ASHES TO ASHES

The autumn chill is finally setting in, coats are in fashion and so is black and finally. Finally, he may break out the Christmas sweaters and woolen scarves. No one will ever know that underneath his tasteful double breasted coat, there is a glittery Rudolf on his chest. Perhaps this is what people feel when they wear fancy underwear in public. Except this is kind of cooler. Wonho the seventh bleats happily, as if reading Wonwoo’s thoughts and agreeing. Maybe he just likes the reindeer big goat picture on his chest.

Today is good, he decides. Wonho #7 is much more mild tempered than the last, and trots along beside him pleasantly, never extending his leash more than a few meters.

The two get quite a few stares - reasonably so. An intimidating man dressed fashionably in black, followed by possibly the cutest goat known to mankind. Too bad it’s gonna be dead in like, four hours.

He stops briefly, eyes lingering on the mannequins of a boutique, oddly impressed. The outfits are nothing too fancy, yet hold a chic sensibility about them that brings up Wonwoo’s own desire to style. His reverie is broken when there is an indignant shriek, and turning his head, he realizes Wonho just took a shit on a bitch’s leg.

but in her mind, all she’s thinking of is getting home to see the look on her little brother’s face when she procures the newest addition to the metal gear solid line from inside her coat pocket.  ( he is the battery to her robot, charges her when she needs it and reminds her that life needs the living, and so he needs her.  it’s the only thought that’s kept her going for seven years.  a video game is a cheap way to repay that debt. )

 it only takes a moment for her to stop at a crosswalk, waiting on her light to turn to take the first step of only a few blocks more.  her mind is set on home, home, home -- but the turnabout of a moment can change the entire course of the day, and the apathy she felt before only turns to disgust at the warmth that suddenly worms its way in through her heel.  she looks down, and there’s a goat.  and there is fecal matter on her shoe.

this is the city of seoul, isn’t it?

( she is a distant memory of what once was, what could have been. a memory of medical books and stories on a bench, of sitting too close, knees brushing. she was a songbird and he was the forest that was listening. 

now: they are skeletons of past. it should have been more beautiful than this. )

she spills bitter words – her voice still doesn’t sound like her own. the snakes in her bleed their poison and she lets them. a hand is flung towards him and it collides with bronze skin. he barely reacts, jaw clenching and knuckles bleeding white with the force they are squeezed into fists. silence ensues, the slightest echo of skin meeting skin lingering around two bodies. there’s a sting on his cheek but it feels nothing compared to the ache in his heart. ( he should be impervious – then why is this hurting? ) he closes his eyes.

when he opens them: red.

“what have i done?” his voice is deep and hoarse, almost rusty. incredulity feeds the seething anger that seeps into his words and laces them with acid. “are you being fucking serious right now?” it’s like fuel was poured down his throat and her words were the match to start the fire. he is untamed and in his mouth: hellfire. he steps forward.

she may be the snakemother but he is not afraid of her.

which do you think will survive?

she can already feel herself crumbling, the glass that’s supposed to protect rupturing her organs and tearing at her skin.  but ember stands her ground, because she doesn’t want to fall here -- she won’t be weak to the likes of a man ( at least, she doesn’t want to be.  whether or not she will survive this at all remains to be seen. ) he looks at her as if she’s vile, and ember feels herself shrinking just a little -- not her body, no.  her figure is proud and stands her ground, the structure of metal that was meant to hold up the glass she designed.  but it’s her heart that’s shriveling into a whimpering girl, cut deep by the black of his stare and the knife of his words.  she knew from the beginning he’d look at her with these eyes of coal and think her dirty.

           dirty.

                         d i r t y .

( then why does it hurt so much now? )

because she remembers purity.  this is what he liked in her, she knows it is.  innocence doesn’t last forever and hers was ripped from her before she could give it to someone cherished.  ( she knew he’d hate her seven years past when the light dimmed from her eyes and her world was a barren wasteland she walked through with bare feet. )

“ you have no right to talk to me, do you? when you’re in the same position i am?” ember prides herself in the way her head is still held high when the girl inside of her is a weeping, wounded mess.  and wounds remind her of that knife she was once reaching for and she pulls it from her backside slowly, expressionless.  “ take another step and your jugular will have a nice conversation with my knife.” the words are spit from her lips like poison, his are the rocks that stone her and break her bones.

she scoffs.  tries to save face.  ( ends up driving the stake into the heart of the crying girl, hopes to make her disappear forever. ) “ you have no right to judge me.  you weren’t there.”

that’s what this comes down to.

he wasn’t there.  

