The muses, collectively. The colour one
14. the one where color appears on your body wherever your soulmate first touches you.
Of course the Muses have souls, Doctor Beetle had once said. They got their colors, didn’t they?
Not everyone agreed, of course, but not everyone was right.
There were ten marks that every muse had:
(Eleven, soon. Tarvek did love them all so dearly, after all.)
Otilia loses her marks when she becomes Von Pinn. She gathers new ones. The children call her Mistress Von Pinn, but more often then not, their marks show that they mean mother.
She has a mark for the Baron, loyalty and salvation.
She has a mark for a jager, one she hides because it feels like a betrayal, even two hundred years later. She cares, she does, she may understand the human romances now, but it still feels like a betrayal, to find love in the armies that decimated Europa, in the creatures that served he-who-corrupted-her-king. It feels like a betrayal, to have the mark of a jager but not the mark of Andronicus Valois.
She loses those marks, too, when she transfers to the cat body, but they are quick to gather again. Her young new king, her not-children, even Andre, once he sees her again.
She transfers once more, to her rebuilt original body.
All her marks come back. Muse, Governess, Tigress. All her marks come back.
Tinka has two hundred years of markings covering her body. They keep her sane, when she suspects she is shortly to be anything but.
Her new king leaves a marking the first time he touches her, and it is what spurs her to trust him. This was a mistake, but one she does not regret.
There is a mark, one that pulses of family family family from the Princess that uses a body based on Tinka’s own.
There are none others, after the Heterodyne passes through.
(This is not the Heterodyne’s fault.)
(It is, as all things, Aaronev’s.)
Moxana has markings. Her sisters, her king, her maker. She has two centuries of circuses and traveling shows that allowed her to perform.
For the three years that she doesn’t have Tinka, they are her only comfort.
(Tinka’s mark stays pink. It does not fade. She is not dead. This is important.)
She does not lose her marks, though Van Rijn’s goes grey.
She does not gain new ones, locked away as she is.
She has ten marks, and then she is released from her crypt.
There are handprints on her arms, after the jester saves her.
They are the first of many new markings.
Mawu and Liza are the not-twins. They are two sides of the same coin. They do not form new connections easily, because for every connection that one might make, the other chooses caution. They are careful, for their own sake’s, and they balance each other. They do not gather those they would protect as Otilia once did, or love all they inspire, as Tinka had. They do not make friends as easily as Contasia, or as deeply as Artimo. The do not hide as Prende does.
They gather marks, but slowly.
They are careful, they are consistent, and for this, they are alive.
When stories are told of the muses that were found by sparks and taken apart, never to be put together again because nobody has the skills, she is what they mean. She does not know if her sisters are safe. Her marks are still colored. They are still clear. Her sisters are alive, but not safe. Her king and creator are... are...
Contasia is in mourning, in pieces, in a ruined castle’s basement.
She plays a funeral dirge.
If she plays it enough times, perhaps the Spark that lives here will finally let her go.
Or put her out of her misery.
Or maybe there’s nobody here, and she’s just playing a cry for help that nobody is going to hear.
Artimo hides behind fabric and rubber masks, clever little things that make it impossible to see who she truly is. She is mistaken for a construct as often as not, but nobody assumes she’s a muse and tries to take her apart.
It hides her markings, and it means that she cannot gain new ones, but it keeps her safe.
She can see Prende’s marking on her left hand, three yards away.
She can see Otilia’s on her shoulder, on a desk a few feet further.
“Now, let’s see how that spine works...”
