Since I had turned fifteen, I had worn the same lace-up boots. They were workers shoes, sturdy, stiff and made from a wooden sole, but overtime they had only shrunk around my growing foot, which left me walking with curled toes, whilst the leather tore and the laces eventually frayed.
Once white, they eventually turned a rusty brown with dust and the soles had a permanent layer of soil clinging to it. Where are those shoes now? I have not an inkling of an idea, but I can imagine they were burnt to a shrivelled crisp to avoid catching the slum bug, that the people in town had made up just to create more chaos and fear from the other side of the golden gate.
Now, it seems every morning I get a new pair of shoes and it feels as if the Universe is apologising for making me squeeze my toes into a pair two sizes too small for so many years, but after having to break into the stiffness of my twentieth shoe, my obsession became vapid in overgrowing, leaving me to truly miss the softness of my old pair whilst the blisters upon my heels now, only burst and bled with every new shoe.
Self absorbed and frivolous. I had rolled my eyes when I had a proper look in the Princess' walk in closet, finding the perfectly aligned shelving packed with everything from sleek winter boots to heels that spoke of banquets and dances. Each was packed in vibrant tissue paper scented with the perfume that lingered around every corner of the palace.
But now as I wear one of her old pairs that had been tucked into the back corner of her closet, I found this certain pair to be one of the only sizes of her's which could properly fit me as if it was a tight-fitted glove. It seemed the real Princess was a size bigger than me and I chuckled to myself lowly as I walked the halls with Ruby by my side, for it must kill the Princess' ego to think that a slum girl, with all of her slum bugs included, is wearing her high-heeled, lace up boots right now.
I lift the bottom of my dress slightly up along Ruby and I's walk back to my quarters, and I watch the way with each step I take, the silk lace that was looped into the rich, real leather, flopped in a random, but jumbled way. I even alter each footfall along the hardwood, causing my heels to echo and bounce off the windows and walls, just so I can watch the effect of the chaotic and disorderly falling of the laces which I obviously hadn't tied up tight enough.
"Can you stop walking like such an imbecile." Ruby's voice suddenly, gritted through her teeth as she only used her peripheral's to glare to me this time.
Audibly scoffing and rolling my eyes, I dropped my dress that I had bunched up into my hands and let it cover my boots. Now overcome with a dreaded silence, Ruby and I, both walk uncomfortably next to each-other and it takes a lot of strength within to perch a happy smile onto my face and fake a conversation with the ginger girl, whenever somebody walks by us – But as soon as they are out of sight, our grins and warmth disappear with them.
I sigh to myself, it didn't matter if I was running through the halls and screaming or even if I tip-toed next to her silently, Ruby will always seek me out and scold me. She searched every tiny little thing that I would do and point out the disgrace, just to wind up for her next power fix.
Her victory is a forgone conclusion, her ego boost at my expense guaranteed. She feeds off me like a lion with their prey, although she doesn't share it with the pack; Leaving energised in her own fury as I feel drained and tense. She is a horrible person and for a second, I wonder how she would change this world if she was in charge, but to me, she is more of a parasite than the plague of the dreaded, First Order.
She's vapid inside, needing these transitory external crutches but she uses my own crumbling defences to build hers up even further, stealing my metaphorical bricks that I had perched into a wall and only adding it to her own.
I glanced at her in my silent rage and sorrow. She walked as stiff as The First Order's StormTroopers, seeming as if she had been armed with more than my own defences as she walked with a marching quality – But then, I see it.
Ruby's shoulders still back and straight, yet I notice she eyes frequently her reflection often by checking her own appearance in the window glass, which the rain still thrashed against. It was as if she felt superior and insecure all at once, perhaps that's the emotional optimum in a shallow human such as herself.
A pensive smile forms on my lips and I bite the inside of my cheek to stifle laughter at my own idea. Sucking in a large and comfortable breath, I sigh it back out loudly, to which she only furrows her brows at, but when my feet begin to shuffle and trudge along the floors, she flinches.
