Fantasy ☾ eclipse of the heart.| (syntra + starboob = synboob.)

[starboob]

Ah, shucks! Sol wishes with all her hearts that she could bend time and tell her past self to bring her camera on this excursion, because not only has she seen so many new things that she'll have to sketch out from memory later, Selene is being so amazingly sweet to her and she wishes to document the moment. While this isn't necessarily something she can even sketch or contain to a single photograph she wants some form of visuals for her bullet journal and eventual scrapbook commemorating the start to their friendship journey. Like, Sol cannot imagine another possible reason or motive for Selene being so nice to her and comparing her to a frigging butterfly! Those are some of her favorite insects because of their ability to change and transform––the symbolism potential is just great, so she sees it as a great compliment. Once again, she is really glad that Selene cannot see her face because her cheeks are Flamin' Hot Cheetos (those sound really good... Why doesn't the Sun court have any of those?). "Gee, you really think so? You remind me of a rhinoceros beetle, because you're so cool and strong."

Now, Sol may be in short supply of the precious resource known as "brain cells," but she's pretty sure Selene is messing with her when she starts talking about the depths of Luna's horse girl depravity. She lost her when she claimed that the moon queen neighs and whinnies like a horse, but she won't completely discredit Selene's insider knowledge. So she makes a note of this little factoid and will ask her mom about it later––like, she figures the moon daughter knows more about Luna than her arch-nemesis, but at least her mom will get a good kick out of it. Sol herself is having a hard time containing her laughter and the only reason she is, is because they're outside of the stables and she doesn't want to blow their cover.

Selene, however, does not seem to have gotten the memo that they really need to hush-up, because everyone knows that animals have notoriously good hearing! She's about to cover her soon-to-be friend's mouth, but they've already been made and Sol's eyes are freaking pizza (?) sized and her heart is beating faster than Lightning McQueen (?) can speed. "Crap, crap, crap, crap––Selene your dumb ego got us made!" (She'll apologize about this later, because she doesn't like to be so mean, but sometimes these sort of things just slip out and she has to remember to forgive herself for her slip-ups.) At least Frosty is playing it safe. 'Lucky... I wish I could made of snow and pretend to be a statue,' because the prospect of being a horse's toy is not exactly filling her with joy. Like, maybe if these were sharks or orcas or bears, she could be a little more enthused but these are McFreaking horses!! She didn't even know horses could be so frigging large––like, she guesses it makes sense that moonicorns are bigger than usual horses because they're magic and for some Sun forsaken reason, the magical world is Obsessed with size. (And no, Helia is not pleased that her spawn is a paltry 168 cm.) This is just unexpected, because the bestiary said nothing about this and sunicorns haven't existed since Helia decided they were untrustworthy and opted for the giant elephants.

Anyway, Sol is pretty sure one of her lungs is about to blowout because of how much air she's holding in, as if not breathing will make her invisible. 'Dang, I should have paid attention when Aquila was teaching me how to bend light.' Before Sol even knows it, she's sitting atop one of the moonicorns and she's scared to look down or just generally open her eyes. "Uhh, well, what if I told you that I'm scared of heights? Would you put me down?" She's not scared of heights, btw, she just hates heights when she's on top of a horse––the monster could freaking buck her off at any moment without remorse! (She doesn't even realize she's in a great position to lob off the moonicorn's horn with her bolo.)

And, as if reading Sol's thoughts, the moonicorn––Gladys, she thinks––replies, "I am not going to buck you off. That would be a waste of a good new human. No, no, just play your part and everything will be just fine, sweetling. Here, in a show of good faith, I will take you inside. You must be practically frozen to death, sunshine."

Sol is not comforted by the sunshine references. Like, yes she is very cute and a ray of sunshine with or without her lineage, but to be in the moon court? Among the highest clerks in the realm (according to Frosty)? She, uh, isn't sure if this is a totally great position to be in. 'Maybe... maybe it's just coincidence.'

As she's taken inside of the stable she looks backwards towards Selene with a desperate plea in her eyes (that she realizes her companion cannot see). She watches as one of the other horned horses picks up the princess, places her on another moonicorn's back, and she's taken led inside as well. Now, inside of the stables isn't exactly warm, but it's warmer than outside, so she is sort of glad that they're inside of a shelter. "I guess this is better," she admits, "but, um, I'm not really... a horse, er, moonicorn, rider. I think there are better, uh, toys out there and I think I am a little small for this role."

"Nonsense, within every girl there is a horse girl hiding. Do not be ashamed of this side of yourself. We shall train you diligently and you shall live here forever. Isn't that just fantastic? And generous, too. How will you repay us?"

"Uhhh," Sol hesitates and looks over at Selene, "I can grow you a nice carrot patch, I guess?"

"Disgusting! Bleh!" the moonicorns exclaim in unison.

"We are not our simple cousins, the horse," Gladys continues, "We require other sustenance. I am thinking, perhaps we shall chop off your legs. That way, we get fed and you will appreciate our bond much, much more."

 

[Syntra]

Horses. In the eyes of some, they were beautiful, ethereal beings-- creatures spun out of moonlight, perhaps, and bringers of good dreams. Selene, however? Selene knew that women who thought that to be true were full of shit. (Just, ugh. Have you ever been close to an actual horse? The things - yes, things, because they deserved no other label - smelled worse than one year old potato salad, and nope, you did not want to encounter something like that. You really, really didn't! One would have thought, then, that since they were this unpleasant to be around, they'd at least understand the concept of humility-- since, you know, they objectively sucked on so many levels. 'I am an eyesore, yes, and machines made my very existence obsolete, but pls, pls, love me!' A logical line of thought, right? Except that logic didn't apply here, ladies and... ladies. Not only had the horses not gotten the memo about their uselessness, but they'd also somehow arrived to the conclusion that they were the secret rulers of the universe, actually--the benevolent goddesses, looking down at the unworthy beings below. Which, unforgivable! Those who lived in delusions deserved to be strangled by them, slowly, till their lips turned blue.)

...speaking of additional unforgivable things, though? The way one of those monstrosities grabbed Sol was pretty disrespectful, alright. As in, the girl was still a princess, and thus miles above them in status. How dared they? Only Selene could treat her with such open disrespect, thank you very much, and-- ah. "What are you doing?" she demanded to know when her own feet left the ground, distinctly against her will. "Do you know not who I am, filthy creatures? You shall be cursed, by the dead and living alike. No mirror will ever show you your own reflection again, and like ghosts you will wander through your lives, wondering what even happened to you. That is the fate of those spurned by the moon herself!"

Somehow, despite not seeing their pathetic, elongated faces, Selene could sense the smirk. "Oh?" one of the horses snorted. "Look at this one, girls! A feisty specimen to be sure. Ah, breaking her should be fun, fun, fun! What do you recommend? Should I hack off her limbs, or maybe feed her own entrails to her?"

"Don't be such a boor, Karen. Don't you know that humans don't re-grow their limbs? Her missing her hands wouldn't really impress the judges. Like, you know how strict their criteria for evaluating humans' worth are! ...speaking of which, it seems that your toy already is broken. Poor little dear, she doesn't have eyes!"

"What?" the horse, previously called Karen, shouted. "I... I got a defective unit? Aww, man, I am not about that life. Why don't you take her, Amelia? Her lack of eyes will go well with your lack of intellect."

"You wicked, wicked witch!"

And, before Selene had the chance to truly understand that she was being called defective goods by a bunch of overgrown horses? The voices that reached her ears did not exactly fill her with warm, fuzzy feelings. (Legs? Sol's legs? Oh no, no, no, the moon daughter needed her intact-- not only because Helia wouldn't thank her for losing about 30% of her heiress, but also because failing in such a catastrophic way wouldn't win her any favors with the girl herself. Which, newsflash! Manipulation involved getting the person to actually like you, shockingly enough. ...unless she managed to perform lobotomy on the girl? That way, perhaps Selene could install false memories into her brain, and... no. No, the moon princess couldn't rely on gimmicks here! What she needed was a strategy-- a foolproof escape plan, really.)

So, it's just me, her, and so many horses it would make My Little Pony script writers weep tears of joy. Selene didn't actually know what 'MLP' was, mind you, but what she did know was how this scenario would end-- with her trampled under the hooves, and Sol eaten nonetheless. Curses! Unless... hmm, hmm. A plan hatched in her head, you see, and it was a plan so good that thinking about the consequences for a few seconds would have been a crime. No, too much planning was for cowards! The moon always struck when the opportunity emerged, and not a second later. Such was the nature of a hunter, you see? So, without hesitation, Selene jumped, landing on Gladys' back! (Automatically, one of her arms wrapped around Sol, but that was just for stability, geez. Just, don't read too much into it. Her other arm, however? Swiftly, she took a swing, and with her claws, Selene almost severed the horn. ...blood was gushing from the open wound, like from some morbid mountain, though the moon daughter? The moon daughter could only smile, even as Gladys' cries resonated in her ears.)

"Carry us far away from your useless friends, horse," she commanded. "Otherwise I'll chop the thing off where we stand. Well? This is yout last warning!"

 

[starboob]

There Selene goes again, babbling on and on about her self importance. (Which makes Sol wonder how important she really is/how fragile her ego is, because usually when people need to keep reiterating an obvious point, they’ve got MAJOR emotional wounds. Hmm, hmm. Maybe Sol can apply some metaphoric Pokémon (?) bandages to her not-friend's metaphoric wounds? That is one of the tenets of friendship, after all. If she is hoping for friendship, she must act like a friend.) This will probably get them into even more trouble just like with Rex earlier, Selene almost getting herself living sacrificed, blowing their cover, etc. Like, Sol obviously doesn’t care about trouble or being reckless but it is surprising she is somehow not the one getting them into more poopoo. Well, she will admit she did start them on this path and Selene seems to be paving the way forward. ‘I frigging knew we were going to be a dream team, but we're going to need to take turns on being the chaotic one because clearly our combined efforts are just way too much for this realm to handle.'

Of course, Sol might not have to worry about taking turns or even having much of a life left if Gladys is so insistent on eating her legs!! She's pretty sure horses are supposed to be herbivores, but apparently they get a weird single little horn (which only look cool on narwhals and rhinos, btw) and suddenly they've expanded their freaking range!

"Well, I'm not really sure I want my legs eaten, Gladys," Sol says, hands on her hips––but only for a second because she realizes how hard it is to balance on one of these things when the saddles are way too frigging big. She grips the little... saddle handle or whatever it's called for balance and continues, "There are a million other ways for us to bond that don't involve maiming me and might actually do more to gain my trust and companionship. You can't force these things, mate. How about friendship bracelets?"

"Hmm, no. I like my idea better. I'm eating human drumsticks tonight and there is actually very little you can do to stop me," Gladys says, apparently not about that true friendship life. She trots over into the kitchen area and Sol is honestly a little curious how this is going to go down because horses/moonicorns definitely don't have the hands/dexterity to wield knives and stuff.

But then, she feels the impact of someone landing behind her and when she feels Selene's arm looped around her waist? Uh, well, all she can think is, 'Omg omg omg omg... pretty girl. Pretty girl touch me. Pretty. Girl. Are we friends? She's so pretty and she's touching me!!!' and about a zillion other rapid fire stupid thoughts zip through her mind, leaving her completely slack against said pretty girl (Selene). The trance is only broken when splatters of red splash across her face and sting into her eyes. She winces and her mind slowly catches up with reality, realizing that Selene has once more decided to default to violence by attempting to chop off Glady's horn (who is now shrieking so loud that Sol can hardly hear herself think). "Selene!" she shouts, shocked but not angry. Actually, she sounds more impressed than anything else, because this actually does seem like a valid situation to use a little violence. As a treat. (Okay, it's very possible Sol doesn't know what pacifism is.)

Gladys, on the other hand, is still shrieking, whipping her head around, and probably trying to buck them off. (Too bad for her that this isn't Sol's first rodeo and instinctively, she pulls Selene arm around her tighter then clutches the saddle and grips with all her strength.) "You bitch!" the moonicorn cries, continuing her jerking, "You will pay for this! Amelia! Karen! Don't just stand there, you useless dolts, help me! Control your filthy toy!"

"Ah, right!" Karen says, scrambling over to Gladys and... Well, Sol isn't sure what her plan is, because she doesn't give enough time to find out. See, her arm is already buried in her bottomless bag (literally) as searches for any throwable object she might have on her person. Her fist closes around some abandoned sand from one of her spilled jars and she hurls it into the second moonicorn's eyes, shouting, "Sandslash!"

Appropriately, Karen cries out and starts thrashing her head around but it doesn't really do anything to get the sand out of her eye. Neither does rubbing her face in the hay. (Wow, moonicorns sure are dumb.) Meanwhile, Amelia stands there with a look of utter bewilderment on her face, useless as a hideous statue. It's clear she doesn't know how to proceed and since she remains so frozen, Sol decides to spare her the sand to the eye treatment. She turns her attention back towards Gladys, kicking her heels into the creature's side, "Alright, bucko, you better take us far away from this place if you want your horn to stay intact! My rival is not scared to turn you into a regular ol' horse. Yip yip!"

Honestly, Sol hadn't been sure that that would work, but the moonicorn seems to know defeat and bolts out of the stable, tramples over Frosty (Reese's in pieces), and speeds into some unknown direction. The icy air slices into her cheeks and she can barely see the scenery around them as they rush through the moon realm. It's all just blurs of white and smudges of what she assumes are trees. "H-hey, where are we going?"

"To the mothericorn, obviously, you brats need some serious breaking!"

'Uh-oh.'

 

[Syntra]

Privately, Selene had to admit that… well, that holding Sol wasn’t as terrible as she’d pictured it. Not that she had pictured it before, mind you-- it had just floated somewhere in her mind, along with all the other hypothetical, but technically possible scenarios. (You know, things like her suddenly sprouting wings. For a future goddess, such a thing wasn’t totally out of question, and Selene felt she had to prepare herself mentally for every occasion out there. So what if the chance of her ever embracing Sol seemed to be hovering around 35% at most? As a future monarch, it had been her duty to envision it, thank you very much, and so that was exactly what she had done… mostly at nights, because that was when she’d been able to get some time for herself. Hahaha, nothing suspicious about that at all! As always, the moon daughter was the very definition of cool and pragmatic, so literally every action she had ever taken could be traced back to a Justified ReasonTM. Nothing to see here, really.) …but, yeah. She was here now, Selene supposed, and very much holding Sol. Was it… was it normal to be so hyperaware of one’s body all of a sudden? Most likely not, since the moon princess had had her body for a while now and this was most definitely a new sensation. I bet Helia has something to do with this, she concluded. The bitch had done something to her, that much was obvious-- the lava was still coursing through her veins, oh, it was, it was, and Selene could only guess what its true purpose might have been. (Had it reprogrammed her instincts, maybe? Rearranged her priorities? That, at least, would have explained why she had jumped at her defense so quickly, without questioning whether the moon heiress’s death wouldn’t have suited her plans better. Hmm, hmm. An interesting question, to be sure.)

