"And here I thought myself in the presence of one who knows everything." The sketching of symbols in an unbroken line of cool saliva goes on, working down Anna's cheekbone with the unwavering hand of a calligrapher, artist and technician all in one.
"As the name suggests, the trigeminal nerve separates from its roots into three distinct branches, and before today, I doubt you would have ever had cause to be grateful for them...so allow me to introduce you."
"The ophthalmic." Her other hand is unoccupied. She taps the side of Anna's head, and the young woman's eyes shut with a bizarre buzzing sensation flaring across her forehead and scalp. She moves her fingertip a very slight distance, and taps again. "The maxillary." A humming throb shoots through the soft tissue of her upper palate and into her sinuses, the brisk clearing out of sharp ginger. "The mandibular." Her tongue spasms as her jaw clenches, relaxing in a passing instant. There is no pain, not even true discomfort. Not of the physical kind.
"Position. Movement. Sensation." Woe rests the pad of her index finger on the branching point of the nerve, obedient as the girl is not. "All of it through such delicate, complex apparatuses."
Then she is silent, except for the nearly imperceptible whisper of nail gliding over skin, for the four minutes required to complete the binding curse. It's a devilishly tricky application. She leaves Anna's eyes closed. Perhaps she forgets to open them until she sits back on her heels and flicks the last of Dinah's spit from her hand into shattered dust, firing the impulse that flicks Anna's eyelids upright again like thrown shutters.
"I haven't the faintest idea of what grudges you bear, or what intimacies you imagine you have indulged in - you appalling poppet - you grotesque parasite - that you believe grant you any right at all to speak to me as if I am one of your little playmates." Her fingers are hard and sharp on Anna's chin as she turns her face upward, Woe leaning over her in a fall of rough-cropped hair, her eyes smouldering pits of chemical overrun, a boiling and unclean colour. "But I would have tolerated it...I would have overlooked..."
Silence, again. Her own jaw works mechanically, a rasping grit of teeth, before she brings herself to continue.
"When you reach the other side of the portal, you may imagine that you will vent whatever spleen you have on that girl. If you do, you and your trigeminal nerve will live to regret it." She releases Anna's jaw abruptly, pressing up to her feet in a swift, unfolding flick, like a switchblade. She looks down at the fallen girl, and in a final, contemptuous indignity, nudges her with the toe of one boot.
cw: violation of bodily autonomy, body horror, psychological horror
"As the name suggests, the trigeminal nerve separates from its roots into three distinct branches, and before today, I doubt you would have ever had cause to be grateful for them...so allow me to introduce you."
"The ophthalmic." Her other hand is unoccupied. She taps the side of Anna's head, and the young woman's eyes shut with a bizarre buzzing sensation flaring across her forehead and scalp. She moves her fingertip a very slight distance, and taps again. "The maxillary." A humming throb shoots through the soft tissue of her upper palate and into her sinuses, the brisk clearing out of sharp ginger. "The mandibular." Her tongue spasms as her jaw clenches, relaxing in a passing instant. There is no pain, not even true discomfort. Not of the physical kind.
"Position. Movement. Sensation." Woe rests the pad of her index finger on the branching point of the nerve, obedient as the girl is not. "All of it through such delicate, complex apparatuses."
Then she is silent, except for the nearly imperceptible whisper of nail gliding over skin, for the four minutes required to complete the binding curse. It's a devilishly tricky application. She leaves Anna's eyes closed. Perhaps she forgets to open them until she sits back on her heels and flicks the last of Dinah's spit from her hand into shattered dust, firing the impulse that flicks Anna's eyelids upright again like thrown shutters.
"I haven't the faintest idea of what grudges you bear, or what intimacies you imagine you have indulged in - you appalling poppet - you grotesque parasite - that you believe grant you any right at all to speak to me as if I am one of your little playmates." Her fingers are hard and sharp on Anna's chin as she turns her face upward, Woe leaning over her in a fall of rough-cropped hair, her eyes smouldering pits of chemical overrun, a boiling and unclean colour. "But I would have tolerated it...I would have overlooked..."
Silence, again. Her own jaw works mechanically, a rasping grit of teeth, before she brings herself to continue.
"When you reach the other side of the portal, you may imagine that you will vent whatever spleen you have on that girl. If you do, you and your trigeminal nerve will live to regret it." She releases Anna's jaw abruptly, pressing up to her feet in a swift, unfolding flick, like a switchblade. She looks down at the fallen girl, and in a final, contemptuous indignity, nudges her with the toe of one boot.
"Get up. I want rid of you."