He really hadn’t intended on running so late, but the traffic did little to help that situation. Not to mention that he had fallen asleep due to exhaustion several hours before. there was no reason for him to have been so tardy, and yet here he was, frantically trying to text Poemi back at a red light on the street.
To: Poemi
Subject: (Re:) LATE!!!!!
{ i know i know shit im sorry } { to be fair the traffic is like hell rn } { dont set anyone on fire } { just stay safe for now ill be there soon }
The light ahead, through murky vision (as well as a frost tht starts to form barely on the corners of the windshield. A huff of impatience escapes his lips, and he steps on the gas as much as possible in this situation. He’s off and running, driving rather dangerously in this weather, but his mind (however secular it is) is focused on retrieving his little sister, a task he should have saw to hours ago.
Eventually, he pulls up in front of the girl, unlocking his doors with an expired huff as if he had ran all the way here.
“And why on Earth are you wearin’ shorts?” The blond asks loudly, to speak over the loud moan of wind. “…Never mind that. Sorry ‘bout that, Poemi. Didn’t mean to take so long.” His lackluster apology disappoints even him, but there’s no fixing the past. Vendetto now worries that she might get hypothermia, and sets the heater just a bit warmer to prevent such a thing from happening.
she’s about set to cry when her phone begins to vibrate in her hands. she lowers her gaze to stare at the rhinestone - embellished device, and considers then throwing it into the streets and storming in the opposite direction. she barely restrains herself from doing so, and it continues humming softly against her fingers. silently regretting her choice to even leave her room at all, much less go to practice, she forces herself to move. even sliding a finger across the screen to unlock it exhausts her, and only then it is to silence the cheery chime she had set as her notification tone long, long, ago.
she narrows her eyes at the text, foolishly wondering if she could make it burst into flame if she tried hard enough. she’d seen it happen in movies, and all works of fiction had to have some kind of basis in truth. she’s about to start an angry text back when a car roars past her, almost knocking her over. growling, she prepares herself to yell, then is abruptly silenced when it crawls back and pulls over next to her. cold – no, frostbitten as she is, she would’ve climbed in even if it wasn’t her brother, and she has barely enough time to shut the door before she’s yanked forward, into his seat.
better his seat than the window, she notes. it’s one of the only good things about her habit to always choose the back seat, and as the air warms, she unfreezes her limbs and leans forward to awkwardly prop her arms on his shoulders.
“ Guh, what happened? Did someone die?Did you die ? Poemi was considering lighting herself on fire for a hot minute, y'know ! You coulda least told me ! I mean, beforehand. Before I stepped out and got stranded for two ‘n’ a half hours. ”
picking at a loose thread of her shirt and, at last, slipping the phone back into her pocket, she sighs, almost in disappointment.
“ Why wouldn’t I wear shorts ? 's dance practice, Vendetto – or somethin’ like that, anyways. You can’t wear sweatpants to practice. And it’s not like I could’ve anticipated that she was gonna throw me out early. Sheesh ! ”
shivering, she rubs her shoulders, trying to coax some of the warmth back into her body. a lighter sits snugly in the pocket of tasseled shorts ( why had she thought that it was a good idea to wear shorts ? ), but her fingers are shaking, and she has no doubt that she’d light herself on fire if she attempted to warm herself with an open flame. normally, she’d be angryby now, snarling and raging and demanding answers from any passerby, but fall has just set in, and it’s far too windy to do anything but shudder and whine. not to mention that there are no passerby. not on a day like this, when the sky seems to have closed up, and winds whipped hats from any unlucky tourists ignorant enough to be out.
mumbling a string of incoherent curses to herself, she gropes at the inside of her backpack, eventually withdrawing a phone. long nails slide and click against the screen as she types, angrily tapping a message to the one who was supposed to have picked her up hoursago.
To: LADYKILLER Subject: LATE!!!!!
[ TEXT ] guhhhhh [ TEXT ] do u even know how cold it is?????? [ TEXT ] if i get hypothermia or whatevs im telling daddy it was ur fault - < - [ TEXT ] reeeeeallly tho [ TEXT ] ill set u and ur girlfriends on fire [ TEXT ] make u regret giving me all those lessons on karate fu
Send me a "≈" and my muse will react to yours shoving them into a body of water.
Oh, she knew it was a bad idea to have worn her horns today.
She just has enough time to spin around and catch the eye of her attacker and a blur of green hair before she falls, straight into the mud of the community duck pond. Long arms dart out and grab a clump of grass and she breathes a sigh of relief, struggling to hoist herself out of the sludge.
Spoken too soon.
Maybe she should’ve listened to Rieta when the older girl had advised her to buy boots with actual treads.
“Shit!”
Smooth, white, soles slide against the dark mud slathered over the banks of the pond and she yelps, just surprised enough to pitch her body weight backward again. In a flurry of mud, profanity, and torn clumps of grass, she falls backward, into the pond, into an unfortunate swan. For a few seconds, she thrashes in the filthy water, spluttering and yelling, and then, as if struck by some great revelation, calms abruptly.
Slowly, she sits up, top almost transparent and clinging to her chest, fake horns almost knocked off her head. She’s tall enough so that the pond water only reaches her waist in her position, in the area that she’s in, and that does even more to humiliate her.
Shaking with rage, she wipes a strand of hair out of her face, revealing golden eyes narrowed and almost luminous in the dull morning sun.
“…You.”
When her eyes meet her attacker’s again, she pauses, some of her murderous disposition dispelled and replaced by recognition.
“…Aren’t you that girl who beat the hell out of Emalf…?”
For a moment she looks like she’s about to express admiration instead of hatred, and then the shadow across her face returns and she scowls, slowly making her way to her feet.
“…Poemi, Poemi— —Poemi’s gonna sue the fuck outta you! Me ‘n’ Vendetto– me 'n’ Vendetto, we'll make you wish you’d never been born!”
With a final glare, she turns away and climbs fully out of the pond, hands balled into fists and still mumbling angry strings of curses and threats to herself. It would hardly benefit her if she was arrested so early into the weekend, after all, and she has more than enough time on her hands to plot out who to torment later.
“…Rieta says Daddy’s secretary only has her job ‘cause she's sleeping with him. How gross is that? I mean, she’s so icky! Daddy deserves waaaay better! I know it! D'ya think I should get her fired?”