“Less screaming, more obeying,” Selene recommended to the horse, royally annoyed by her antics. Did she not know that, when your life was threatened, the reasonable thing to do would be to cave in? To bend for a while, so that you could fight back later? Of course, it would have been naïve to assume that the creature could see beyond the immediacy of now and here-- Selene wouldn’t be surprised if their mount couldn’t even see the relationship between putting its ugly hoof on a stove and getting burnt, let alone decipher the mysteries of such complex interactions. Hell, considering its brain capacity, it probably continued to be shocked that it had to consume food in order to stay alive! …what did take her aback, though, was the fact that Sol apparently knew how not to be useless, when she wanted to. (Sand in the eyes? Pretty vicious, and not at all what she’d been expecting from Miss Violence-Is-Bad! Maybe she was more of a Miss Violence-Is-Sometimes-Valid, actually, which offered her… hmm, a plethora of new, exciting possibilities. Wouldn’t it be so much fun, after all, if she got her to target her ire at Helia? Some old-fashioned matricide never hurt, after all-- well, not unless you were the mother in question, but that was kinda the point. Just, imagine the political turmoil! The signs and constellations followed Helia blindly, and to find her murdered, by her own daughter’s hand… The Stockholm syndrome was so strong with them, Selene imagined, that it would shake their loyalty to its core. Divide and conquer, huh? And, ah, it would be so easy to crush a court divided, still reeling from the betrayal!)

“Take us outside,” the princess commanded. “Do it, or I shall feed you your own blood. Do you wish to discover all the health risks associated with auto-cannibalism, or…?” Again, a reasonable creature’s response would have been ‘oh no, please, let me live, most enlightened Selene,’ but this was a horse they were dealing with, for better or worse. ‘Reasonable’ probably wasn’t even in her dictionary, because there was no space in it due to all the synonyms for ‘hay’! “Mothericorn? What is this utter nonsense?!” Selene yelled. “You have disappointed me thoroughly, you pathetic, long-necked, smelly stain on the face of--”

“Who dares disturb the mothericorn’s slumber?” a voice boomed, so rich in texture and strong that the snow around them melted. What on earth…?

“Ah mother, great mother, before you, I bring vicious murderers-- the ones who did this to my precious horn.” Selene hadn’t thought it possible, but in that moment, she could swear that the temperature dropped by a couple of degrees.

“What?” From behind the trees, a shadow emerged, and… uh. If the moon princess wasn’t getting her aura readings terribly wrong, then the creature was covered in horns! (Large and hulking it appeared, indeed-- a giant among giants, with each of its movements generating shockwaves of fear. Everything, everything in its path ran! A wise move on their part, Selene supposed, for its strength seemed to be positively monstrous.) “Are you speaking the truth, child? Is that what they did to you? Ah, I can tell it is! I feel your anguish, and it is my anguish as well. Alright, then. Don’t worry-- mommy will make everything better. And you, two-legged abominations!” she shrieked, every last drop of kindness disappearing from her tone at once. “Do you know where our horns come from? Why we pride ourselves on them so much?”

“Because you have nothing else going on for you?” Selene took the risk, figuring they had little to lose. Enraged enemy was a stupid enemy as well, so if she could get her frothing at the maw, that would be just splendid! …except that, no, her taunt didn’t seem to be working at all.

“No,” the mothericorn smiled, revealing a row of large teeth. “For each human we slay, we take one of their bones, and let them grow in our bodies. We recycle them, as Mother Nature intended. And for your crimes, you wretches, you shall give my daughter a beautiful new horn!”

 

[starboob]

Yikes. Yikes, yikes, yikes!! As if normal horses aren't bad enough, as if moonicorns are not the total buttholes Frosty (Reese’s in pieces) made them out to be, there’s an actual mothericorn?! (Sol has the sneaking suspicion that this mothericorn will not be like the primordial mothers they had met, like, an hour or so ago. Again, the phrase about apples and falling from the tree comes to mind and somehow the sunbeam suspects that the moonicorns did not grow legs, walk away from the tree, and become peaches. They probs have all just made the apple orchard even that much more insufferable.) Even if Sol is quite the charmer and definitely worthy of bringing home to any mom, she doubts the mothericorn is going to be weak to her Sol-ness. She'll probably sense her horse-hatred from a mile away and that... that will earn her a one way ticket getting kicked with one of those awful, awful hooves. (Secretly, Sol imagines that horses actually have hands like people and that their hooves are just gloves. When no one is watching, in the privacy of their stables or the plains, they shake off their hooves and reveal real human hands... She mostly thinks this because their eyes are very untrustworthy and have you seen their teeth? They are far too much like giant people teeth for comfort. Yes, horse girls truly are sinister, sinister creatures and have take the obsession way too far.)

So despite Sol's mental preparations and taking an odd comfort in her companion's yelling (it makes her feel like at least one of them is brave), nothing in this entire universe could have prepare Sol or her eyes for what she is witnessing. She can barely take in the mothericorn in her entirety, not only because she is so frigging large but because Sol's brain is still rattling around in her noggin from each of the giant creature's subtle movements. "Gulp," she says, having forgotten how to gulp, apparently. She regrets making fun of horses with horns now, because this monster? She puts ankylosauruses, porcupines, hedgehogs, and all the other spiky creatures to shame. 'She sure has killed a lot of people...' "Selene, I really don't think this is the time for your lip," she whispers, surprised that she has to be the voice of reason. Like, yeah, she has no doubt they're going to make it out of this alive, if only because they are two young goddesses destined to become the most powerful beings/rulers in the universe, but it still doesn't seem wise to make their situation worser. On the sly, Sol tries to wipe her face of Gladys's blood to make herself seem like less the culprit. She'd recommend Selene do the same, but, well, this is Selene and in their short time together she has come to realize her companion marches to the beat of her own drum as much as Sol does. She respects it.

"Uh, Lady Mothericorn, your horniness," she really could not resist that one, "In our defense, Gladys started it, so I don't think we should be punished for that. You see, we were just... in the area and her and her friends, like, totally tried to kidnap us which is a major felony. So, um, let's just say we're even?" As a future monarch, she figures she should try to flex some of those diplomacy muscles.

"A felony?" the mothericorn snorts, laughing and the sound is like several oddly aspirated wheezes that does not sound much like a laugh at all. It's so ugly and Sol really hopes she will never have to hear it again. "You buffoon, there is no such thing as a felony here. Not when Luna, our most lustrous queen, has given our valiant lineage her blessing to do as we please. Gladys, my darling, would you like mummy's help? Or can you do this on your own?"

At that point Sol has checked out of the conversation. Gladys may or may not be talking and the mothericorn may or may not be saying more stuff in response. Sol, again, is not paying attention. Instead, she's assessing their situation. So a mothericorn and a damaged moonicorn versus Sol and Selene, future rulers of the luminary thrones. The odds should be in their favor, but that doesn't mean they should just rest on their laurels and do diddly and squat. "Hmm," she turns halfway to look at Selene over her shoulder, whispering, "You like playing offense, right? You seem more like a DPS player than a tank or healer, so I'm thinking if you can handspring yourself onto the mothericorn and take out some of those horns we probs stand a better change. She's so big and dumb and full of horns, I'm sure it'll be easy to avoid her attacks. Like horses just don't have that cat/dog flexibility. I'll work on Gladys and then set up a trap to trip the horny one; if we can get her on her side, she'll be way more vulnerable." (Wow, did Sol, queen of stupid, really just come up with a fully baked plan? Yes. Yes, she did. If other people think she's Full Stupid™, that's on them. She may not spend all her efforts learning rules and structure, but that doesn't mean her head is totally empty. Like, where else would she store all of her frog facts? Not up her butt, that's for sure!) "You in or you out, moonie?"

Well, it's not like it matters whether or not Selene is in, because suddenly Gladys is shifting around and Sol finds herself toppling off the saddle and falling onto the hard, permafrost earth (thanks to the mothericorn having melted all the snow within a mile radius). "Oof," she mumbles, flipping onto her back and looking into the soulless eyes of the injured moonicorn. The thing smiles and it's so frigging jarring, because it doesn't smile with its tiny horsie mouth!! Somehow Gladys's lips stretch back like a dog's, showing her obnoxiously large teeth, "I told you I was having human legs for dinner, sunshine."

"Fat chance!" Sol retorts, grabbing a soaked branch lying next to her and swinging it towards Gladys––mostly to get her to back off, she knows she's gotta get to that stupid, stupid horn first and finish what Selene started. "Selene, I got this," she calls to her rival in order to reassure her, figuring that Selene probably does care about her safety since she came to her rescue earlier. "I'll help with the mothericorn after I neutralize this weirdo!"

 

[Syntra]

Stupid mothericorns! Did everything in this world need to have a mother? A clear-cut beginning, and a sharply defined end? A mother, Selene had learned, was often both-- the one that had brought you forth, yes, but also the one that would bury you. ('Isn't that a mother's right, Selene?' Luna had used to ask, after she'd tied her to the ceiling and watched her blood drip on the carpet. Plonk, plonk, plonk.) 'Well? Answer me, girl. Has a cat gotten your tongue?' 'N-no,' she had said, gritting her teeth through it. 'You're right, mother.' And, the saddest thing about it? That, in the moon princess' mind, it was 100% true-- the very essence of the universe, powerful in its simplicity. Who, after all, had the right to end you, if not your creator? ...that was why she had to end her first, of course. To wear the crown, you had to usurp the throne, and along with that, the power of creation! Creation, yes, but also destruction, her dark sister. Funny how it went, huh?) Anyway, that Selene had to deal with the ancient mother of unicorns was a travesty in itself-- as in, did she not have enough of her own mother-related woes? Why was the universe hellbent on hammering this theme into her narrative? Because she had had quite enough, thank you very much, and would have welcomed a fresh twist in this sea of staleness!

"Sol!" Selene shouted, all the bitterness of the world concentrated in that one syllable. "Stop disgracing me at once. I will not bow before the abomination, and you shouldn't, either. Have some dignity, will you? You are a princess, so act like it. A princess doesn't present half-baked excuses to her enemies-- a princess destroys them, and feasts on their tears." Yes, yes! Authority was derived from fear, you know? Fear forced your subjects to bend the knee, and fear, as heavy as lead, also kept them there. It only made sense, then, that a princess had to wield it with the precision of a scalpel! ...ruling with love? Pffft, don't make her laugh. Love, or its promise, at least, was but poison-- a sweet poison that many ingested willingly, yes, but it would kill them nonetheless.

...wait, wait, wait. Was it a plan that she heard? An actual, coherent plan, from Sol's lips? (Her lips that were probably pretty, Selene had to admit. The moon daughter couldn't see her, of course, but according to her experiences? Well, those told her that the sun heiress had a Pretty Girl voice, and pretty girls obviously had to have pretty lips. That was just basic logic. ...what would it be like, to have them whisper something that wasn't complete nonsense? Her name, perhaps? Again, Selene was wondering for purely scientific reasons.) "Ah, um," she managed to mumble, somewhat embarrassingly. (Geez, congratulations to her, really! What was next, being reduced to UwU emoticons? Maybe brain rot was more infectious than Selene had previously thought!) "I mean, I'm in. I have to say, that isn't a bad idea at all." ...what? Credit where credit was due, and Sol had just manifested a rare instance of, you know, not being full of shit. (When you wanted a dog to obey, you see, you had to provide the respective reinforcement. Did it bite you? You had to smack it. Did it slay your enemy? Belly rubs were the right choice! Primitive, yes, but in order to connect with a primitive creature, you had to, hmm... speak her language, let's say.)

"Very well. I will leave her up to you," the moon princess nodded in acknowledgment. "Mothericorn, you are mine. You will regret the day you decided to so much as look at Selene, the dark side of the moon!"

"Selene, Selene, Selene," the mothericorn sang, making a shiver run down her spine. "Ah, Luna's most radiant daughter. What a pleasant twist! I'm sure the queen herself will thank me when I carve you apart, and remake you in my own image! You've never quite lived up to her expectations, have you? It's not your fault, though-- it's not like you can be better than the sum of your parts. I did warn your mother not to engage in this experiment, but she wouldn't listen. Setting herself up for a disappointment seems to be her greatest hobby, I have to say." And, despite her eyes being sewn shut? In that moment, Selene saw red. Just, how did this abomination dare to speak like this about her?! 'Death,' the spirits whispered, rubbing against her consciousness gently.'Death, death, death. Give it to her, if she's begging for it so. Grant her the gift, and read her future from her entrails.' Her anger was a wild river, spilling from its bed and devouring everything in its path, and, ah! It felt so good to release it, for once. (All her life, it had been piling up, somewhere inside of her, and Selene? Selene had been bursting at the seams. Well, not it was time for the world to burst instead, thank you very much!)

The moon princess jumped to the side swiftly, slashing against the sea of horns. "No!" a million voices cried out at once, in a cacophony that made her head hurt. "No, no, no!" Oh yes, Selene thought, and with the light she was wielding, she cut through the darkness, only to-- only to be bound by it? (The horns shattered, alright. Easily, too, as if they'd been icicles caressed by the sun! Except that the tentacles then wrapped around her, and pressed her into the mothericorn's side. Damn.) "Come to me, Selene," she gloated, squeezing oxygen out of her lungs. "Ah, yes, you shall be my crown jewel. My oh my, Luna's own daughter! Who would have thought? Never have I dreamed of such an opportunity falling into my lap, really. Don't worry, little one-- mommy will make everything better! Finally, you will know true love."

 

[starboob]

Sol may be a princess by title, but she knows more than anything else that she is a young goddess. A young benevolent light waiting to emerge, something to outshine all the darkness in the universe. That is what she is aiming to be. She's not there yet and she knows she has many years of work ahead of her before her moment will come, but she knows all of these moments will prepare her. Yeah, she hasn't really paid attention to her lessons, but what do lessons matter to practical experience? A book or a lecture will never be able to tell her how to defeat wretched moonicorns... well, okay, they will, but it's all theory. Application is what matters most to the young sunbeam. (This may not be the assignment her mom had tasked them with earlier, but surely she won't be that mad that they ignored the ogres in favor of taking on Luna's highest clerks. Her mom would have been disappointed no matter what Sol did, because in her four eyes perfection only exists when she looks in the mirror. Sol realized long ago that her mom is never going to be pleased with her, so why even try to appease an unappeasable woman? Nah, dude, that's such a frigging waste of time. So why not have fun? Why not do other amazing things instead of agonizing over a mom whose approval is a moving target? Yeah, Sol totally thinks that she has this life stuff figured out. Time to be amazing by her own definition.)

All this to say, Sol versus Gladys? This ought to be a cakewalk. Maybe leaving Selene to the mothericorn on her own wasn't totally wise, but what other choice did they have? Besides, Sol totally believes in Selene. She knows she can do this and it's not like Sol will leave her hanging forever, she just has to knock out Gladys first. Then the world will realize just how much more powerful the luminary courts are when they work together! 'Teamwork makes the dreamwork.'

