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Your name is Meenah Peixes, and you stand outside the hive of Kankri Vantas, sulking in what is possibly your worst mood ever.
Today has not been a good day. Hounded down by Cronus more than once, bumping into Latula to hear her speech about how tot4lly r4d1c4l her new tricks are, and the most important factor to your mood, having to see Serket hanging around with that no-good Maryam ex of hers the moment you got here.
She didn’t see, but allowing something to piss you off to the point where you had to stand outside for a breather was actually quite uncharacteristic of you.
After all, you usually just removed the problem, but this time it didn’t seem to be that simple.
But what did you care, anyway? It wasn’t as though you were flushed for her or anything. You two were just friends, moirails, if you really had to put the two of you in a quadrant together. Aranea could do what she wanted. It was of no concern to you to get yourself in a bother over Nerdfang.
The sky was particularly beautiful tonight, and you uncharacteristically notice it amidst the loud chattering coming from inside Kankri’s hive. This was Mituna’s idea, of all people, to have a party with all of their friends, even if it meant Kankri going slightly overboard about the use of triggers and various alcohol warnings meaning certain behaviour was prohibited. The grass beneath your boots smells nice, the air is calming, and honestly it is doing your mood wonders to just get a little alone time and to clear your head.
Of course it would though, because nobody gets quite on your level anyway. You are truly the only convoluted soul in the universe who could understand someone so awesome.
You lean back against the wall, and feel your braids snag a little against the back of your belt, but tipping up your head to look around the surroundings was oddly peaceful. The glimmering stars, the purple sky…ah, and of course, the sight of your glorious fuchsia castle looming off in the distance, on those cliffs.
The most important landmark of all, you boast to yourself privately.
You really did love being you, you think with a smirk, and just as your mood begins to change from mysteriously irritated to soothed by the ego, a loud shriek happens and your least favourite Ampora is flung out of a window and onto the muddied ground before you.
He looks mildly embarrassed and stunned – shorely shellshocked, you think with a shark-like grin across your face for the first time in a day – as he stands up, wipes the mud off his face and dusts down his dishevelled white shirt, slicks back his hair and doesn’t even bother trying to chat you up this time. Boy, he really must be pissed.
You can’t help but laugh though as you cross your arms and think how this was probably Damara’s doing. Fucking Megido, always more of a troublestarter than you. Always gotta be upstaging you like that when you know full well there’s nothing you’d like more some days than to throw Ampora fins first out of a window.
But even following that, for some reason you just don’t feel in the party mood. And why should you? Any party run by Vantas has gotta be a snooze. You’d be better off just to go home and chill. You don’t know why you even bothered to turn up.
“Yo, Damz! You just made this the best party ever!”
Fuck.
“Latula, please! Someone should go and check on him, that can’t have been a very nice fall. I’ll go.”
Double fuck.
“Aranea, would you like me to accompany you? We know full well what kind of troll he is.”
Ugh, no! Fuck that! You think angrily, and the decision between storming in and pulling Aranea out of Porrim’s way or just outright storming off takes you one split second too long, as Aranea Serket stumbles out of the music-blaring hive in her trademark red heels and windswept look.
Your eyes fight back the inevitable urge to light up at seeing her, but she makes no attempt to hold herself back. As usual.
“Meenah!” she exclaims in joy, that gloriously white smile gleaming at you as she flings her arms around you tightly, and you can’t help but hug her a little back - with a scowl on your face as a certain jade-blood follows out after her.
“What’s with this display of affection, Serket?” you reply nonchalantly, as though hugging Aranea hasn’t been the best part of your day. “Get offa me.”
“I didn’t think you were going to make it here tonight!” she beams, despite your reluctant shove of her to get off you, and your gaze turns to Porrim’s smug one.
“What are you smilin’ aboat, Maryam?”
“Someone’s a little more aggressive than usual.”
“Are you alright?” Aranea asks curiously, and even she can sense your less than friendly tone. “Did something happen? You seem in a bad mood.”
You feel touched at Serket’s little display of genuine care, but you’ve got a reputation to keep up here. The Condesce didn’t get anywhere at the top by showing weaknesses, and least of all to anyone that she –
“No, Serket. Do you want somefin?” you ask, before sharply adding, “Why’s Maryam here? Shorley you’ve got some of your other conquests to be seein’ to.”
“Well, pardon me for tagging along.” Porrim remarks snappily back, and you can hear that she’s unsure of why you’re being so rude. To be honest, you’re unsure as well. Even with your usual, wonderfully sassy nature, this is a little too much bite over bark right now.
