[open] thick skin / elastic heart - any

[Spear + Spark]

Scars stood testament to the unbending will and determination to survive.

Scars fascinated them; having seen plenty upon the bodies of their mother and father, they had a healthy respect for these puckered, parted, and put-back-together bits of story and survival and skin. They loved best their mother’s pink hairless lightning-shaped scar that cut up and through her red furry breast. What they loved best about it was the story of how she came by that scar, how the buffalo-beast hooked his horn in her and killed her, but something kept her from true death, pulled her back from the fields above, up in the clouds and kept her on this earth.

 

Each of them thought the crooked scar bisecting her red face was beautiful.

Neither of them mentioned it; they just knew, in that way that only twins know. It might have been telling enough in the look they shared between themselves before casting their eyes back to her.

 

Spark used to be the kind one - the one that bled her heart all over and leaving Spear to pick it up and put it back in her chest, shut tight behind glistening muscle and bone. She used to be sloppy with her attentions, unable to resist those that stood apart and alone. Now Spear assumes that mantle; his sister has become a bit more elusive with her newfound power leaving him to trail after the firebrand and her cruel careless whims. Like how she started to turn away from the red mare but he stopped her. He’d never quite be able to say why, but he sensed Thorunn was in need of a respite from the familiar.

 

(Or maybe he lied to himself, maybe it was more his need than hers’ for a break from shadowing Spark.)

 

Something in her face confirms his suspicions - a smile, perhaps, or the ghost of one. He finds himself smiling back at her because of it. “If you prefer the light, then why hide from it?” Her talk of shadows intrigued him, and he supposed it must have something to do with the beautiful ruin of her face and he is possessed by a mad whim to reach out and trace the path of it with his lips… not yet, he tells himself and feels Spark’s cautioning muzzle on his neck as if she guessed at his intentions. Somehow, she knew it would spook the red mare if her brother acted so brashly.

 

“The pleasure is ours,” she mentions, offering her own small smile as a token of apology for almost having left Thorunn alone. She is the one that moves closer, just near enough to stroke her nose lightly across a red shoulder. Spark understood best, she had always lived in Spear’s shadow.

Spear & Spark