She breathes out, not even marveling at the frosted puff of air in front of her, her eyes lock on the maniac moonicorn in front of her. Gladys scrapes the ground with her hoof and it doesn't take a horse-ologist to figure out what that means. On the sly, Sol takes inventory of her surroundings and starts scooting over towards one of the trees until she's standing in front of it. Like following the script of Mother Nature, Gladys charges at Sol and she holds her position, heartbeat skyrocketing into the stratosphere and the temptation to dodge too soon lassoes around her and threatens to tug her to the side. She resists. Then she doesn't. A few yards too early, she shifts, giving Gladys enough time to scramble her wildly fragile horsie legs to avoid crashing headfirst into the tree. The side of her giant body still collides into the tree, cracking it and sending half sideways. Sol misses the chance to take advantage and snap the horn while Gladys staggers and recollects.

"You're going to have to do better than that, girl!" Gladys taunts, stomping the ground with her front hoof––that causes icicles to shoot up from the ground all heading towards the sunbeam. Her eyes widen and she runs, once more, narrowly dodging the deadly spikes, but they follow her, seeming to sprout where ever she runs until she's practically pinned to place with the spikes forming a tight cage around her. "Crap," she mutters, brain scrambling for ideas. 'Ah, okay, some flames would be aces rn––c'mon magic. What do you say to flames?'

Her magic replies with a resounding, '...' which only causes the sunbeam to mutter a series of pseudo curses as she tries to wriggle out of the ice trap. Her eyes widen as Gladys smirks her ugly smirk and trots over to the helpless sunbeam. "See, you can't stop the might of the mighty moonicorns!" she gloats when she's in front of Sol. The moonicorn bends down and licks the side of Sol's face (gross, gross, gross!). Sol's eyes shift over to the mothericorn, hoping that maybe her rival took out the monstrosity on her own but... But it's not looking too good on that front either. She watches as odd immaterial tendrils wrap around Selene and pres her into the empty space Selene must have cleared out with her claws. Her eyes widen, something chest high in her shatters, and she shrieks, "Selene!"

Then everything happens in a flash. Literally. Sol's skin bursts into light, her light so radiant and bright, she rivals her mom's true form. It's not hot or searing, just incandescent, and something about it fills her with strength enough to shatter the icicles around her as if they were dried up twigs. Thoughtlessly, she grabs Gladys's precious horn, hanging by some pathetic thread and probs force of will, but Sol is much stronger and she snaps the rest of it off, clutching the bone. Gladys shrieks, most likely, but she doesn't hear that. She forgets about the plan entirely and, honestly, there probably isn't the time to enact it anyway, so she just shoves Gladys through the trees and dashes towards the mothericorn, reaching for her rival. ('Selene, if you're ever in trouble, you just have to flush all the toilets in your house, spin around, and say my name three times and I'll appear like Bloody Mary, but much cuter and less scary. Or, like, you can just ring me on the walkie talkies,' she remembers saying to her a thousand years ago.)

She jumps, higher than she ever knew she could, and lands in the empty space next to Selene. "Don't be a frigging weenie, Selene. You're a young goddess for crying out loud. C'mon and fight this thing!" she begs, slashing through the tentacles (gross x100000000) with Gladys's horn. She manages to break off a handful more horns, but the mothericorn... well, she is the mothericorn and there are just so many! She's a frigging giant of giants, too, so that doesn't help and Sol cannot engage in a good ol' strategic retreat until she frees Selene.

"Oh, what a twist, what a twist!" the mothericorn laughs and it's about as pleasant as listening to a cat cough up hairballs for thirty minutes straight, "You have the sun heiress in tow, child? Why perhaps you are not as pathetic as I've always known. Too bad you won't get the credit for ending Helia's last chance at an heir." (What?) The mothericorn's tentacles (why even?) start to target Sol, wrapping around her wrists and slithering up her calves. The sunbeam brightens a little more, but the tentacles are stronger than her light and she can only wave off so many. 'Crap, crap, crap!' "With the power your bones shall provide, why, I shall become the most powerful unicorn this dimension has ever seen!"

Sol hasn't given up struggling, because that's not really her style, and she fights for a space closer to Selene, "Hey, dude, remember in Teen Wolf when those two twins mutated together to form the biggest teen wolf?" she grunts out, "I don't think we can do that per se, but the sun and moon work together in theory, right? Lets try combining our lig––" a tentacle wraps over her mouth, then throat, threatening to strangle the sunbeam.

 

[Syntra]

...darkness, vast and overwhelming. Darkness, as far as her mind could reach! (It wasn't the same kind of darkness Selene had gotten used to, either-- the one that came from her eyes being sewn shut, and thus seeing nothing. They were still sensitive to light, you know? Shadows flickered on the very edge of her eyelids, so somehow, when the moon princess focused, she could almost, almost discern... well, shapes. General ideas behind various objects, if not the object themselves. This, however? This was different. Nothingness personified, really-- as if a monster had taken a bite out of reality, out of her, in fact, and only left a large, gaping hole behind. ...it was and wasn't bleeding, Selene realized. Ink was spilling from her wounds, ink so dark it rivaled the night sky, which, ah! Had her blood always looked like that? And, if not, was it meant to? Transformation was the vehicle of existence, after all, so surely, resisting it would have been foolish. A path that cowards took, too fearful to break out of their chrysalis!) "There, there," the mothericorn drew her ever closer, a movement which was accompanied by a loud crack. It took a few seconds for her to realize that those had been her bones, though honestly, what was the difference between 'hers' and 'theirs'? The boundaries seemed fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy, as if they were made of cotton candy, and her brain as well, and... and maybe this wasn't so bad, in truth. For the first time in ages, Selene felt free, you see? Free like a bird, spreading her wings without a single care in the world. "That's right, dear. Just let go of it, now will you? Cast away that which burdens you-- that which is unnecessary, and only drags you down. You'll like yourself more that way, I'm sure."

Some part of Selene would have loved to argue with her logic, but the truth behind those words shone bright, much like the distant stars. "Yes," she whispered, her voice weak. "I'd like to like myself more. It's been... hard. A challenge. Weren't princesses made to withstand challenges, though? That's why... that's why our bodies are rubber, and our hearts stone. Or was it the other way around?"

"Shhh, shhh," the mothericorn smacked her lips, saliva dripping down her chin. "Don't think, Selene. Thoughts are unnecessary, too. You won't need them where you're going-- a head empty is also a head blessed, as you're soon going to learn." Hmm. Could that be true? The moon daughter wished to protest, to grab her thoughts and weave them into an argument, but they kept retreating from her, as if she was a wolf and they does. "Stop striving, child," the mothericorn sighed, exasperated. "What has it done for you so far, hmm? The truth is that it has only gotten you captured-- alone and abandoned, right in the lions' den. Do you think that Luna sent a rescue party for you? No, no, you don't actually think that, I believe. For that, you are too smart. You are aware that she's just waiting for you to drop dead, aren't you? And, if I know her as well as I think I do, there may even be a celebra--"

Ah. Ah, indeed, because through the stream of insults? A different voice cut through it, as beautiful as sunrise. (To Selene, it sounded... familiar, really. Kind of like a lullaby her mother might have sung to her, back when she'd had more than criticisms to offer? Although, come to think of it, that might have been mere illusion, dreamt up by a child's mind. A fool's mind, that was. ...in contrast, however, the voice that called her name was real, bitingly so. Annoyingly so. The chick who demanded her attention made her blood boil, awakened the beast that slept in her belly, and... and what was she doing, even, succumbing to the horse without fight?! Had Selene lost her mind? Herself, even? In an instant, the thread that was wrapped around her soul snapped, finally allowing her to breathe free.)

"I know not what you are talking about," the moon daughter thundered, "but I do know that there is only one punishment for wronging me. That punishment is death, and that's what I will serve her!" Oh yes, yes, yes-- touching the queen's daughter was high treason, so for that, Selene would pay her with the traitor's coin. Besides, the way she intended to claim Sol for herself? Blasphemous! Only the moon could steal the sun's warmth, so the girl was hers, whether she liked it or not. No third-rate villain would trample upon her territory, thank you very much!

Mercury must have been circulating in her veins then, for it felt as if they were about to burst-- burst, and drown everything in her fury. (Gentle rays of moonlight caressed her skin then, again and again and again. 'She's right, you know, they whispered. Aren't you home here? Show the monster what you're made of, little one-- the difference between a queen, and the dust upon which she walks. Do it. Unlock the power within you.) The voices were guiding, tugging her by the sleeve, and Selene? Obeying was the easiest thing in the world, so that was exactly what she did!

...there was an explosion of silver light, throwing the mothericorn backwards. Sol it touched not, though-- the sun heiress was allowed to stay, and bask in Selene's flames. Yes, flames! There they were, licking at her skin greedily, but hurt her they didn't, that much was certain. (If anything, they brought out her inner light, gentle and shimmery like the surface of a crystal clear pond. Stunning, indeed.) "Are you unhurt?" the moon princess asked as the mothericorn dragged herself to her legs, ancient curses spilling from her lips. "Let me apologize to you, Sol. I asked not to be your bodyguard, but that was the role entrusted to me. In that I failed, in a rather spectacular way. If not for you, I would have been... I would have been a part of her collection," she admitted, somewhat reluctantly. Credit where credit was due, alright? Alright. "Will you lend me your strength?" Selene offered her hand to her, in order to help her stand up. "The sun and the moon haven't joined forces for thousands of years, but this strikes me as a good opportunity."

 

[starboob]

It scares her, you know, being this bright. Being so much a ball of light she’s pretty sure she wouldn’t recognize herself in the mirror. (What if she stops recognizing herself? What then? If she forgets she’s Sol will she become Helia? She knows she’ll be this eventually and as much as she tries to hype up her Sunsonsa so she can be the best there is and ever was... she’s terrified of losing her Sol.) The recognition that she's lost control and bloomed into starlight startles her, seeming to only have realized this new form now that she is being wrapped by tentacles, darker than what she imagines death to be like. They encase her in their squishiness and squeeze and squeeze until her eyes bulge. (It’d be kind of cool if they popped out of their sockets, she supposes, and also entirely hellish so she’d rather not.) She struggles weakly against the mothericorn's restraints and somewhere her voice speaks to her, but she’s never been great at listening to overbearing mother figures. Even so, she starts to dim as her fears trickle in and her concentration, or accident, starts to break. 'C'mon, c'mon––don't be a weenie! You don't belong at the Weenie Hut Jr. so pull it together––if Selene can't pull herself together, then you have to. It's gotta be you and this is who you are, so quit being a frigging weenie!'

Even so, her ability to remain brave and become this glowing thing to save them both continues to wane. Maybe the fear having claimed too much territory, or perhaps because she's starting to lose consciousness as she's pulled into the mothericorn's side. 'No... No...'

Then silver beams, calm and secure in their power (not like the obnoxious Sun), fill her vision and she gasps; the tentacles release her throat; the mothicorn releases her, or more accurately, is forced backwards by Selene's explosion. (She didn’t know the moon could be fire, too.) She’s beautiful. Not terrifying or blazing, just beautiful in ways Sol has never seen or experienced before. Her breathing stops again for entirely different reasons as she tries to behold the woman in front of her, but honestly it's hard. It feels disrespectful to look at her––nevermind that Sol's skin has managed to keep its own glow and even brightened, somehow no longer afraid of this form as she had been all those seconds ago. When Selene does it, it's beautiful so she must be too.

What's more is the moon daughter is apologizing to her? And somehow crediting Sol for her show of strength. Like, Sol knows she has an epic knack for pep talks but she didn't think they were this good. Unable to find her words (for once), she nods in response to the first question, then realizing that her companion won't be able to make sense of the gesture, she forces her words to come back to her in a stammer, "Y-yeah, I'm fine." (Her voice is quiet, barely above a whisper, because anything more and she isn't sure what will happen.) "Physically, for sure," save for some disgusting and weird pucker marks, but she knows those will go away soon, "Emotionally and mentally? Tbd, tbh."

She pushes one hand behind herself, ready to stand, but completely fails at that simple task. Not because of a peculiar weakness or loss of balance, but because of what Selene says after that. Sol remembers suggesting they work together; Sol knows this has been her goal since before she even met Selene; Sol did not think it would happen today (undoubtedly, and she cannot stress this enough, the best day ever). She's thankful when the moon daughter offers her hand and readily, the sun daughter accepts. "There is only one true light, and it is yours, mine, ours," she says, speaking ancient words that have been long dead, until this moment. (A resurrection like this has the winds gossiping around them, immediately.) "And, like, totally forgiven. I'll save you from anything. I'd help you bury a body," she admits, not knowing why she feels so strongly for a woman she's known for less than two weeks but knows her words are true nonetheless. "And I know what happened to you wasn't fair, but we can figure out that weirdness later. Right now, we're saying no to becoming horse girls," she smiles, squeezing Selene's hand and lending her some of her strength. She doesn't even feel faint afterwards. If anything, in the energy transferral, in their light becoming one, electricity starts coursing through her veins. Her vision sharpens so much so that what's happening around her seems slower. Like she can perceive what the mothericorn is going to do long before she even does it. (Why would the luminary rulers deny themselves this power? Why? Unless, it's the very thing they are greedy over... Hmm, something she'll have to discuss with Selene, her soon to be bffl, later.)

The mothericorn, taking no short time to stand and regain her wits from the aftermath of Selene's explosion, huffs, melting more of the frost around them. At this point, she's even turning the hardened ground into mud. Her eyes go completely anthracitic. While she may have melted the snow and topmost layer of permafrost with her breath, the temperature plummets until Sol can feel it freezing the marrow of her bones. However, that only tells the sunbeam that she needs to keep moving before she can remain frozen. She zips through the muck, somehow knowing her companion's moves will complement her own and turn them both into deadly stripes of energy in the eye of the mothericorn. "For Frosty!" she shouts, not even thinking that it's a pathetic battle cry because Frosty was her child and she will avenge her sweet murderous baby's death and do them proud. "Oh! And Selene's honor, probably!"

Naturally, the ray of sunshine doesn't play offense. She covers for Selene instead, providing shields of light and shooting beams directly into the mothericorn's darkened eyes (the Sun has always been good at stealing sight). The mothericorn counters, to the best of her abilities, with frosted spikes emerging from the earth, shooting her horns towards the duo, and shrieking so loud Sol is pretty sure she's trying to make their ears bleed. (It's weird, earlier Sol had felt weaker in this realm, significantly so, but fighting with Selene (or even for her) seems to nullify that effect as her body doesn't seem strained with the effort.) Though working together, they prove to be unstoppable. There are still moments where Sol's ankle gets caught on a tentacle and she's flung into the air or an icicle grazes her skin, but even those moments are miniscule setbacks for the duo.

The mothericorn is gushing black ink, staggering in her steps as she huffs, and howling madly, "You pathetic paltry imitations! What do you even hope to accomplish with this foolish rebellion? You shall become mine!" With that, a flurry of horned tentacles (really, why the freaking tentacles?) shoot out towards the young goddesses.

"Yeah? Well, how's it feel to become horsemeat to two pathetic paltry imitations? Says a lot about your power, your horniness!" Sol retorts, undaunted. She skates towards Selene, wishing she had her skateboard (whatever that is), and throws up more light shields, "Hit her where it counts!"

