B e l o w Z e r o

She was in a state of confusion.

Her heart hadn't slowed, her mind hadn't calmed. If anything, now that they had gone separate ways again, her mind was all the worst. So, she went searching for someone to talk to - and her decision, of all places, led her in front of the one-room house in town. She was certain she could hear the two inside, so the mare didn't bother, didn't hesitate, she strolled right in, a trail of frost left in her wake with each step, climbing like latticework up her limbs, fractal patterns against her pelt. She nodded briefly to the twins, before she collapsed in a weary mess of an emotionally drained mare. "I think I'm in trouble . . . . romantically . . . I mean." 

Her words were casual despite the turmoil that her heart was in. 

Her ears flicked, her eyes, both sets; turning towards the twins, "What do you do when your best friend suddenly declares he's in love with you?!" She asked with a huff of worry, staring up at the boys from wide, worried expression, "I mean, we've been friends for two years. Best friends, for two years. And now, all of a sudden, he's in LOVE WITH ME?"

She flopped, her head on one limb, her tail flat on the ground, like a beached whale, as her vapors rolled down her sides.

"I don't know what to do, what to think. I don't even know what I'm supposed to feel." She huffed, before pausing, flushing, "Oh, sorry, I kinda just laid that all out, huh. Uh, Hi guys, how are you?' The hydrokinetic battlemage asked sheepishly, before flopping her head back to her legs with a heavy sigh. This was so outside of her element! 

"Bel"
Yukime
@Ard @Erd
Notes:: There you go, she flopped in for assistance. Literally. Beached whale in the middle of their floor.

--------

the Twins

The last thing either of them expected was to be interrupted, especially in the relative safety, quiet, constraints of their very own home. Where, usually visitors waited for one of them, typically Erd, to get the door before entering. Two sets of eyes snapped towards the wooden door as it burst open, however, revealing a cyan and white figure that simply strolled right in, and Erd didn’t miss the way his brother jumped and jerked away from his painting easel, his twin’s nerves alight and burning that particular morning.

Erd stood, a clamber of messy, clumsy movement as he moved away from his work desk, trying to intercept Bel before she can storm in and… And do what?

By now, Ard has shied away from the whirlwind of movement, his eyes narrowed and expression twisted with the urge to hide at the sudden intrusion of their ‘safe space’, and Erd casts his brother a nervous, fleeting glance as he steps nimbly through his mess of projects to the center of the room, mouth parting to speak up and greet Bel properly… Before she promptly crumples to the floor in a fit of melodramatic confusion that neither twin properly understands.

There is a moment where Erd thinks she’s hurt and panics. “Um, Bel?” The question is wrought with confusion and concern, but then the words come, professing romantic trouble of all things, and Erd stops. He is dumbfounded, gobsmacked, blinking with wide, incredulous, comedic turquoise eyes as Bel continues to speak, lamenting her worries and concerns and casting them into the air like snowflakes that they are powerless to catch.

Ard watches the scene unfold with a look that could murder, irritated and bothered at the interruption as he stands from his spot at the easel and moves to the furthest wall of the room, just below the window. Erd lets him go, knowing intimately the way his brother’s nerves and panic race, his post-traumatic stress triggering at sudden movements, loud sounds, and unexpected visitors. Forcing a smile to hopefully let him know he was alright, that they were alright, Erd reaches through their mental bond and soothes his brother’s ire with an invisible caress.

Focusing entirely on their surprise guest, Erd blinks and then lowers himself so that he is resting next to Bel’s crumpled form.

“Well. If it’s relationship advice you’re wanting, Bel, you’ve come to the right place! I happen to be what they call ’a professional’.” Erd’s boast is accompanied by a broad, eager smile, and he ignores the way that Ard snorts in disbelief from his spot beneath the window. “Oh! We’re good! Busy! There’s a merchant in Denocte that wants to buy some of my schematics! Can you believe that? They also want to buy Ard’s paintings but he won’t sell them....”

The elder twin shot a furrowed, mock-glare in his brother’s direction and Ard only arches a single brow, his expression nonplussed, before Erd directs his stare back to Below Zero. “Anyway, so. Boy trouble, you say? Tell me more, start at the beginning. Do I know him? Do we know him?” Then, the boy’s expression darkens with sudden severity, his eyes narrowing with an expression that typically would only be found upon Ard’s grievous maw. “Did he hurt you?”

"Speaking."

B e l o w Z e r o

If Bel's mental state hadn't been so wild, she'd have had manners.

She'd have knocked on the door, asked them if they had time to help her with a . . . problem. And would have been a gracious guest. As it was, there were a many issues with this. One, Bel still wasn't fully sure what a house was. She didn't understand the walls, roof and door. It was a miracle at all she understood that doors were for WALKING through (she had thankfully never tried to enter through a window). So the idea of intruding, of it being rude to just storm in could be . . . hard to accept, understand. A missing bit of cultural information. A part of the being of two different worlds where there was no cross over.

Back home, living in water, the pod slept together in caves or on ice blocks for warmth.

So she'd strolled in, she'd collapsed in a mess of movement, that was at least cautious to not DESTROY anything in their home - she was aware enough to make sure she behaved herself. The question, her named uttered in confusion and concern prompts her explanation, and she misses the dumbfounded look, even as she keeps speaking, the words falling like a waterfall from her mouth, only half coherently put togehter.

