Lost Destinies

↳ 13: Is It Animal Cruelty To Turn A Lizard Into A Rooster?

"We're almost there," Lindsay muttered as she spread open her foldup set of makeup palettes, scrunching her nose and assessing Penny's facial features to determine how best to frame them. She picked up a small tub of cream foundation to start, dipping two fingers in. "Let's hope Ramona's forger friend can get back to us in time."

Penny made intense eye contact, which made it a little weird to apply anything to her face, but whatever. "You ever wonder how she knows so many shady underground types?"

"Comes with the tragic backstory, I suppose," Lindsay sighed. She could make good use of those cheekbones, but my, did Penny have to have such a square face? It was a good thing she had such big dark eyes and thick lashes to work with. You know, come to think of it, Penny could have been a real knockout if she tried... She had that fairytale princess look but covered it up with sweaty sports and boring brown clothes. Baffling, frankly, when Lindsay had spent practically her whole childhood trying to look as much like a fairytale princess as she could. Anyway, if she was going to emphasize Penny's cheek structure, she might as well do the same thing for Ramona, who was shaped much softer. It would help make her less recognizable.

Penny kept distracting her from her makeover thought process. "It makes people rather difficult to trust when every day they reveal fresh dirt from under their hoods."

"You don't trust Swan?"

"Is that even her real name?"

That gave Lindsay pause. She shook it off and picked up a brush. "She's our friend. It's not as though you don't have things you keep locked up."

"She keeps her own wings locked up. Doesn't strike you as odd in any way?"

"You've seen the way the world treats dusters," she replied coldly. "I'd do the same thing if I'd been called the Ugly Duckling my whole life."

Penny recoiled slightly. Lindsay grabbed her by the chin—none too gently, mind you—to get a better reach.

"Stop moving or this'll take forever. I need you, Minerva, and Duckie to look as uniform as possible."

Penny's mind was still swirling with uncertainty. Maybe it had nothing to do with Ramona at all, although she'd had reservations about her (and, truthfully, the lot of them) before. Maybe what was really bothering her was the fact that everything had felt considerably off since the queen's death, as if the world itself had tilted the wrong way on its axis. She felt muddled and fuzzy and everything irritated her, and every time she slept she kept seeing red. She was just so... so tired.

Lindsay frowned, her hand pausing momentarily as she brushed powder across Penny's cheek. "What is that?"

"What's what?" Penny's hand flew to her face. "Oh." The scratch from the fight the previous day hadn't healed yet. It seemed like it might be inflamed. "It's fine."

She didn't believe that, not really, but she was so sick and tired of everyone bringing up new problems that she didn't want to add anything else that would make it take longer for this whole endeavor to be over with. She would handle the infection herself. Lindsay didn't seem to care either way and was content with resuming applying her makeup. Makeup wasn't really Penny's forte. She had had handmaids wait on her hand and foot when she was married to Prince Skip, and they dolled her up then, but her appearance didn't really matter now. It was all fine and well that people like Lindsay put a lot of effort into it, but it felt to her like a silly and frivolous endeavor when she could be practicing with her new bow, for example. Of course, Lindsay would say that archery was a frivolous endeavor in response. To each their own, Penny mused.

Come to think of it, a lot of things had been different when she lived in the palace. Princess Penelope, they'd called her. But when she left the guys in the boxing ring shortened it—Penny—and it felt less formal so it stuck. All of the thieves had been someone quite the same but also considerably different before they met each other. She still remembered the day she'd first been invited to join their crew. She had fled the region she ruled over—the Rose and Villagetown mainland was notorious for constant shifts in minor management, and Northeast Rose was overthrown in the midst of the Riding Hood Riots. To this day red cloaks made her shiver. Penny was probably lucky to be alive. But she never did leave Rose; it was a sprawling kingdom more than four times the size of Villagetown where she'd grown up and it was easy enough to get lost and start a new life. She was up against a real big guy that day, an ogre named Cecil. He was a regular and nice enough, about as friendly as ogres could manage to be, but Penny wasn't about to break her six-win streak.