Finding Peace

by Daniel-Gleebits

The Unaccountable Tale of the Probably Fake Tattoos

The Unaccountable Tale of the Probably Fake Tattoos. Possibly Fake. Maybe.

Even several days after the fact, Sonata’s buoyed spirits still hadn’t abated. Sunset was happy to take full advantage of this.

“I’ve grown quite accustomed to you doing half of the chores,” Sunset remarked as Sonata kneaded the bread dough.

“Is that why you really wanted me to stay?” Sonata demanded indignantly.

Sunset made no response, but simply smiled mysteriously as she continued the enigmatic work of creating her incense sticks.

Sonata wasn’t fooled, however. They were friends now as far as she was concerned, and so in her mind that was the reason. What else can you by after lying weak and injured in someone’s bed for a month and asking them all kinds of personal questions without getting any significant answers whatsoever?

That’s the best kind of friends! Sonata told herself spiritedly. No two friends ever had a friendship like ours. A friendship built on care. On trust. On not knowing… a single thing about one another...

This thought troubled Sonata a little, although not so that anyone would notice. Outwardly she was as exuberant and cheerful as ever, except when the chores needed doing. There certainly seemed to be a lot of them now that she was fully healed.

“There has to be something I know about her,” Sonata wondered aloud, sitting in the most stable branch of the tree she’d previously fallen out of trying to find Sunset’s garden. Affectionately dubbing it the Ouch-tree, Sonata found the wide branch she was seated on fairly comfortable and easy on the hindquarters. She contemplated Sunset’s territory for a while in silence. “Or something I can find out.”

She considered a long while, absently scraping at the bark of the tree with a twig. It made no real indentation, but left a whitish marking on the smooth bark. Within minutes she’d managed to inscribe a fair likeness of Sunset, although she was perpetually dissatisfied with the braids. She was just starting to fill in the tattoos a little, when—

“Did you sweep the house out yet?”

Sonata nearly fell backwards out of the tree, but managed to cling on and spot Sunset standing below, who was holding armfuls of fresh-picked herbs. “Hearthmaiden’s tits!” Sonata exhaled. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!

Sunset made no reply to this, but simply glared shrewdly up at Sonata, who realised that Sunset was waiting for and answer.

“Oh, erm,” she said quickly. “I think so.”

“My feet beg to differ,” Sunset said severely. “In your own time, though.”

Sonata had the grace to look abashed, and prepared to get down from the tree. Then she halted. She watched Sunset walking away, and then looked at the Sunset she’d inscribed upon the tree. A smile crept onto her face as an idea occurred to her. A curiosity-fuelled, quite potentially naughty idea.

Did she dare go through with what had occurred to her? There could be only one answer to that.

---

Sonata waited until night had truly fallen, when the light of the gibbous moon was directly overhead. Or near as makes no odds. The bed Sonata lay quietly in had been made the day after Sunset had invited her to stay permanently. Specifically, it had appeared the morning after. At the crack of dawn. Quite how Sunset had managed to build it quite so quickly Sonata did not know, but she suspected it had something to do with Sunset’s sage-y wisdom. Somehow.

Sonata lay wide awake, pretending to sleep whilst periodically opening one eye to glance in Sunset’s direction. Stemming from being one sister amongst three who frequently liked to break the rules by stepping out at night, Sonata had long since mastered the art of stealthily moving around in the dark. And concurrently the art of eating crunchy food near silently, although that particular skill was not currently useful.

She considered Sunset for a while. The other was certainly breathing long and low, and seemed relaxed enough to be asleep. But Sonata had to be sure.

“Sunset?” she said quietly.

No reaction.

“Sunset? Are you awake?”

Still nothing.

Sonata swung herself quietly off her bed, and carefully set her feet to the still dusty floor. With light tread, she stepped nimbly across the room, but then halted when she reached the herbs hanging from the ceiling as her hair brushed them and she felt a sprinkling of herby stuff sprinkle down in front of her nose. Remembering a trick she’d learned at the last second, she turned her upper lip to her nose, and instantly felt the sneeze recede.

She gave a small sigh of relief, and refocusing on the task, weaved with a lithe grace around the cooking pots, and arrived at the edge of Sunset’s bed. Gazing down at Sunset’s sleeping body, she wondered even now if she dared to do this.

