The Ascent.

[Cheese 8891]

 

 

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

He’s gone.

 

Juniper’s nails raked across her shoulder, over an ugly bat brand. She paced the small confines of her room, a single thought plaguing her mind on repeat.

 

“How could he?”

 

It had been years since she had heard from her husband, the man she had sworn was her soulmate. The man meant to prove everyone, even Juniper herself, wrong.

 

“He would never hurt me. He would never leave me,” Juniper swore to just about everyone who knew her. 

 

They all looked at her with doubt, with pity, and it made her stomach churn.

 

“He loves me,” She promised her friends. 

 

Their lips pursed and their brows knit together. They looked at her with disbelief.

 

Am I really that unlovable?

Yes. You are.

 

Juniper was going to prove them wrong. She meant to, at least.

She waited for him at first. She took care of him next; offered him a shoulder to lean on. After that, she had sworn off most of her terrible addictions and choked down her argumentative tendencies.

 

She made herself lovable; lovable enough to marry the man she cared for oh so deeply.

She had given him everything; her heart, her blood, her soul.

 

Where was he now? 

He’s left you. He won’t come back.

 

At first, Juniper paid no mind to his disappearance. He would come back, he always did.

But weeks stretched into months, and then into years. Juniper trudged through them aimlessly.

She couldn’t leave, couldn’t search. She had to take care of their daughters, the ones he swore to love and cherish as much as he did Juniper herself.

 

Where had he gone? People don’t vanish into thin air. Was he on a mission? Was he hurt, dead?

Had he really, truly, left her?

 

Has he really left me alone?

I won’t ever leave.

 

It had been a long time since the voices were this bad. Usually, she could lean on him; he helped distinguish reality from hallucination.

 

But now, he’s gone. And all that Juniper had to show for it was the ugly, cursed brand on her left shoulder, the teeth marks on her right, and the taunting of her voidal afflictions echoing through her head.

 

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

Let me in.

 

Juniper dropped to her haunches, burying her face in her knees. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.

 

He promised me.

I know better. I’ll take care of you.

 

You don’t have to be alone. You have your friends.

 

Some rational whisper offered a figurative hand; an encouraging word.

 

Hanzo is still here. Go to him, he’s waiting.

 

Juniper considered it. Hanzo was familiar, he was safe despite their spats. A constant over a century and a half. Someone to stand by her side. But just as she began to accept the kind murmurs that eased her mind, they were just as quickly drowned out by something louder. Something more vile.

 

I don’t want to be alone.

You don’t need them. 

 

Memories flooded over Juniper. The times in Lurin, where she was treated as oh-so precious and unable to defend herself; she needed others to kill for her. Hohkmat, where her two best friends were so mercilessly torn from her in their slaughter. Kaethul, where she was locked up and drugged into subduement. And in the decades that followed when she wandered aimlessly, scorned and judged for selfishly wanting someone to love her, even if it meant latching onto those just as cruel and desperate as herself.

 

In the days after that, Juniper totally withdrew into her room. It smelled terribly of Lumine Mentis, and deranged whispers escaped through the floorboards. All visitors were sent away; her daughters were neglected.

 

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch

You only need yourself and my power.

 

Voices so cruel were such a terrible plague.

And how horribly ironic it was that the very same people who sought to protect Juniper had also isolated her, leaving her to the mercy of the void and the chaos that wreaked havoc in her mind.

 

Spoiler

None of this is common knowledge in rp!! But you are free to notice Juniper's disappearance if you know her :)

This was a lil narrative post about Juni's push to ascending as a voidstalker <3