My feet are barely lifting off the ground and the heels are making a scraping and shuffling sound above the hardwood. It was a skin-crawling sound, a sound which even annoyed me like a loud buzz of a fly that cannot be swatted out of the air, as I only continued my movements.
When the flash of annoyance comes upon her disgruntled features, I only bask in her growing, burning anger. In that moment I funnel all my strength into my feet and only make the sound impossibly worse as I kept my grinning, mouth shut and hands relaxed by my swaying sides in glee.
Ruby's face only flushes a deeper red. I know what I am doing is angering her, and it's only more torturous to her fury, when she can easily tell that I am only doing this for a reaction.
Just when I cannot contain my stifle of laughter, she caves.
"Would you please pick your feet up!" She roars, as if the pressure of my trudging feet were like nails on a chalkboard.
Remarkably, even though I had caused her fury to erupt, I still became stunned by her anger as if I didn't expect it, but in a matter of seconds, I only smiled at my victory.
Ruby Mayse is like a tangled knot of emotion, but instead of thread, she had wires that lead to a ticking bomb. She so desperately tried to let it explode somewhere safe, often away from prying eyes but in this moment, she didn't care who may hear as they gave us side-glances.
By just the expression that a passerby gave, I smiled to him and shrugged – Which only made Ruby more furious in her withheld wrath, which is soon to erupt further once we reach my quarters that we near.
I chuckle at the crimson cheeks of hers,
"I don't know..." I drawl, thinking over our first fight of the day and repeating the phrase that I knew, made her blood boil, "Can I go to the stables?"
The situation only became more humorous to me when as soon as I had asked my question, a crack of lightening whipped over the day-clouds and thunder roared at the impact. The storm was almost as irritated as Ruby was, with the low slung darkness which exploded with pent up fury. Wind whipped the frigid drops, sending them hurtling in every direction and also straight down upon the arched, glass windows by mine and Kylo's, door.
But indeed, there was no greater desire than going to the stables to see Anwar, weather roaring or not, or humour and seriousness: I still wished to go.
Just as we stop at the door, Ruby waves away the guard for a second and then shakes her head to me as she practically slaps my hand away from the doorhandles and opens the two, thick doors by herself.
I trudge through the entry and twist around to block her from entering, just as she answers my waiting question,
"No – Firstly, because it's raining and secondly, you only want to go so you can see your slum boyfriend." She scoffed, rolling her icy blue, harsh eyes into white and resting her hand on her hip, seeming as if now she was the one blocking the exit.
"And I am not risking any chances of you getting caught." She adds low, weary of the guard who moved a bit further down, hearing her words.
I poke my head out of the entry, just to take a peak at the royal guard, who was dressed in First Order armour. I grin, "Why?" I ask, a bit too loud to the ginger girl, who I then glanced back to with the raise of an eyebrow, "Because you will be caught too?"
Ruby's eyes snap to mine and her lips part at my words. Eyes wide and heart pulsating behind her chest, she grabs onto my wrist that hung around the side of the door and pushed me into my quarters, and I stumble back with contorted features, clinging my sore wrist to my chest timidly.
Then holding the doors barely closed behind her back with her hands gripping harshly around the gold knobs as the thin line between the door and the hallway, shined the light through – She snaps her head in every direction, processing the empty space of the quarters and ensuring nobody is around.
When her narrowed eyes suddenly move back to me, she merely spits,
"Be quiet!"
Still twining the flesh of my wrist with my other hand, I chuckle and shake my head, still imitating that my defences are strong, although she had as much power as Kylo Ren did, to tear them all down with her sinister and cruel words.
"Let me go to the stables." I straighten my shoulders and chime, this time with more confidence than before as I more-so state it than ask.
Ruby looks taken aback, but her expression only morphs into one of offence – And in her eyes, I can see what she is thinking, for she had spat it to me not long ago.
It has been clear since day one, and even though it seems as if I am able to fool everyone else, Ruby cannot seem to forget that I am a commoner, a dirty, slum girl – And she is incapable of treating me as anything else – So why should I have to treat her as an authority?