I have to, she told herself. This might be about the only thing I know that she doesn’t want me to know. And the only thing I won’t feel guilty about knowing about, she added. About-about.

It was true that she didn’t want to pry into Sunset’s affairs; Sunset deserved the privacy that she’d sought by choosing to live her secluded lifestyle, and Sonata wasn’t going to ruin that for her. Nevertheless, she thought that she had to know something about her living-partner, no matter how minute. This seemed the only fairly neutral thing.

Sunset’s tattoos.

Sonata remembered opening her eyes for the first time in Sunset’s house, and looking up to see the odd marking around her eyes and mouth. She had wondered then whether it was face-paint or not, and in those times when she’d been lying bored out of her mind as her shoulder mended, she’d sometimes pondered the likelihood of their permanence.

The arguments in favour of it were these:

Firstly, Sonata had never seen Sunset without the markings. Even after bathing, Sunset always had the markings, and as best as Sonata could tell, they were always the same.

Secondly, Sonata knew that there were villages where tattoos were an integral part of their customs, quite often in reaching maturity or marking some kind of achievement. Perhaps even a symbol of marriage. The thought of Sunset being married was a faintly disturbing one to Sonata, for some reason. She seemed so young, and such a... such a loner.

Thirdly, it seemed implausible that Sunset would take the time to adorn herself as frequently as she would need to in order to keep the markings on herself all of the time.

On the other hand, though...

The problem with the idea of them all being tattoos was that the one’s on her face, arms, and legs, looked different to the ones on her chest. Substantively different, it seemed to Sonata’s eyes, which had a particular sharpness for aesthetic detail. Except when it came to dusty floors.

Sonata gazed down at each tattoo in turn. Taken together, the ones on her face seemed to form some kind of single runic symbol. A line running down from each eye, with a parallel line on either cheek. A V-shaped line on her chin, and a sort of wavy half-flame or wisp of smoke on her forehead. The ones on her arms and legs were arranged into continuous lines on each limb, creating something that might have been feathers, or perhaps flames. It was difficult to tell.

In contrast, the image running over her breasts and sternum was more intricate. At its centre was a pale yellow disc, whilst erupting from below this in blackish-red was a stylised pattern encircling the disc. The longer Sonata stared at it, the more she thought it looked like a pair of wings reaching up around the circle, almost touching at their tips.

There was, of course, only one way to know whether these were tattoos or not, and Sonata’s mind was afire with the possibilities. She had to try to remove one of the markings.

But which one? And how?

The chest was out of the question. Sonata had no doubt that Sunset would feel it if Sonata started trying to wipe away or scratch something from her chest. The same went for her face. That left the arms and legs.

Sonata took a moment to wryly thank the gods that Sunset didn’t have any markings in more discreet areas, or else waking Sunset up might be the least of her concerns.

Clearing her throat as quietly as possible, she looked between the limbs.

Sonata pondered as to where on her own body she’d be least likely to feel someone touching her unawares. After a few moments of thought, she decided that the lower leg was the best spot to try. Shuffling quietly down the bed a little, she lowered herself to get a better look at the pattern.

It was no good; in the darkness, she couldn’t see if it was painted on or not. She couldn’t risk creating more light to see by, for fear of waking the subject. There was no choice. Gathering a liberal amount of saliva on her tongue, she licked her thumb, leaving it glistening in the faded moonlight. Careful as a farmer trying to milk an agitated cow, she lowered the thumb down, and gingerly rubbed at the mark.

She let out a held-in breath when Sunset did not awaken. To her consternation however, the result was inconclusive. The problem was that the mark felt odd, but it wasn’t coming off when she tried to wipe it clean. She frowned, inspecting her thumb. No residue.

She rubbed her chin, wondering how to proceed. She didn’t want to scratch the same area in case the increased activity in the same area disturbed Sunset enough to wake her. She moved back up the body, and considered the problem.

The arms, legs, and face all looked to be of the same composition, but the chest-area ones looked different. Sonata narrowed her eyes, trying to think what to do. Glancing frequently into Sunset’s sleeping face, she came to a decision. She would simply try to ascertain if the image on her chest had the same feel as the marks on Sunset’s leg, and see if that gave any clue as to how to go on from there.