 

[Syntra]

The words had spilled from her lips, with almost no actual input from the princess herself-- so thoroughly automatic the action seemed, really, that Selene could only compare it to breathing. (How? Why? She didn’t actually care about the girl, of course. There was no reason to, aside from a pretty epic case of Stockholm syndrome. Sol was like… like a dog, with that annoying, unquestioning loyalty of hers, and Selene totally was a cat person. Independence was what she valued, not the ability to sit on one’s ass at command! And yet, somehow, relief spread through her like a tidal wave, warming her up from the inside. This has got to be some mind control thing, the moon daughter concluded. Who know, after all, what Helia had done to her? With that cleansing ritual, she must have leashed her to Sol-- it only made sense, for she had been way too comfortable to entrust her daughter’s safety into the hands of an enemy. I will need to get rid of that tendency, then. As fast as I can. Compassion, pfft! More like another synonym for ‘weakness,’ with its only “””benefit””” being that you also got to feel morally superior. ‘Oooh, look at me! My brain doesn’t work properly, as it cannot differentiate between things happening to me and to other people. For some inexplicable reason, this makes me better than you.’ Why this genetic defect was celebrated in the society, that Selene knew not-- maybe because it was easy to walk all over such weaklings? Most likely, in all honesty. …in the end, everyone always looked out for themselves. You didn’t have to like it, you could point to stories and legends for fictitious examples of heroics, but nothing, nothing could change that, ultimately, you were alone. Alone, walking from nothing to nothing! Darkness would always swallow you, regardless of how bright you shone, and…)

Our light? Were her ears deceiving her? The phrase echoed in her mind, over and over, as if it had been a parasite that had burrowed itself in the folds of her brain, and Selene… ah, Selene couldn’t even deny its truthfulness, because it felt right. Like two pieces of puzzle sliding into place, really. (Technically, the princess supposed, there was one light. Back when the universe had still been young, you see, a mere child in a crib, the light had breathed life into stars. It had shared its warmth, its spark, with everything, and with that? With that, it had only grown in intensity, forming the embryo of the celestial body that would later come to be called Moon. Yes, Moon, the true ruler of the galaxy! The treacherous Sun had stolen her crown, and dimmed its shine-- jealousy had driven her to commit that crime, according to Luna, at the least. Now, Selene did often have certain doubts regarding the official narrative, but that story? Never had she seen any reason to look for plot holes in it, to be completely honest. …the Sun always had to trample over others, dispelling the shadows that were home to so, so many. With fire and blood she came, each year, each day, so why would she expect that pattern to be different? Of course, it had been her right to do so, Selene had to admit. It still was, for as long as she could seize what she wanted with her hands, there was no law that could pry it away from her! …which was why the sun court had to be destroyed, before it spread like the cancer it was. No, Selene wouldn’t let it contaminate her homelands, nor would she let it tarnish everything that she’d ever held dear. And, the only way to fight such a monster? Why, it was to become a monster herself, thank you very much!)

Either way, the moon daughter figured it was a ritualistic phrase-- a bunch of consonants and vowels, divorced from any real meaning. People always said things they didn’t mean just because it was expected from them, didn’t they? This had to be similar, for her mind refused to lead her to any other conclusion. “My light, and yours,” she agreed easily, the words resurfacing in her memory. “Together, shining stronger than ever.”

The mothericorn, as it turned out, did not appreciate this turn of events. “Sinners! Blasphemers! Once Luna finds out what you’ve done, you brat, she will--”

“Once Luna finds out?” Selene asked, with a smirk gracing her lips. “And how, pray tell, would she get the access to this piece of information? She is not there, as far as I know… and sadly, you won’t be able to run to her. For that, you’d need legs, you see?” The silver flames flared, painting wild pictures against the blinding whiteness of the snow, and then they lashed, lashed like a whip! …the mothericorn’s anguished screams filled their ears, and despite not seeing anything, Selene just knew that her legs turned into dust. “In fact, you’d kind of have to be alive in order to snitch, which is something that I cannot allow, either. My sincerest apologies.”

“N-no, wait! I can… I can tell you secrets you wouldn’t dream of, I swear. Please--”

Too little, too late, though. Selene reached into the depths of her heart to wrap her fingers around that which was rightfully hers, which, ah, was that a feeling! The power was throbbing, asking to be released, and the moon princess could prolong it no longer. At her command, the fires rose, intertwining themselves with Sol’s own light. They danced, blending into one another and separating, only to meet again, in a different context. How did the moon princess know? Don’t ask her-- she knew in the same way that she knew Moon was high above in the skies, despite not seeing it. It was exhilarating, intoxicating, like the birth of a new constellation, and when the flames caressed the mothericorn? They erased her from existence, like the mistake she was! Nothing remained. Nothing, aside from… well. In her place, where the snow had thawed, the soil seemed to awaken from its slumber. Blossoms sprouted there, purple like ink, and without thinking, Selene plucked one of them-- plucked it, only to then put it behind Sol’s ear. “You wanted a night flower,” she said, as if that explained anything. “Here you are.”

 

[starboob]

"Woohoo!" Sol shouts, encouraging her rival's complete and utter destruction of the mothericorn, "Snitches get stitches!" Or rather, wiped clean off the face of the realm, but that doesn't have as nice a ring to it. (Usually, Sol gets a bit squeamish around violence. She remembers, once, her mom asked if she wanted to watch her at work. Thinking this meant something, like, how to start the dawn and create morning sunshine, she happily agreed. Instead, she watched her mom and the fire signs burn an entire ancient forest that had been home to several rare species of birds, frogs, and leopards; there were also seven different peoples who had been inhabiting the forest and taking care of it for eons. Sol never found out what the offense was that earned her mother's ire; not that the justification would have made it better. She threw up after thirty minutes and had to be taken home. Afterwards, her mom didn't look at her for three months. Sol had to nearly commit treason just to get Helia to acknowledge her again. However, when Selene wields her fury and borrowed strength? It's nearly entirely justified. The giant was going to absorb them, two cuties, without their permission and there's no telling how many others she's already done this to. This is like... this is like exterminating the monster under the bed. So the squirms are not present.)

When those silvery flames clear, those beautiful flames, the sunbeam gasps at the transformed landscape where the mothericorn had once been. The sea of purple is like one she has never seen before, because she hasn’t ever seen these flowers before. Immediately, before Selene even confirms it, she knows that these are the night blooming flowers she has always wanted to see. (It's so precious to her to be in front of something the Sun cannot make bloom; to be in front of something she can only admire while she stands under the moon.) She's almost afraid to get any closer or touch them, because maybe they might sense who she is and shrivel up. Selene, apparently does not have those reservation and when the flower is placed behind her ear? Her face flushes furiously and she really cannot believe that her companion just did that. 'She must really like me, now,' she assumes, dazed, dazzled, and barely realizing that her skin is returning to normal; barely remembering where they are or what just happened. To Sol, they are all that exists. "Th-anks," she stutters, awkwardly, unsure of what to do or say next because Selene just said it so simply and did it as if it were nothing. Sol doesn't quite think she can do anything to follow up without making it weird. So she makes it weird. She grabs Selene's hand and kisses her palm, "You're the best night flower, though."

Thankfully, she isn't given an opportunity to get embarrassed about what she just said/did as Gladys’s groaning catches her ear. She peels her attention away and turns towards the noise, somewhat remembering she had shoved the horse through the trees—some of which are snapped in half and fallen over, others are missing chunks of wood and bark. "Oh, shoot, we still need that heart," she says, as if it's a grocery item they had almost forgotten before leaving the store and remembered it at check-out.

As if nothing had happened before, Sol skips over to the former moonicorn, seeing as she is without corn, and pulls out some rope from her bag of endless supplies. (Yeah, she's not going to stab the beast and search for the heart. That's gross and she's not a surgeon. She'll let the primordial mothers do that. Besides, the sacrifice is supposed to be living anyway, so this is just as well.) "Alright, Gladys, the mothericorn is pfft gone and the jig is up!"

Gladys merely blinks her big, weird, and untrustworthy eyes in response, either not feeling much like talking or perhaps having lost the ability seeing as she is mostly a normalish horse now with only a stump to prove what she used to be. Either way, Sol takes that as a win. She takes the rope and knots it around Gladys’s neck like a leash. When she has rejoined Selene, she calls out towards the sky, "Alright, big mamas! Take us back!" And, no, she honestly doesn't think that will take them back to the super secret club, but she doesn't have any other idea of how to get back seeing as her transportation abilities are a complete mystery to her. So this is the best idea she has. That being said...

The ground beneath their feet begins to split and crack and they find themselves (i.e., Sol, Selene, and the stupid horse) falling as they had earlier when they first arrived at the super secret club. They land, just as before, on a soft plush pad of earth surrounded by Liv, Sarah, and Edith. Immediately, Sol can feel herself warming up again. Liv smiles, showing her rows upon rows of sharp teeth and pats the tiny women on the head with the end of her tail, "Marvelous! Marvelous! We honestly thought you were going to die the second the snow animated––Frosty seemed a bit too unhinged to be trusted––but I am glad you are back. Edith, you owe me your week’s allotment with the Tamagotchi."

“Whatever,” Edith mumbles, clearly sore, “They didn’t even bring us a heart!”

“Yeah, what even is that?” Sarah asks, pointing a hoof at Gladys.

“A moonicorn without her corn, duh,” Sol replies, wiggling said corn between her fingers. “We members now or what? When are the sleepovers? And where is the cake? I’m famished. Going super saiyan really takes a lot out of a girl.”

 

[Syntra]

The... the best night flower. Ah. Alright? Except that Selene wasn't a flower, thank you very much. Therefore, given the fact that she hadn't even fulfilled the conditions for being considered a flower, she also couldn't be a night flower, much less the best night flower. Hahaha, checkmate, Sol! (As always, none of what the sun princess had said made a lick of sense. Had she had her ability to reason surgically removed, or what? Because that would have explained a lot of things here! ...also, no, Selene wasn't blushing. Such bodily functions were beneath the moon princess-- there was no evolutionary advantage to them, you see, and so they had no business dictating her life. They didn't, for they were too afraid to impose on the future goddess! Which, of course, could only mean that her face was burning for some other reason. ...ah. Those flames, then? The flames that had been sparked inside of her soul, and burned, burned, burned-- oh so brightly, yes, though also uninvited. Where, exactly, had that power come from? Well, not from her, that was for certain! Magic, the moon princess realized. That is what I've stained my hands with, for some reason. Yes, some reason. Breaking one of the most sacred taboos in place probably should have been a decision made with clearer mind than that, but here they were! By the Moon. By the Moon, what have I done? What, what, what? The cogs turned in her head, so viciously you could almost see steam rising out of her ears, and then... well, then Selene decided that she'd done nothing, actually. Luna still wasn't here, you see? And what Luna didn't know, that might as well have never happened.)

"Yes, yes," she waved her hand, "but please, do stay quiet regarding what happened here. The... the magical parts, I mean. I don't want..." anyone to know that I'm a traitor "...others to claim our moment for themselves. For that, it is way too special. I just want it to remain between you, me, and these flowers, Sol. Can you promise me that it shall stay a secret? Our secret?" There, that should do it! The sun princess, powerful as she was, seemed to suffer from a chronic lack of validation, so playing her friend should soothe her emotional wounds in... ah, in the most pleasant way. (Was it nice of her, to take advantage of her vulnerabilities? No, Selene knew, but imprisoning her wasn't exactly nice, either. ...besides, the Moon had always been the villain, pulling at the strings. Why should it surprise her, hmm? Would she also be surprised if a shark bit her leg off, or if a mosquito drank her blood? ...well, this was Sol, so the answer was yes, most likely, though Selene was hardly responsible for Sol's, uh, Soliness.

Still, before they could decide on their next course of action? The primordial powers from before claimed them once again, dragging both of them to that secret underground sanctuary. "Ah," she gave leviathans a sarcastic smile, "it is wonderful to hear that your trust in us has never once wavered, I have to admit. It fills one with this sense of... hmm, what is it? With this sense of accomplishment. I truly feel that my life matters, and that I am loved by my companions."

"Oh, please, Selene," Liv rolled her eyes, "don't be such a Negative Nancy. Look at Sol, who is besides herself with joy! That is the attitude you should be striving to emulate, not your mother's quips. There is a reason people never invite her to parties, you see?" Selene suspected that said reason had more to do with her tendency to cook the brains of those who disagreed with her inside of their skulls, but she no longer had the energy to argue back. Just, fine. Let them believe nonsense if it made them happy! Reality wouldn't bend to their whims regardless.

"Pfft," Edith snorted, "it's not even a real moonicorn. Have you ever seen a moonicorn without a horn? This is a fraud, I say."

"Don't be dramatic," Liv chastised her. "Obviously, she had one at one point. Is that not enough?"

"Well, all I'm saying is that when an ex-waitress isn't a waitress, then an ex-moonicorn cannot be--"

"Shut up," her friend recommended to her. "It is jealousy that speaks from your heart, Edith, and we both know that it isn't good for your skin." Unexpectedly, that caused her to stop in her tracks, and for a second, Selene almost fell into the trap of trying to find logic in that statement. What prevented her from it, though? Why, that was Liv herself, putting something on her head! (Something that appeared to be... uh, made of paper? In utter disbelief, Selene grabbed the thing and could only deduce that it was a party hat. Yes, a party hat!)

"To celebrate your admisson," Liv explained, her tone all warm and friendly. "Because, yes, you are part of the club now, indeed. More than that, you are our only hope." ...what? Alright, that escalated quickly. "Your heads have been filled with lies, children-- lies, and poison, and everything in between. Time to shed the false narrative, however! The reality is that the sun cannot survive without the moon, and vice versa. There is no celestial body that would be... well, inherently more valuable than anything else, really." Falling silent for a moment, Liv let out a quiet chuckle. "So, in other words, separatism is not the solution. And, since you are now full-fledged members of the club? I'm afraid I have one more task with you, for with great power, there comes great responsibility. It's nothing too hard, though. You'll just have to get rid of the animosity between your courts, and uncover your true potential! It would be also nice if the moon and the sun merged, but I know better than to ask complete beginners for stuff like this. Gotta pick your battles, as they say!"

 

[starboob]

Okay, so somehow not only has Sol managed to survive the day mostly intact, she has also somehow not exploded from each moment getting exponentially better than the last. This is probably better than her sixth birthday when Selene face-caked some kid who was being mean to her on her frigging birthday! It instantly cheered her up. (Wait, that never happened?) Like, sooo many of Sol's bucket list items have been successfully checked off and she has even been able to add and strike off items in the same breath! E.g., now her and Selene, her not-friend, have a secret to share. Though, perhaps she should be a little sus of that, since only two can keep a secret if one of them is dead. 'Hmm, is she trying to kill me? Nah, don't be paranoid, she just respects the sanctity of secret pacts.'

So with this secret, a budding friendship, and membership to a super secret club, Sol really can say she has done it all. If she were to trip and fall to her death within the next fifteen seconds (which honestly seems to be the most likely spontaneous death), she can absolutely say that she will have died happy. Ecstatic even. This is in spite of Edith's sour mood, too. "Listen, Edith, I don't know who peed in your Cheerios," ("It was probably Sarah," Edith mumbles.) "but everyone knows that if you're not a fully fledged goddess or ancient mom, that you have to lob off the corn in order to subdue one of these wicked beasts. It's, like, moonicorn 101, dude," Sol nods, very sagely, with a bright smile. (She also makes a note to make her own bestiary since the one in her mom's library is useless.) "But if it makes you feel any better, here," she says, tugging on Gladys' leash until the horse bows her head and then she affixes the corn back onto the horse using a bandaid from her bag. (Gladys makes some weak attempt at speech, but it mostly sounds like angry drunken gurgles.) "There. Sorta better, but what does it even matter? You're eating her heart for dinner anyway."