Flinching her head back and raising her eyebrows in disbelief of my outburst. She cocks her head to the side and flicks out her tongue to the corner of her mouth, clicking it and scoffing.
"Why do you wish to go? So you can fornicate with the slum boy?" She musters over sarcastically, already knowing the answer. "I presumed you had already forgotten about him..." She adds, and I furrow my eyebrows in confusion at her words, but when her eyes scan to the faded purple bruise that blotched right below my jaw, I immediately grew red and tossed my hair in-front of it again.
Ruby continues and this time, she is the one who is laughing, "For it seems as if you have become quite cozy with Kylo Ren."
My stomach does an incredible drop, resembling the sharp shoot of a sharp arrow that cuts through the tension. Shame coursed my veins as if I was now shifting gears and running on it. I allowed the darkness to fall to my flesh and I felt her laughter swallow me whole for a little while, but then all at once, I crashed my course of shame and brewed in the gas-fire of anger.
Only speaking the same thing she had when I was the one who caught her off guard, I spat,
"Be quiet."
She only shakes her head and chuckles.
My system boils as if I had just submerged myself in acid and it seeps through my thin skin and melts my bones when I realise that every-time I feel as if I am winning, as if I am the one who is riding the high of being the one to crash the other down, she blows me right off my pedestal and takes my place once more.
Just as she opens the crack in the door further and walks back into the halls, she says one last thing, "I'll see you tomorrow night." She grins, a devilish grin that I want to punch right off her pale, freckly face whilst the fire of her hair dies in my cruel embers, "And don't do anything stupid in the meantime."
I roll my eyes, "Whatever." I slur, like the true, slum girl that she thought I was, with my uncommon and derogatory words.
Just as I turn around, ready to trudge myself to bed and hide beneath the covers forever – I feel as if I am one of the bruised apples from the orchards and this time, Ruby is the picker. She often plucks me and assesses the damage from the rains and bugs, but no matter how much she tries to shine me upon the material of her dress, I am still what she assumed at the start, rotten.
Red in the face, fists clenched, hard staring eyes, when I don't hear the door yet close and then her venomous voice instead, I want to punch my hands through the walls and claw myself as far away from her as I can.
"Oh, and by the way... Princess?" Ruby hushes, in a kind tone – And I know with this sudden shift, the worst is yet to come.
I turn around and face her, raising an eyebrow for her to continue but don't give her the glory of my defeated tone.
She smiles and tilts her head, "Happy birthday."
My defences have been drenched and blown away entirely and now in the quiet, I bury flowers in the wreckage as a symbol of mourning, but they only grow back as thorns.
There is an intense anxiety to the rain, as if between the tumbling cloud and the earth it is fearful of never reaching its destination as I peek through the balcony entrance with her words echoing in my mind like a soulless whisper of conquering.
The sound alone is enough to make me pace the little space of the balcony, where the rain does not yet reach, with arms folded across my chest which rises and falls more abruptly than it should. The sound of this rain, so soothing to some, is enough to drown out every other noise, but my anxiety is screaming within, wishing for a release as I await either a servant to come and annoy me, or the distraction that was, Kylo Ren's hands.
But alas, I cannot wait any longer than I already have, even if Ruby had only left forty minutes ago, for something in that huddled anxiety was still whispering beneath my screams, and yet, that voice was louder in its reasoning.
I need to see Anwar.
I need to go to the stables.
I didn't even realise what exactly I was doing until the rain began to thrash onto my skin – I don't even recall battling my inner conscience about opening the doors of my quarters and taking the leap of sudden adrenaline or not, but I must of, because I had seemed to sharply throw my new shoes onto the hallway floors, which then turned to the stone of the courtyards and then into the sludge of the ruined fields which lead to the paddocks and stables.
The rain fell softly as if it knew of my hardships both behind and ahead. Each droplet crashed upon my skin as if it was trying to wash away the pain of the past and the uncertainty of what was to come, but no matter how much it tried, it couldn't scour away the love-bite on my neck which Ruby had pointed out, not long ago.