– and his mask of impassivity falters. it is like a memory painted in vivid color, something forbidden and deeply buried resurfaced with an evanescence of control and he pretends he doesn’t feel his heart aching or his bones longing.

she approaches and his body moves on its own accord: he blocks her escape route, traps her inside. ( she can’t go. ) her voice bleeds acid, uttering a single worded command he is expected to obey. ( he can’t. )

( because it’s yerim. she’s the girl sitting on a bench, reading. always reading.   she’s the girl whose voice always called his name, softer than anyone else’s ever had.   she’s the girl.   and that girl is the snake in woman’s clothing. )

                                                                       no.                                                                               wrong.

his hand reaches for her – it is a distance of mere centimeters yet it feels like he’s reaching back through the passed years –, calloused fingers crooked around brittle wrist. she is pulled aside, right into the night and kai swears the air just feels more suffocating than it did inside. his grip loosens, almost reluctantly, hand returning to his side, curling into fists. there is a tingle on his fingertips from where they touched the coldness of her skin. ( it feels wrong. ) 

jongin parts his lips but there’s something lodged in his throat; it slaughters the words endeavoring to escape, turns them to dust and leaves a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.

she prides herself in reading people; sees into their eyes their awful desires and simple pleasures but his eyes are dark as coal and ember has never been able to read them, never.  not even when she was a girl child with stars in her eyes with nothing more than the notion to save the world in her heart, hugging medical texts to her chest and whispering just how much she wants to help ( to help him ).  the thought of it makes her want to throw up; the snakes that live inside of her still slither restlessly and she wants to spit their venom as he stands in her way.

maybe as he screams in agony and rubs at his burning, disintegrating eyes, she’ll be cleansed of his memory -- his smile, the way his knee brushed hers when they sat too close.

( stop thinking about him.  stop thinking about him.  stop thinking about him.  stop it. )

thinking about him gives him power over her.  thinking about him brings back the weak little thing she once was seven years past with her brittle fingers that were as fragile as paper turning pages.  she remembers that she started bringing stories to read aloud instead of her textbooks for learning.  before she knew it, back then he was what she was thinking of more often than a cure for cancer, or how to remove a brain tumor.  he was that boy.  

                                              he is what once could have been.

thinking about him now just boils her stomach acid and turns it to bile in her throat.  ember still stares him down like she expects him to follow her words ( after all, who does not fear the snake? ) but once again ... kai has always made a mess of her expectations.  his metal grip grabs her wrist and it’s so tight, his touch is so hot that she’s certain that it could burn.  ( he really was always so warm. ) she stifles the urge to scream, will not show him weakness -- even though she curses herself for allowing herself to be dragged anywhere against her will.  she’s livid.  she’s reaching for the knife concealed on her form.  

and when he finally lets her go to the cool night air, ember’s certain there will be a livid red forming in the shape of his hand; a mark left upon her for all eternity.  before she can think to stop them, bitter words spill from her lips like yesterday’s coffee.  “ ... what have you done?”

she closes her eyes, and the only sound that surrounds them is the sting of a slap that echoes in the open.  

and of course she just happened to be so fucking rude about it. huffing, junhyung couldn’t help but to stare at her with complete and utter disbelief. well he didn’t expect her to drop down onto her knees and scream that he had saved her, that would have been weird, and possibly unsettling. though he couldnt help but to give her a tiny little smirk. of course she would respond this way to him.

in reality, she can’t deny that his words make sense.  perhaps that’s what’s making the snake in her rear its head, to show fang blackened with her venom and raise a hand to one of the precious children she has left -- but still, ember finds the idea of “ protection” so abhorrent that she cannot do anything beyond feeling the anger and disgust that runs through her at the very notion.  she did not spend years of learning to rip apart a man with just her hands for one to barge his way into her house unwelcome, to tell her that she’s in the position of weakness just because she’s at the top.

so, ember is at war with herself: which is the lesser of two evils? to allow a man with no power to pretend he has it over her, or to risk a complete ending to her family by a strike when they’re weak? regardless, ember wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of bowing her head easily -- in the end, it was he who was in the wrong here, pushing through her door and pushing her back like he has some sense of control.

her hand lowers to her side and she looks cool but inside, she burns like the city that will fall to ashes by her hand.  a click of her tongue is challenge, the narrowing of her eyes is warning: he is stepping over his bounds by being rude to someone in her position; if he’s not careful, even she won’t be so forgiving to family.  “ you think you have any right to curse at me, child?” the word is spit like an insult, because it is one -- meant to rein him in and feel smaller, recognize his place. “ you come into my home uninvited and spit your wild notions like i have not yet thought of them before.  once again, who do you think you’re talking to?” 

Akin to the way the autumn chill had seeped into the summer night, a kind of tenderness has overcome the city; where its walls once were snared with the tangles of rotted vines grew a bud that has now blossomed; hung above from a luring branch, wet, ripe and heavy it bore the fruit of a peace that they had yearned for a seeming eternity, hands clasped, forever pleading.  The words that fell from holy mouths have been cast aside, Genesis rewritten: the serpent slain for his sins, man and woman side by side, their knees buried into the earth, teeth sinking into the flesh of what had once been the first act of sin. Walking through the city streets, she now understands why God had forbidden a single bite into the apple’s core.  

