Isopia had thought, incorrectly as it turned out, that she could steer her friend towards the topics that his mind seemed to naturally flow towards. Or had seemed to flow towards. But he had grown up, and child-like intrigue did not so readily colour his vision. Or perhaps it was just that he was better able to reign in his technicolour dreams and focus on important things. Grown up things. Things like secrets between friends.

..I'm just a kid..
..whether you are just a kid, or not..

"He isn't." Isopia immediately interrupted, her glazed expression suddenly snapping back to life. Her voice was a little more harsh than she had meant it, and so her next few words were noticeably softer. "You aren't." She finished, now addressing Zero. Her eyes wanted to find his, but the tenderness with which the tree reached out to raise his chin, made her turn away.

An' I'm sure you got grown up friends to talk to about that stuff.. His words sliced against her, and she tried her best to not let it show. You are my one and only one, part of her wanted to tell him. That was probably the part of her that Zero most wanted to see, most wanted to know existed. But how could she let herself be that vulnerable? How, when the totality of Isopia's life experience advised against it?

But then the tree was talking again, and even though Isopia was likely supposed to think that becoming a briar patch, untouchable and outwardly thorny, was not something to aspire towards, the idea appealed to her. Couldn't she just be left alone? Fully give herself to the isolation she constantly felt, never having to deal with disappointing one-winged friends who wanted more from her than she could give?

With a faint shimmer of anxiety and desperation in her golden gaze, Isopia looked back towards Zero, wavering on the edge. On the edge of what, you might ask? It was hard to say, hard to even think about, really. For you and me, telling Zero her secrets, while daunting, might not seem impossible. What are friends for, after all? And as we've all noticed, this secret has been driving Isopia a little crazy. Getting it off of her chest probably would help, and who better to tell, than Zero? Zero her oldest (and only) friend. Zero whose loyalty would (probably) never waver. But to Isopia, the edge of do I tell him? felt like a monolith, one which would leave her tumbling down infinitely if she should fall from it. 

The demigoddess extended a wing, mutely and almost as if she were moving underwater, towards where the tree was offering the small aquamarine stone. She couldn't articulate a thank-you, for her eyes were pulled to the stone and the implications of the magic imbued in it. Should I tell him? She thought, and watched as the stone pulsed a muted white colour. But, won't that mean- before she could finish, the soft white light had disappeared, replaced with a murky black shadow. 

Ah. So that's that, then. 

What finally allowed her emotions, rather than her thorny mind to guide her decision, was not her new magic compass, but Zero's almost dejected sounding final few words to her. ..because..yeah... It didn't quite sound hurt to Isopia, but it sounded like it was something nearly as deep and painful. And she felt a puncture in her heart so similar to that she felt when she found out she had been used by Volterra, that the words came tumbling out of her mouth before she even had a chance to think of the consequences.

Her cheeks burned as she spoke, her eyes furtively skirting back and forth, only managing to meet his sunbeam eyes for a few seconds before returning to observe her hooves. 

"Do you remember the day you came to visit me? When it was so cold that we went into my hut to stay warm? There was snow on the ground, and.." She could picture it so clearly. The snow on the ground, the way her heart threatened to explode out of her chest in panic at the thought of someone entering her clearing after what she had just done. She remembered Zero hugging her, asking why everything had to suck. She remembered the way her eyes had latched onto the grave she had dug herself as Zero said these words, and how he had asked her if there was anything wrong. That time too she had tried to distract him, citing her shiny new magic. It had worked then. "I told you I had made a mistake, but that I had taken care of it. The mistake was..was-" a baby. Say it you coward. A dark, insidious voice hissed in the back of her mind. You did this, murderer. Now fess up. "It was...a baby. I was pregnant-" (there was something almost incestuous about talking about pregnancy with Zero. She felt like mentioning sex in the context of her body around him was inappropriate. But that dark part of her, the part that spoke with a voice like a snake, wanted to know if it made him jealous. (If he's old enough to bear your secrets, what else is he old enough for, eh?)). Her quad-horned skull shook. "Creating that life was the mistake. He-" You mean the father? that voice whispered again, and Isopia faltered. How much was she supposed to tell? She didn't know how to tell this secret, how much to include. "He used me, and life ... I couldn't make a life like that."

She swallowed, feeling as though she was sweating through her cape, as if her body had grown an entire shade darker. Whether or not that was true, was impossible to know. She had lost all control on her outer appearance. She might have been crying for all she knew. Everything was a blur.

And she hadn't even gotten to the really bad part yet.

"So I killed it. Or rather .. I didn't let it live. It was so young, I don't even think it's proper to call it alive-" stop making excuses. "-I got into a fight. He stabbed me in the belly..." Isopia could still clearly recall the smile that pushed through her lips, despite the agony of Ashamin's attack. "I thought I was saving it from this world.." Her voice did hitch for a second, and Isopia could feel a tingling in the back of her throat that felt like a scream.

"Not long after you left two fillies and their companions came into the clearing...they dug up the body." Little did she know it was Zero's two baby sisters who had done this. Did that matter? Probably not. "So now it's gone. He's gone, and nothing has been right since."

Her massive shoulders shuttered for a moment, as a racking sigh escaped her lips, her body on the verge of breaking down entirely it seemed. "I thought I was doing the best thing for him...I thought life should be more precious, more intentional."

say it. say it you coward.

"-and I couldn't take the chance the foal would look like him. I don't know that I could have cared for it, if it wore his face."

Or was it that she couldn't have stopped herself from forgiving Volterra, if the child had lived?

How did one signal that they were done bearing their soul? What was supposed to happen now? Was that it? Part of her felt as though she had just ruined something even more precious that the life of the child she had just admitted to murdering. Her relationship with Zero had been so sweet, precious, and innocent. They had been children together, and for a while it seemed that the only thing that would ever change between them were their heights. But now? Now the purity of their friendship was marred in a way that could never come clean: sex, lies, and murder tended to leave a stain.

Slowly her eyes rose, seeking out Zero, and half expecting him to actually look different to her, to match the way his impression in her mind felt different. How would he see her? The thought of him thinking about her in that way with someone else made her want to squirm, but she kept her hooves rooted firmly in the ground (ground which had now climbed up to almost her shoulder).

How could Zero, perfect, curious Zero, love her now?