There's a song in your lung and a dream in your eye. (Perse)

[Joscelin]

there's a song in your lung
and a dream in your eye

It is a mystery she has never been able to solve, a question always upon her lips but one she is unable to ask. Why had he let her live? What had inspired him to piece her shattered boy back together and breathe life back into her? It is something she had resigned herself to never receiving the answer to since she has little desire to confront Him about it. In fact, she has little desire to ever see him again. If meeting Perse had been a trial to her fragile patchwork of emotions, she can only imagine what seeing the one who had done this to her would do.

You must be special. The words slip softly into the air but ring loudly in her ears. She tips her head slightly, curiosity suffusing her features. It sounded very close to a compliment, yet another surprise in a conversation riddled with the unexpected.

Perhaps I am.

Or perhaps it is merely because she is his descendant. Or perhaps it is a million things or nothing at all. Perhaps it was a whim.

And then the silver mare’s muzzle comes to rest upon her skin, a warm, anticipated touch. She stills, muscles locking as her breath fans her shoulder. She wonders what she thinks of her scarred flesh, whether the many cracks carving grooves into her skin bother her, whether the feel of the slight ridges catching skin would disturb her. But she does not ask. She is not sure she would like the answer.

joscelin

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[perse]

i wanted pomegranates— i wanted darkness— i wanted him. Of course, Perse doesn’t know why she was chosen, why she was allowed to live, either. She doesn’t know the history that existed before she was born, she doesn’t know she was taken for spite. She only knows she was His toy, His plaything, and that she loved it – loved the breaking, loved being pieced back together. She knows why she is remade – because He always liked his things new. Her skin does not betray what has been done to it, the burns and tears and breaks, they’re all gone with her old flesh. She is new, fresh skin across old bones, and she is scarless, save for His brand upon her neck. She moves her muzzle cautiously, explores the fissures where Joscelin had once come apart at the seams. She feels the ridges, the marks of a woman shattered and remade haphazardly, and she wonders at it. She finds it beautiful even as she is jealous, jealous that Joscelin can wear His mark, that they all must know. (She never thinks it might be a scarlet letter, or that some might not even wonder on it at all.) “It’s lovely,” she says against the fissures of the mare, and she means it. p e r s e ------------------------------cordis x spyndle

[Joscelin]

There's a song in your lung and a dream in your eye.

She is coming to expect the unexpected from this woman. Where others might be uneasy with her broken, ridged skin, this mare is quietly accepting, even admiring, of it. At those two simple words, she releases a breath she had not even realized she had been holding. She cannot say why she is relieved that Perse is not repulsed by her scars, she knows only that she is. That, in and of itself, disturbs her slightly. Why she should care what the silver mare thinks of her marks, she does not understand.

A shiver, quickly suppressed, radiates across her skin as Perse’s words whisper over her. Her initial impulse is to ask her if she truly means them, but she bites back the desire. For a mare who strives to show only strength, such a question would be far too close to an admission of weakness. She pauses for a moment (a moment too long), metallic eyes regarding Perse uncertainly.

You would be the first to say so.

Perhaps at first she had considered those marks truly a flaw, a sign of her weakness. But she has long since made them her own. She has turned her shattered body into a testament of her strength. The flickering light that shimmers across her body displays her power as much as it draws attention to her broken flesh. She has found she enjoys the surprise and hesitation many express upon first seeing her. And she rather likes wielding such influence.

Her golden gaze takes on a hint of curiosity as she continues to study the resplendent woman’s flawless body, the obvious question finally occurring to her.

He leaves you unmarked. Why?

And he had left her decidedly marked. Why?

