HOW TO LIVE AGAIN (girlxgirlxgirl)

Nineteen; Hesitance

"It felt hesitant, shocked and sudden"
45

🦚

⚠️ PG-13, mentions of death, censored swearing ⚠️

It's a stern empress that parades home that night. Eyes dull and angry at the same time, staring forwards over the dark streets of the imperial city. They returned home in record speed, leaving a part of their soldiers there to take care of the original problem, while the rest came home with the empress. Nobody has spoken a useless word since then, nobody has dared. Only silence mends the soldiers into complying orders, because the empress is not happy. Not at all.

Thyra's words from yesterday echo around in her head. "Someone on the inside controls these men". It was clear what that meant, for everyone around them. She has been tricked. The situation at the border between the red and the gold clan was perhaps a small part of the plan, that served mostly as a distraction. A way to get her out of the palace for a long enough time, so that chaos and evil plans could overthrow her in the capital. It was so obvious once the truth came out. Andra felt, and still feels humiliated. So humiliated that she's boiling over with anger.

Fei finds it terrifying. Just a few days ago she was having a heart to heart with Thyra, spilling her secrets that were supposed to be untold til' her death, and suddenly both the assassin and Andra are as serious as statues again. Neither one of them have moved a single muscle on their face, other than to frown, ever since leaving battlefield. This whole trip was a mistake and a huge waste of time, the Goddess has to acknowledge that. But to her, as a goddess, any time spent is not time wasted, it's using time, it's fate, a story has been written for you and you live it that way. There is no way they could not change what happens, change their decisions, so why do they bother to regret it and feel anger?

Fei knows that her two... girlfriends? Lovers? They get very angry sometimes. Not at her, but at others. And when they loose their temper there is no telling what they will do. She hasn't known Andra for long, or Thyra, but she knows what they are capable of. And she also knows how little they are capable of, when considering control of emotions. So as she rides through the capital, right behind the two serious women, she can't feel anything but fear and relative anger. Unlike them, Fei is not angry at the situation or at their enemies, she is angry at them. Angry because they have ignored her for the past few days, angry because they are angry and regretful and angry because they always do this. Leave her out of it, thinking that she is weaker. Somehow, Fei feels left out of their emotions and she doesn't understand why.

It's early morning. So early that the sun has not dared to rise yet, but the people have. The earlier one rises, the faster one can start making money. People roam about in the capital as if it were mid day. Fei isn't tired though. Even if she was human she wouldn't be tired, because of the circumstances. Besides, night and day have become one in the same after being on traveling foot for so long. Who cares when the sun rises and sets. It's day when they ride and night when they don't. Still, the morning dew and tired people dragging themselves over the graveled paths wake a sense of sympathy inside her, because she knows what it feels like to be dead tired in the morning.

Trumpets yell out over the capital when the empress arrives. This is her city after all. Fei hopes that it will calm her anger, because she has been fuming and quiet for far too long now. It's a small detail, the trumpets. Just one of the many sounds of the city. Among the sounds of hooves against sandy gravel, people talking and yelling, children laughing and the wind whistling by. But it's a symbolic sound. It gives her the power, it makes her feel like she finally has control over a situation that has slipped past her fingers over the past few days. Control over her country, her empire.