There is a slight chance this story may go on hiatus. I'm in a show and I just received the rehearsal schedule and it's gonna change my life a little bit for the next 2 months. It seems unlikely that I'll actually have to stop, but a good deal of the rehearsals are on Fridays and Fridays are my writing days and that might have to move to in the week but the week is a tough time. However, that doesn't mean I won't attempt to continue on in normalcy, I'll try (LOLOL I JUST DID THE THING) but I wanted to throw that out there. I'm already taking action and this is being written on a Thursday so it's most likely gonna all smooth out. Also, my feelings are dead, thank you Uncle Rick, so this story may be devoid of emotion for the next couple chapters. PICOOOOO

Again, I've been imagining this scene for months but I never thought I was gonna actually write it.

This is rated K-plus.

the lie of the fair
tribus: magis

Amaranda at tredecim

She is twirling around again, as dreamers like her do.

Amanda just has to trail behind with an amused smile while the little one swirls her skirt and makes melodic noises. Maybe it's a song, but she doesn't know.

"Why are the walls white?" Jesamae had once asked, and Amaranda couldn't find a responses.

Reaching for words, she'd said, "It's for us."

"Oh. I don't really like that. I see colors all around! There's green in me, purple on her, blue on you…and red, everywhere! Red es-pesh-awee. I just love red."

And after that, Amaranda's decided that she can answer any question.

It's eating time in the meeting place but both Fairlies weren't hungry. Steely, pleased, lost looks from the tables stuck to the floor. Jesamae coming up to the girls with greetings. When Jesamae had first gotten to this age she'd been looked at as the oddity. Now it's more of a game.

Amaranda is enjoying this new feeling of smile, because it makes her feel good inside, not empty, not incomplete. The little child is maybe septum but there's an ageless quality, something that makes her beyond her number, something that doesn't happen. Excluding Amaranda. They're like each and not like each other and it just makes is much easier.

Jesamae's thoughts are scattered. She's got views never released into the world before, attaching words to complex beings, being able to name everything and anything because her mind is so expanded. Golden hair growing beyond her shoulders bounces around with her. She's short, and wiry, always using run as a form of transportation. She wears a white shirt with the straps a bit thicker that Amaranda's, and a long skirt that swishes and spins and maybe Jesamae's favorite thing in the world, and it's yellow, a light yellow. Her eyes are green, but they're so bright and so un-blue that it makes Amaranda happy, it makes her happy to see how unlike Jesamae is from the others. How not shallow, how not limited to one frame of mind. How she thinks in colors that are non-existent, unfeeling. Of course, that may not be the other Fairlies's own thought, but Jesamae makes it seem so without trying. Amaranda doesn't show this investment in Jesamae outside, and she's not even sure if Jesamae knows it. But she'll speak impossible things for her.

And Amaranda wants to hurt anyone who looks at Jesamae like that. Sursum is the worst.

Sursum's turned into a name Amaranda doesn't want in her mouth. Every day it's more apparent how Sursum Annalisa doesn't understand, she doesn't how Jesamae is different and how perfect it makes her and how…special she is.

Every look to Sursum is one of contempt. It's only by this that she can feel like she getting it all back.

"And the kid's moving again," Seramarie says, smirking. She and seven other Fairlies sit slumped over at a table Amaranda just passed by, and she lets Jesamae prance on; someone nice is bound to watch her.

"It's still a surprise to you?" she returns.

"It's just funny, she hasn't lost the spark yet." Nicoretta jumps in. Julialynn nods along. Nicoretta meaning, she hasn't become sad, or dark, or gray-faced always like all of them. She's right, Jesamae's a peculiarity. Still smiling.

"I wouldn't have it any other way. It makes her easier to handle." Kind of.

"I wouldn't think so," Seramarie shrugs. And she lapses into Latin and the others go back and forth. The smallest one in their group raises her hand to greet her. This one's always looking at Amaranda, trying to say something. What comes out it is a whisper.

"Hi, Amaranda."

"Oh, hey, Amilina." And she's off to find the girl.

