Amanda spent a long, peaceful while fiddling around with her hair.
Just when she thought she had finished, Amanda's eyes would then squint back at her work with utter dissatisfaction, and would pull and tug at every braid and knot, unraveling them, before promptly starting all over again.
"I want you cute, cute as you can possibly get," she said, trying to explain away her sudden obsession. "No true friend of mine is gonna be looking anything less than a hundred out of ten."
Adalia didn't at all mind in the slightest. Having her hair ssed and played with was a gentle cascade of calmness with every stroke.
"Oh, bringing up a dead topic, but gotta ask," Amanda spoke up. "I've actually been wondering the sa thing as our fellow conspirator over there. When you kidnapped … well, why did you kidnap ?"
"Sister… took… you…" Adalia said right away, feeling a spontaneous, bashful urge to defend herself. "Not… …"
"Okay, what was that? You answered so quick," she remarked, scoffing. "Don't tell you're still feeling guilty about taking ?"
"Yes…"
"Water under the bridge, rember?" Amanda reminded her. "Besides, if it weren't for that, I would have never known you the way I do now. My life would have gone its usual boring course, and worst of all, I would have gone and missed out on stumbling upon my one and only Mr. Right. I oughta be thanking you for abducting when you did actually."
"I know… you have forgiven …" Adalia whispered quietly. "But I… have not… not yet…"
"Hmm…"
Amanda leaned over at her, her glance quick and pensive, before drawing back away with a relenting smile.
"Alright, fine," she said. "So, why did your sister decide I might make for a decent al?"
By random chance was the complete truth of the matter. There were no other factors to it, at least none too significant. Alia simply chose her feasts out of convenience, simplicity, and had there been any deciding variable at all, then perhaps also…
"My sister…" Adalia answered slowly. "She likes… to feast… when you are still… fresh… pure…"
"Ah, that's right," she felt Amanda's breath billow through her hair. "Virgin blood. Forgot you folks like that about us."
"Pure… untouched… they are the most… filling for us…"
"So what you're saying is that my virginity was also almost the death of ?"
"Your blood… was pure…" was all Adalia could say, then slowly, she turned her gaze to the side. Even now she could still sense it, still feel it, sll it. The tantalizing aroma that still coursed through her veins. "And it is… still pure…"
"Well, what can I say?" Amanda said with faux modesty. "I'm a very good girl by heart. Unlike the rest of you, I'm presuming."
"You have not… made love…?"
Amanda's lips began to squirm a little.
"Is it a bad thing I haven't?" she asked with self-assured confidence though Adalia could slightly feel her fingers twitch between her locks. "There's more to being in love than just… making love, you know? It's not everything in the world."
"I… see…" Adalia replied. "So… you do not want… to make love… to him…"
"What? No! I do! I plan to! I an, we did get close to it once but I just—I dunno, I just…" Amanda veered her eyes, blowing a long wavering breath. "Look, mind if we... can we talk about sothing else, please?"
For a mont, silence, as Adalia mulled over anything else to speak about. Then it ca to her in an instant.
"I have… made love… to him…"
"Oh, dear God, why?"
"It felt… nice… his embrace… his warmth… the way I could… be with him… belong to him…" Adalia continued, feeling a rush of sothing pleasant as mories stread past her. "The advice you gave … how to love him… to please him… it was… very useful…"
"Huh, right," Amanda said, croaking feebly, a smile of empty enthusiasm straining her lips. "Happy to be of help. I think."
"He gets… rougher… when you use… your mouth…"
"Okay, enough! Adalia, stop talking! Stop! Why are you—?"
"I want you… to feel what I had felt… with him…" Adalia said. "I want you… to make love… to him… too…"
"Mmm, alright, alright, I get it. Just—!" Amanda's face was tinged with red now. "I'll get around to it. Like, eventually. Promise."
"He wants… it too…" Adalia blinked at her. "I know… he wants you… too…"
"Right," Amanda swallowed, and swallowed hard. "N-Noted."
It was silent again, but not like before. Amanda felt tenser braiding each section, and it was a while before she settled down enough to strike up another conversation.
But sothing was different now. Adalia could sense it, a heavy pressure manifesting, a sinking weight, in the silence, the ambiance, as Amanda took a breath.
"By the way, back then, before," she said, asking slowly in a controlled nonchalance. "You noticed it, right? How kind of upset I sounded? Yeah, you noticed—you even asked about it. 'You sound like you didn't like that', I think I know what you ant by it, but…"
Amanda trailed off, but it didn't seem nor sound any way intentional. Like a hitch in her voice, a lodge in her throat. One she cleared imdiately right after.
"...anyway, before you go ho taking that misunderstanding with you, I just want you to know that you don't have to worry about it. It really is nothing."
"Nothing…" Adalia repeated, recalling the drawing she sketched and the distant look she gave it. "You were upset… about nothing…?"
