“all journeys leave marks on us.”
THE SANDMAN SENTENCE STARTERS
for a moment, all is still. in the wake of his wisdom the air is heavy, solemn. then she chuckles, rich and rolling, as she signs a reply.
“ in our line of work, we call those marks scars. ” lips quirk into a rueful smile as she raps a knuckle against his chestplate. there are scars there, beneath alloy and ice, beneath flesh and blood. she has not seen them, but knows they are there, regardless. they are both patchworks, barren moons marked as testaments to the power of the cosmos and their own perseverance, every inch of marred skin part of a promise to not go gently into that good night. it is what is meant to be— it is the path she chose all those years ago, when her heart was hard but her body was soft with baby fat, when her fathers showed her all the roads she could take. shaman, architect, philosopher, her future was one of endless possibilities, but her past tasted of ash and smelled of smoke so she pulled at their robes and begged them to teach her to fight, to kill, held their talons in her hands until her skin sliced open and demanded they make her into a weapon. ( and look how she’s grown, fathers. behold your daughter of war. ) and creatures of carnage such as they are meant to wear their scars with solemn pride.
but some wounds cut deeper than others, and some scars ache longer. some sit in the soul instead of the body, intangible, ugly things that cut like glass in the lungs. but she knows this, too. so when she smiles, gentle with melancholy, the softness is not out of pity but of understanding— because she, too, had the poison in her veins, had been eaten alive and malformed into some twisted other version of herself. it is one thing to fight fire with fire, to break blood and bone and be broken in turn. it is entirely different to be carved up from the inside out by an enemy that could not be conquered by power or prestige, by an enemy that hollows out your bones and poisons your mind.
“ or we call it insomnia. ” she did not sleep for days, after phaaze was destroyed. even now, those days refuse to fade into distant memory, and she still wakes up with blue dancing in her vision. she scans herself now, more than she ever did, before, takes precautions she’s learned are necessary only through the brutal teacher that is experience. ( and if the sight of her own blood, red and sticky, was sometimes a comfort at odd hours during restless nights, then it was no one’s business but hers. )
the smile stretches into a grin, vicious with bloody victory, glowing in the simple triumph of survival. ( that which does not kill you is sure to leave a terrible scar. ) “ but our journey isn’t over yet, is it ? ” ( but better to live with the scar than die with the wound. )
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