Sonata regarded Sunset’s bosoms with a grim contemplation. It was a risky business, but she was determined to find out this one, small detail about Sunset. Damn the consequences!

Or, at least, apologise for them later, she thought furtively. Look on the bright side; if I was still in the village, and a man, I could be put to death for this.

She raised her arm in a gentle arc, her eyes focused hard on Sunset’s sleeping face, her ears trained on the long, slow, slightly raspy breathing as Sunset’s chest rose up and down. One finger extended, she lowered it down to the middle of Sunset’s sternum, dead centre of the pale yellow disc. Pausing for just a moment, she waited for Sunset’s chest to depress, and then ran the finger in a light wavy motion downwards.

“Definitely different,” Sonata surmised, retracting her finger with lightning speed. But that didn’t necessarily mean one was a tattoo and the other not. Possibly the ones on her leg were newer, and the skin was still irritated from the treatment. Sonata blinked. “Could she have tattooed herself?” she muttered.

This was no good. She was getting more questions than answers. It was all supposed to be so simple. Just a quick test and back off to bed; no one would be any the wiser. What was she supposed to do now?

She looked at the wing-like pattern on Sunset’s arm. Feeling as though her options were running out, she set one finger nail to the mark, and gave it a subtle scratch. Like the leg, the mark here felt raised slightly, and a little rougher than skin strictly should, but not enough to be paint. Yet again, nothing came away.

This was infuriating. One thing; that was all she asked. One thing she could know about Sunset, and it was being so irritatingly difficult to understand. She stood up, trying to think. In doing so, she placed a hand on Sunset’s bed to push herself up, and caught one of Sunset’s braids under her palm.

Sunset’s head moved, pulled to the side by the slight tug on her braid.

Sonata froze, the colour draining from her face. What should she say? What could she say? Should she hide? Pretend to be asleep? Pretend to sleep walk?

Whilst all of these thoughts raced through her panicked mind, Sunset drew in a deep breath... and then calmly exhaled. She was clearly still asleep.

Sonata remained perfectly still for a full six seconds more. Then as slowly, and gently as she could, she let go of Sunset’s braid.

Then, the residue of herbal pollen slid down from atop Sonata’s smooth, straight hair, and directly into her face. She let out a violent sneeze.

Sunset snorted, and then jolted upright. Straight into Sonata’s nose.

---

“And you didn’t think to just ask me about them?” Sunset inquired, as soon as Sonata had finished explaining her side of the story.

“Doh,” Sonata said thickly. “You dhon anther muh questhuns abouth you.”

Sunset made a considering sort of sound. “I suppose that is true. So you decided to get up in the night and see if my tattoos came off,” she snickered, shaking her head a little.

Sonata frowned and blushed, although she hoped that the blood around her nose would mask the blood in her cheeks. She flinched a little as Sunset dabbed at her purplish, ballooned nose.

“Ith not tha funneh,” Sonata slurred under her breath. “Ath leasth you’re not mad ath meh.”

“Perhaps I have been a little overly secretive,” Sunset conceded. “Especially since you’re now living with me. I suppose I could tell you about my tattoos.”

Sonata perked up. “Yeah?”

Sunset indicated her chest. “This one is the only real tattoo I have,” she said. “The others are temporary.”

“Buh dey don’ come off,” Sonata protested.

“They aren’t supposed to,” Sunset explained patiently. “They’re made using a special kind of dye that stains my skin for a few weeks. They fade eventually.”

“Buh... why?” Sonata asked.

“A few reasons,” Sunset shrugged. “The first being that I don’t know how, nor do I have the equipment, to actually tattoo myself.”

“Oh,” Sonata said flatly. “I gueth dat makes senth. Tho wath are dey for?”

“I’d rather not say,” Sunset replied.

“An’ back tho de thecrets,” Sonata sighed.

Sunset smiled. “I’m afraid you’re just going to have to get used to that. Perhaps you could try keeping some secrets of your own to make it an even playing field.”

Sonata said nothing to this, but as Sunset continued to dab the blood from her face, she hoped that Sunset couldn’t see her reflexively biting her lip, or the slightly shifty look that briefly came into her eyes.

Comments

[lazyreader19]

Sunset has the patience of a saint. I thought for sure Sonata would have faced a breach-in-trust meltdown for a second.

Also wanted to say I'm digging the story so far, it's really neat.