// I tried to scream but my head was underwater //
The words barely past her lips, that sinking feeling kept pulling her towards the ground. Wishing it would swallow her up and be done with squashing her like a bug, Maea listened to a ringing in her ears that tasted like ashes and copper and crescendoed in a shattering of glass - or at least that's what Flora's tone reminded her of. The way a heel crushed a mirror and twisted, so sharp and clear that cringing was the only reasonable response.
Opening her mouth to apologize, the panic grew when she realized not a sound was coming out. Drawing in more breath, Maea tried again, and managed a weird squawking noise - like her throat was the only part shifted and her only language would be the cawing of a crow from now on. Heat flushed her face, prickling and sticky - with the thin shoulders hiking towards her horns she tore her eyes away, to lock on a rock near those wildly elegant and awfully out of place heels.
"Sorry..."
There was more to be said, more explanation to deliver - she had been talking about herself, to herself, but she'd been staring at Flora so of course the queen would misunderstand - but for all the desperate scrabbling on the inside, all that expressed outwardly was a surly looking reluctance - like a banshee robbed of her voice, reduced to hurling insults after a passersby.
Opening her mouth to apologize, the panic grew when she realized not a sound was coming out. Drawing in more breath, Maea tried again, and managed a weird squawking noise - like her throat was the only part shifted and her only language would be the cawing of a crow from now on. Heat flushed her face, prickling and sticky - with the thin shoulders hiking towards her horns she tore her eyes away, to lock on a rock near those wildly elegant and awfully out of place heels.
"Sorry..."
There was more to be said, more explanation to deliver - she had been talking about herself, to herself, but she'd been staring at Flora so of course the queen would misunderstand - but for all the desperate scrabbling on the inside, all that expressed outwardly was a surly looking reluctance - like a banshee robbed of her voice, reduced to hurling insults after a passersby.
Maea
// They called me weak, like I'm not just somebody's daughter //