"Ugh, I gu––"

"It's a perfect solution, Sol," Liv supplies in place of Edith's snark, "Edith, you could stand to learn a thing or two about problem solving from our newest member."

At that Sol beams and the smile only widens when a party hat is placed on both her and Selene's heads. "This is even better than a tiara," she whispers to Selene, clearly excited and not at all humiliated by wearing something that really is just a smaller version of a conical dunce cap. Slices of cake are also handed to each of the members and Sol immediately tears into hers, making a fool and a mess of herself. The cake is inhaled in record time, though at least half is spread across her cheeks. (It's probably a good thing that Selene cannot see this.) "Oh, wow... I mean, I always knew that my mom was a big fat liar," she pauses, waiting for the big fat liar to smite her and when she doesn't, and she usually doesn't, she continues, "but I didn't think I was right. Unification just seemed too simple a solution." Like, Sol has always suspected that the Sun and moon are more than just two sides of the same coin––that there's a reason why neither court has ever been able to be a dominant power for long. The sweet, sweet feeling of vindication courses through her veins and she pulls on Selene's arm, "We have to help. We gotta. The club is asking us and we gotta. It's club rules!"

"Weeell," Liv starts, tapping her two index fingers together (well, Sol assumes they're index fingers. It's hard to tell since she only has three on each hand), "Technically, no those are not the rules. It would not be that effective if we forced you to do this, you see. A task such as this must come from the heart and a deep sense of personal responsibility. You won't really get other tasks, however, until this one is completed."

"And if we both don't agree?" she asks, not because she assumes Selene would be against an idea as obvious as this, but just in case. (It's mostly a serious case of naïve hopefulness that they can both be on the same page about this. She is somewhat aware that herself and her opposite could not be, well, more opposite. BUT they did just defeat the mothericorn together and had a really great time in the moon realm, so she thinks that perhaps this is a turning point!)

"The fabric of the universe will unravel until we're all dust," Sarah chimes in, filing her hoof as if bored, "The courts weren't meant to be split and there are consequences to your mothers' and foremothers' crimes."

"Sarah! We're not trying to scare the babies, geez! Besides, that's not entirely true. We don't exactly know what will happen just that it will change the very nature of life as we know it." Sol can see the Same difference look on both Edith and Sarah's faces which Liv responds to with a death glare (youch).

"Woah, get rekt..." Sol's eyes widen and she turns to her companion (not the horse, obviously). She places her hands gently on Selene's shoulder and stares at her, "Well, what do you think? I can't do this without you. I mean, I always planned on reaching out to you eventually to ask about peace between our people. I just assumed I'd already be the Sun goddess at that point. Looks like I gotta speed up my plans, but I don't see this as entirely bad. The sooner we start the better, right?" Her voice is full of both hope and eagerness. She isn't even daunted by the task. As gargantuan as it is, she does think that they can do it and she does believe that it needs to be a joint effort. Besides, the threat of the universe coming undone? That has got to be an automatic motivator. (Okay, so maybe she is worried that Selene won't agree to this. She is a party pooper extraordinaire.)

 

[Syntra]

Ah, of course. Of course that this 'super secret club membership' was just a thinly veiled excuse to get them to do their dirty work for them! 'Unsurprised, but disappointed' was the phrase that described her current feelings in the most accurate of ways, honestly. ...but also, pffft, what a load of nonsense. Why should the sun and the moon be unified? Did Liv also want to marry water to fire, somehow? The opposition of the two forces was the entire point here! Look, Selene would even go so far as to admit that they needed the sun-- the presence of an enemy sharpened your mind, after all, and it was always easier to pass laws when you were at a brink of a war. (Blah blah blah, desperate times, blah blah blah, desperate measures, you know the drill. ...what? Show her a ruler who had never taken advantage of a crisis, and Selene would show you a liar. A liar who had bought into their own lies, which was the most dangerous type of all!) Anyway, as you could see, Selene was rather open-minded when it came to these things. She didn't even want to murder every living member of the sun court-- only the majority of them, really, in order to leave them crippled, but without destroying their chances of their eventual return to power. The wheel had to spin, you know? And, in order for that to happen, someone always had to be up, and someone had to be down! ...which wouldn't happen if they started getting hippie ideas about 'reconciliation' and 'peace'. Bleugh. (Who would even benefit from that? Manufacturers of cheesy gift cards? Not that Selene knew what gift cards were, mind you, but the name alone sounded positively awful.)

So, all in all, it was one of the worst ideas she had ever heard. Naturally, that meant Sol loved it-- her doggy self got all excited and, had she had a tail, she would have been wagging it so wildly that she would have taken off, like a mini helicopter. A shame that she can't actually do that, the moon princess thought, with no small amount of sorrow. Gods know that I deserve a break. Just, how was she going to survive such an ordeal? Sol's sunny energy was poison, poison, poison, and at this point, Selene would sacrifice her right hand to enjoy five seconds of silence! ...ah, they apparently wanted her to say something. Why, though? It was obvious to the moon princess that none of them cared for her actual opinion-- no, they wanted her to smile, nod, and go along with whatever crazy plan that had hatched in their crazy heads. ('We don't know what will happen?' Yeah, an awesome reason for risking one's skin, Selene thought. The power behind that rallying cry would move mountains, and force rivers to flow backwards.)

"Yes," the moon princess said mechanically, "I do agree." Because I have to. Because you won't leave me alone if I say no. Because, if I do whatever you want, perhaps I will be able to use you. A fair trade, wasn't it? Much fairer than Sol and her bitch of a mother deserved, in fact, because both of them would be getting their hearts' desire. (In order to truly pay them back, Selene would have had to strip them off their skin, and cook them in their own flames. Maybe that would still happen, but for now? For now, the princess would show them her merciful side.) "Saving the universe is... important, I suppose. It's where I keep my things."

"The depth of your conviction is staggering," Edith smirked.

"What? Am I supposed to play a performance for you? Should I shed a few bitter tears before you believe me? If you don't like it, you can find a different moon heiress--"

"No, Selene," Liv said, oh so sadly, in a way that almost made her regret her actions. ('Almost,' of course, was the key word here. Never in her life had Selene committed a mistake, you see, so there was no need for her to actually do any soul-searching. Liv was good at playing the role of a victim, yes, but that didn't actually mean that she was one.) "That isn't what we want from you. You are a smart young woman, despite your... hmm, less than pleasant personality. Are you trying to claim that you know not what is the definition of the word 'sincere'?"

"I am being sincere," Selene lied through her teeth. "I do enjoy the universe existing, believe it or not. I'm not one of those one-dimensional villains who want to watch the world burn for no reason at all!"

"Hmmm... I am afraid that it's not enough. Why can't you be more like Sol?" she asked, probably pointing in the sunbeam's direction. (How did Selene know? Well, she just did, so stop snooping around!) "Just look at her-- the girl is enthusiasm personified, and has such good heart. You can really tell that she understands the gravity of her task. Can you not take a list from her book?" ...and, really, something about that set Selene off. The endless string of humiliation had been bad enough on its own, but being compared to Sol, the queen of dumbasses? Unfavorably? There were certain boundaries, alright, and Liv had crossed hers so drastically that now they must have looked like a tiny dot on the horizon!

"Save your comments for someone who actually cares, will you?" the moon princess growled, throwing all caution to the wind. "I believe I've gone above and beyond what is required of me. Like, I've gotten over the initial plan to sacrifice her, which I think is a pretty good first step. Plus, have you seen the state of her focus? Good luck actually getting her to do it! I bet she'll get distracted by the first funnily shaped cloud she will encounter, and then... then she will abandon your stupid quest in favor of establishing a cloud-centered religion, or something."

 

[starboob]

Luck is not something that comes in an infinite supply, unfortunately. This is something that Sol has come to understand during her short time alive. Given that this day has been so exponentially awesome that she feels the need to make up an untranslatable word for an event so spectacular that you need to run laps in order to prevent sudden spontaneous combustion, she has an inkling that said luck is about to run out. She doesn't want it to, but she can sense it in the air around her almost immediately after she had asked Selene if she were interested in unifying the courts. Obviously, she is hopeful that her trusty gut is lying to her and that the Selene from before––the fun, happy, and cute one––can stay forever and, maybe, if Sol is lucky then that Selene will realize how amazing Sol is, agree to a life long friendship, and they can braid each other's hair everyday! Perhaps, they'll even snuggle. (Wow, even just imagining what it'd be like to hold the moon daughter or to have the moon daughter hold her brings an embarrassing amount of color to her cheeks. Thank goodness number 454 that Selene cannot see this!) So how hopeful is Sol that Selene will agree? She's still pretty frigging hopeful. Only losers count their losses before they hatch and Sol is not a loser.

So when Selene agrees? As weak as it is, as full of red flags as it is, Sol wants to believe her so hard and with all her hearts that she does. She ignores the fire alarms going off in her head, because her companion's pants are certifiably on fire, and beams. Even if she can tell that the future moon goddess is not completely sold on the idea, she figures that the agreement alone is enough that she can maybe convert her not-friend later! To Sol, she takes it as Selene's willingness to try and having that kind of attitude is one of the most important things ever.

Unfortunately, perhaps sensing that Sol is going to happily live in that river in Egypt (huh?), the primordial mothers step in before Sol can say anything. The conversation confuses her, because she doesn't want to believe that Selene was going to dupe her, but it starts to become obvious that the moon daughter wasn't being her most honest self––which, rude! Sol cannot recall ever lying to Selene, so she doesn't understand why she sees the need to lie to her. How are they supposed to establish trust and build a solid foundation for a future friendship if one of them, the frigging moon daughter, refuses to be honest? (She doesn't want to examine the obvious answer. You know, the one that would tell her that maybe her companion is not interested in having a meaningful relationship.) "You know, Selene, you don't have to be such a big fat liar, liar pants on fire. You don't have to be like everyone else," she says, barely able to restrain her complete and utter disappointment. "How am I supposed to understand you if you don't at least give me something to work with?"

Of course, then... Then Selene reveals that the depths of her lying heart is an ocean, as deep as it is wide. "You were going to let me... die here?" Her brow furrows together, trying to make sense of this, trying to figure out how this Selene and the Selene who had been present in the moon realm can all be the same person. The same confusing person! "But you hand squeezed and told me everything would be fine?" Obviously, this should tell Sol that she should leave her hopes of ever having a normal relationship with her opposite behind. That pursuing something as fruitless as that is like being that person who has to push that rock up the hill everyday for some weird reason. (Like, dude, just stop pushing the freaking rock. Problem solved!) Except that Sol is just like that person who has to push the rock up the hill everyday for some weird reason, because she doesn't want to give up on Selene. She can't. She won't.

"That's fair, I guess," she admits, kicking the some of the gravel beneath her feet. On some level, she can understand Selene's motivations. She is a hostage in a strange land. Sol can't say she'd do the same thing if she were in Selene's position, and she can still understand it. Even if it freaking hurts. Like the weight of a billion suns slamming into her chest all at once. She chews on the inside of her cheek trying to muster up something else to say. All she can land on is, "I sacrificed my Tamagotchi to save you," and I feel like Ronalda Mc-Freaking-Donald, a real clown with my little red nose, weird hair, too big shoes, and ugly make-up. She bites that part off only because, contrary to popular belief, she does have some dignity and self-respect. Instead she just continues on, "And I already made-up a cloud religion and got grounded for five years for accidentally insulting Cirro," one of the cloud goddesses, "btw, so your characterization of me is off by seven years. Maybe you should not be so judgey."

She sighs, swallowing all her disappointment and almost choking on it in the process. She wipes her face of the chocolate cake with the back of her hand, takes off the party hat, and hands it to Liv, "I guess you'll have to wait for a miracle, because I don't think this is happening, Liv. Sorry. I really want it to, but it's not looking great."

"Sol––"

"I don't want to talk about it," she almost snaps, but doesn't and in that she sounds like a puppy whose tail has been stepped on, "Can you... Can you help us get back to the palace? I don't know how to use fire magic yet."

Liv frowns, they all do, but she nods and strokes one of her talons down Sol's spine. She doesn't draw blood or stab her, as she had done with Selene earlier; the stroke alone seems to be enough to open a portal back to the bottom of the 242 steps that lead up to the palace. (A super gorgeous prison, really.) She's about to step through when Liv stops her.

"Before you go, take this," Liv hands Sol one of her scales, "it will take you back here should you change your minds or need anything from us. You are still members and, even if you are unable to take on this quest, we are still here for you."

Then, as Sol steps through the portal, Edith ruffles her feathers and bends down to whisper in Selene's ear, "She's your responsibility, child. What happens to her, what she she does... You don't want to see her angry. Be part of her goodness, you feel me, home-fry?" (Yeah, it probably would have sounded way more ominous had Edith not added that last part. Ugh, mothers just do not understand that they will never be cool.)

When they're back over to the other side, Sol, without looking at her companion, says, "You know, I don't really care what you do. Just don't lie to me. You can steal, kick my shins, insult my hydrangeas, but don't lie. Not to me..." She swallows whatever she's feelings and turns to look at Selene, hollow smile on her face, "Anyway, I'll tell my mom it's my fault we didn't get the ogre hearts and that you really tried to keep me on task, but I wanted to create a mushroom religion. Believable, right?"

 

[Syntra]

Ah, damn. Why did actions have to have consequences? Even more importantly, why did words have to count as actions? To Selene, all of that felt profoundly unfair-- kind of like casual murder being considered a sin when it was obviously just a method of self-expression. (Geez. Did Sol even have the right to be angry here? No, the moon princess didn't think so! Morality was a nice thing to have, she supposed, but when you were okay with taking hostages, it was just... weird, really, to suddenly pretend that these things mattered. How, exactly, had the airhead pictured it? That Helia would steal her spark, bind her hands with a whip of flames, and Selene would, what, thank her for it? Fall in love with her daughter? Sweet she may have been, yes, but some poisoned berries were, too. The nature of her temperament changed not that she was an accomplice-- someone who directly benefited from her mother's crimes, even if she outwardly rejected them. A comfy position to have, huh? Well, good for her, but Selene wouldn't make it even comfier for her just because reality ~hurt her precious feelings!~ ...it irked her, you know. Before, the moon princess hadn't been able to find a proper name for it, but now? Now, even her unseeing eyes saw the uncensored truth, and oh, did the sight awaken her fury. So, the verdict that she'd been seeking? That Sol was a hypocrite, of course. A hypocrite who preached water, but drank wine-- one who had the gall to speak of friendship, but held her at knife point all the same. Her blade may have been metaphorical, though what did that matter when Selene's death would be real?)

