say. That is another thing that I don’t know about Ishak that annoys me. I cannot even say that I know exactly what his voice should sound like.)
I watch the painters as they draw designs onto the dark canvas of his coat, careful to avoid the tattoos; he doesn’t want to hide them tonight, I guess. (I might have expected that he would - I don’t have the faintest idea of how many of the nobles at the party are his former employers. I try not to think about it.) Ishak is chatting with them cheerfully as I watch them from the opposite side of the courtyard, a pleasant (and, to me, businesslike) smile pulled across his lips. When I squint, I can barely make out some of them, though I can’t say that I’m sure what they are. They might simply be abstract patterns, though I’d have to stray closer to look.
When I do, finally (and only somewhat bitterly) approach him, they lift their eyes to me and murmur amongst themselves, but they don’t say anything loudly enough for me to hear it. It’s probably for the best. My hair has fallen almost entirely from the braids that he pulled it into earlier, and the pink flowers have nearly disappeared in a crush of dropped petals over the course of the evening. I don’t come close enough to invite them to paint on me, too - not that they would if I did -, but, from the distance between us, I can make out the designs that they’ve drawn into his coat. Elaborate. Distinctly folkloric, in most cases. (I think that I recognize some of the stories.) Some metallic, to nearly match some of the tattoos; some matte and blood-red, common enough for him in winter. If I weren’t so accustomed to the sight, I might call them striking - but I am.
I look down at him where he lies, the dark, disheveled strands of my forelock in my eyes or else sweat-stuck to my skin; Pilate would be horrified, if he could see, but I have been hunting for the bangle and helping every one of his ailing guests for the entire evening, and I can hardly bring myself to care. “Enjoying yourself?”
My tone is patently neutral.
(I’m not.)
@Ishak || it legitimately took an hour to find a title + quote for this post || here
☼ ISHAK ☼اسحاق "suddenly we're fallin' through the twilight zone / watch the party playing out in slow motion / so tie a ribbon 'round my arm and throw me in"
The party is in full swing; music drifts through the house, lively and bright. The house itself is festooned in silks and guests, and you’ve narrowly avoided colliding with three different drunken idiots already. Out in the courtyard, you hear laughter. From the sounds of it, one of Hagar’s little games has spilled over and involved the artists. You fully expect some rather vindictive designs.
Ruth curves around a corner, eyes searching. You don’t meet them, turning your head to meet your conversation partner’s instead. Najwa widens her bright eyes at you, and swats you with a dishrag when you stay on topic. She doesn’t push any further.
You wouldn’t say that you’re avoiding Ruth. You tail her often enough; you’re allowed to spend time unattached from her side. It’s not like you’re neglecting your duties as guard. You keep track of where she is, who she’s talked to, whose eyes trail her around the room. You eavesdrop on conversations to ensure patients alone with her aren’t faking.
You wouldn’t say that you’re avoiding Ruth, but it wouldn’t be untruthful, either.
You are still displeased over the island, in a lingering way. You’re almost over it, and though it was rude of you to say it, it’s also true that you have better things to do than look for Ruth’s lost bauble. Let someone else earn a reward. You’re already living off the Ieshans, anyway.
You wrap your conversation with Najwa up, as another one of her coworkers starts calling for her. She’s long moved up from simple errand girl but remains, as ever, your favorite source of gossip among the servants. So far it’s all the usual commentary, debutantes with designs on Corradh, pretty boys with designs on Pilate, speculation on Adonai’s health…
She does give you an interesting tidbit about one of the social climbers, one prone to a looser tongue when drunk and even more prone to accepting drinks from strangers. He’s from the Dusk Court, apparently, and a minor noble there. There’s a freshly scabbed slash on his chestnut flank, and all the servants are in agreement that there’s scandal there. You’re not sure if it will pan out, but you’re interested in being one of those strangers. You memorize the crescent on his face and the hoop in his nose for later.
The dining hall turned bar (and isn’t that perfectly Ieshan of them to expect the servants to keep a whole buffet style banquet fully stocked) is crowded. It had been the subject of much gossip over the past few days. You have been wondering what makes a “special” drink in House Ieshan, and you suspect it to be something you’d disapprove of.
Seeing Pilate himself manning the bar, you start to regret the decision. You watch him pour and wince. You still don’t know what’s making them special, but you’re certain that it’s a waste of perfectly good liquor.
Regardless, if you want to go the ply with drinks route, you’ll have to sidle up to the bar.
Someone you don’t recognize drifts away from the bar, drink trailing after them. They stumble and ice sloshes out of the glass. You wonder, absently, if you’ve spotted Ruth’s first case of alcohol poisoning. They change direction at the last second, staring at you head on. You swerve, keeping your left side out of sight. You wouldn’t want to show off any markings that could jog their memory. It’s been a long time, and you wouldn’t want to drag an unpaid tab out like this.
“One drink please, Prince. Bartender’s choice,” you flash a smile, “Not for me.”
(If you were ordering for yourself anywhere else, you’d get a mule. A Horsefeather, probably or a Terrastella mule. Maybe an Old Fashioned. As it stands, you’re likely to go pulling from your special occasion stash.)
You’ve seen several guests linger at the bar already, but you expect to be drawn into conversation about as much as you expect him to remember your name.
@Pilate | yes this is what I was working on during ~sorority recruitment~ | “the waves” - bastille
when is a monster not a monster? oh when you love it
S
he looks to the world as a glass half-full: it is beautiful and it is sparkling. There are sleigh bells ringing somewhere in the distance, there are children laughing merrily. It reminds her oh so much of the joy with her sisters. Once, but once, she has visited them since they sent her off to Terrastella, sent her so that she would and could join the Halcyon. Juniper has, of course, for she's never quite let people's expectations of her fail and fall as feathers to the ground, left forgotten, sad, to be blown wherever the wind would take them next and then trampled underfoot. Oh, how could she when she loved them all so, when they loved her even more deeply?
No.
No. Juniper could never disappoint those she holds most dear.
Somehow, someone whispered in her pale little ear that there was merriment afoot, that the world was to be decked in snow and ice, and that new friends and new flames would ignite. Of course, of course, Juniper wouldn't miss that, not even when her heart (at least a little part of it) flies with her bull wherever he might be. In Solterra she left him panting and alone. In Solterra she promised he would come back to her and she would still love him so fiercely, so much the same as before they were parted.
He will come back, the goddess-girl, the glowing girl, oh she knows that El Rey will return when he is ready. She could no more cage him than she would let herself be caged.
So, to pass the time between the longing of her heart and training with the Flight, Juniper comes to the lake that is now frozen over. Someone with magic strong enough to hold ice has made sure even the center is solid enough to hold a hundred bodies all moving together - that same person must have smoothed over the surface, for she can tell there's nary a dent to trip up those visiting.
There is a smile in place (when is there not?) that is hard to shake off. Juniper buys some cookies and cocoa, enough for two, and turns from the stall to look for her date. The card said they were of the water but not the ice. The card said they were enchanting. The card said their name is Anandi and Juniper knows that name. Juniper knows that girl.
Juniper's eyes light up when they find the red of her, the white of her, the whole of her striding her way. Wings unfurl, a soft hello, and she waits and waits for the woman to come to her. A venus flytrap does not chase its prey, it is patient and swallows it whole.
@Anandi | "speaks" | notes: I am absolutely ready for this !! <3