She catches sight. "Be careful, Jes," Amaranda says to the little one, who stops skipping only to plop down on a chair in the middle of the eating place. Chatter resumes on in the room, creating a dull roar in their ears. It's a new thing, shortening each other's names, to Jesa or Jes, and it makes it feel more particular, exclusive. Jesamae waves Amaranda over and she crouches in front of her.

"I think one day this place will be nothing."

"Is that so?" Amaranda plays, her front row of teeth making an impression in her bottom lip in her suppressed grin.

"We will all be different, and then, this!" Her arms are risen, and she brings them back down suddenly. "Down to the ground."

"Oh." Amaranda tries to imagine the day.

"But it'll still be here. It'll still be standing."

"Okay." Doesn't make sense, but it rarely does.

"Ah-mah-manda?" Jesamae has the toughest time saying her name. Amaranda doesn't mind it at all, she actually has taken a liking to it, and sometimes it's formed into one word. She doesn't know how to make the word in her brain, but she relies on Jesamae's voice to say it.

"Ah-huh?"

"Life is weird." It sounds like such a not-Jesamae thing to say. Amaranda almost laughs. "It goes on and on and on but then ends. How is it so big?"

Amaranda seems to have the inability to imagine an end to all this; since of course, it's been like this her whole life.

"That I don't know, Jesamae."

"But there's so so much to it all," she continues. "Out of these walls. Delight and open space and love…"

There's that word again. Amaranda's taken back; hearing it said flies her back to that night, when she held the child in front of her in her own arms when the baby couldn't speak or theorize or be Jesamae. When things changed so much.

The tragedy that brought light peers in for an attempt. Amaranda tries "Well, we're inside," she says. "We're here. We've been here. We'll be here."

"Yes, but after life, it'll be so so huge." She slides off the bench, now skipping away from Amaranda. The older girl follows.

"And what is there, after life, Jesa?"

"More."

She continues to hop along, Amaranda trailing behind at the same pace, not being able to hold in her laugh because it's all so good. But Jesamae stops and Jesamae never stops and once Amaranda looks up she finds Sursum to be blocking the child's next move.

"You don't run like that."

"Why not?"

She's so innocent. Sursum has to find her words carefully. "Because you don't, and that's why."

"Let the girl go, Annalisa," Amaranda shifts her weight onto her one foot and crosses her arms. "She's just having fun."

"You don't have fun," is the steely response.

"It's okay, Amanda," Jesamae says. The older one's name, in Jesamae language. Sursum bends down low and takes Jesamae's shirt. The little one is wide eyed, almost amused.

"No shortening names," she fumes. "That is the name she is given. What you said is below eight."

"It doesn't really matter," Amaranda throws, feeling her anger rising each letter.

"Yes, it does." Sursum Annalisa shifts her focus to the girl and glares. But Amaranda isn't able to stare back because Jesamae's hands are on her ears and her eyes are squinted and she's silent and Amaranda stops breathing.

Then the screaming begins. Sursum's still got hold, receiving a blast of shrill cries from Jesamae, who's taking deep breaths to louden the shouts. Jesa's sensory overload, Amaranda thinks. It happens when stress is high, but it couldn't have struck a worse time, because all eyes are on the scene and that's making it even heavier.

"I feel you!" Jesamae shrieks, and Amaranda's been trying to figure out what that means for months but it's never came clear. Now she's desperate, but there must be a shield between the struggle because Amaranda can't move her feet to rip Jesamae from those arms.

"Annalisa, let go!" her despondency leaks through her words. It's so so startling to see her Jesamae like this. Her Jesamae can't be hurting, not one minute. But Sursum remains still.

Amaranda shouts. "Now!"

And almost as if the caring was the reason for the shift, Jesamae's flung into normalcy, and she's collected again. Amaranda doesn't know if there were tears on her own face but she knows it's red. Sursum straightens and lets Jesa go roughly and Amaranda's never seen her this caustic before.

Amaranda hears it said, and she hears for the first time, how they say eight in English but all other numbers in Latin. But that must be a thing that they all do that she hasn't caught on yet. And what takes over this in her mind is Jesamae's asking eyes into her, and all pain and hate and ugly things just melt when Jesa looks like that.

"I want to still call you A-mah-mah-manda," Jesamae says so harmlessly.

"It's okay," is the response, as she grabs her hand and retreats. "I want to call you Jes. We can."

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