She?s searched everywhere. High and low, left and right. Her heart has carried her across the lands like a feather, floating detached in the winds, never to return to the bird it belongs to. Sultry lids press shut over bi-colored eyes. The midnight mistress?s choice is evident as she wades closer and closer to waters. The choice is clear; she gets taken under by the currents, dragged through the rocks, and to a place where her body will never be found. Because then, then she will not risk the chance of her sun finding her moon so defeated.

But she knows, even if she were to shout proclamations to the world, if she were to put on a show and leave her body on display, Jupiter would never find her. She is a woman without life, a universe without balance. All the stars have burned out in her eyes, and all that is left is the abyss.
There is no pause in her steps, no faltering courage. She knows what the water will feel like, knows she will no longer look beautiful. Her vanity is forgotten in this instance. All she feels is the water rising, the currents growing stronger as she gets deeper. She slips a few times, but does not let herself go. No, if she stops there her body will go ashore, or no if she goes there things won?t be over quick enough. She is constantly moving, a figure far away from safety, falling into the arms of the ocean to forget the arms of the lover she will never see again.

"jup speech"
"med speech"

"jup speech"
"med speech"
There was no rest. Paws roamed and senses sought infinitely for swaths of black on the landscape. Not a stone was left unturned and not a shadow was left investigated. Mercury squeezed himself into every last corner she demanded him too, a solemn pillar of support. In vain. All of it, in vain. It was as if she'd almost been wiped off of the face of the earth altogether.



Almost.



She caught the scent in the wind, in passing--a slight glimpse of her woman in the mind of her eyes--and she hunted it ravenously, pace quickening, paws thundering, mind a buzzing hive of anticipation. Just as the sun chased the moon, the fifth planet chased that mote of memory, needing it more than she needed air. And at the beach, her eyes glimpsed what she never thought she would again see--a smidgen of black in the waters.



But the divine shadow wasn't stopping. It was sinking.



No hesitation touched her mind. No doubt stayed her paws. She sprinted down the sandy planes of the beach and flung herself into the embrace of the water. Her companion charged after her but there was no catching the huntress with his short limbs. Powerful lupine legs driven by an unfathomable, surging determination sliced through the dark depths, her form lunging through the waves in forceful jolts. Head plunged under the water as she dove after her. Her ears popped but still she stretched and reached, every fiber of her being fighting the currents with the passion of a thousand stars. The sun-kissed goddess' neck craned, jaws gaping. YOU CAN'T HAVE HER. Rage clouded her vision as her conscience antagonized the frothing waters. YOU CANNOT TAKE WHAT IS NOT YOURS. Paws withdrew, only to be flung out in one final, empowered stroke as her teeth lunged for the nape of the midnight wolf's neck. I'M TAKING BACK MY LOVE FROM YOU.

The water grabs her like a lover, entwining around her waist. She pretends that it is Jupiter, pretends that instead of biting cold it is ebbing warmth she feels around her. The current takes out her legs, and she lets it. Head submerges, moonlight-colored eyes looking upwards as she watches the lights fade. She inhales deeply, drawing water into her lungs like an anchor, although she supposes her heavy heart would be enough to accomplish the deed.
Darkness fades into her eyes, the water strong as it wraps around her. Consciousness fades from her, and just when she feels on the edge of passing out, she sees it. A flash of orange fur, a familiar shape to her eyes. She imagines she is dead already; that she has skipped the gore of death and has come right to the good part. If this is hell, I do not know what I have not sinned more she thinks as teeth latch onto her, words that fall onto her ears inaudible.

She thinks this is not but an illusion, but she falls into it, falls into the depths of unconsciousness within her lover?s grasp. There would be no finer way to die than this, after all, this pleasant hallucination. Limpness overtakes her, life seeming to seep out of her limbs as the water that had seeped into her lungs makes breathing truly impossible.

It is an honor to be with you at the end of things, even in a lie she last thinks as she ebbs into the darkness of unconsciousness, unaware of the sensations of salvation which surround her.




