Prompt Shop Bop

"the lonely" - Jino

by Christina Perri

"Dancing slowly in an empty room"

Though she does not dance, Jino does spend a lot of her time - when she is not trying to figure out how to determine her parentage - practicing her fighting abilities. Though she is technically a Huntress, she knows plenty about fighting, and has translated several moves to be used against lions as well. Whether it be in a private area in pride territory or in her den (even if it's far more cramped), she spends plenty of time practicing. Sometimes it's to fight against the nightmares she has battled far too many times, both the creatures Sen and Phetho came to save her from and the hellscapes she's experienced for dreams. Sometimes it's to show up for Phetho. Sometimes it's so that, when she finds her parents, she can know how to make them hurt for how they made her hurt. Sometimes it's because the only way she knows to distract herself is with destruction and aggression. No matter the reason, there are plenty of times that, if one can find her, they will find her practicing moves for battle (typically instead of doing her duty to the pride and hunting, something that irks a lion like Akilia to no end, mainly because Nasaba won't punish her for it in favor of trying to find a way to help her become a part of the pride community). It will often start out slow; Jino is methodical in her studying of them, determined to learn how to do it correctly the first time so that she doesn't mess it up later, when she actually needs to use it.

"Can the lonely take the place of you?"

It's ironic that, though she hates the loneliness, Jino has essentially implemented it into her life to replace the gap left by her parents (in particular her mother, as she knows there is no obligation for her father to stick around). Whether it was a conscious thought or not, Jino did her best to replace the gap left by her parents with loneliness, something that doesn't work all that well in the long run. If they left her, what was to stop anyone else? She blocked them all out to keep the hole from being ripped wide open again after healing, keeping the loneliness because at least it wouldn't present itself as anything but painful. It's sad, but it's the only option that Jino felt that she had. What else was she to do? Allow people to get close, just to hurt them again? As much as she wants to love and be loved, she can't just let herself remain open to it. If she lets just anyone in, there's no telling whether or not they'd hurt her again. It's the only the few that are willing to push through all her flaws and prickliness and anger and aggression and hostility that she feels are worthy of trying to fill the gaping maw that she has tried to (futilely) fill with a loneliness that has only served to be cold and isolating. The answer to the question is that no, the loneliness cannot take the place of the hole her parents' absence has created in her life, but she can sure as heck try to force it to.

"I sing myself a quiet lullaby"

When she used to get sad and have fitful nights where she could not sleep (or at least could not stay asleep), one way Ua would help Jino get to sleep was by singing her a lullaby. Jino never knew where Ua learned the lullaby from, because it certainly wasn't Tenga, who had all but stopped caring for them when Jino started pushing everyone away; she never asked. In return, Ua never told her. However, the lullaby always did wonders in calming Jino down, and since Ua has moved out, Jino has desperately missed the song her sister would sing. It was a soft, quiet song, meant to lull cubs to sleep, but Jino didn't mind it being used to help her sleep as well. Maybe some part of her liked to imagine it was her mother singing, not Ua, and that she was a cub in her mom's paws, tucked away and ready to sleep. Sometimes, Jino has tried to sing the song to herself, but it doesn't have the same effect. Despite having heard it dozens of times, she does not know it the way Ua does, and too much of the time is spent struggling to remember the next line. The fact that it requires intent focus for Jino to sing it typically negates the calming effect it would have to help her sleep, because she is tensing up, not relaxing. On top of that, Jino is not the singer that Ua is. She wouldn't say she was bad (though some others might beg to differ), but she definitely would agree that she doesn't compare to her sister, whose singing is practically perfect, at least in Jino's eyes. So, though she has tried to sing the lullaby to help her, she cannot tolerate how it sounds in comparison to how Ua always sings it.

"Let you go and let the lonely in to take my heart again"

When asked, though Jino is determined to find out who abandoned her, she will insist that she does not want them as her parents. Again, there is this idea that she can fill the void they've left with loneliness as she says again and again that she has let go of them, that she does not need or want them, but that she merely wants to confront them. It's a tragedy in it's truest form, with Jino again and again giving more and more of her heart to the loneliness she wants to soak her life in, succumbing to a tragic fate no one deserves. Her obsession with finding out the truth of her parentage is crushing her, and everyone can see it except her. Or maybe she can, and she just can't face the truth and acknowledge it anywhere but her subconscious. But Jino is doing everything she can to choke her heart, and if it weren't for Ua and Phetho, probably would've succeeded already.