Níl Gach Uile Fhánaí Caillte

"When the designs are chosen with care, tattoos have a power and magic all their own. They decorate the body but they also enhance the soul." - Michelle Delio

It starts off small, though it's no youthful rebellion against her parents that drives her into the tiny shop off the beaten track where the music is quiet and the smell of clove cigarettes hangs layered over incense in the air, but a deeper need, something twisting inside of her and demanding to be let out in a way that begins to frighten her if she thinks on it for too long. She finds herself drifting, more and more often, but some things ground her, and a soft inner voice tells her this might help. Bypassing the frames holding parodies of art for drunken co-eds who might stumble in to pick out, she walks to the girl waiting by the chair with a piece of paper clutched in her hand.

"You drew this?" The girl looks up at her, with something like respect in her eyes, and Melissa nods. "What's it mean?"

"I don't know. Just something I saw in a dream."

That's a lie. Not the latter part, the former, but she doesn't want to get into discussions of faerie lore and binding magic, and pressing ink from the earth--this Earth, her Earth, her Time--into her skin.

The girl just shrugs, and gives her a smile, gesturing for her to sit and position her leg. "It's cool."

"Thanks."

The sting of the needle is as welcome as the slip of a razor blade and far more lastingly useful. She watches as it runs up her skin, over the stencil. Blood and ink well, mingling, mixing, some wiped away, some sinking deeper, and a small sigh of satisfaction escapes her lips. The other girl glances up, and they share a look that seems to bridge any words Melissa might not be able to muster, the esoterics of it unimportant for the moment of shared communion of pain and art, pleasure and exhibition.

"You'll be back." It's a prediction in a brush of skin as money changes hands, and Melissa meets her gaze again. Her blood is singing, radiating up from where power seems to pulse in a band around her ankle. She's here, rooted and solid, and looking at the ink that snakes its way up the girl's arm, embracing her skin more closely than any lover, wrapping around her neck in a colorful lariat of images providing a tether back to the ground from which they came, she shivers, and a small, triumphant smile curves her lips.

"Yes," she affirms with a nod, the words and gesture both carrying an air of defiance against the duality of her nature itself. "I will."

Haven't we met
You're some kind of beautiful stranger
You could be good for me
I've had the taste for danger

He's different. She can tell that with one sweeping glance that brushes over him and then snaps back, lingering on his face. He wears an awful beauty with a casual grace, armoring himself with it and using it to keep the world at bay until he chooses to lure them in. Because he does lure, she's certain of it, as she studies him with a critical glance. There's a hunger in him that calls to something in her she doesn't like to recognize, but it leaps in her chest when his gaze rises from the paper he's reading to connect with hers.

There's a lot you can see in a person's eyes, and she takes a moment to really look, curious and unafraid, though she knows somehow she ought to be terrified. Surprise blossoms in his face for a moment. He isn't used to being seen. Admired, yes, but not seen, and he stares back, equally curious. A moment turns into something longer, stretching taut between them, stringing itself out like a junkie on a bender, until she's trembling inside, unused to such scrutiny, and he's frowning slightly, unable to look away.

Something vicious flickers in those beautiful eyes for a moment, and her body heats. Before she can stop herself, she's smiling, thinking for a moment that it's in welcome of whatever he's thinking of trying, and then she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror across the cafe. It's not welcome lighting her eyes so much as challenge. Like calling to like, hunger to hunger, darkness to darkness. Confusion wells, consternation shifting across her face, and he looks back, equally puzzled. The room seems to close in for a moment, the walls pressing too tightly around her, and then he's standing there, looking down at her, studying her the way she was studying him a few moments before.

"What are you?" he asks, and his voice is like wild music that's never been caught by a composer's pen.

She's always had an answer for that question, the few times it's been asked, but this time she stares back at him for a while, before slowly shaking her head. "I don't know."

He kneels, bringing them to eye-level, and his fingers are cooler than they should be as they trace lightly down her cheek. He looks intrigued. She gets the feeling that's new for him. "Shall we find out?"

There's more danger in the answer than in his eyes, of that she's sure, and a big part of her just wants to retreat away from this encounter and pretend that it, out of every strange one she's ever had, didn't happen. But his gaze is holding her captive and she wets her lips in a feeble attempt to prepare to say something.

No words come, but she manages a nod, and that seems to be all the answer he needs.