[JMM] 25.1.2 Michelle Delio Quote
"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."
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."