She clears her throat in the awkward tension, places a hand on Aranea’s shoulder, and you feel your fuchsia blood boil.
“I’ll go back inside,” she says, “clearly Peixes here has more issues than usual today.”
Your anger bubbles, and Aranea places hands on your shoulders.
“Hey! Watch your glubbin’ tone, Maryam, or you’ll feel the end of my gold pointy jam as another piercin’ to add to your collection!”
“Meenah!” Aranea scolds, and you can’t help but simmer down a little. Porrim bids Aranea a short-lived farewell as she flips her hair and turns to walk inside the hive once more, and you bite at the inside of your cheek with irritation.
The blue-blood blinks with a little surprise at your previous tone, removes her hands from your shoulders to place them on her hips in dismay, and you feel kind of bad for a second as she finally decides to address your aggressively asserted question with an answer.
“Well, I came out here to check on Cronus, if you must know,” Aranea replies bluntly, “but he appears to be gone, and all that has happened is you’ve been ruder than usual! What’s going on with you?”
What’s goin’ on with me? You think incredulously, and scoff as you fold your arms aggressively. But Aranea knows better than to fall for your weaker scare tactics, knows you better than that, and she probably even knows the reason before you do because wow, if you aren’t flushed for this Serket then heck, you don’t know what a matesprit really is after all.
Aranea is really all you think about, in one capacity or another. Her blue eyes and blue lips are two of her most beautiful qualities physically, and not to mention her devotion to being so close with you is an incredibly endearing trait. She cares about you, an enormous deal in fact, and you remember when she cried for weeks over Porrim Maryam ending their flushed quadrant. You wanted to tear Maryam’s head off more than usual.
You roll your eyes at your own internal monologue of mushy romantic crap.
“Nofin is goin on with me,” you lie through your teeth before remembering Porrim exists, “and you’ve gotta be getting back to your Maryam, right?”
“Excuse me, ‘your Maryam’? What does Porrim have to do with any of this?”
For a split second you hesitate, and a smile works its way across Aranea’s lips.
“Urk!”
“Meenah, don’t tell me. Are you jealous?”
You could have sworn your face turned almost as purple as the fuchsia cliffs you live on.
“No!” you shriek, and Aranea raises an eyebrow as a brief silence occurs between you for a couple of minutes, and what irritates you more is that she’s spot on, much to your displeasure. “I ain’t jealous!”
She laughs smugly.
“Of course not.”
“I’m NOT!”
“Then tell me why you are behaving in such a manner!” Aranea retorts, and folds her arms. “Honestly, I know a jealous girl when I see one. I live such a life!”
“What do I have to be jealous aboat in the first place!” You lie profusely. “You ain’t all that. See if I care who you swim away with.”
Aranea blinks, and pouts. You pause for a moment as she adjusts her glasses, and spins on one heel with a hand waving dismissively.
“Fine,” she says, and this is the first time you may have heard her actually irritated with you directly, which alarms you. “I’ll be seeing you some other time, Meenah.”
You wait for three seconds as you watch her walk away, before you realize shit, she’s actually serious, and you think to yourself how the only person you want Aranea to be kissing is you.
“Now, hold on a minute, Serket!” you mumble resentfully, and grab at her wrist. She looks at you slightly gone out as you spin her round, and you feel the smugness of your ego returning as you notice a blue hue rising to her cheeks, and she bites her lip in contempt.
“W-what are you doing, Meenah!”
What are you doing, Meenah? What the hell! This isn’t like you to lose your cool, especially not over Aranea of all people. But you don’t really think about this action, or the action that follows where you pull her into you by the wrist, hold her waist very roughly, kiss her even more uncoordinatedly on the lips – hell, you get more of her bottom lip and upper chin than a full on kiss – but she’s hardly fighting you off besides a little muffled noise of surprise.
And the sound that happens when you break away is so satisfying, like a lightswitch being flicked on or just…confirmation that something has happened, and you let go of her after a few seconds of mutually staring at each other in silence and sprint in the direction of your castle.
You don’t know if she’s smirking at you or if she’s just stood in disbelief, but you feel your heart exploding and doing somersaults as you realize shit, you just kissed your matesprit full on the lips, and you feel so good for it.
And the unknowing fact to you that Aranea is stood in the same spot you left her in in such a lovestruck daze with a grin and a blush on her face only fuels this fire even further that maybe, just maybe, you two were supposed to be together after all.