Joscelin

Tiphon x Elysteria

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[perse]

i wanted pomegranates— i wanted darkness— i wanted him. Her ideal of beauty is a warped one, one made in His caverns. Hers is one crafted across ugly things, across pain and torment, brutality of the worst sort – in these atrocities, wires crossed, and she thinks, it’s beautiful. So of course she should find this lovely, the way the mare’s pain is worn across her skin, accessible to anyone through a mere glance. Of course she finds something exquisite about the cracked skin of her, the unspoken poetry of it: I died, and I lived to tell the tale. She wishes it were her, that such stories were written on her skin. She finds its smoothness ugly, for it tells nothing of her, of what she knew so well in His lair. And Joscelin notices, and asks: why is she unmarked, why is she not so broken? “I have one mark,” she says, and shifts her silver swath of mane, shows where His mark is burned on her crest, the only mark that survived in her iterations. “He likes His things unbroken,” she says, unaware of what lies implicit in her words: therefore, you are not His, “so he always fixed me, after.” p e r s e ------------------------------cordis x spyndle

[Joscelin]

There's a song in your lung and a dream in your eye.

It is ironic really. The silver mare is the epitome of beauty, with her shimmering skin and perfectly unmarked body. Joscelin once might have been considered quite stunning, until she had shattered. That the mare might wish to bear the marks of her torment upon her skin is baffling to her. Anyone need only glance at her to know of how she had once broken. But then, anyone had only to look at her to know how she had once lived. Of how she had beat the odds and made herself into something more. So though those scars remind her of terrible things, she chooses to wear them as badges. A testament of her survival.

It has also served to mystify others, to cause them to wonder. And that she can use to her advantage. So, in the end, some good had arisen from her torment.

But she does wonder. She wonders how this woman had managed to escape unmarked. Wonders why He had let her go so easily. And then she shows her the brand. His brand, etched indelibly upon her neck. The single mark she shall bear for the remainder of her days. But it is small, almost insignificant.

Joscelin frowns, golden gaze lingering upon that mark. Without even considering the action, she brings her pale muzzle up, brushing her lips gently against the scar. Just as Perse had wished to feel her cracks, she wants to know what his brand feels like. It is an odd thing, an affliction, drawing her closer, willing her to understand.

Does it hurt?

The fractured mare’s soft words whisper against her skin, breath fanning silver tresses as her muzzle hovers above the only flawed piece of her.

Joscelin

Tiphon x Elysteria

html c insane | picture c mikanicole.deviantart.com

[perse]

i wanted pomegranates— i wanted darkness— i wanted him. It is her pride and joy, the mark – the only memory He deigned to breathe upon her skin, branding her as His. She wishes it were more prominent, that her whole body was marked as His, that she could proclaim to the world to whom she belonged, from whence she came. Instead, there is a vast swath of silver across her body, unmarked, glistening like something molten and ready to be made. (She is the dead spit of her mother, down to the mark – though hers is on her neck rather than her hip – and she distantly remembers thinking of her mother as beautiful, but that was long ago, before her Becoming, before she was a thing transformed.) The lips touch and it is strange, in a way, to be touched so intimately by someone who is not Him. Her skin prickles at the touch, the now shared knowledge of His mark (strange, undecipherable symbols that seemed to change shape before the eyes, written in a language she does not understand). The mark has always been private, in a way, her secret hidden beneath the sheath of silver mane. Still, she enjoys the touch, her body having gone so long without contact. “Yes,” she says, but the way she says it, breathy and soft, tells of other things, “and I’m glad for it.” p e r s e ------------------------------cordis x spyndle

[Joscelin]

There's a song in your lung and a dream in your eye.

She wonders what it would have been like, to be left whole, to bear only a single mark. Would she have been grateful? Or horrified? It is difficult to say. Her entire body is marked, fractures etched into her skin for the rest of her life. But they are not obviously his. They are simply scars. She does not bear a brand to that forever proclaims her as having been tormented by Him.

But to this silver mare, it is not a torment. It is a joy. Her thoughts are entirely unfathomable to the fractured girl. She could never understand longing for such a gruesome touch. Could never understand her sense of loss at having been put out into the world alone.

But then, they are such fundamentally different creatures. For now though, she need not understand.

Her neck is warm beneath her muzzle, the subtle movement of her skin tickling her pale lips. She is glad that she had shown it to her. She felt as though it is something she had needed to know. To know that she is not His, to know that He will not wish to return for her. She is not certain she could survive a second round.

