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

The brightness of the sun spills down upon her, causing her skin to tingle with warmth. For days now she has lingered amongst the dense foliage of the jungle. With the exception of the light bursting from within her, barely a droplet of sunlight had touched her cracked body. The thick growth, so characteristic of the Jungle, is incredibly effective at blocking out light. So when she emerges from the trees into the blinding brightness, she stops for a moment, closing her eyes as she basks in the golden light.

She does not linger here for long however. She feels so strongly the need for momentary freedom, the need to feel the light on her skin, to see what new interests the meadow has to offer, to engage in meaningless conversation, that she does not wait. With a sudden burst of motion, she surges into the sky as the light that highlights the cracks in her body flickers madly.

In short order, she arrives at the meadow. Her small hooves touch the earth with a gentle thump as her bright gaze scans the grass strewn expanse. She does not know what she is looking for. For so long now, she had held herself as a recluse. The anger and pain had waged a battle within her, a battle she had allowed few to witness. So pointless now. A pointless waste of time. But she is stronger for it, this she does not doubt.

When she sees her, a small flutter kicks inside her chest. Her golden eyes linger upon her, wondering why she looks so lost. Wondering why she feels somehow… familiar.

Almost before she realizes it, she is approaching. Her pale legs, strewn with cracks, carry her easily to the woman, even without her knowing consent. She does not smile, nor does she greet her in the manner so many are familiar with. She does not waste time with small talk as she gazes at her, head tipped slightly, golden gaze filled with intense scrutiny.

You are really quite beautiful. Did you know that?

joscelin

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And cue the awkward flirting XD Also, I basically just responded to your any post below.

[perse]

i wanted pomegranates— i wanted darkness— i wanted him. She knows His handiwork anywhere. After all, she is the epitome of it – how many times was the flesh stripped from her bones, how many times was she burnt, frozen, maimed? There are symbols writ on her bones, His poetry to her. There is a brand on her neck. Yet she remains pure. He never let His handiwork exist on her for too long, he would remake her, leave her scarless and untouched, save for the brand. He liked her new, fresh. She liked it too, sometimes – she liked to be beautiful for Him – but sometimes she wishes He would leave a scar, something to remember Him by. A keepsake. She wishes more, now, alone in this world, a species apart. She wishes it more, now, in the sunshine where she is all silver and no substance. So what sparks inside her when she sees the mare is jealousy. Jealousy that He broke her and left her broken so she can relive the memory each day. (That such a thing might be a nightmare to some never occurs to her.) The cracked mare approaches and Perse stiffens. You really are quite beautiful, she says. “Yes,” she says, idly. She doesn’t care to have her beauty praised – besides, she is much more beautiful when she is burnt or bleeding, doesn’t this mare know that? “You were His,” she says. She is a fool, she assumes they all belonged to Him, that they all begged to be broken the way she does. “But He cast you out. He didn’t fix you,” she muses, more to herself than the girl, “why? What did you do wrong?” p e r s e ------------------------------cordis x spyndle

[Joscelin]

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

She remembers it well. She had never experienced true agony before that day. She had no concept of hell before that moment. And now, she knows. She knows all too well. The outer reaches of the cosmos would forever be etched in her mind, just as the scars of her breaking will forever be etched on her skin. It is not something she cares to dwell on. Not anymore. For months nothing else had occupied her mind. It had made what, in reality, where only minutes of torture into an eternity of torment. No, she certainly does not care to dwell.

But this mare, she brings it all back. With a few simple words, she brings it back. She remembers the deep, numbing pain that had filled her in moments. Remembers the sharp, jagged torment of her entire body shattering. Remembers the beautiful, merciful blackness that had overtaken her. But it had not been over, even then. He had brought her back, piecing her body back together in searing agony. This is the last thing she wishes to remember, and this woman reminds her.

She is confused by her words at first. What is she talking about? She does not know who He is. Her brilliant gaze shows her confusion. But then it is clear. He hadn’t fixed her. There is only one possible meaning, one possible He.

She stills first, shocked. How could this stranger possibly know? But then the memories surface. The terrible memories that she thought she had suppressed so well. The cracks crisscrossing her skin begin to flicker madly with her internal light, the brightness flaring in sudden bursts. Such a beautiful, dangerous light.

Her golden eyes harden, shimmering metal bright. She doesn’t retreat though. She never retreats (and perhaps that is her fatal flaw). Instead she steps closer, coming nearly muzzle to muzzle with the beautiful silver mare.

