wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me; pollock

[Pollock]

I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
I called you to wish you well, to glory in self like a new monster
And now I call you to pray


She seethes and he can almost feel heat come off her blue skin.
She thinks that it could be any of her sisters. She is not wrong. Sisters. Daughters. No matter how doe-eyed or wild – his horns have tasted both kinds of meat, sweet and gamey, and found it all satisfying. Hestia had been no one to him – a lover to a king. Thyndra hadn’t heard him coming – she had been a new mother, it turned out. The green was a mystery to reveal, or let stink unknown in her own corner of these woods. They were all, each of them, intimate moments to him. He was the last thing they saw, the last breath they shared and the last touch any of them had ever felt.

He is not known for his gentleness.

If she could, she would scour the flesh from his bones. He can tell. Muster everything (all the darkness and violence she holds, the impossibilities and the dreamy way she remembers being fractured) and rend his systems apart, leaving him like he had left Hestia (and all the rest).

But that is his thing.

He is reminded of Lirren’s beautiful defenses, that barbwire of stars and that armour like diamonds. It had been infuriating, like looking at a puzzle made of a million solid, same coloured pieces. 
She has none (or she is hiding them from him, waiting like a serpent in high grass). It is exciting. She bends her back like a cat; she squares her black horns at him and he watches anger take her jaw and her lips and the black circle around her hard eyes. She could leave bruises and blood down his neck or across his face, one, two three, four – little marks to join the many rough touches on his body…
If she could catch him unawares. If she could strike fast enough.

He watches it dawn on her (watches it take her), like darkness reaping the last light, and he licks his lips, shifting on his split hooves. ‘Prettiest when she was bloated and raw and entirely broken… prettiest when she looked just like you.’ It comes out quietly sinister. He was expecting something more savage so he leans in to listen to her mouth form around each word. “Like me. But more defenseless,” he interjects, like a dog cornering that cat, “obviously.”

And then he feels her eyes on his shame and his own jaw closes like a vice and ripples. ‘...no one is lovely. Life makes monsters out of all of us. You should know that better than anyone.’ “It does,” he mutters. When she says his name he tilts his head and steps closer, despite how much she wants him to stay away. Their flesh is bound to meet, they both know that now. This runs too deep. She may think she knows the shame of his wing, but she has no idea of the depth of that chasm. 
He could tell her that her blue is lovely, but would it have the same bite? Would she live long enough, for him to uncover her secrets and let her finger some of his, now that she has put pressure on that aching spot?

Let her have his name.

“Oh,” he takes a step closer, anticipates that she will draw back from him, “Wouldn't I love to know. But, not  knowing hasn't stopped me before.” He remembers that green body's collapse; those black and white hips in sync. Both nameless, and he had taken them both, in different ways. Maybe, he thinks, she can be his place of coalescence. He glances up and behind her at the dark, like her flesh, overcoming light. Night is theirs, it would seem. Pollock steps closer again, reaching out his lips and glancing her cheek, boldly close to that line of weaponry.
“You can give me your name, or I can take it.” He is a beast incensed and aroused. He might underestimate the solidness of her guarded places, but he is prepared to hammer away until something gives. He continues, blowing warm air across her neck.


POLLOCK
Lone Artist and Phina’s