12 Saun 716
It hit her like a truck, as it did the time before too. Lucy’s pupils were the size of milk saucers, or at least that’s what she thought. They had to be, for the lantern light to blind her as much as it was. She stared at it nonetheless, as a moth was drawn to flame, so she was. Movement to her side should have distracted her from the dagger-like stabbing of the light into her sensitive blue orbs, but it did not. Instead, she was focused, consumed by the herbal concoction as it ignited the senses in her body.
The man, dressed in loose black clothing covered by stray hairs, long and black and greasy, stood next to her, checking his instruments. She was acutely aware of her exposed flesh, pallid and splotched by red. Not from embarrassment, but from cold and fear. Covered only by a mauve strip of cloth covering both breasts and her vagina, she sat as a blank canvas for the artist to discover.
“I am ready to begin. Are you?” The words never even registered, instead being swallowed by the cavernous, gravitational voids that were her eyes. The artist, Fleminge, did not care for her answer anyway. She had come to his shoppe, and he intended to perform his craft for her. On such young and supple canvas, how could any work of art not be so exquisite? Of course, he’d deflated when the simplicity of her request fell in diminutive stature to his grandiose fantasies. He could cover the smooth, cream-coloured space of her back with a scene of Edasha languidly plucking the adoration from an unsuspecting man, whose golden hair would entice the most miserable of misers. Along her thighs, Pier and Pre, reversed and symmetrical, staring from left and right tibia outward at any who would gaze upon the young girl’s flesh so close to her privacy.
Over her small breasts, perhaps the ever-watchful eye of Ashan, who sees both the material and beyond. To Fleminge, the divines were his most poignant inks, and unmarred flesh his most perfect canvas. But not this trial, not this young and attractive girl. No, instead, her deadpan voice had breathed four simple words. Yet, despite their lacking something grand, they caused the hair on his arms to rise, as if she’d just touched to his skin a flash of jagged lightning. He’d agreed before discussing terms or payment, as if commanded by the fates to emblazon this mare’s flesh with permanence. There was a power in it to Fleminge, whose whim could scar or beautify in mere trills. This pretty girl, this sick soul, this young girl, this bored youth… She entrusted to him her temple, and he would paint it simply and elegantly.
pretty
&sick
&young
&bored
The mauve cotton that covered her breasts stopped just beneath them, leaving protruding rib bones to call to him. She had not specified exactly where she would like the words, instead withdrawing into her state before completing the transaction with Fleminge. But the ribcage, so elegantly exposed like those of an underfed cat in an alley, drew his desire. Looking down at the black globule that was slowly being palpitated by a soft-wood stick into a liquid, Fleminge wondered if there was some flourish the girl would enjoy, when she broke her saccharine psychosis. Perhaps a flowery script, or the words in a different language. Fleminge prided himself on his traveled past, having done art in some of the best and worst cities on Idalos. For the Venoras, he’d provided twenty-three red roses to their personal guards and servants. In Ironridge, the rigid steel sword piercing the suns… He’d plied his craft on many notables, and yet was stumped by this glass doll, vulnerable and frail in front of him.
His needle, made from a long thorn specifically grown on a rosebush in Fleminge’s personal garden, awaited the taste of the sweet creamy skin. It was his signature, the personalized needle. Typically, he would carve the name of his client into the thorn, allowing them to keep the blood-soaked thing upon completion. But the girl made no mention of a name, nor would she respond to questioning. Instead, he took it upon himself to carve into the thorn, though he had no intention of allowing the girl to keep it. Juje, or ‘Muse’ in Dehasin. The slave language of Athart seemed the most appropriate for this girl, obviously shackled by the chemicals she’d imbibed.
Juje. And so she was. He could feel his muscles twitching, begging him to throw to the wind his diligence and indulge. Join her in her reverie, finding the same ecstasy in his craft as she did in her recreation. Tattooed fingers traced the curvature of the rib bones, sliding along them gently as a lover would touch the flesh of that trial’s thrills. He could see where the ink would go, each runic letter angry and red against the alabaster skin. As his fingers traced the arching shapes of the letters, he could feel them begin to form underneath them. Of course, they had not yet begun to take true shape, but were created in his mind as his guide. This was his talent. He could visualize his work and bring it to immaculate fruition.
Lifting the long-handled needle instrument, he dipped it into a pot of carefully mixed midnight ink. Set against her skin, he watched a minute amount of the ink spread like a spider’s web across the pores of her skin. Inhaling deeply, he lifted the punting stick and smiled. Her head in Emea, the fiery-maned girl on his table could not possibly have prepared for what would come next.
“No pleasure without purgatory, dove.”
The punting stick slapped against the needle-stick with a clack. Lucy gasped.