When the stables are still distant, but now in sight, I begin to wring my limp and drenched hair to the side of my neck, in attempts to hide it from Anwar when I eventually see him. I couldn't even bare to imagine how he would react and I didn't necessarily wish to explain that, no I didn't like Kylo Ren, but I had become addicted to his physical attraction as if he was some sort of drug that I couldn't kick – And something tells me that Anwar would presume me to be brainwashed by his mystical powers, which I had often considered too, every now and then.
The barn once blossomed amid the green, short-cut grass, only days ago, but now, only mud was its surroundings, as if it had dropped from the sky and imbedded itself into the murky soil that the rainfall had ruined. The timbers were aged and the light that streamed out from the creaking roof illuminated the droplets above like burning embers.
It was beyond cold. Even colder than most winter nights back home, where I had to curl up into myself during the night to avoid getting frostbite on my toes and fingers. My breath frosted over as the wintry air greeted me, the stables gelding at the end of my warm mist which pawed at the wooden walls impatiently as I had to walk around to the entry that faced the back lining of the palace.
The first cracks of illumination glimmer out the entry around the corner, but the smell hits me first. Smelling just like home, as if it was a scented candle of the orchards but far way and lacking the sweaty servants, who couldn't even smell the beauty with all the grime that they had breathed in for hours that day already.
Musty odour of wet straw presses against the cold air first, but with a nervous breath inwards, I can clearly detect the under-layers beneath the straw, grass and mud that surrounds – Animal fur and the stank of old manure, rain-water splashing into the watering trough and maybe even the sharp smell of old, oily metal and machinery, but most importantly, leather, the type that caused blisters all along Anwar's, home-like hands.
Winding around the corner of the stables, the door is already bound open by thin ropes that were attached to the wooden walls. There's a sense of heat that blows out from the inside and it warms my trembling bones which had become stiff like frozen icicles whilst I wrapped them around my torso, in hopes to keep my brittle heart warm too.
The old hay barn has stables at the front with those old half-doors to allow the horses to see the view of the yard. And just when I turn into the barn, I immediately jump backwards and hide behind the wooden panelling, away from the people inside.
Confusion flooded my system as if the rain was laced with disorientation and hallucinations, seeming as if it had seeped through all my pores to cause me to have a bewildering mirage that my own mind was creating. But the rain wasn't intoxicated with anything and I only allowed it to continue falling from my hair, down my cheeks and into my parted lips as I curled my fingers around the entry and peeked my eyes out to make sure just what I had seen was true.
It was true.
There they were, as baffling and perplexing as it seemed, facing each-other with their disgruntled features and bright rays of hair, which seemed as if they were the reasoning for the suns' departure.
Anwar and Ruby.
Widening my eyes, only to narrow them in hopes to understand what they were doing, I couldn't hear exactly what they were murmuring to each-other from here, and for a soft fraction of a moment, I feared that Ruby was taunting him the way she would with me – But when Anwar only, visibly sighs and hands her what he held in his blistered grip, I realise they seemed be on the same agreement and secretive exchange, as Ruby looked around the barn before taking what he held out to her and then began to walk to the exit.
Gasping below my breath, the rain only thrashed harder and more pensive to the soiled grounds, leaving my new pair of shoes to sink into the mud and stain. I quickly side-step around the corner of the stable once more when Ruby exits and I shrink myself up against the wooden paneling to keep myself hidden away.
Furrowing my brows at what I had just seen, but was obviously, not suppose to have seen, I watch Ruby make her way back to the palace in the midst of the thrashing rain as Anwar seems to just stay in the stables, as if she had never come at all.
What were they doing?
Why were them two even speaking, at all?
I leaned upon the side of the stable in the rain as I watched Ruby walk away into the distance and no matter how much I tried to figure out what I had just witnessed, I could not find out a motive nor a reasoning as to what they were doing.
I swallow the lump that forms in my throat which tastes like acid and burns my insides with anxiety and trepidation, but no matter how sick I felt, I continued to keep my gaze fallen on the ginger girl who walked ahead and onwards.
With a royal-blue umbrella in one hand and a bottle of rat poison in the other.