There is no mist to shroud his appearance, and her insides quake with the realization that she has no idea what she's going to say. Has to watch him advance, step by step, mind blank and tongue thick in her mouth. She feels small and ashamed beneath his burning gaze, his pointed silence. Like when she was a mere filly and had gotten into a fight with a yearling for saying Alleo was a bad brother. She could still remember the stern expression on his face as he told her that sometimes, you had to let it go. As if it were occurring in that moment, Lakota could recall the indignation she'd felt, how mad she'd been that Alleo hadn't stood up for himself, that she'd gotten in trouble for defending him. Why didn't he understand that she fought because she loved so deeply? She was incapable of expressing it any other way, her heart beat too fiercely, and her soul burned too bright to let anyone sully the name of her loved one. But he had been gentle, if firm, and he had taken her aside and explained that the two of them had a little secret. Lakota and Alleo knew that he wasn't a bad brother. And that had to be enough. It had to be.
In time she would come to understand, and would figure out that he had a double motive, protecting her from the wrath of their parents. A princess did not raise her hand to servants, after all. The dirty work was left to the underlings. She was above such brutality when off the battlefield.
They both had their demons, their reservations, but Lakota hoped that together they could figure it out. They had to. She couldn't live a life without her brother. And maybe she was as selfish as he claimed her to be in his thoughts, maybe he had spoiled her too much in her upbringing. But she was helpless and lost, even as a fully grown adult, without him there to take her hand and guide her along. And maybe that was why she had been so unbearably jealous. Maybe it hadn't been jealousy at all, but fear. Fear because seeing him take Rasta's hand, she'd been so afraid that if he dropped hers, she'd be lost forever.
She looked up at him through a thick curtain of ebony lashes, vibrant violet eyes the only exuberant thing about her in that moment. She felt...minimal. Shrunken and defeated beneath his gaze.
A little filly once more, knobby kneed and still as clueless about the world and how she could possibly belong in it.
"Fratello," she greeted quietly when his silence was too much for her to stand, pressing down painfully upon her shoulders until she felt as if she might stumble and crumple beneath it. And suddenly the words were there, tears thick on her lashes but refusing to let them fall. "Do you remember...do you remember when I got into a fight with that yearling, for calling you a bad brother?" She choked softly, swallowed hard. Wondered if she was really doing the right thing.
"I never thought I'd end up...end up being her." Her knees were suspiciously weak, and she locked them awkwardly like she was bowlegged. Emotions were not her forte. But she would go through hell and back if it meant her brother's forgiveness. Admitting she was wrong was probably the hardest part, for some part of her still adamantly, fervently pressed that she was correct in a lot of what she had done and said. Okay, maybe not done...but the point was the same.
"Mi dispiace tanto, tanto," she choked, shame thick in her throat. No longer able to look into his eyes as she admitted to her wrongs, she glanced down and stared sternly at her hooves as if daring them to give out. "I didn't want you to replace me. I hate her," she spits, even as her vocals tremble with the intensity of her emotions. "Because...because you're my brother. And I was so afraid..." her dainty crown shakes, a curtain of dark locks falling across her features, a shield that she doesn't doubt Alleo can see right through.
Lakota realizes that she's talking way too much, but her tongue is hardly able to stop and she can't seem to restrain herself. "I'm supposed to be an adult. I'm supposed to be okay with you falling in love, with...with you leaving me. But I'm not." A hoarse laugh, bitter and defeated, escapes her. "I'm not, and I'm pathetic for it. I shouldn't lean on you so heavily when you have your own burdens and desires...I was so, so wrong. And I'm sorry." Resolutely she keeps her eyes upon the sleek black of her hooves, how they disappear into the thick caress of the snow. Remembers with a sad curl of bitter nostalgia how much Alleo hated winter.
"I don't expect you to forgive me. And I don't expect you to listen to me cry over my own troubles. I just...I just missed you, fratello." And her voice finds the old notes of the song he used to sing her, that they used to sing to each other. Tremulously she begins to sing, just a single line, sad and wavering. "Non ti scordar di me..."
---
Translations:
Mi dispiace tanto tanto -- I'm so so sorry
Fratello -- brother
Non ti scordar di me -- don't forget me
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[P] when the world gets loud, I get louder
