[P] god said let there be light on the day i was born

[Hagar]

if i love you is that a fact or a weapon

T

oday, I am restless: the hood of my robe slung back over my shoulders so that it hangs, heavy, opposite the basket that I'm filling with apples. The salesperson tells me--and does so proudly, metaphorically beating his chest--that his daughter-in-law, in the south, grows them out of season.

She speaks to the trees, or something like it. he says. They're always perfect and ripe when we're ready to pick them. I smile at him as fondly as I can, but don't answer. I don't care about this man, or his apples, or his daughter-in-law in the south. I am out today only because Pilate is busy, as Pilate often is, and I cannot stand to watch him look so fretful and worn when I can do nothing to stop it.

--That, and Miriam has looked for me, once or twice. Several times this month I have been painting, bowls of oranges or a vase that I fill with lilies and prop up on a stool to make more interesting, and I have felt eyes on my back. Always, when I look up, I see a brief flash of red in her window before the curtains are drawn shut. I am tired of Miriam making me ache. I am tired of Pilate making me ache, as well.

The coins clatter on the rough wood of the counter as I drop them, smiling the way my mother would have liked: soft eyes with the lower lid tucked up just slightly, mouth in a shallow, polite curve-- nothing more, and certainly nothing less. As I am turning to go, I hear it:

Are you looking for something, princess? The word, though as true as it gets, shoots straight up my spine like a spear. I think, I do not get called 'princess' nearly enough.

Apolonia is striking-- almost buttercup yellow set against the warm, pale shine of the pattern stretched over it like a web. For a moment, I fail to crawl toward any sense of decency, lost in the wood-brown curl of her hair. I smile like a cat curled around a grenade, lips pressed tight together and eyes that finally float off of her shape to the street over her shoulder. "If I am?"

I think, I definitely do not get called princess enough. I think, as I look at her axe, intricate and sharp, that I only half-believe it was her. I do not think about Isabella Foster or her fascination with weapons or her eyes like stormwind.

"I am." I search for something, anything, to answer-- though I doubt it will matter. "What would you buy with some fresh apples? I want to treat myself."

HAGAR of HOUSE IESHAN

@Apolonia