Jily oneshots

My Spellbound Heart

by twilightstargazer

"What kind of person could they be if our shared mark is a pair of antlers on my arse?" asks Lily, craning her neck to stare at the ink, stark against her pale skin. No matter how hard she glares at it, it remains there.

Behind her, Marlene snickers. "It's not on your arse," she says, barely managing to keep the laughter out of her voice, "It's right above your arse."

She directs her glare to the blonde who still had tear tracks down her cheek from the initial bout of laughter. "Because that makes things so much better," she snaps, "Who the fuck thinks 'hey a pair of antlers as a tramp stamp is great idea for a soulmark'?"

"Maybe it's a symbol for something," she says, winding a lock of hair around her finger before prodding the mark once more. Lily squawks and jumps away from her while the other girl just grins wickedly. "Maybe you're soulmate likes it up-"

"If you don't want me to cut off your tongue you'll stop right there," she warns. Lily glances back at the mirror, bemoaning the appearance of the mark. "If I ever meet this fucker I'm punching him in the dick."

"Or the tit," Marlene chirps, "Don't let heteronormativity rule your life."

"Shut up Marlene."

Soulmarks weren't rare, but they also weren't exactly common. It was like a sunshower, a blue moon, a six petal flower on a four petal bush. Different, unexpected, but not rare.

It's a topic tied into all their subjects; historians told the stories of those who shared the bond, the power they held when stood side by side, waging war and ruling men, the poets spoke about the special brand of intimacy shared only between lovers of the kind, a bond that ran deeper than anything else, while science tried to prove it with fact, a genetic anomaly, perhaps natural selection taking place, making it easier to find a desirable mate. For centuries they've been attempts to explain them- platonic, romantic and in between- but no one can ever agree and soon it just became a thing, accepted just like that.

(It falls in between questions of why do you taste like heartbreak and ash? how does a person manage to have galaxies in their eyes? what is that pain in my chest when you leave me?)

(There're no answers and one answer. Love, the most dangerous thing of them all.)

They all learn about it, but learning and experiencing are two completely different things. They never tell you that you feel the pain of it appearing, like a million needles pressed into your skin at the same time, the place where it grows warm and irritated, and it leaves you feeling as though there's a gaping wound in your chest for days.

They never tell you that remain hurting and raw, craving something that you never had in the first place. A kind of want that drives you mad.

It happened while she was in class, carrying out a chem lab with Marlene and the wave of pain hit so hard, so intense, that she dropped a beaker of sulphuric acid and felt like her spine was being cleaved in two, from the base up. She told a lie about cramps through clenched teeth, and Marlene helped her hobble out of class, almost collapsing on the cool bathroom tile as another wave of pain passes.

She feels like an eternity passes, during which she heavily leans on Marlene, her shirt untucked and rucked up around her waist, while she presses a hand to the small of her back until the burning stops and all that's left is the mark standing out against porcelain.

"Holy shit," Marlene breathed, a shaky hand reaching out to trace the mark, and she flinches away before she can. Her entire back hurts. "Holy shit."

"What is it?" she asks, craning her neck around to no avail.

A giggle bubbles past her lip. Marlene's fingers gently graze her skin. "Antlers, right here," she tells her, and presses the skin down about. A pained mewl comes from Lily.