Starry Night ✧ Merida & Elsa

One: Four Blue Eyes

"It's clear that ye still haven't gotten yourself a proper job." I could do nothing but sigh. My appetite left the room. Cue the speech, lads and lassies. It comes rain or shine.

"Michty me. Yer nineteen, Merida." She flails her bracelet-decorated hands in the air. "You're legally an adult. You've graduated high school two years ago and what? You're still here. Jobless. When you're not here, you're out somewhere making yourself busy by not working."

I know the speech by heart. A broken one. My wee brothers would imitate her every move and lip sync to her voice sometimes if she was in a less destructive mood, setting the bare minimum quite up in the sky.

Tonight wasn't one of those nights.

"Even Jack and Hiccup have their own jobs now! And ye?" It felt like attending a concert of your least favorite artist. "What's taking you, Merida? I'm already letting ye choose on your own. Aurora Creek is a melting pot!" 

"I-I told you, I'm still looking..." 

"Oh, ye say that every time I ask you about your job." Now, she's just playing the Devil's advocate. There is no use in trying to fight with her now. It wasn't much of a levelled laying field anyway.

She's always right.

"Don't tell me you're shy? Are ye ashamed to get a job? Are ye homosexuals too 'cool' to get jobs?"

My blood froze.

"Ye don't already work, think or even act properly, ye still don't work at all! You all are just giving our society a hard time to progress. Ye know what? Maybe, you don't need a job, maybe you need rehabilitation."

What the actual fuck?

"Elinor..." Dad's voice came in. Even he knows that what she said was way out of the line.

Way out of line.

"What the fuck, Mum?" their gasps were deafening. My hands slammed against the table like a mallet on a gavel. I wanted to rip my head open. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. 

But my anger went as fast as it arrived. Another emotion took over. It's been doing that quite often recently. I had a million things I wished to say but only one escaped my mouth. The one that I could never find an answer to.

"You still don't accept us?"

I didn't realize I was now on the verge of tears. Another storm in a teacup. This is why I hate it when Mum and I fight. She gets angry, I get angry. It's a stupid cycle. It's a stupid fight about stupid things. I'm fucking exhausted.

"You still don't accept... me?"

I didn't know and, frankly, didn't care how Mum would react to everything I just said but I'm not sticking around to find out or deal with the aftermath. Without another word, I rushed out of the house. The sound of the door shutting loudly echoed through the house like an earthquake.

The air outside was cold. It was nighttime already and the sky was overflowing with stars. The moon was shining brightly over Aurora Creek. The Man in The Moon, as Jack likes to call it. From out here, I could still hear the barks of our dog, Angus, from inside. I blinked away the tears forming in my eyes and released one last exasperated sigh. Three seconds out here and I could already feel the cold gnawing at my feet.

I only had this dark t-shirt and a pair of shorts on me. As dark as the Earl of Hell's waistcoat. Not really the best attire for this climate; a disadvantage of storming out.