Movement catches her eye, Ard and his expression.

She blinks, winces "I've made a cultural error, haven't I?" She asked suddenly, flopping her head back to her arms, her fin folding so flat, it hangs against her neck and back like a webbed mane, "Seems I can't do anything right lately. Like I'm trying to swim south in a northbound current." But Erd lowers next to her, and at his reassuring words, she offers a grateful smile to the smaller stallion, her shoulders, the tension visibly relaxing as she conveniently ignores the disbelief from the other in the room. "You . . You are? A professional! I knew I had come the right way."

Of course, she did ask how they were.

It was only polite after all, and she'd already made a mess of that anyway. She smiled at his words, nodding brightly, "That's brilliant. I'm so happy for you, but I can understand Ard's decision not to sell, as well. I've finally figured out ice sculptures with my magic, and I don't believe I'd ever be willing to just sell anything I make away either." She admitted, welcoming the distraction from the mess of thoughts her mind was made up in.

And then the conversation was back to the start.

Bel sighed, and sat up a little bit more, "Know him? I'm uncertain, but it is unlikely . . . He's a Dawn Court Merchant. Tall Stallion, Black and Gold, with double wings . . . Goes by Sol, short for Sol Bestiam." The image of her best friend sprung to her mind, his easy smile, his caution with her, always looking out for her. His next words had Bel pausing, "Hurt me? No he would nev-" She flinches, remembering the anger, the coldness on Sol's face. Remember his words trying to send her away on the mountain as she begged him to not do so. Their heated, angry exchange in the plains before she'd fallen apart.

She hesitated, she frowned, she looked up.

"Not physically no . . . but our most recent fight had been . . . rough." Her gaze lowered, still remembering that cold stare, the warrior mask Sol had worn, how cold and unfeeling it had been, how it had shaken her to the core. "He would never intentionally hurt me, but . . . words, expressions can be painful too." She sighed, "From the beginning you say? We met two years ago, you know. Exploring the island when it was around, I think? Or maybe somewhere in Ruris, it was so long ago, and we've done so much together . . . we were friends. Best Friends." She explained quietly, her finned ears flat, half curving around the ridge of her horns.

Her gaze lowered once more, hesitant.

Bel sighed softly, her gaze far away, lost to somewhere in her mind, "Sol and I recently went exploring up the Mountain, probably a month or two ago. He said something was calling him there, and in the end he got blessed with magic . . but it was . . . it was terrifying. He was like charged with something, a heat, that burnt out. And he was worried about me, as I'm susceptible to significant health issues if dried out. I tried to reassure, to explain it would be fine, there was nothing to worry about, my own water vapors will rehydrate me. But it didn't matter. He was determined, and we fought, until I walked away and he flew away himself."

She paused, remembered how alone she felt.

It had taken him so long to search her out. "When he finally . . . finally returned, to apologize, I was still angry, afraid. I'd thought he'd abandoned me, that I had lost my best friend. That it was someone else choosing what would be best for me . . . and I said some horrible things. Compared him to people I shouldn't have . . . and he returned every word thrown with his own sharp one ... Erd, I attacked him with my magic, I was so angry - I used my own magic against him. I didn't hurt him of course, I could never, but I did it to purposely make a point, a threat . . . I had threatened my best friend." And his foal . . . The little girl she hadn't realized he had with him.

And he'd been just as angry, so angry.

"We fought, verbally. Back and forth, as he accused me of letting my feelings for the pod, for my past cloud my actions, and he was right of course. It's hard to ignore a broken mate bond, even if it was never completed, and I remember shouting that of course it was going to affect me still, that Shard had been my mate . . . and he . . . Sol, . . . he, he said that he wanted me to be his . . . ." She stared up at her friend, her expression so lost and confused, "We've been friends for years. Sure there were moments that almost seemed flirtatious, but nothing was ever done, no moves made . . . I thought it was just how good of a friend he was to me. That we just clicked well . . . and now . . . now this? He . . ."

She took a deep breath, steadying herself.

"He's devoted to Oriens, extremely so . . . but . . . but he told me that he loves me, that he'd leave Dawn Court for me, that . . . that it would always be me first . . ." She shook her head, "Not even Shard was ever willing to put me first, why would Sol say that? Offer that? For me?" She sighed, "And then . . . then I find out about this foal! A little filly that he's simply taken in, having found her at the base of Oriens' statue. And . . . I . . . I just . . . it's all so new, so different. It's not what I remember, what I'm used to of our friendship. And . . . It's so much all at once, and I don't even know where my feelings are, where I stand."

She sighed, shaking her head.

"All I know, is in that month, thinking that our friendship was over, it was one of the hardest months since I'd been to Novus. I found things to distract myself. I practiced my magic, learning new battle tactics with it. I explored new areas . . . but . . . then, him coming back, him changing the dynamic we had like this. Erd . . . Ard . . . I just don't know what to even think, how to respond. And then I make some sort of social mishap by storming into your room too! And, Oh Starfish! Maybe I'm just not really cut out for this land thing. I feel like a beached whale who can just barely feel the tide on my fluke, but going nowhere fast! I've faced down sharks and krakens, and I get scared by a love confession?

"I'm such a hopeless guppy, aren't I?"

"Bel"
Yukime
@Ard @Erd
Notes:: Is she a mess? Yes, yes she is.