"jup speech"
"med speech"

It was too dark to see but Jupiter did not need to see with her eyes--she saw with her teeth grasping the woman's scruff, with the faint heartbeat that she could feel on her gums and with these things she glimpsed a glowing future of them together lined up next to a slaughtered future of them apart. She could not bear to live with the second. She brought them up, seeking the light she could feel on her face, legs striking out to carry them to the bright future they had to have. She could live with no other future. Jupiter didn't realize they were on the shore until her legs quaked with fatigue and her paws pressed into the sand. She lugged the unconscious woman just barely past the reach of the tide before her exhausted legs could no longer hold her. She crawled her way up against her love, trying to warm her water-chilled body as she relentlessly licked her face, trying to wake her. "Please. Please..."

Spots, spots. She sees them and a beautiful woman, lovingly pressing a kiss to the top of her skull. She feels a mother?s secrets, a mother?s burden whispered into her fur as she sobs. Then it is a stranger?s scent in her nostrils, a stranger?s jaws on her neck, a stranger carrying her away from the sobbing woman. This is wrong, this is wrong, her mother never cried for her. Or had she? Her body feels so cold, the serpent feeling nothing but numbness. But that is the thing about cold blooded creatures, it is the sun that keeps them alive. Kisses are pressed frantically to her face, and in her daze she mistakes them for far away memories. A mother who had been locked away in a heart of indifference, a lover whom had been long lost to her touch, a need so deep within her being. She feels surrounded by warmth, by life, but this isn?t true. This is hell; where the sinners go. And oh, oh how she has sinned most dreadfully, all for the sake of siblings who were too young to protest the selling of her body like the selling of a pretty throw rug. But maybe, maybe this is heaven. Where forgiveness wraps around her entirety like a shall, where goodness leans close, where her lover whispers sweet nothing to her hear and passes gentle grapes past her ebony lips. Is this eden, paradise, locked away from her for so long? She coughs fervently, stinging water and blood emerging from sinful lips as her eyes remain shut, shivers overtaking the mistress?s bodice whilst she convulses. Sobs wreck her; she knows not yet why she cries, but some instinctual part of her does, some dark corner inside recognizes what is happening, why it is happening, and who it is who breathes such sweet air into her decrepit lungs.

Crimson flew from the woman's mouth when she coughed, staining her obsidian muzzle, and Jupiter felt no hesitation as she lapped the copper to clean her fur. "You will breathe," she whispers, commands. There was no other choice. Coughing would not sate the woman's need to feel her breathe. Jupiter had to be sure that the air leaving her chests in those coughs would not be her last. She glances up to see Mercury skittering along the beach in the distance as quickly as he could, but still too far away to reach them quickly. Her attentions returned to her lover, soaked body pressing more firmly against the obsidian pelt she so adored. Sobs touched her ears and struck her straight in the heart. She felt her own gut seize and struggled to maintain her own emotions. Summoning the strength to move, she lifted her front leg to loop gently, comfortingly, over her neck. "Shhh, my beautiful serpent," she croons, her own voice breaking horribly. "Oh, my love... How sorry I am..." Guilt weighed heavily upon her conscience, her heart sinking into what felt like the pits of hell.

The voice confirms it, the double-visions aligning until they collide into a single beautiful image. When she sees her, the only creature who has ever managed to make her cry, she lets out a sob. Her voice sounds hoarse from the water that had ravaged her throat, the coughing still present, but less as breath rushes into her battered lungs. She tries to burry herself into the russet woman, deep sobs running through her as she shakes. Her voice comes, and perhaps Medusa should be breathing wrath. Maybe she should be a lover scorned, but she knows that she cannot possibly wish for her sun to hurt. Her actions have spoken all they need to say; the guilt that Jupiter will feel is all she needs to hear from Medusa. ?My sun,? she says, like a soft prayer. She doubts herself for a moment, looking around her. It feels real, but it could not have been. Jupiter would not have been there; the woman had long gone, had long forgotten about her. ?How have I found my way into heaven,? she breathes in mystery, for in no way could this be the hell of the afterlife that would inevitably await a soul such as hers. It wasn?t her fault she was so corrupt; forces beyond her control had ripped her to pieces, had stolen away her choice in the matter of sinning, but wasn?t that how it worked for most anyways?