when is a monster not a monster?
oh when you love it

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. 

when is a monster not a monster?
oh when you love it

nowflakes nip her nose, threatening the goddess-girl with a sneeze that is brushed away like the cold with an easy wave of her wing. She is snow an ash and rebirth. Everything that is soft from the skies funnels itself into her body: a cloud to lie beside, a sunset to gaze upon, a treasure to cherish whether she is yours or not.

Juniper is hungry but not for the cookies. They are sweet when pressed to her tongue, washed down with the cocoa. She watches the way Anandi takes them, flushes at the purr of her voice. The Emissary is kind if only so that she might be deadly later on.

Even if Jun is privy to this, or even gleans some of the information from the way Anandi devours the world with just one look, she does not seem to mind it. It doesn’t even bother her. Why should it? El Rey is said to be a murderer, but she knows that those in the Halcyon could be labeled as such, too. She knows better than any other that she was raised in a nest of vipers who just as easily could have eaten her, destroying her body and soul, when she’d been just a girl.

They did not.

Every monster she knows is beautiful.

Anandi is beautiful. She swallows down the winter treats with nary a grimace, keeping a frown from those lovely, pale lips. Juniper smiles more brightly then, extending a wing over the other girls back so that she would not shiver so violently in a home that is not the sea. "This is not your traditional food,” the woman whispers conspiratorially in the other’s ear. Her lips are soft, her breath warm, her voice low and sweet. "You do not have to suffer just for me,” and she lowers her mouth to bite from Andi’s treat, eyes glimmering even as she tightens her wing, looking to press Anandi along the edges of the ice.

Not on the ice itself. Simply to the trail that circles the lake. There, the snow is worn down, packed tight where many feet have come before.

Juniper saw the way Anandi looked to the bodies that float like they would fly. There, apprehension is a vulture, pecking at a corpse that isn’t yet dead.

She is careful to steer them away from other bodies, sipping her own cocoa to keep herself busy until she can focus on more than just the sway of Anandi’s hips and the curve of her lips. Intoxicated. So easily intoxicated by just a pretty face.

Perhaps Juniper is more a fool than she lets on.

If that is so, she’s still a pretty little lamb being led to slaughter.

"I’m wondering why you said yes to this date? What should you gain from being matched with me?” Her eyes slip to the right, tracing the curve of her companion’s brow, the twitch of her muscles as she answers. Captivated. She’s utterly captivated by all that is unlike her.

And Juniper knows that she is unlike anyone else in the entire world, and so it all fascinates her so terribly and completely until she is entirely consumed.