🧚 away we go, to fairyland ☆ junie/jj bb (round 2)

The Undoing of Junie St. James. 


After the cannon-fire which marks Sofia's death, Junie stops. 

She stands very still, a sudden unsuspecting witness to what she has done. In her mouth, she can taste flesh; some, stolen from Sofia, mixed with her own blood.

As though emerging from a dark tunnel, she takes a moment to look around. She has never been to a concert before, much less a music festival - these are certainly not the pursuits of children in Seven - but she recognises the unfamiliar place nonetheless, aided by the sound of the band, blaring from somewhere unseen.

While she had been distracted by the fire, she had not noticed the way the sand had crept in; it had moved slowly, insidiously, but very deliberately. Now, it gathers in corners and around her shoes, finding its way into her hair. The grit of it is in her mouth, too. 

She bends down and picks up a handful of it, letting it run through her fingers. 

Junie looks at it, mesmerised. She grins - a gap-toothed, bloodied smile. She knows exactly what it is. 

"Fairy dust!" she whispers, gleefully. 

From somewhere far away, there are the sounds of screaming and shouting; these are not realities that Junie wishes to entertain at the moment. She is tired of fighting. 

Junie removes her shoes and pulls the remaining elastics from her hair. She does not like the way the braids feel; tight and restrained, making her an unwilling prisoner within her own head. Once her feet and hair have been freed, she feels a little better.

Junie sits cross-legged on the wooden floorboards, humming along to the music. In her fists, she takes handfuls of sand and scatters them into the breeze. She takes steady, deep breaths, and digs her toes into the grit, trying to ground herself in the way Father taught her to. It does not feel the same way as the leaf littered forest floor, but it will do for now. 

Surely, it will not matter if she stops here and rests for a while, and plays with the magic dust. It feels nice between her fingers. Junie is confident that the faeries will protect her. She has had a difficult morning, after all. 


[Junie inhales the spice.]