It brings me great pleasure to see her face contort at the sight of me, onyx features souring into irritation as I near her. A smile draws over my lips, shit eating and sly— as much as I wanted to wring her neck for being momentarily better than me, my mood significantly improved at the sight of her displeasure. "Come on now, I'm the one who should be making that face. You just won something against me." I emphasize me because— it's me. Obviously it's a big deal she won something when I was there, I'm sure if I hadn't blanked out and been a fucking idiot (stupid), I would've been the one winning the magic (but I didn't because I'm a spacey moron). And we hadn't officially been competing head to head for that orb, but I certainly felt there had been sparks of competition in the way our voices dropped and eyes met, surrounded by so many others but focused solely on one another.

Listening to her laugh makes my ears fall back, a moment of disgust falling over skeletal features at the sound of it. Did she ever laugh? With the harshness of her chuckle I was almost assured the answer— no. She's just as cold as I remember. "Yeah okay, call me King Chickenshit and we have a deal." The sarcasm oozes between the words, dripping from my lips as bubblegum rolls in response to her demands. Like I'd ever actually call her a queen, she's definitely something less— nice, something far less powerful and pleasant as a queen. Besides, queens are normally the pretty, deceiving counterparts to hetero kings, with their dolled up faces and gentle etiquette. They were the wise whispers to a tempered king, keen and quiet in their work— they were not weak or foolish (at least not all), with wicked plots and full control, they could do as they pleased and look as innocent and feeble as ever.

This girl seemed everything of the sort, guided to a future of deception and cunning— but she had a hidden rage that no queen does. Perhaps instead of a queen she's something associated less with kind royalty and more with raw power— an empress? Ha, not. She's probably a witch with wrinkled green skin and hairy moles, one who'll point her twisted finger in your direction and murmur some bullshit and peer at you from crooked eyes before turning her back and disappearing into the night. Sounds about right.

I didn't expect her to ask me a question (let alone three), my eyes drawn to her marred face as the words stumble from onyx lips. Grey roams over my stout figure as the words roll from her tongue, eyes wandering over my aging body as she finishes speaking and tilts her crowned head in confusion (the same way a dog would). I grin at her, brushing past the first question (yeah there's a button, right up your ass haha) in favour of the second, all more appealing question. "Yes I do, I've got the magic ability to make everyone I meet love me!" I bat my lashes and the shit eating grin only spreads, a low chuckle falling from bi-coloured lips as I await her reaction. "Just kidding, that's just my natural charm." I wink for emphasis, bull shitting my way along. I'm actually fairly certain a good fraction of Helovia's population hates my guts (even if I've never met them) for all the shit I said when I was younger and stupid (still am, always will be).

"No, my actual magic is this." Hooves feel over the earth as I search for a stone, running over a few pebbles but nothing impressive, my brows knitting momentarily as I decide on a sizable rock. Positioning myself so that she could see my entire left side, I make sure everything is in position— glancing at her to make sure she's still paying attention— and raise my left hoof. The leg draws back as my body falls into such a familiar routine, the comforting pop of my leg as it locks into place, cocked and ready— in an instant it snaps forward, releasing the tension built up in the muscles of my thigh as my hoof strikes out against the stone and launches it through the air. With my neck twisted to view it fly, I listen to the sound of it hit something off in the distance, swallowed up in the trunk of some ancient tree (probably). Macabre marked head swings in subtle excitement as I look at her, hoping for a genuine reaction (not something shitty, although I could take that too I guess) to my display of magic. "It was a while ago that I learned about it," I remember the day very clearly though, only because that was the same day I met the Mountain. She had ushered me to practice aiming with the help of her magic (gifted from her father), but being the little shit I was, I told her off— told her that I didn't need any sort of help from someone like her. I wish I could find her again, to show her that I've overcome Mother's sickening grasp on my opinions and flourished into my own person. "It came to me like an itch, an urge. It was like my body was telling me 'do this!' As I had no idea what 'this' was, I tried to relax and let that feeling build up to see what would happen, and my body performed the act on its own. Now it's just something I can ease into, it's kinda become muscle memory." I shrug my shoulders as my lips closed and the sentence ended, as I don't know shit about this topic. Yes, I've got magic, but that doesn't mean I know anything else about it— I'm not some magic guru who after learning about it, spent years (hell, I'm not even a year old) researching it and mastering it. I have no idea if other people experience the same feeling when they earn their magic, if they let their body perform it on its own or spend hours contemplating the approach they should take to unlock the secrets behind it.

"Talk."

kid

run my reputation.