Brinly
She had debated her escape for too long, and soon she is met with the sound of Brazen’s rapid hoofbeats. Tension brews beneath her skin like a storm, and she tries to ignore the way her throat tightens as the other girl comes closer. This was a mistake; she could already feel it. But like small prey caught in the crosshairs she feels frozen in place, even though in her mind she is disappearing back into the mountains.
She is afraid to admit that she had thought of Brazen, and that that is why she is here. She is afraid to acknowledge that the other girl had sparked a strange, unfamiliar hope inside her chest. It was still just the smallest of embers, but inside of it rests a newborn hope that, maybe, she could be a friend.
And yet, there is an even larger part of her that would rather smother it than to ever let it grow into anything more than a flame.
Just as before, the two nearly collide with each other, but this time Brinly is prepared. She flinches visibly as she slides to a stop in front of her, and that same fear – fear that always expressed itself as anger, a fleeting flash of fury in her dark brown eyes and a clenching of her jaw – that she had grown so accustomed to causes her to skin to grow hotter than usual. “Brazen,” she does not mean to say her name as curtly as she does, but it is a difficult habit to break. She diverts her gaze for a moment, refusing to meet her eyes, though she does not utter an apology. Instead, she looks back to her and swiftly continues on, though the edge to her voice softens considerably. “I wasn’t sure if I should come or not, but, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to at least...look.” She glances away from her as she says this, peering towards the rocky cliffs and where she is sure the waves crash against them. When she looks back to Brazen, she offers her a tight smile. She was entirely out of her element, and it showed. “Were you born here?”
— burn until our lives become the embers —