What makes you think I did anything wrong? she asks softly, her tone belying her glittering gaze.

joscelin

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[perse]

i wanted pomegranates— i wanted darkness— i wanted him. By all rights, it should have been hell. By all rights, she should have screamed and begged for mercy, for death. By all rights she should have been the victim. But instead she loved it, the pain, the exquisite agony that unfolded inside of her. Instead of despising Him, or fearing Him, she loved Him. Loved Him madly, voraciously. It should have been hell, what she existed within – the lair, His lair, a dank place of hellhounds and ash. Instead, nowhere had ever quite felt so much like home. She sees that she has touched a nerve, pressed herself against a bruise unhealed. She should feel sorry. She does not. She knows she hurt her but her curiosity is too strong, her need to know of His life outside of the lair too intense. But the mare surprises her. She walks forward. She does not retreat under Perse’s words, instead she faces her, close enough to touch. Her breath is warm and unlike His, does not smell of rotted meat. “He likes His things new,” she says, voice heavy with memorization, “if He didn’t fix you, you must have bored Him.” She herself is scarless, unscathed – looking, you wouldn’t know it’s the face of a girl who has died a hundred times, given herself to His hooves, to His fire. “My name is Perse,” she says. She is named as part of His private in joke – Perse, like Persephone – but she doesn’t care, “and I live in His lair.” Does she though, now? He sent her out, demanded she seek out from whence she came, but she wonders if she could even find her way back to the lair without His guidance. p e r s e ------------------------------cordis x spyndle

[Joscelin]

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

She had screamed. Oh how she had screamed. She had screamed from a mouth that would not open. She had screamed and never made a sound. She had cried tears that would never fall. Begged for mercy to ears that could not hear. But she had not been the victim. She had gone in with her eyes wide open, knowing the danger that awaited. She had played the part of the fool so well. No, she had been a fool, not a victim. Even in all the rage and agony of that unforgotten day, she knows this far too well.

The mare is relentless, digging ruthless thumbs into wounds unhealed. But she is unflinching. She had known pain, and this mare could not hope to visit a fraction of that pain onto her, even by opening raw wounds. He golden gaze nearly glows as it fixes upon her. Her sparking body stands in stark contrast next the mare’s glossy, unbroken one. And then she smiles. There is nothing happy in this smile, nothing kind or gentle. It is as cold and unrepentant as the white light flickering along the cracks in her skin.

Oh, but I am new, she says, implacable, unwavering honesty in her voice, her metallic gaze. He remade me. There is nothing old left, only new.

That this mare cannot see that does not surprise her. Few can see it, even if it is true. There is nothing of the old Joscelin left in her. He had remade into something new, something different. Something harder, implacable. Something violent and unpredictable. Something beautiful.

But then she surprises her. Rather than continuing to grate at those raw, exposed nerves, she halts her awful words. Instead she gives her name. A soft breath expels that single syllable. Surprisingly beautiful for someone she now knows is not. She lives in his lair. In that moment, Joscelin knows pity. She blinks large, golden eyes as she studies Perse with renewed interest. But, instead of pushing, she offers her own name. I am Joscelin.

joscelin

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[perse]

i wanted pomegranates— i wanted darkness— i wanted him. She had not known, when He had first arrived. She’d been a child, innocent, stupid, and He had taken her as Cordis screamed on. But He had taught her, soon enough – had taught her things she had no words for, the exquisite beauty in her breakdown, her remaking. (Did He teach her to love the pain, or had it always been that way? She can no longer remember.) Her eyes trace the mare’s cracks, greedy. She reads them like it’s a message to her, like she is some cryptogram that can be deciphered. But there is no rhythm or rhyme to the patterning, only spider-web cracks, an explosion. She wonders how He did it. Wonders if she liked it. “You don’t look new,” she says. She does not mean to be cruel – she is a species apart, all her conversations for years were with Him, and they were always hot with cruelty. “Joscelin,” she repeats the name. It’s odd but there’s a vibrancy to it. “What happened?” she asks, wanting the story, the message that she cannot read in the mare’s fractured skin. p e r s e ------------------------------cordis x spyndle

[Joscelin]

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

It is with a sudden clarity that she realizes her wounds had not healed. They had festered. They had been deposited beneath a slip of fragile skin, suppurating until they had been ready to burst. And she had ignored them, much like a blister on her heal that she would like to pretend were not there. Those wounds had stung, biting at her tender flesh while she had willfully ignored them, pushed them aside. The shimmering mare had broken them open, exposing the rawness, releasing the poison she had held within her. The moment she realizes this, she knows what she must do.

Perse gives her the perfect opportunity, asking her with banal callousness what had happened. Her hesitation gives way to a pregnant pause. But then she steels her resolve, and, with a grimace, she slices open those festering boils.

He called, and I answered.

She halts then, unsure of how to continue. He had called and she had answered. She should not have answered, but she had. She had been a fool. A terrible, arrogant, naïve fool. Her words echo her thoughts.

I was a fool.

She is not kind to herself. In this moment, she cannot be.

He sent me to retrieve his lover. The one he trapped at the end of the universe.

Her story comes in fits and starts. It is difficult, forcing those words from her throat. She had not spoken them in full to anyone. This mare is the first, and the realization surprises her. But still, she continues.

