elif
Elif accepts the grin like a gift - one unexpected, one she is pleased to receive. She recognizes something in it, a mixture of sharpness and joy, and tucks the memory of it away.
It has been a long time since the pegasus girl has had friends; she has all but forgotten what it is like. Not since she was a filly slipping away unwatched to run with other slat-ribbed foals in the hot sandy streets, not since she followed her brother as close and loving as his own shadow.
She tries not to think of the possibility now, lest it slip away like one of the desert’s thousand mirages.
“A shame,” she says to O’s remark, but she is still smiling. It only fades as the paint hefts the weapon from her side with the casual air of familiarity, and that look of wonder-and-want creeps into her expression again. She wonders what it might feel like, to have such a weight at her own hip, and thinks unbidden of the black pegasus (and, too, of the bay). No man would threaten her so-armed, she is sure, and she could have her revenge.
By the time O slides it back into its resting-place Elif’s nose had almost been touching one of the sharp sides; now she draws it back with a shake, half-embarrassed. She is glad to have the topic turn again, though it is difficult to pull her gaze away from the hurlbat and its gleaming.
“No. If it’s a Solterran that wins, we’ll hear about it. If it’s anyone else…” she shrugs in a way that says then who cares? and catches the last of that wolfish grin. For some reason having O’s eyes on her doesn’t make her feel like little more than a filly out of her homeland for the first time. It makes her feel braver instead.
Even when she first catches a glimpse of that third eye she does not falter, only blinks her gaze back to the nearer one. Somehow it only makes the night feel a little more like a fairy-tale, and O a little more like someone she wants to call friend.
“What next, then?” she asks, and her wings shift against her sides before tucking tightly. The scarlet wool at her throat looks like a bloody gash and the last of the adrenaline from the maze has not yet ebbed.
She had seen precious little of the maze, but maybe the night had adventures in store yet.