She thinks then of the strength this woman must have, to survive such a cruel fate. But had she really? It had made her into something else, in to something completely different from what she might have been. But that is neither here nor there. She is what she is. It is too late.

As she drops her muzzle from Perse’s neck, she allows her lips to skim across her silvery skin. A small, lingering caress that she is unable to resist. Her golden eyes find the silver mare’s as a question escapes her on a soft exhale. One she is certain she already knows the answer to. One she is compelled to ask anyway.

”Do you love Him?”

Joscelin

Tiphon x Elysteria

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[perse]

i wanted pomegranates— i wanted darkness— i wanted him. The touches are strange, a care woven into them that she is unsure of, that disquiets her in a way she cannot articulate. His touches had always been so wrought with purpose, with a goal of unmaking her, taking her, destroying her. And the loved the purposes He wielded, loved submitting to them, giving to Him everything she could. This is different, an idle touch, exploratory. She cannot sense any end goal within it, nor does she have her own – she wanted only to know what the fractured skin felt like, yet her muzzle remains against Joscelin, because she likes the warmth, likes the strange intimacy it brings about. Do you love Him, asks Joscelin, the words murmured across silver skin, and it is a strange and laughable question. Of course she loves Him, her master, her dark god – she is His, so she must love him, surely? (She loves the things He does, the ways He takes her apart, glues her back.) “I must,” she says, and this answer surprises even her – why not a resounding yes, a proclamation, a sonnet for their love? (Because He does not love her – she is a toy, and she loves being a toy, loves being His, but He does not love her. Her world revolves around Him and He does not love her.) p e r s e ------------------------------cordis x spyndle

[Joscelin]

There's a song in your lung and a dream in your eye.

She does not know what it is to give herself so wholly to something, to live expressly for one purpose, for one being. She cannot even imagine. She has always held a piece of herself back, one corner of her soul that remains true and untouched. Even the Jungle, a land she has grown to love unquestionably, does not hold her as He holds Perse.

She had been remade by him. Torn apart and stitched haphazardly back together. And even still a small piece of her remains untouched, a piece of herself that had allowed her to get her life back into some semblance of order. Perhaps she had wallowed in her rage and agony for months, nearly losing herself to those black emotions. But it had always been there, urging her back (dragging her, really) from those black pits of despair. Allowing her to come through stronger, better, if a little bit harder.

She knows what it is to lose oneself to something dark. But this mare, she had lost herself so fully, so completely, that she could never come back from it.

The silver mare’s lips linger on her skin. Those few, simple words are spoken against her, causing her to shiver. Speaking far more than her words ever could. I must, she says, and Joscelin wonders. Even as her muzzle creeps back up to brush against her soft skin in a unconscious caress, she wonders.

”Why?”/p>

Joscelin

Tiphon x Elysteria

html c insane | picture c mikanicole.deviantart.com

[perse]

i wanted pomegranates— i wanted darkness— i wanted him. Why? she asks, and Perse has a thousand reasons but lacks the articulacy for them. Why - because He is all she knows, because He is a memory in the way the time before was not, He was there, vibrant and larger than life, smelling of smoke and blood, taking her apart. Why - because He did things to her that should have broken her, should have left her sobbing and begging him to stop, but the wires in her mind are crossed, misfired, and instead within the pain was a pleasure so rich and sordid she still cannot think of it overmuch without shivering. Why - because He is a god, because she is terrified of what might happen if she did not. But these are strange, private things that are odd to confess to a stranger (even if her lips knows the mare’s skin, and she wonders what this is, what they are, a cracked mare and a silver one, entwined). So instead she breathes in, says, “He is my god, and we must love our gods.” A pause, then: “because there is no one else.” The bridges between her and her mothers have been burned (she assumes this, does not know it). She is a thing too strange and feral, too acclimated to pain, to come back. She is His and though it is not evident to onlookers her possession wraps itself in her speech, the glazed look that sometimes overtakes her. “Do you know what it’s like, Joscelin? To love?” To love because there is no other option, because surely it’s the only word for the strange fire He alights within you. p e r s e ------------------------------cordis x spyndle

I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG my muse was not having it