Nestled into the warmth of a human neck and tucked under barren wrists, this sweet perfume that clings to your body like a dream, and everyone but them are under its spell: flushed skin, eyes glazed, hot breath, voices quivering in hushed desire — sedated. A kind of drowsiness where every step taken has become more loose and leisurely and everything moves with a lucid ease. The lanterns have reached a dull glow, the candles flickering — any need to burn brighter for those prayers once whispered before being lit aflame long gone, for now hope burned bright in their eyes, and even brighter in their hearts.

Ahyoung takes it otherwise. For she can smell the poison in the crimson that lingered on their tongues, leaving them drunk and driven in a poison thriving paradise —  a nauseating sweetness that has taken hold of the senses, killing them softly. Any remnants of reason forever lost in the recesses of their intoxication. She doesn’t hear the light laughter, the soft chime of festival music in the distance. She can only see an old house, coated with dust, the mold making home in its corners, the taxidermied head on the doorway, the stained carpet; her father at the center, reeking of cheap booze and decay. Worst of all, his mouth twisted in a stretched grin, his eyes empty like the deer nailed over his rotting body. She closes her eyes from the memory.

( This was not peace. This was a kind of madness, a disease. )

The woman beside her doesn’t take it any better: Mother Snake, with black venom in her fangs, frame cut from ivory forever cold to the touch, blonde tresses touched with ashes ( ashes, ashes  — all the remains from the fires that had scorched their skin, her empire left crumbling among the roses where they all fell down, down, down. )

Digging into her pocket, the driver pulls out a cigarette and a lighter. Her voice is soft, quiet. 

this is why she has to write her own book.  the book of ember, then she’ll burn it to ashes when jung joonyoung ( her father, her holy spirit ) comes back alive.

and he will come back alive even if she has to walk into the den of wolves herself to fetch him.

these have been the thoughts that linger in the back of her mind as she plans, thinks, determines the next move to take.  her head rests upon her knees because she too, is hurting and she thinks of all the reasons why she’s probably failing her precious family now.  but in the end, while perhaps she’s taking too long, perhaps she’s thinking too much or being too cautious -- her family, the snakes are known well for their quick strike and their penchant for revenge -- in reality, ember did not get to where she is by being quick to the draw, quick to strike.  she got to where she is by being smart, for being the slow burning coal in a world of rampant inferno.  she’s the one that remembers to reduce the city to ashes when everything, everyone else desires chaos.

but maybe, perhaps, it’s being slow to act that’s the problem now.  her children are unhappy, and she ( the snakemother, how could she? be so quiet in a time of need ) hasn’t given them a clear objective -- this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.  she feels the shaking of her world before it happens and eyes narrow in thought as her head twists -- deep in her belly, the snakes are slithering, angry and restless.  something is happening and she doesn’t know what.

she sees smoke before her companion does.  the curling of nicotine’s burn doesn’t match the dark in the backdrop and narrowed eyes become wide, her head is lifted from her knees in realization.  her children -- her children -- have done the things that she wouldn’t because ember just wanted to protect them for as long as she could, and now the city is burning.  this is what it’s like to taste poison rain.  she doesn’t think of it as betrayal, but rather, a matter of pride.

a snake’s smile crosses her lips.

vmxember

jung joonyoung was gone.

thrown into jail like a piece of trash. by the bastards of seoul, of course. junhyung was fuming and although the taste of revenge would be sweet to him, he needed to step back. but what else could he do in this situation? at this point he needed to make sure no one else would get taken down. if so, cottonmouth could potentially start to dissolve into riots and anger and as much as junhyung wanted to shoot someone in the face for imprisoning their leader, he needed to be serious.

which is why he showed up at ember’s door step, eyes searching for someone who he dared to intercept him. at this point in time he did not have the time to be thwarted, he needed ember and he needed her now. he was impatiently waiting for her to open then door and when she did he stepped in rudely, his left arm coming behind him to shut the door as quickly as possible. and before she could speak a word he spoke in a harsh whisper.

the casting of stones only feeds the ravenous snake in her belly; makes it grow fat with revenge, with anger -- inside of her, it’s coiled and it’s ready to strike.  ember sees joonyoung’s face, dark with his intent and made ugly by the screen and she too, is livid.  this is her way of mourning, by becoming angry at the dogs who keep her prophet locked away like he’s socrates back in ancient greece -- hidden from the world just because he’s said things ( done things ) most people do not wish to hear.  even mars cannot gift her solace now; she barks at him to go away, to let her think.

the world is harsh for a mother snake when all the weight of protecting her young falls only to her shoulders.  but perhaps this is when she’ll rise, when she needs to throw down the mantle of a double life and remember what venom is boiling at her core.  her blood is poison, her eyes are the coal to a fire and she will set this world aflame if it meant justice for the wrongs that have taken place tonight.

she’s distracted by a knock to her door and her lips are thin when she stalks to answer only to be pushed back by one of her own.  her lips turn to a scowl and she’s looking up at yong junhyung -- just a small man, not worth the time she’s about to give him if his manners are anything to go by.  she finds herself half tempted to spit in his face but he has the nerve to speak before she can get a word out -- speaking out of turn.  forcing her back in her own home.  this is all the likes of men will ever do and her eyes narrow while hands ball to fists at her side.