I fell into the cosmos. I froze, shattered. I think I died. He remade me.

Her golden eyes bore into Perse’s, an unwitting lifeline as she relives the horror of that day. But then she is done, the story is finished. Her relief is exhaled on a sharp breath, a breath unintentionally bursting against a glimmering cheek.

joscelin

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[perse]

i wanted pomegranates— i wanted darkness— i wanted him. She’s always preferred to receive rather than give pain. She craves it, in some base way, and she does not know if she was born this way or if He made her so. However, there is a certain pleasure in picking at the mare’s wounds, however inadvertent. Caressing her fingers over blistered skin, pressing down onto bruises – it all comes naturally to the silver mare, who was birthed from a lair where shadows reigned and the air stunk of brimstone. He called, and I answered, says the shattered mare. Similar to her story, but not the name – no, Perse was chosen, hand-picked, taken away to the overture of her mother’s cries and protestations. (She’d ruined them in doing so, had no idea the family left behind was fractured. She isn’t sure she’d care, anyway.) She’d her bits of this story, though from His lips it had been a story of fools who had ultimately failed Him. Joscelin is one of them, then. The fools. (They are all fools, to Him.) But they are alike in a way, the shattered mare and the silver one: both creatures broken and remade by Him, one willing and one not. “Oh,” is all she says, mulling on the sheer coincidence of it – that of all the horses, she should find a sort of kindred spirit here, even if this one lacks His brands, lacks the devotion He deserves. “But you survived,” she says, coming closer. Her muzzle hovers above the fractured skin, curious what it feels like, and the question hangs there, unasked. p e r s e ------------------------------cordis x spyndle

[Joscelin]

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

She had not been chosen. She had presented herself like a lamb to sacrifice. In her youthful arrogance and childish belief that bad things simply did not happen to girls like her, she had presented herself eagerly for her torment. He had taken full advantage, without a single qualm. In reflection, she is not at all surprised. In wisdom granted only by age, by pain, by experience, she knows that the decision had been hers and hers alone. That He had taken advantage of her foolishness was only to be expected.

Perse listens quietly to her stuttered story, making no comment on her actions. Her eyes never once leave that shimmering mare’s. A stare that would unnerve many, but Perse never flinches. She does not doubt that this woman has experienced much worse. She had been the recipient of His less than tender touches, likely known agonies far worse than Joscelin’s own. Except that she seemed to live for them, yearned for them like a lover’s caress. It is unfathomable. She would never understand her desire to be ripped apart at the seams on a daily basis. And this draws her as nothing else ever could.

At the end of her story, Perse mutters only a simple ‘Oh.’ She seems entirely unsurprised, unfazed by the life-altering events that had befallen her. This is a first, utterly unique to the broken girl. Most only had to look at her shattered body to know that the story behind it must be tragic. But to the mare before her, tragedy must be terribly commonplace.

She continues then, surprising her. It seems she is to be kept constantly on her toes, eternally unprepared for what might slip next from her silver lips.

Yes, I survived.

Oh yes, she had survived. Survived to wallow in misery for months. Survived, and recovered, only to meet her, bringing it all back as though it had happened only yesterday. She comes closer then, muzzle only a breath from her broken flesh. She can feel her even breaths against her skin, causing a faint shiver to ripple across her frame. She is torn. A part of her wishes to jerk away, pushing Perse back, away from her damaged body. Another, a stronger, part wishes for her velvety muzzle to meet torn, flickering flesh. No one had touched her since, not even her mother. She suddenly realizes how much she had missed being touched. She wavers only momentarily before she stills, steadfast in her resolve.

joscelin

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[perse]

i wanted pomegranates— i wanted darkness— i wanted him. To Perse, the greatest tragedy of her life was that she was made to leave Him. Had she had her way, she would have stayed there forever in His lair, taken apart and rebuilt a hundred times. She would have bled and broken for Him, burned for Him, let Him write stories on her bones. But He had had other plans, had sent (cast) her out with the intention of finding her others. (She doesn’t know she is meant to salt her mothers’ gaping wounds, the ones she ripped when He took her, that He has a personal vendetta against Cordis and Spyndle.) It is a great and terrible tragedy, to be without Him, but Perse is strong, and she is obedient. “He doesn’t always let them, you know,” she says. She’d seen it. Sometimes, he would bring others into the lair and He would ruin them. She’d never questioned this, of course, but she hadn’t particularly liked it. The way their eyes grew dull. “You must be special,” she says. She wonders why He didn’t leave her in pieces. Why he took the time to glue her back together, albeit marked. Her muzzle rests on the mare, coming down between one of the fractures. She is curious of the texture – if it feels like skin or like something else altogether. She is curious of many things about Joscelin. p e r s e ------------------------------cordis x spyndle