the shining of you (the raven cycle | blue~persephone)

[fiachairecht]

the shining of you. the raven cycle - maggie stiefvater, blue~persephone. a little bit of magic, a little bit of horror, a little bit of kissing. 1.1k words, rated t. for bluegansey in WDLF 3.

Blue is squinting at a tarot spread when Persephone comes drifting down the stairs. Her hair is all pinned up and her sleeves nearly touching the ground, which is how Blue knows things are serious. "You only have three High Priestesses because your Lovers are reversed," she says, and Blue scowls because she has been trying to figure that out for the better part of two hours. "And you have a Hierophant from a different deck in there. It's gotten all over your hands."

Blue squints at her palms, but doesn't see anything out of the ordinary. "Wrong eyes," Persephone says. "And, anyway, I need you in the woods."

Very little good ever comes after a statement like that in 300 Fox Way, but Orla has ruined four spreads in the past ten minutes, so Blue supposes it's probably time to put them away for a while anyway. "Do I need to bring anything? Well, anything out of the ordinary, anyway." Of course, there was out of the ordinary and then there was out of the ordinary when your only other companion was Persephone, and Blue is already planning what she needs to add to her bag.

"No, I don't think you need anything," Persephone says, looking faintly puzzled. "Besides yourself, of course. I just need an anchor."

"Right," Blue says, getting up and dusting any Invisible Extra Hierophant Residue off her hands. "Then I'll bring a knife and some rope."

She heads for the stairs and Persephone heads for one of the doors, before turning around too quickly and losing half her hairpins in the process. Amidst her cloud of hair Persephone calls back, only slightly muffled, "Oh, Blue, do find something else you need. It has to be three things, not two."

Blue feels just a little bit offended that Persephone thought she couldn't be trusted to remember snacks on her own.

**

Persephone drives, or says she does, but Blue feels Cabeswater's leaves all tangled up in her arms when she opens the car door, and the car is distinctly no longer there when they emerge. "Maura might need it," is all Persephone says when Blue shoots her a quizzical look, and Blue's whole body warms like she's just been let in on the best sort of secret possible.

It doesn't stop her from stumbling over a root before they've gone more than ten paces, and she grabs for Persephone's hand. Persephone snatches her hand back, not unkindly, and when Blue is steady again, she loops a loose arm around her waist. "It's not far," she says. "Just to the river."

"What are you looking for?" Blue asks, but she doesn't really expect an answer. She's trying to  get better at using what she knows to be a better anchor, a better amplifier, but getting an answer from any of the women of Fox Way is harder than getting answers from tarot cards.

"Mirrors," Persephone answers, eyes fixed to the sky. It's not not helpful, in the grand scheme of Persephone things, and Blue mulls it over as Persephone leads them to the riverbank.

Blue sets out the materials while Persephone chews thoughtfully on a fistful of her own hair. She makes a simple triangle of her shoes, backpack, and the coil of rope, and sits in the middle with the knife, just in case Persephone finds something inside the mirrors she's looking for. "Ready," she says.

Persephone doesn't look over at her. "Cross your legs," she says. "I need the direction markers."

Blue shifts accordingly, wincing as the movement reminds her that she's sitting on January-cold ground in torn leggings. But she doesn't complain as Persephone starts pacing circles around the safe zone, especially not when the energy she stirs up begins to seep into the ground, warming the earth and sending excitement spiraling through her. It's nice, she thinks, doing the kind of magic that doesn't have immediate life or death consequences. She isn't even sure if they're in Cabeswater.

She flips the knife idly back and forth between her hands as Persephone mutters indistinctly to herself or Blue or the trees around them. The edges of the blade draw blood every time she swaps hands, but it's sharp enough that there's no pain.

It's always best to have some blood readily available for magic, Persephone says, even better when it's outside someone's body to start so retrieving it doesn't compound whatever problem one needs it to solve. Blue keeps her eyes on Persephone, though, and though she tells herself she's just waiting in case she needs to pull her back, it's hard not to get lost in the swing of her hips, the way the sunlight that filters in reflects off the water and refracts through her hair, the way that, whenever she faces Blue, her lips are just the sort that Blue thinks would be best for kissing—

And so it's a shock when she looks down and finds her hands limned in purple under all the blood.

"Oh no," she says, and, "Oh no," Persephone says at the same time, scuttling inside the triangle and sinking to her knees in front of Blue.

"I know," Blue says, as Persephone takes one hand in both of hers and runs her thumbs over the cuts. "I should have washed my hands from the decks before we started this."

"Well, yes," Persephone says. She licks Blue's blood off her fingers, and Blue feels the warmth of her mouth all over like a physical thing. "But you should have told me we'd slipped into Cabeswater, too."

"I hadn't noticed," Blue mutters. In truth, she should have known when she hadn't felt the knife, but watching Persephone work had been distracting. The skin around the cuts is tingling, more unpleasant than not, the edges blurring and moving the longer she looks. "What's — what's inside of this? What wants to be?"

Persephone curls Blue's hands into fists. "I don't know," she says thoughtfully. Leans forward, presses her lips to Blue's in a way that might have been chaste if not for the taste of blood, Blue's blood, and the way it makes her want to open to Persephone in every way possible. It's slow and awful and not at all a match for the urgency racing down her spine, curling in the pit of her belly, but it's Persephone — it was Persephone — and that makes it right, it has to. "But I think we're about to find out."

Blue screws her eyes shut as Persephone kisses her again, feels the blood throbbing, burning in her hands, and hopes she's wrong.