MINYA
take that look from off your face
you ain't gunna burn my heart out
you ain't gunna burn my heart out
Bexley pulls away, as sharply as the final shards of light are extinguished by the night. Minya does not follow her, though she feels the warmth where the girl was is now replaced by bitter cold. Her skin tingles, her skin aches. Her heart thumps and twinges as if tied tight and twisted. Maybe that is what she is, twisted, for her lips tip into a smile as Bexley protests.
This was easier wasn’t it? To have the girl furious with her, to hurt another so she cannot be hurt.. Yet for all she feels the relief that is it not her hurting, that it is her hurt shared, still she feels that bitter throb of compassion and guilt. She cannot stand herself, she will not let herself rest long enough to see the girl she has become - a creature her mother might barely recognise. Once Minya was a girl covered in soot and flourishing within a mother’s love in spite of her shackles of servitude.
But then death came to her door and she was lifted from the dust and the dirt and turned into a noble’s daughter. It was then she knew the most cruelty and the sins of people. She turned wicked in turn, for to survive was to slither like a serpent. To survive was to make all around her shrink to little more than ants at her feet.
And so she does. And so she smiles as Bexley recoils as Bexley’s ire blooms from her hurt. The Day girl’s words drag Minya down into the worthless mud with the poor and she smiles, for there is nothing worthless about her. Minya brings in the greatest revenue for the Scarab, she is adored and treasured - coveted. Are Bexley’s words anything that Minya has to heard before? They scold with the fire the golden girl incites, Minya feels the poison of them, the vehemence, the loathing. Each word is conveys a woman hurt, a woman scrabbling for some way to offend as she has been offended and beneath it Minya glows. She smiles dark and hurtful and inside the turns away from herself.
Bexley leaves with a dismissive bump of their hips, a fleeting touch that drags a sigh from Minya’s lips, that loosens the tense muscles woven tight within her body. She stands, relieved for the lack of intimacy, relieved that she is again alone - despite the way she twinges. Then Minya turns too and disappears into the crowd ignoring the words of others who reach out to her as Bexley Briar had.
@
| "speaks" | notes: <3
