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There’s a degree of tension in the air, in her limbs-- she trembles as she tries to remain still and look calm. It’s never been so hard to fake it, to sink under the fog and let her emotions filter away one by one, but there isn’t much of a fog left, anymore. Mireya has reached into her mind and shooed away the majority of the heavy clouds, brought things to the surface she would have rathered stayed under.
The first touch has her actually hiss in a breath, ready to recoil, but the other woman has such a gentle hand that she steadies herself. Fingertips coast up her arm and map out the circles and lines, warm and almost comforting and yet invasive and probing. The dark markings are raised, something that few realize without touching her, and Vega hates to be touched. She has always shied away from it, angry and bitter, but she forces herself to let Mireya lay hands on her.
“They’re not just tattoos?”
It sounds like curiosity and Vega tilts her head, eyes flitting everywhere and anywhere but Mireya’s face. She doesn’t want to see her expression, because she knows enough about her girlfriend now. Even if the relationship is new and the words are strange, she knows Mireya is caring and thoughtful and she knows what the truth will do.
“Mmmnnnmm,” she makes a noise of disagreement, and then, hesitantly, “I cut them into my arms.” If her voice wavers, she pretends to not notice and not think about it. Even saying the words makes her flinch, again, remembering being eight and desperate with a blade and a bowl of ink. The rings around her throat and around her wrists, those are tattoos.
Everything else is scars.
Everything else is her work.
It was for the better, she reasons in her head, shaking and trying to find the fog just out of habit. She survived because of the pain, she got her magic under control, she was … useful is a word that echoes in her thoughts and it's sharp on all sides. But she was. She was useful, and because of that, she’s alive.
Mireya lifts her arm and Vega stirs out of her thoughts, startled by the gentle kisses to her handiwork. Her lips are warm and soft against the thicker skin, tracing love over self doubt and anxiety.
There is no haze between her and her feelings and she feels so much, now. She struggles to cope.
Everything is fresh and raw as she relearns emotions, learns how to feel. It's like being plunged into salt with fresh wounds, it's overwhelming and painful.
Little things make her cry, now, and so it's no surprise she feels tears in her eyes.
Each tender kiss to her scars brings more until she’s curled in Mireya’s arms with her face in her shoulder and sobbing. She hates it, she wishes she had control over herself, and at the same time?
She revels in it.
Somebody cares about her. Somebody sees all the scars, physical and emotional, and isn't repulsed by how terrible she is.
“Well no more of that, storm eyes, we do regular tattoos from now on.” The laughing tone in Mireya’s voice makes her look up, and hands cup her wet cheeks, “... Let's get you something pretty, next.”
It sounds ridiculous and dumb and Vega's face twists with a stupid relieved smile. “... Okay.”
It doesn't make erase the lines on her, the deep scars of her past, but it does set the path.
That everything will alright.