"Yes," the moon princess smirked, "I may have done all of that. That's kind of how lying works. I assumed you were aware of the mechanism behind it? Considering you told me all these things about wanting to be my friend and such. Spoiler alert, Sol-- you cannot become friends with a bird that you've caged. Sorry, I don't make rules here." Of course, it wasn't that Selene actually thought that the sun heiress had lied to her. No, not at all. There were very few doubts in her heart that she'd meant every stupid word that had fallen out of her stupid mouth, and somehow, that infuriated her even more. Just, how dared she?! How dared she perceive the world in such a crude way, as if a toddler had drawn it with a crayon? To Sol, the lines were all thick and their placement simple, with no complexity at all behind their patterns. Nice behavior = friendship, nastiness = enmity, obviously, so why oh why did the wicked moon daughter resist? Why did she defy that natural law? (Because Selene happened to believe in a thing called dignity, thank you very much. It may have been in short supply in her kingdom, where everyone worshiped the sun clad in fire, but that didn't mean she had to forget about her roots, either. She couldn't!)

"You call that a sacrifice?" Selene raised her eyebrow, so angry that she'd all but forgotten about her plan to manipulate her. (How was she think of things like 'long term strategy now, hmm? Not only had the primordial mothers compared her - her! - to the sun dumbass, but the said sun dumbass also had the audacity to argue with her. Oh, the depths of injustice! Selene deserved not to live in a world where this was not only a viable scenario, but also reality-- clearly, her talents were wasted on such a setting.) "It was only a thing, Sol. Maybe you haven't noticed, but you are a princess. You can get a replacement easily, and probably one of higher quality, too. Stop whining."

Blah blah blah, more whining followed, and then, of course, the leviathans simply had to take her side. Cool, awesome! Selene had never cared about their stupid opinions, anyway, so they could shove it where the sun didn't shine. (And, now when the moon princess thought of it? It only made sense that they'd support Sol over her-- Sol, whose willpower equaled that of a wet noodle, and who could be bent just as easily. Why not her, really? Selene had figured out that it would be oh so easy to manipulate her within seconds, so these creatures must have arrived to the same conclusion. That they haven't chosen me is a mark of honor, not one of shame. In me, they saw an opponent. What could they see in her, indeed, if not a potential victim? A piece of meat to devour? Ah, yes, yes! The truth was both dazzling and comforting, and knowing that, Selene could shroud herself in her usual superiority.)

The time to return came, as it always did, and far sooner than Selene would have liked, she found herself back in the sun palace. Sigh. Couldn't it have exploded while they were away? No? No, apparently. That was quite alright-- the flavor of disappointment was slowly becoming a staple of Selene-land, and it didn't even taste that unbearable. As in, one could get used to it. Meanwhile, Sol seemed simply hellbent on turning herself into some kind of martyr, which the moon princess couldn't help but frown about. What was she hoping to accomplish here, hmm? Did she believe that Selene wouldn't kick a puppy that had already been beaten black and blue? Well, she was wrong, just like with most other things. With the cat out of the bag, why not double down on everything, after all?

"Aww, how moving," the moon daughter smirked. "Why, pray tell, are you doing this? So that you can pretend you're a good person? I'm still your prisoner, no matter how you spin it, and frankly, I don't care for your brand of mercy. I bet you're just eager to paint yourself as a victim. That's what you think you are, don't you? Ah, the woman whose freedom you've stolen has lied to you, the horror! I imagine that must be very traumatic for you, Sol. Downright tragic. Would you like me to soothe your wounds?"

 

[starboob]

Selene is a butthole. Selene is a huge butthole. Selene is a huge, gaping, prolapsed butthole. Sol doesn't use such hateful or negative phrases lightly either, so that she has come to this conclusion is rather miraculous. Even more so that the moon daughter has so quickly found herself on this list given that Sol is a rather forgiving individual and can overlook the usual character flaws that are common to any normal person. The issue? Selene is not like any normal person she has ever met. She's an egotistical maniac rivaling that of her own mom. 'Okay, that's a little extreme. Maybe you need to, like, take a chill pill,' she suggests to herself as they ascend up the steps towards the gilded palace. Like, she can feel her temperature rising and the vein in her neck is even starting to throb which she knows is not a good sign. She bites down on her cheek and clenches her fists at her sides as she marches up and up, trying to ignore all the incredibly wrong things that Selene is saying. (Well, she has to admit that Selene is right that they can never have a friendship if the power balance between them is so obviously skewed in her own favor. It's not even Sol's fault things are the way they are, but she can't pretend that what her counterpart is saying doesn't matter. What bothers her, she supposes, is that Selene is almost implying that were things different and more balanced she might be more open which Sol just doesn't think is true. Not after her admission back there.) "Oh, step off. We could be free as birds and you would think we'd have different feathers and, in your brain, that would mean we can't be friends. Butt-flash news-hole, birds of different feathers can flock together and sometimes they do," she huffs. 'Ugh, way to be a complete butthole in return,' she pinches the bridge of her nose and takes a few deep breaths, steadying her pulse before she continues. "Sorry. I didn't mean that. I am upset you tried to have me m-worded, that's reasonable. I didn't mean to totally disregard your point, though."

"I didn't want things to be this way. I don't want a bodyguard. I know that's just my mom's nice word for babysitter, because she thinks I'm totally useless." Sol isn't completely ignorant to how Helia sees her. She knows she's the family disappointment, because she refuses her fighting lessons, is scared of wielding fire, and doesn't want to crush her enemies when they insult her. She knows her mom thinks that she's a weak little thing who isn't worthy of her name. She's probably only alive because her mom never reproduced a spare. The mothericorn basically confirmed that, now that she's thinking about it. "But I said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not your enemy. I refuse to be. I just don't know enough about magic to undo what's been done. I have lessons with Aquila tomorrow and I think I can get that bird brain to tell me something useful. Look, I won't even try to be your friend anymore. We'll just break this link and you can be on your way to kill me in a more creative way some other time, I guess."

Okay, Sol doesn't think she'll actually stop trying to be Selene's friend while she's trapped in the Sun court. She's just saying it maybe to see how her own heart reacts to that. It immediately calls her a liar and she feels guilty and she feels stupid. Guilty because she hates being a liar. Stupid because she should let Selene go and she can't. It's annoying. There's nothing particularly special about what Selene has to offer, given she has offered zilch. She's just obnoxiously pretty and her secret fun side speaks to Sol's not-so-secret fun side, like a kindred soul. "I gave up more than you were willing to, because you were willing to give up someone that doesn't matter to you. I loved Tamagotchi and where in the heck do you think I'm going to get another? I have not seen a Tamagotchi store in this realm or yours. Do you have a secret Tamagotchi plug? If so, please hook me up because I already miss that annoying egg," she was much better company than you, she would have added were she not trying to be the bigger person. 'Being the bigger person sucks donkey butt.'

Her usually thicc patience is wearing thin the more Selene hurls her implied accusations at the sunbeam. 'It's just better to shut up and not say anything,' and despite that she whips around with her finger pointed firmly at her opposite, "You know what? If you were half as smart as you think––"

"Soleil!" a sing song voice calls from the top of the steps and when Sol turns around, she recognizes the figure as the flaming centaur, Sagittarius. (Who else would call her that insufferable nickname? She just thinks because she's so well traveled that she can just slip in the stupid little language fragments she's picked up.) "If you bribe me, I might be willing to part with these ogre hearts," the centaur says, shrugging off a heavy sack dripping with purple blood from over her shoulder. "You know, the ones you were supposed to slay before you got distracted by a cave and disappeared."

"Wow, Vagittarius," ("How original.") "do you really have nothing better to do than stalk us?"

"You don't really think Helia trusted you to carry out the task, do you? Of course she had me watching, but I got bored and decided to do your job for you. I do believe a thanks is in order?" she smirks, "I think an appropriate trade would be your services for ten years? It won't be awful," that means it very much will be, "just the usual housekeeping, brushing my hair, feeding me grapes, and a marriage to Jupiter."

For once in Sol's life she's actually supremely grateful that her mother appears in a swirl of flames before she can even respond to that outrageous request. "Ah, I thought I smelled disappointment," her mom says, by way of a greeting, and staring pointedly at the the disappointments. "Sagittarius, give the hearts to the mages and stop trying to pawn off Jupiter on my scion. I have already told you, that ball of gas is getting no where near my lineage and if you do not get that through your thick skull, I will have you sent away."

Sagittarius rolls her eyes in response––she's probably the only person who can get away with that without getting smote––and trots off (clop, clop, clop). When the clops can no longer be heard, Helia bores all four eyes into Selene, "Explain to me what happened, silver child."

 

[Syntra]

Ah, so she didn't want things to be this way. Well, that changed everything, didn't it? Spoiler alert: no, it sure as hell didn't! You could repeat a thousand times that you hadn't wanted to step on that snail's shell, but the remorse couldn't exactly glue the shards together, now could it? Nor could it save the poor creature, crushed by your boot. "Poor, poor Sol," Selene smirked, not even trying to disguise the poison dripping from her words. "How terrible for you! If only your mommy finally got the gifts right-- I imagine that receiving things that you don't want must be literal torture. I bet that you cry at nights, unable to fall asleep, as you contemplate the horrific burden of ownership. Ah, how selfish I have been! I was too preoccupied with my own role in this mess instead of, you know, remembering to shed tears over your fate. I do hope that you'll be able to forgive me, my princess," she bowed, oh so deeply, in a manner that was so exaggerated that it hurt. (Selene and sarcasm? Why, yes, their relationship was rather good, thank you for asking. In fact, you could say that Sarcasm was her second name! ...or even her first name, depending on who she was dealing with, and the sun princess was quickly becoming exactly that sort of person. Just, ugh, how annoying! Not her friend anymore, huh? Why, then, did she still insist on trying to help her? Why, why, why? None of that made a lick of sense, and that bothered Selene so much that she wanted to scream.)

"Are you toying with me?" she snarled. "Dangling hope in front of me only to take it away? Just know that I will not be an entertaining toy-- I shall not make funny sounds, nor shall I entertain you with grimaces. I don't trust you, you see? Therefore, you cannot make a fool out of me." Yes, that she certainly couldn't. The principle of personal gain ruled over everything, everyone knew that, so who was Sol to think she could convince her to abandon all logic? Oh no, no, no, Selene saw through her deceit, and quite clearly at that. There must have been some hidden benefit for the sun heiress in this seemingly selfless endeavor! ...amusement, most likely. To derive joy from seeing her suffer would be an easy thing to accomplish, right? And, truly, there was no victory sweeter in this universe than watching your enemy get reduced to a shell of their former self. "I won't wear my clown shoes for you, Sol." (Wait, what?) "Also, I'm not surprised you genuinely loved that thing. Not in the slightest. You just pushed those annoying little buttons and the thing did exactly what you wanted it to do! That's how you imagine a harmonious relationship, I'm sure. Good for you! Indeed, you are your mother's daughter-- the true scion of your house."

Yes, the connection to her mother was quite obvious now-- even if, as it turned out, the mother didn't exactly trust in her, either. "Pfft," Selene huffed and shook her head, not wishing to perceive such an obnoxiously bright aura for longer than necessary. "Get lost, horse. You find yourself in the presence of princesses, and that you discovered the audacity to talk to us without express permission is scandalous enough. Slide back in the obscurity where you belong! Do that, and I may spare your miserable life when the Moon claims what is rightfully hers." ...which, of course, was a lie. Sagittarius was just too powerful for mercy, you see? She had to be eradicated, all the books that contained her name burned, and-- ah. Ah, alright. The sun queen herself entered the scene, surrounded by her eternal flames! Good, Selene thought, exactly what I wanted. ...well, no, not really. If the sun princess could choose between barbed wire in her eye and meeting Helia, she'd always go for the former, but at the moment? It wasn't terrible that she had come, for Selene had news to share.

"What happened, you ask?" the moon daughter lifted her chin, the very picture of dignity. "Why? You know already, don't you? The sun sees everything, I've been told, and I wouldn't dare to doubt that piece of information. Clearly, you merely want me to put it into words! Very well, I shall oblige. What happened, my queen," bleugh, what a disgusting thing to say, "is that we failed. Your daughter failed to maintain her focus for longer than five seconds, and I failed to rein her in. So, instead of doing whatever you wanted us to do? We joined a secret club and murdered some moonicorns because we felt like it." ...what? Devastating honesty was the only antidote to Sol's martyrdom, even if she may have been signing her own death sentence here. Deal with that, dumbass, the moon princess thought, with no small amount of spite. Here, have another chance at being everyone's perfect little messiah. Good luck! And, yes, Selene may have been hoping for her to fail, actually. Because, if Helia decided to remove her from existence? She would no longer have to deal with a certain dim-witted sun princess, and that counted as a win in her book. ...it was better than a life of servitude, anyway. Helia may have forced her to swallow lava, yes, but her true deference was something that she could never have! "Want to hear more infuriating details?" Selene taunted. "I believe some of them could make you, hmm, explode."

 

[starboob]

Sol has to admit that Selene's ability to see rot that isn't there is impressive. It seems to be her hidden talent. Actually, it seems to be her only talent if Sol were going to be petty about it––which she absolutely is, because it's not like the moon daughter is even being remotely fair. She knows that, technically, Selene doesn't owe her anything, especially given the circumstances, but she might have hoped the moon daughter would be smart enough to find allies when she is drowning in enemy territory. Like, that's what Sol would do. Perhaps she would be making a clown of herself, as Selene puts it, but at least she wouldn't be making the situation freaking worse! In what universe does that even make any sense? Ugh, she really does not understand her opposite at all and, to be honest, she is nearly convinced that she never will, even if she really, really, really, really, really wants to. (That Selene will probably refuse to understand her, sucks major butt, and Sol can't do anything about it. She can only be herself and if Selene continues to paint her with little devil horns, a devil tail, and angry little eyebrows then that's completely on her. Sol must accept this and move on because wasting her energy here will only hurt her more later on. There's that horse saying she's tempted to invoke, but after all their horse experiences today she would just rather not. Big sigh x298473.)

"Whatever, Selene. I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you," she says dismissively in response to Selene's thick layer of sarcasm. (She realizes that Selene is a like a cake. A poop filled cake with disgusting diarrheal layers. However on the outside? She is the picture of beauty. Nice, smooth fondant covering on the outside making her look like a masterpiece you would feel bad about eating and then you break the illusion before even cutting into the poop cake because you remember that fondant is a disgusting amalgamation of sugar glue and you should never even want to cut into a cake like that because the icing isn't even good. It's just pretty. Selene is just pretty. Like everyone else in this stupid, stupid queendom. She should know by now that she is the only one who has both inner and outer beauty as her research has yet to tell her otherwise.) "Lucky for you, I guess, that I don't enjoy wasting air," highly debatable, "so I won't spend my time trying to change your onions." She decides not to say that she will spend some time doing, like the only valid princess she knows (who unfortunately only lives in a book).

It is also incredibly annoying that Selene insulting the horse woman does make her smile because she's supposed to be mad! She's supposed to be so mad that she doesn't even think the moon daughter is worth her smiles and yet here she is, making a fool of herself by smiling because she's probably the only other person in this realm willing to insult one of the fire signs so openly. (That probably will bite her in the keister later, but it's not like Sol can do anything about it now that's out in the air.)

