"Glimmer."
"Go away, Mom!"
Queen Angella did not go away. She came in anyway because grown-ups are annoying and apparently Glimmer didn't even get a say in what happened in her OWN ROOM. Glimmer groaned and hid her face under a pillow.
"General Sundar said Telzy is back from your playdate already. Did you have a good time?"
She dug her fingers into the pillow. "Yeah. It was great."
"You know I don't appreciate that sarcastic tone, young lady!" She could hear the annoyed expression on her mother's face from all the way under here. She flung the pillow off her face and faced her mother full on.
"Yeah, well, I don't appreciate you setting me up on playdates with... doodoo heads!" She really didn't want to be crying right now, she hated crying, especially in front of her mom but apparently her face didn't care about that. The tears had been coming all afternoon since she threw little miss perfect out of her room.
"Now I understand why you have no friends," the girl had said before Glimmer slammed the door in her face. Glimmer kicked a footstool and wished it was Telzy's stupid perky face.
"So it went poorly then, I take it. Oh, Glimmer." Her mom sat next to her on the window sill and put an arm around her, her wing curled gently around the other side. Glimmer let herself lean in a little because even when she was mad at her, her mom was still her mom. "What are we going to do with you?"
Like she was some problem to solve. On second thought, Glimmer didn't want a hug. She squirmed free of her mom's arm and started pacing the room, kicking at the bits of clothes still on the floor from their disastrous attempt at playing dress-up.
"What happened this time?" Her mother watched her from the window seat, her hands folded in her lap, the proper lady, patient and calm and everything Glimmer would never be ever. Not that she even wanted to be all boring like that!
"Nothing." Certainly not her trying so hard AGAIN, even scrubbing her face and letting the nannies put her hair up and everything, wanting so badly for things to go right this time so finally... But, apparently, the rebellion kids were right and she was just annoying and bossy and nobody would ever like her ever.
"You must have done something! The General and Mally are lovely people. I've always found Telzy to be a perfectly well-behaved child."
"Well then maybe you should make Telzy your daughter and leave me alone!" Her mother would love Telzy. She always remembered to say please and thank you. Her hair was always done up nice and her dresses stayed clean all day and she was sweet and nice like she was some freaky doll that had come to life. All the girl wanted to do was play princess, which she seemed to think was just trying on pretty dresses and tea parties. And it had been so BORING Glimmer had wanted to claw her own face off but she'd wanted the other girl to like her so BADLY just so maybe she could have somebody her age to play with for a change. But no matter what she did, Telzy huffed that she was "not doing it right."
She was the one who was an actual princess! Didn't that automatically make whatever way she did it the right way?
"Well did you at least TRY to make friends with the girl? She likes games. Her mother said she is a wiz at Runestone Chase."
"I tried, mom. Okay?" Runestone chase was a disaster. Telzy kept letting her win. And when she called her on it, she said her mother told her she had to. Because the princess was "temperamental." Whatever that meant! Glimmer picked up a toy crown and throw it clear across the room just to hear it rattle across the polished floor. "I don't ever want to play with her again."
"Did something happen? Was she rude to you? Because if she was, I can order—"
Glimmer groaned. "She was fine. It was me, OK? I'm the problem. Are you happy?"
The last thing she needed was a repeat of the time when she was five and had snuck down to the rebellion camp to try to play with some of the kids there. She hadn't told anybody she was the princess and it worked out alright at first until that one big kid said she was annoying and she tried to hit him. She would have been able to take him, no matter what General Sundar told her mom, but one of the grown-ups stepped in and then her mom had found out and made them all apologize and now none of them would even look at her, let alone play with her. She'd never forget the looks of pure hate on their faces as long as she lived.
"No, Glimmer, I am not happy. I want you to have someone your own age to play with and every time we find someone suitable... well, THIS happens."
Suitable. Whatever that meant. Sometimes Glimmer felt like she was the one who wasn't suitable.
She sniffed and wiped her nose with her sleeve. There was one thing, one thing only, that made her think maybe she wasn't completely doomed to a life with no one but her nannies and tutors to talk to. "What about the boy that came to play that one time? Bow? Why can't he come over again?"
Her mother sighed. "You've asked me that every week for months and I don't have any more of an answer than I did the first time you asked. That he was here at all that day was… a fluke. Besides, the driver who took him home said they asked to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere. I haven't the slightest idea who he is or where he lives, let alone where to contact him. I'm sorry, Glimmer, but I think you need to start to accept that you are very unlikely to ever see that boy again."
"It's not fair!" Glimmer was crying again and this time she didn't have the energy to wipe the tears. She just let them fall, big and fat and wet, dotting the shiny blue of what had been her favorite dress before it had become just another reminder of how she couldn't do anything right.
She felt her mother's arms around her and she surrendered into the hug, the sharp smell of her mother's perfume and the soft flutter of her wings encircling her back. Her mother gently rubbing her back as she sobbed into her jumper and whispered meaningless things about patience and giving it time that Glimmer knew was just grown-up talk meant to make her stop crying without any real meaning behind it. Apparently, she might as well just get used to being alone because she was just doomed to be friendless forever.
Unless… there she lucked out and there was another one of those flukes.
But what were the chances of that?