"Happens all the ti, let assure you. Just—when you overthink as much as I do, most of the things rattling around in your head don't tend to make much sense. Thoughts you don't wanna think. Feelings you don't wanna feel. All that kind of nonsense."
But Adalia wasn't fully convinced, not even partly just yet. The hollow look in her eyes, the empty shape of her expression she saw before—there was more to it, and she knew it, could so easily see it.
"Drawing Ash… upsets you…"
In the corner of her eyes, Amanda was shaking her head. The smallest, vaguest smile on her lips.
"Quite the opposite actually. I always have a lot of fun drawing Eshwlyn. She's one of my favorite commissions to do. Her design's simple but that's what makes her so beautiful. She's perfect."
There was so much admiration for her echoing in Amanda's tone. And perhaps just too much.
"But then you go and spend so much ti drawing perfection, knowing down to a science every flawless quality about her, and sotis, you just sorta stop losing sight of your own after a while, you know?"
"Drawing Ash… upsets you…" Adalia repeated.
"Alright, fine then," Amanda heaved, pursing her lips. "Maybe just a little."
Having admitted it finally, she seed almost upset at herself that she did. Amanda drastically slowed down, the pace of her fingers stagnating to a crawl.
"It's just… when it cos to her, to all of you… my dumbass can't help but compare myself to you all, the way you all seem like… like you're all better, perfect. And I know it's stupid, I know there's no point. But I'm really helpless when it cos to things like this. Seriously, how many tis must it be repeated to before I finally get it? I'm fine, I'm enough the way I am, got an entire love letter to prove it, and yet still I just…"
She trailed away again, the way the words just seed to vanish from her lips. Doubt and uncertainty, a wide, unblinking glint in her brown eyes. Torn between the urge of saying more and the need to say less.
"Then when we had that eting earlier today, when you all gave your reasons when to be with him and why you gave them, it's like, oh wow, you know? Felt as if my eyes were being opened for the first ti."
Amanda ca to a sudden stop, and Adalia could feel slight strands of her hair suspended in her hold.
"It's like, I start thinking like, 'Why didn't I think of it like that?' 'Why didn't I see it that way?' And I just get so frustrated with myself that I didn't, it makes feel like I'm blind, and then I start getting a bit scared. Frightened that I'll always be the one coming up short against you all."
"Amanda…"
"And it's not your fault. None of it is your fault," She said quickly, voice slowing, fading. "Issue here is much more than you. Any of you. I'm working on it. I'm just not… very good at it just yet."
It was peculiar, curious… listening to her words, her woes. Adalia quite simply couldn't understand. As much as she tried to see, make the faintest sense of what she said… alas, there simply was no making sense to it.
"You… are… imperfect…" Adalia tried again, but all it was, all it sounded… simply nonsense. "What makes you… imperfect…?"
"No, you don't have to try and reassure , Adalia," Amanda said, smiling faintly, realizing the signs imdiately. "I know I'm just being stupid here."
"Yes… you are… stupid…"
"Oh," Amanda was stunned for a mont. "Okay, glad we both can agree on that."
"You… are very… stupid…"
"Okay, I get it. Don't need to rub it in like—"
"But… you are not… imperfect…" Adalia turned around, her hair slipping from Amanda's fingers, braids and knots partway made flowing loose. "Selfish… petty… loud… unruly… but never… never… imperfect… do you… understand…?"
"I…" Amanda t her gaze, the swirl of gray that seed to have morphed into a whirling storm. For so reason, it made her usual blank expression look quite upset. "Yeah, I think I do."
"You… braid my hair… you call … your friend… sweet… say I am… perfect… and you… are not…" Adalia blinked, her confusion scaling the highest peak. "But… in my eyes… seeing you… knowing you… how can you possibly… be… anything else…?"
"A-Adalia," Amanda's voice quivered, bashful. "There's no need to—" she stopped, breathed, and slowly, reluctance gradually fading, she smiled. "Thank you."
Adalia stared, extensively, she stared. A mont later, she spun back around, settling back in place, there was no need to say anything else. It seed like Amanda understood.
Finally.
After another mont, she felt like a tug in her hair again. The winding, flowing calmness, serenity, more and more, as Amanda started the process all over again.
Only this ti with more confidence.
She seed much more certain.
"So, from one perfect, sweet gal to another," Amanda spoke up again after a while, the subtlest mirth to her voice. "Say you so happen to take a day I'd prefer to spend with him, would you be so kind as to let take over in your place?"
In essence, it was a complicated question.
But she only had a simple answer.
"No… I won't let… you…" Adalia replied, peering back, the slightest curve in the corner of her lips. "Because… I am not… as perfect as… you…"
Amanda nodded in return, a chuckle resounding behind a wry smirk.
"Understood."
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