The other thing that Sol cannot control? Selene big fat mouth. Her eyes widen in utter horror and surprise as Selene just freely tells her mom exactly what happened to them! Of course, her mom's face remains as impassive as ever, just its usual flavor of disappointment and disgust for that which does not burn as brightly as she. "Selene, you were supposed to let me handle this," she whispers, for some reason still not believing that the moon daughter deserves her mom's ire––at least if it were directed at herself Helia is mostly only verbally mean to Sol and she can handle that! She only has theories about what her mom does to the not-Sols of the court and she doesn't want Selene to suffer those theories. (Also, Sol thought it would have been pretty frigging obvious that the Sun can only see where her light shines––therefore, spending most of the day in a cave and the moon court would have opened them up for a lot of plausible deniability! Cheese and rice, Selene is one brain cell short of being a regular two brain cell-er.)

"Silence, daughter," Helia says, annoyed––obviously so as she considers what the silver child has just told her. (Wow, Sol really thought her mom would have literally blown up finding out they killed moonicorns. You know the corns that can only be found where the Sun doesn't shine.) "Your honesty is appreciated, Selene. I see you still have your honor about you and for that, you shall be rewarded," though what that reward shall be remains an entire mystery. Sol doesn't think it's going to be a nice lizard companion. "Though, do tell me what this secret club is?"

"It was nothing!" Sol interjects before Selene can open her big-dumb-stupid-plush mouth again, "Just something I made up so that we could be maybe be friends or something. It's just us and my imaginary friends." (Actually an incredibly likely story.)

Helia, however, does not seem quite convinced. In fact, as per usual, she ignores her daughter entirely. She turns back towards Selene, "And what, pray tell, are these infuriating details that might make me combust?" Her carefully sculpted brow raises and with it, so does the temperature. Sol can feel her nerves budding and the temptation to push her mom and run away with Selene is fierce, but she resists that urge because her mom is basically twice her side, a goddess, and that will definitely only get them both into trouble. 'Selene, you huge liar, you better lie your frigging face off,' she prays, knowing that her prayer will not be answered.

 

[Syntra]

Rubber. Ah, yes, Selene could see that, indeed! If nothing else, Sol certainly had all the properties of rubber, with her staggering ability to bend the narrative for it to suit her whims. If this goes on, the moon princess thought, more bitter than black coffee, she'll try to convince me that it is her who is the hostage here, and not me. That I'm having the time of my life here, actually. Shouldn't I be oh so thankful for being allowed to bask in her presence, hmm? For letting her sunlight caress my face? (Truly, how deep did the rabbit hole go? Did Sol believe the nonsense she was spouting, in her heart of hearts? The saddest thing about it was that Selene could easily visualize that, pathetic as it was. The lens through which the sun heiress watched the world weren't even rose-tinted-- no, they'd been painted with obnoxious pink, and covered in glitter! ...oh, what a silly, silly fantasy. In it, Selene was convinced, Sol was the main character of some heroic legend, with everyone else being there just to worship her. 'Your Sunniness, please, please look down on me, the unworthy sinner that I am, and bless me with your attention!' Pfft, yeah, right. That was not how things were going to go, Selene could guarantee that. The sun, you see, could never earn anyone's love-- for that, it was too pushy, its radiance too blinding. If you had no choice but to love it, then how could these feelings ever be genuine? How, how, how? ...that was the heritage that Sol had been born into, whether she knew it or not. Her fate, as searing as her mother's flames.

"Indeed," the moon daughter nodded, "I have no need for lies. Honesty is all you shall ever get from me," unless deception suits me more. ...what? Selene wasn't required to play by the tyrant's rules, thank you very much! Such a silly notion, too, that one's honor should be judged by one's honesty. (You know who had invented it? Those whose grip on their power was secure already-- tight enough, in fact, to shatter their enemies' bones. Of course that these people could afford to be sincere! For such women, repercussions were only a theoretical concept, applying to other people but never to them. Who, after all, would raise their voice in protest? Who would dare to defy them? When you wielded a sword and others only had shields made of paper, it sure was easy to speak with confidence.) "That I can swear, on my name and my mother's love." The mention of a reward, though? It, ah, didn't exactly fill her with a sense of peace, but Selene chosen her path already, so now she had to walk it.

...or did she?

(You see, contrary to the popular opinion, the moon princess wasn't stupid. Sharp-tongued, yes, and oftentimes too proud for her own good, but it wasn't that Selene didn't see danger when it was staring her right in the face. And, right now? In the shadows of Helia's aura, wolves were lurking, hungry for her flesh! ...ah. What now? Selene had set out to antagonize her, don't get her wrong, though wasn't this too much? Dancing close to the flames was fun enough, but only till they devoured you, and... and she didn't want that. Not yet, anyway. Aargh, wasn't it Sol's job to get her out of this mess? The princess thought herself to be a messiah, so clearly, she was responsible for reining her mother in! Think. Think, Selene. How do you not get buried in this hole you've dug for yourself? ...ah, perhaps Sol's excuse could provide a safety net, after all!

"Sol's imaginary friends," Selene blurted out. "Their very existence, I imagine, would drive you mad if you were to meet them. You wouldn't believe what they had to say! The amount of disrespect was enough to make me want to barf, truly. One of them said that gold was garish, and those who wore it only demonstrated their lack of fashion sense." Ha! If Helia was as vainglorious as Selene suspected, then that should give her a pause-- hopefully a pause long enough to, you know, drop all her suspicions. "Many of them were just plain awful, I have to say. Uneducated and boorish, and very much unworthy of a princess's time. It is not my place to judge Sol's companions, of course, but should she really be spending so much time with these bottom feeders? I fear they may be infecting her with their rotten manners, my queen. It is quite heartbreaking to see." ...hmm, hmm. Could this be an opportunity in disguise? Something for her to sink her teeth into? Swiftly, the puzzle pieces were falling in place, and Selene knew she had to act. "Let me teach your daughter what is and isn't appropriate, my queen. Leading by example is the most powerful method, is it not? Give me the authority, and I shall find the diamond that her core is made of."

 

[starboob]

As far as Sol knows, she is not an anatomy genius. Sleeping on all her textbooks has not, unfortunately, transported the knowledge of those books into her brain through osmosis. So she is fairly certain that it is not that great that she can feel her heart beating in her ears like thunder over the Grand Canyon (that place sounds pretty if it's real). Usually when she's nervous she can at least hear it, but this is like a pounding in her head that is screaming at her to do something before Selene opens her stupid mouth and says something stupid because she doesn't know how to pick her frigging battles. (Which, yeah, she honestly doesn't believe Selene knows how to pick her fights given her track record. Yes, she can acknowledge that moon daughter is probably smart––maybe not top of her class smart, but certainly like... top ten percent, for sure. However, she clearly only has her booksmarts because if she had any semblance of streetsmarts, she probably would never have challenged a goddess, a heavenly monarch, as a mere godling. Like, sure, a lot of the fantasy novels that Sol has read include heroines who conquer the unconquerable and even Sol knows there is a very stubborn line between fantasy and reality. Shocking, she knows, because most people think Sol's head is in the clouds but being an optimist does not equate to being stupid. End rant.) In this moment, it's not that Sol is trying to pick her battles by not stepping in, because she'd pretty much tap in for Selene if she ever asked––not that she can determine why given the booger brain (derogatory) tried to have her sacrificed––but she can't, uh, actually move. Not her jaw, not her neck, not her arms. Her mom has frigging encumbered her body from the waist up! 'This is utter baloney...' (This is not even the first time Helia has used magic to obstruct her daughter. Sometimes, she just needs her royal peace and quiet.)

"What a suspicious answer," Helia says plainly, not at all hiding her distrust of the moon daughter. Though at least she sounds amused rather than angry. That has to mean something positive, right? (Ehh, it probably means less than dirt.) "You must think me an idiot if I were to believe this pledge sworn on nothing; as if your mother could ever know something like love. Still, I can respect your efforts, weak and feeble as they are––children very rarely know when they have bitten off more than they can chew." She shrugs and then turns on her heel, "Both of you, follow me."

Sol really doesn't expect her mom to take her to any new place of the palace, because she's honestly only ever seen her mom in about five locations––the throne room, her bedroom, Sol's bedroom, the library, and the banquet hall. Obviously, her mom probably can be found in other areas of her grand estate, that stretches outwards for miles in every direction, but Helia prefers to only see her daughter in these locations. Probably because these are all locations where business can happen and Helia tends to treat Sol as a sour business deal. Naturally, they end up in the throne room and her mom takes her seat. (Sol has only two memories of herself sitting on that throne. One from when she was three and had been sitting on her mom's knee. Her mom had cooed to her then, 'This shall be your seat of power one day, C––Sol.' The other is from when she was seventeen and had snuck into the throne room without permission and decided to sit on the throne to see how it felt. Her mom caught her red handed and Sol doesn't remember what happened after that.)

She still can't talk so she can only weakly hope her prayer that Selene can pull it together is answered. And when that prayer is answered? She tries her hardest to school the surprise from her face, and thankfully her mom's four eyes are all fixed on Selene. "And you played along with her little game?" Helia's bottom set of eyes stay on Selene and the top ones shift to Sol; the top and bottom switch their focus between the young goddesses and Sol cannot figure out what exactly her mom is thinking. She does, at least, release her hold on Sol and the sunbeam takes that as her invitation back into the conversation.

"You weren't supposed to tell her that, Selene! You promised!" She musters as much upset as she can, which isn't hard since she is mad at Selene. (Lying to her mom doesn't count as lying when her mom sits on a throne of lies. She might as well be the goddess of lies and not the Sun goddess––oh, wow she sure hopes her mom didn't catch that train of thought. Not that Helia is a mindreader, but one can never be too careful.) "Mom, I swear it was just joke. I just like all the other colors so much and you always put me in gold and I really think that washes me out. I can do reds and certain oranges, but golds and yellows make me look like I have jaundice."

"You said you liked my friends," Sol continues, perhaps layering it too thick, but her mom doesn't seem to notice. Instead, she sits back on her throne and considers what Selene has just proposed. Again, it's hard to determine what the queen is thinking and the temperature gives nothing away. It neither rises nor falls, it just remains consistently blistering. "You think you can teach gold to glitter? My daughter has gone through a myriad of the finest tutors, all tasked with teaching her the very essence of what it means to be a goddess––more importantly the Sun goddess––and they have all failed. I knew you were an arrogant little waif, but I did not think you would make a suggestion this bold." Her lip twitches and it's either a simper or the curve of a knife's edge. "I think watching you fail shall be most rewarding. You'll be spending the next eon with her anyway, so why not? There's little to lose."

 

[Syntra]

Hmmm... how did that proverb go? Like mother, like daughter? Yes, yes, that was it! And, really, while searching for similarities between Helia and Sol was generally like attempting to liken silk to sandpaper, Selene could see the same brand of foolishness in both of them now-- the very foolishness that led them to underestimate her, in other words. (Fail? Her? Pfft! The moon daughter did not fail, thank you very much. Sometimes, it took her a few moments to find the proper route to success, but you only ever failed when you stopped trying, and Selene... oh, as tenacious as the moon herself she was, indeed! Dark clouds might silence her for a minute, an hour, a day, but never permanently, as these women would soon learn. To their detriment, of course.) "If I must fail," the moon daughter grinned, "then I promise to do so in the most spectacular manner, my queen. If nothing else, you shall be... hmm, entertained." (No, not entertained. Dead, with her flames a mere memory! Helia, the mother of horrors, would end up buried in the darkest of tombs-- oh yes, Selene would see to that. Not even the tiniest sliver of light would caress her face, and nobody would know where her resting place was, either. The history would swallow her, as it had swallowed countless queens before! ...the knowledge that it would be her doing filled her with great joy, indeed. Great enough for the moon princess to derive her strength from it, anyway, and if she was right about the nature of her predicament... well, Selene would need every drop of patience that was available to her. All of it, and perhaps more.)

The next few days? Ah, those were a haze, chaotic but ultimately not worth remembering. Teaching, you see, was much like planting seeds, and in order to see harvest, you had to prepare soil for it first. So, what did that mean in their context? Well, let's just say that Selene interviewed Sol's maids and... hmm, got rid of the ones that had been contaminating her mind with toxic ideas. (Truly, how had they even been allowed to get this close to a princess? Loyalty was a precious currency, but that didn't mean that they had to sacrifice their dignity to provide it, sheesh. Some of them didn't even have the decency to kiss the path upon which the young princess walked! Disgusting, and also a perversion of the natural order. To think that Helia had allowed her kingdom to fall into such depths of depravity... ah, Sol's presence must have been like acid, slowly corroding all that was precious. That the primordial mothers had chosen her was a joke, joke, joke, and Selene... no, Selene wouldn't think of it. The primordial mothers, too, were failures, which explained everything. Didn't like attract like? The principle applied not only to alchemy, but to real life as well, as the moon princess knew! Besides, she had her own path to follow-- a starlit path, guiding her towards greatness. Who even cared about the living fossils and the stupid dog, wagging her stupid tail? Certainly not women with actual futures, thank you very much.)

"Sol," Selene reprimanded the other princess, her voice like a whip, "you must not walk in this revolting manner. I can't even see it, and yet I can sense how you slouch! When people look at you, they must see a queen, not a woman who has been chewed up and spat out by... by a washing machine." (No, the princess knew not what it was, but it sure sounded undignified, and that was more than enough for her purposes. It wasn't like she actually meant to teach Sol anything, you see? Just like a chimpanzee couldn't learn Mandarin, the sun heiress lacked the capacity for higher arts-- unironically spending energy on her would have been fruitless, then, and Selene refused to waste her time on barren soil. Oh no, she wouldn't be anyone's fool! ...that didn't mean that antagonizing Sol didn't amuse her, however. So what? She was a princess, not a saint, and excess frustration had to be released, otherwise it would explode in the least inopportune moment. When viewed through that lens, cruelty was one's responsibility, rather than pointless indulgence!

Decisively, Selene walked over to a nearby bookshelf, and grabbed a few books. "Do you know what books are good for, Sol? They contain wisdom-- knowledge of the ages, written on those brittle pages so that you might benefit from your ancestors' labor. Some, however," Selene smirked, "are more dense than others. I don't quite believe that reading alone shall transform you into a sage. No, I think that you will require a more... hmm, hands on approach. Right." And, with that? With that, she placed the books on her head, perhaps a little more forcefully than strictly necessary. "Balance in all things, haven't you heard? Learn to walk with this on your head, and perhaps you will understand the true meaning of those words." ...yes, and perhaps the universe would collapse on itself. Not a completely impossible scenario, right? Selene wanted to add something, another nugget of wisdom that would surely be overlooked, but then--

"Princess Sol!" a voice called from the pages, as tiny as it was ancient. By the moon, what the...? That question, at least, was answered swiftly, when the book fell on the ground and a bookworm peeked out of its hiding place. "Ah, thank the sun! I am so happy I was finally able to meet you, princess. Numerous times, I begged the queen for an audience, but she wouldn't grant it to me! Something about not wanting to waste her time on worms, as if we aren't an important part of the ecosystem. Anyway, what I wanted to do was to ask you for a favor," the bookworm batted its eyelashes. "You spent your childhood on the Earth, right? That's what my sisters say, at the very least. The thing is, I forgot my favorite book in there and I'm allergic to everything else. No, really, it's terrible-- books that are not Twilight make me break out in hives. Could you please bring it to me?"

