if looks could kill they probably will

Mythra hates Brighid.

For one thing, she's purple, and purple is the color you pick as your favorite when you're pretending that you're too mature for pink. Even Mythra knows that, and she's only a year old.

It's not like she actually, like, likes purple or anything. Because she doesn't even like pink, there's nothing to like about it. It's all bubblegum-perfect and namby-pamby. Everyone likes pink things, because pink things are soft and cute and innocent and sweet.

Even if Mythra doesn't want to be quite the way she is, all brash and bold and, apparently, hateable for the simpleton she is (ugh), she certainly doesn't want to be like THAT. And sure, Addam's wife wears pink, but she's no pushover. She's stronger than that. Wait, so...what's the point?

Right, Brighid. Brighid is purple not because it's a pretty color, or anything, but because it's the color of royalty. It makes Mythra wrinkle up her nose so hard it hurts. Why's she gotta act all so high and mighty, all the Father-damned time?

Why can't she just treat Mythra with respect? Like an equal? Like a friend?

It's not like Brighid is incapable of being nice. Mythra's seen her be considerate, genuinely caring and feeling, of and for Hugo plenty of times, and Aegaeon too. She's nice to Haze - actually nice, not pretending - and admiring of Lora, and has a friendly rivalry with Jin, and puts up with Minoth's...Minoth, and respects Addam...about as much as he deserves.

(Telling, isn't it, how she treats the so-called royal Tornan team, individually and as a whole? But that doesn't make Mythra feel any better.)

It's not like the only two modes she has are vicious killer dame and docile secretary matron. One more time, for good (or bad) measure: it's not like she's got nothing to her but a stick up her ass and her nose shoved in the air. And Mythra wants so badly, too badly, to see some of the other sides that she knows are there for herself.

Because the worst part is, Brighid is really, really pretty. Sure, Mythra's hair is long, and lustrous, and all those other slightly creepy-sounding adjectives that remind her of Amalthus's icky ilk, and it reflects her element perfectly, all gold and bright and shiny-loud, but her hair isn't, like, on fire. It doesn't have an ombré effect from root to tip. It doesn't look like it would be so soft and wispy to run her hands through, when the light of the actual fire was shining on them and everyone else had gone to sleep...

Architect damn it all. No. Mythra hates Brighid. She doesn't hate to love her, she doesn't love to hate her, she just. Hates her. Just wants the annoying, snooty, pretty, intelligent, fascinating Fire Blade out of her sight.

Why'd they even have to join up with the Ardainians, anyway? It isn't like Hugo adds anything to their team. All Aegaeon does is protect his precious majesty, and let Brighid lash out (literally) at everyone else, just because she's the Jewel of the Empire, one of the most powerful Blades in Alrest, and so composed, and so perfect, and so...

So. Goddamn. Annoying.

It makes Mythra nervous to walk in front of her, because she knows, she just knows, that Brighid will make some stank-eyed comment about the length of her dress, or the way her heels get kicked-up-covered in mud (somehow, even when they're trekking in the desert), or the way her calves are kinda skinny and useless because she's only one year old and she sure skipped leg day at least fifty (it's probably three hundred, by Brighid's standards) of those potential times.

Because Brighid is perfect. Brighid's dress goes all the way to the ground (and somehow it only makes Mythra enamored, instead of steamed, when she blames a slip of the hem for tripping on it and costing them all several minutes of backtracking), and her heels are made of literal blue supernova fire, so they're never dirty, and her calves, or whatever the muscles are under the, again, literal fire that makes up her boots, are, like, the objectively most correct shape.

(Brighid also has a nice butt. And Mythra isn't sure what exactly she likes best about girls, because holding hands seems like it would be nice, but so would kissing, and also maybe cuddling, and, like, uh, whatever...so Mythra doesn't exactly like walking behind Brighid either.)

Most obvious of all in this whole horrible, horrible mess is that Mythra is so definitely nowhere near the age (like, how many seconds have you been alive and kicking, ticking, on any of Alrest's titanic earth, not your mental age) that she, quote, "should" be, if she's going to do any of those things with Brighid. She hates to admit it, but it's true. The thought of being in any kind of long-standing relationship with Brighid, Little Miss Ardainian's (Miss Mor Ardain, more like) other issues well and wholly aside, is pretty weird.

Doesn't make her crush feel any better to deal with, though. If anything, it makes it worse. Because whenever Brighid's yelling at her, and Mythra's feeling like an actual child and perhaps that she indeed should feel that way, now she's got to look at Brighid's chest. It's not exactly like she can say that her eyes are up there because, well...they're not!?

Are they?

Does Brighid ever look at her?

Does Brighid ever think about her in any other way?

It's not like she should, really. Mythra barks back at her with the Ardainian dog leash jokes and the throwing of bones and the backhand-bait compliments just as often as she gets bit by Brighid's acerbic tongue. Mythra...acts exactly the way Brighid says she does.

Because of course Brighid's always right. Always, always, always right.

Haze offers to arrange for them to tour some hot springs in Auresco's entertainment district, and Brighid, who hates getting wet when it's raining but who always talks about taking long, hot showers to relax (why doesn't she make any sense why doesn't she make any SENSE), and has her own hot springs back home in ye old hot place where everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has a stick up their ass, says that it sounds "delightful".

What an elegant way to say it. Delightful. Of course it is. And Mythra, who wasn't even thinking about going because she hates hates hates when her fingers get pruny and it takes a long time for her to be dry enough to get back into her actual armor, like such a ninny little wimp, calls after them, "H-hang on just a minute! C-can I go too?"

In response (not to say reciprocation, not ever to say reciprocation), Brighid lays exactly one cool, flame-blue palm on Mythra's shoulder, and says, "Of course you can, Mythra. I'd love to have you." The warmth is all real, all hearten, all shivers. She didn't use the royal we or even the normal one. She said I. I'd love to have you.

(And she's not even the one hosting! Priss.)

So Mythra melts, and it's not because of the fire, or the flame, or the steam.

Oh, Mythra hates Brighid so much. So, so much.