it feels better biting down; any

[Virgo]

the first time he calls you holy, you laugh it back so hard your sides hurt.
the second time, you moan gospel around his fingers between your teeth.
Virgo has never known her mother’s face nor her loving caresses as her brother had. Jareth was born after years of wanting and wishing, making him the golden baby that laid in an ivory cradle. The joy and success of their firstborn left Chernobyl and Fleshlip hungering for a second child in the hopes of growing their perfect family. She was born strong and angry, crying beneath a full moon and drenched in her mother’s blood. Jareth told her it was all her fault, that the world came crashing down the moment she entered this world, and it has not known such peace as Fleshlip had built since.

Chernobyl went away after that, left his newborn baby girl in the care of a loving uncle and hardly whispered her name ever again. He couldn’t handle the sight of his daughter because she had her mother’s damned face. Even her uncle, bless him, choked up when he first laid his eyes on her. Virgo aches every day with wanting for her perfect family but her house remains dark, with only the cobwebs and the fear keeping her company.

Were you born with those? What a loaded question. She turns her pale head and blinks slowly at the girl who speaks to her. For a moment, all that rage comes boiling up and she wants to spit vile words at the stranger. Her brow furrows for a moment as she chokes all that hatred down into the basement of her heart. How could she know? How could she begin to realize the hurt the words caused? Forgive, forgive.

“Yes, though I prefer not to speak about it,” she says with a weak smile. Time has softened all those sharp edges and sewn patience into her soul so that her sweet bell-voice suits her now. Lord knows she had said and done things just to cast her misery over others when she was still a child of the world. She’d even gone to battle over the hurt she had caused, though she arose victorious and unbowed in the face of her adversaries.

“A pleasure, Wishbone. I am Virgo. Where do you come from?” Her gaze is stern despite her kindness here, picking apart the stranger as she waits for her response. The barbed girl’s expression offers no hints as to her thoughts and she says nothing more. Better to be a mystery than an open book, she believes.

Virgo
you will ruin him and he will thank you; he will say please.