 

[starboob]

As it would turn out Sol's mom is full of surprises. Like, the sunbeam hadn't actually thought her mom would approve Selene's request and Sol had mostly played along with the little charade to help the moon daughter avoid punishment (and in Sol's mind she had been successful as she is completely unknowing to what happened after their audience). Now that this is really happening she isn't quite sure how to feel about the arrangement, mostly because she has ended up strongly disliking every person who has tried to fill her head with stupid knowledge instead of the good stuff like, how fungi are neither plants nor animals and exist as their own category entirely. She doesn't want to dislike Selene despite Selene doing everything possible to make sure that Sol dislikes her guts. She even wants to believe that maybe Selene won't take this seriously and will let Sol goof off––that Selene will be different than her prior tutors. In a way she is right. Selene is worse. Actually, she's Worse^TM capital W, trademark and all! Sol made that sad concession when her favorite maids had been replaced, because apparently they didn't kiss her royal hiney enough! That wasn't even their fault as the sunbeam had asked them not to, by royal decree. (And to think that as a result they've now been forced to take a vow of silence? She really does not like that or how it's directly her fault. Their eyes look so vacant now and they barely seem to recognize Sol. Sad sigh.) Still, Sol is trying her best to give Selene a more honest chance than she has her previous instructors. If only because she's worried what will happen is Selene fails to teach her properly.

... But the moon daughter is not making it easy. Tbh, she's just waiting for her companion to shove a tree branch up her butt so they can be stick-butt twinsies. She's even slightly worried that Selene is going to open up her back while she sleeps and replace her spine with a ruler. A truly terrifying prospect and she somehow doesn't put it past her companion to resort to methods so medieval they make the medieval times look like fairy world.

"Slugh-eene," she gurgles, simultaneously trying to talk and dislodge the blueberry seed stuck in her molar. "Dis ist pointghless." Like, Sol doesn't need lessons in how to walk. She's watched plenty of America's Next Top Model and has learned from Ms. Tyra Banks herself! (What? Whomst?) If Selene cannot sense her perfect catwalk, then that's not Sol's fault! She only slouched to get some better leverage at that stupid little blueberry seed. (Update on the blueberry seed: it finally comes out and she swallows it down with triumph.) "And don't you think you're being mean to princesses with scoliosis? How do you know I do not have scoliosis?" She very much doesn't. Being the Sun's daughter has many benefits such as perfect health (though many would argue about the state of Sol's brain and its functionality). "He––ow!" she yelps, when Selene not so nicely places some books on her head. Her hands immediately fly up to grab the books before they can fall to the ground. "I'm all for a hands on approach, but this seems plain... dumb. Who cares about how I strut? That's, like, a really inane thing to be so particular about. Isn't being a queen all about––" and before she can finish that blasphemous thought (thankfully), a voice starts talking to her. Without thinking, she lets go of the books and immediately spins around, expecting to see someone saving her from this Sun-awful lesson.

When the voice continues from below she crouches down to the floor and finds the cutest little worm talking to her! (She has decided to call her Alfie, in the event she doesn't have a name.) "Woah..." she mutters, eyes wide and looking up towards to Selene to make sure she didn't accidentally put the funny mushrooms in her omelette this morning. Since Selene also seems baffled that either means they both ate funny mushrooms or this is 100 percent real. She's going to go with 100 percent real. "Yeah, my mom is kind of a butthole so this isn't surprising. Sorry she didn't treat you with respect, Ms. Worm. I'm totally down to help a little dude out, but... I didn't grow up on Earth?" She has very clear memories of growing up in the Sun court where her mom had even been cool from ages 0 to 15. No way those are fake! "Still, I've always wanted to go and this seems like a perfect excuse! But first..." her voice gets deadly serious, "Whose team are you on?" (Sol cannot recall ever reading this series, but she has a feeling that this question is important in determining someone's character. Especially since she has this weird feeling that Twilight is kind of terrible and vapid.)

"Rosalie, obviously," the worm responds, scratching her tiny body feverishly before stiffening and seeming to try to control the urge. "I also heard that the Holy Meyer released a new book for the series from the vampire's perspective... if it is not too much trouble, could you pick up a copy? I would kill to know the story from the vampire's perspective!"

"Good answer and sure, that seems reasonable to me," she nods, "Um, but how do I get to Earth? I heard the only way to get there is via mom portal or getting cast out and... neither prospect seems that great to me."

"I got you covered!" the worm––Alfie––grins, digging through her pockets with her tail. She then pulls out a compass the size of her body (?) and offers it to Sol, "This is Polaris's compass. My sister found it hidden in their dirty magazines. This should get you there and back easily. All you need to do is say the magic words, Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are, and boom! The compass will take you anywhere you want."

"Sweetness," she takes the compass Alfie and inspects it carefully before rising to face Selene. "Looks like I have been assigned a very important and royal mission, so this less important lesson on walking with a stick up my butt will have to wait! Thanks, it's been great, teach, but actual duty," she giggles, because doody, "calls!" And before Selene can so much as stop her? She's shouting, "TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR, HOW I WONDER WHAT YOU ARE––TAKE ME TO EARTH!"

Twinkling little lights dance around Sol and she's so excited that she could absolutely burst! (If Selene wants to catch the train to Earth, she better act quick because the sunbeam's body is rapidly disappearing as she is transported from this realm to the next.) In a rollercoaster of ups and downs and twists and turns, the sunbeam howls and screams out in glee. After a few minutes of utter joy and adrenaline, she lands gently on a soft patch of grass across the street from Earth's most sacred establishments: the combination KFC /Taco Bell. "Oh sweet, I could use a cheesy gordita crunch and baja blast right about now."

 

[Syntra]

Rarely did it happen that Selene and Sol found themselves in agreement, but sometimes, the stars aligned just right, in a dazzling constellation that would awe the generations to come. Admittedly, though? Most of those topics were rather mundane, and related to things that no woman in her right mind could deny. You know, assertions such as ‘you need oxygen to breathe’ and the like-- universal truths, in other words, that not even a fool of Sol’s magnitude could reasonably argue with. Agreeing with the sun heiress on other matters was a much, much rarer thing, though it did happen as well! It occurred now, for example, when Sol claimed that this entire charade was ‘pointless.’ Ah, no, Selene couldn’t possibly claim that to be untrue! (…although, come to think of it, that depended on your point of view. Was it pointless in terms of producing actual results, i.e. getting Sol to stop acting like a baboon in a fancy dress? Indeed, very much so. Baboons could imitate human behavior to an extent, given that they were their distant cousins, but as for making their own decisions? Exhibiting any sort of creativity? Pfft, yeah, right. If you gave a baboon a pen, you see, it would still choose to smear its shit on the walls instead of writing the next Romea and Juliet! So, yes, attempting to rewrite the creature’s DNA was mind-blowingly pointless, indeed. Was it pointless in terms of Selene deriving some top-notch entertainment from this set-up, though? Please, the moon princess hadn’t had so much fun in years!) “I thought that you were the one who was into positive thinking and…” …other forms of delusion… “…and such. Can you not try, at the very least? It has been proven by years of scientific research,” regardless of what that was, “that walking properly helps you categorize your thoughts as well. Everything is connected, Sol.” Well, everything aside from the sun princess’s neural network, though that was beside the point.

Multiple things turned out to be beside the point, actually, when a literal bookworm interrupted their session. Scandalous! How come the creature had gathered the audacity to even appear before their eyes, much less talk to them? Much less demand things of them? (Ah, the situation was even more dire than she’d feared, apparently. The stories of Sol being a baboon in disguise must have spread beyond the palace, and that was why everyone thought they could send her on foolish errands-- not that Selene cared about her reputation, mind you, but this was… not ideal. Not idea at all, to put it mildly. If she managed to turn her into an obedient puppet, after all, would that even mean anything? Power was fear, and the fear that Sol generated in her subjects was roughly equivalent to the one produced by a bowl of soggy cereals! She has to change, the moon princess decided. For too long, she has been shielded from the truths of this world. What was Helia trying to accomplish, even, by keeping her this ignorant? This blind? No matter, no matter. Sol’s eyes would be opened, whether she liked it or not!)

“What has possessed you, you worthless worm,” Selene pursed her lips, “to think that we care for your vapid goals? There is no way in hell that we shall waste our precious time on acquiring some silly--” --ah. Ah, alright. In hindsight, it should have been obvious-- the mission was entirely foolish, right from its foolish premise to its foolish conclusions, and Sol, whose second name might as well have been Fool, naturally gravitated towards it, in the same way that flies were drawn to honey. Fine, fine! Earth it was, then. “I would just like to state,” she frowned, “that being Team Rosalie is an unforgivable sin in my eyes. Why would you wish that wet blanket of a protagonist on her? If anything, Alice x Rosalie is where it’s at.” …wait, what? Indeed, the brand of brain damage that Sol must have sustained in her childhood must have been terribly infectious, for there was no other reason for her to suddenly act Like That.

Normally, Selene would have listed all the arguments supporting her assertion that, yes, going to the Earth on a whim of some insectoid indeed was a terrible idea, but knowing Sol? Knowing Sol, that would have been just her wasting her breath. Ugh. Who would have thought that I, the brilliant Selene, would one day be reduced to a glorified errand girl? Humiliating, truly! Still, if they dealt with the matter quickly enough, perhaps it wouldn’t be that insufferable. I swear, if the dumbass forces me to go on a detour, I will--

Abd, shoot, there it was! (Could the sun heiress be reading her mind, actually? Every single time, Sol managed to pinpoint the optimal method for pissing her off, and at that point, it seemed too suspicious to be a mere coincidence! …did she think that Selene would bend to her will? Technically, she kind of had to, as Helia would have a few choice words to say to her if she didn’t comply, but hmm, hmm! Malicious compliance was a thing, wasn’t it? A deliciously, deliciously evil thing.) “Ah, sure. I’m dying of hunger myself,” Selene flashed her a bright smile, ignoring the masses of people rushing to moon knows where. (They, too, were insects. Disgusting. No wonder that Luna insisted on keeping them separate, for you had to distinguish between pearls and ashes!) “Let’s go get something to eat.” Without a hint of hesitation, the moon princess walked inside-- immediately, all the eyes were on her, and that was exactly how it was supposed to be! Yes, gaze upon your ruler, she thought, with no small amount of satisfaction. (Sometimes, living was almost worth it, in truth. Almost.)

“What will it be, ma’am?” some poor worm asked.

“I demand only the best. Nothing less than that will satisfy me. What is the tastiest meal this restaurant can provide?”

“Uhhh… that would depend on what you like?”

Excuses, excuses! And, let me tell you-- Selene was not interested in those. She jumped over the counter, graceful like a Russian ballerina, and, within seconds? Her claws were pressed to the poor chick’s neck, enough to draw blood. “Feed me and my friend immediately. Do it, or I shall feast on your blood instead!”

 

[starboob]

To be honest, Sol had sort of hoped that Selene would just leave her alone and she could do this mission on her own. It's not that she dislikes her or anything, she just mostly thinks she's a wet blanket on a cold day and this would be a lot more fun on her own. She can already hear Selene's lecture about their mission and sticking to the plan and blah, blah, blah, really. It does not make sense to Sol that they should waste their excursion on Earth by only picking up a poorly written book for a bookworm with highly unfortunate states. (Harriet Potter, for example, would have been leagues better and those books mostly just have an entertaining movie saga going for them. Like, Sol barely made it through three pages of Lady of the Ring so why the heck would she want to suffer through Lady of the Ring Lite? Not to mention that The Worst Witch is a much cuter series anyway. Oh, don't even get Sol started on Little Witch Academia––the point is, there are much better books about witches than Harriet Potter and... Oh, shoot! She had been trying to make a point about Twilight. Oh well! You get the gist.) There are clouds they haven't named, seasons they haven't experienced, slides that their bums have never slid!! Literally, does Selene not know how to make the most out of these rare opportunities? Something tells Sol, NO!!

"Alright, Selene," Sol says, clearly exasperated that the fun police decided to join her, "rule number one of hanging out with the cooliest person in the luminary courts? Don't be a square. Stop sucking eggs. Have fun! We're going to have some questionable 'Mexican' food, perhaps become afflicted with diarrhea (a 10/10 bonding experience), feed some ducks, find some doobie, do whatever seems fun, and then we can get the book. Pretty sure Barnes and Nobles closes around 10pm anyway so we have a whole day of adventuring ahead of us! Just please, please, please be cool. I don't want to be embarrassed."

Apparently, Sol had not spoken soon enough because Selene immediately breaks rules one through a zillion in the span of 0.0023 seconds. (A record, to be sure and she might have been more impressed if her counterpart were breaking the rules that don't matter.) If not for their obviously weird garb (Sol always knew her mother had been dressing her like a freaking nerd!) or their dazzling good looks, then all eyes are immediately on them because of Selene's insistence that, actually, yes! Violence is the answer––to the sunbeam's complete and utter horror (she doesn't even have the brain processing power to realize that Selene has just referred to her as her friend. That's how shocked she is). 'Has she learned nothing since the Rex fiasco?!'

"Selene!" she shouts, rushing to the front counter and pulling her companion off of the poor underpaid employee, "You imbecile! You deranged monkey! That is so not how you place an order at the combination KFC/Taco Bell. You say, 'Hi, I would like a cheesy gordita crunch, a crunch wrap supreme for my maladjusted companion, and two baja blasts, extra baja!'"

“I do not get paid enough for this shit,” some other woman says in the background, an electric buzzing accompanying the voice. When Sol turns to check out the new voice? It’s the manager, she assumes, with a taser. (Okay, either a lot has changed since Sol and Selene have been away or this sort of thing happens often enough to warrant the manager having a taser.)

“Shoot!” Sol exclaims, grabbing the feral Selene in her arms with a gorilla grip so that she cannot get away. “Ugh, we come in peace no need for a frigging taser, lady! Can we have a do-over?”

"Nice try, but I don't negotiate with demons! Not after the last time!" (Okay, what?)

At this point, with the manager pointing a taser at them and ready to discharge at any moment, several devices––she believes they are called cellphones––are pointed at the young goddesses and Sol knows that she will not be enjoying a cheesy gordita crunch or a baja blast, extra baja. She closes her eyes, super annoyed that Selene has ruined yet another adventure, and calls on the friendly roots beneath the establishment to rise through the foundation and create a barrier before the taser can lodge into their guts. Quickly, she pulls Selene out the establishment and drags them several blocks before she stops.

Before Sol can say anything that she might regret later, she takes some deep breaths and thinks some calming thoughts. "Okay, Selene, I am sorry for calling you an imbecile and a deranged monkey. That wasn't very nice, but you can't just dish our traumas to underpaid workers just because they aren't mind readers and don't know that you're obviously a crunch wrap supreme girl! Like, cheese and rice, dude. Do you know how to do anything in a remotely normal way?"