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Princess Suntar of the Unseelie Court is a ray of sunshine amidst the dreary, dark caves and jagged cliffs. She laughs when it is appropriate, always has the exact right thing to say, and charms everyone in her path.
Some say who you become is due to genetics, others how you are shaped by the world. Suntar knows that she was created by the cards she was dealt in life.
Her brother has always been a study in contradictions. Andhera, heir to the Unseelie Court, with more expectations upon them than her, strived to be more than they were made to be. A dreamer, a romantic, a friend. Suntar has internalized and weaponized it, using it as her sword and shield through life.
She does not know how Andhera does it, how he survives with all that earnestness in his open heart.
Suntar has always known exactly who she has to be, the place she holds in the world. She is a princess, she is a symbol, a pawn, a hand in marriage, a political alliance. She is the spare. Who she is isn't important - it's what she is that matters.
Suntar has always known her place in the world. As second-in-line, as an Unseelie, as a lady. And so she learns what is expected of her, knows how to manipulate courtly doublespeak and which fork to use and each time, fails to teach Andhera along with her.
They had been close, once. When her imagination and ability to dream was as strong as his, when they would make strange noises just to hear them echo in the caverns, when he would gift her with pretty stones he had found and befriended. Shards of volcanic glass, rocks he had smashed open to reveal crystals inside, stalagmites he broke from cave walls.
But he didn't wish to learn decorum. When, as a little girl, she already knew that she couldn't act a certain way, Andhera would continue to lick cave walls and carve faces into rocks. She noticed the way the ladies in waiting looked at them, when it stopped being cute and started being weird. She had tried to stop them, stole the rocks and scattered them, but they always found them again. Listen to me, she yells at them from inside her head. The world will not be kind to you.
As time went on, she stopped being kind to him.
Despite being raised together, the siblings became very different people. Andhera is chicken scratch in the margins of an oft-read book, private and illustrious all at once. Suntar, on the other hand, is well-practiced calligraphy on letter paper, mistakes prestidigitated away before the ink has even dried, true feelings hidden behind courtly pleasantries.
Isolated, away from society, Andhera drew into himself, hiding his unwanted feelings from the world, while Suntar only learned to strike out at others. Differing sides of their mother.
Sometimes, Suntar clutches Advisor's hand, and pretends it is enough.
When Suntar begins going to other courts, writing correspondences, practicing her royal manners, she learns what it means to be Unseelie in Faerie. She doesn't know how to relay this to Andhera.
He stopped being kind to her, too.
They are Unseelie; they are not built to wrap their arms around each other like parentheses, to curve their bodies into question marks and hold one another when they don't have the answers. They are not built to huddle for warmth to survive.
Andhera is spring rain that brings flowers and fresh starts. She is sea fog, salt crystals and obscuring mist brought up from the crashing of waves.
Hope is not simple, comfortable, or easy. Hope is a risk, a gamble, a struggle.
She is there at the duel with Captain K.P. Hob. Sees Andhera, who never learned the proper decorum for duels, not only regain their honour, but gain a friend. She almost smiles, then sees Viscountess Grabalba, thinks of the failed engagement, and stops. She feels a lump in her throat that mimics the stone at the back of her neck, and leaves in a gentle pitter-patter of rain.
Hope has a cost.
As she discusses matches and marriage with Prince Apollo, Suntar has no qualms about leaving love behind.
She is her mother's daughter, and no matter how much you love the ocean, it will always drown you. Love, too, is a gamble, one that is not worth the risk.
In a world of reputation and politics, what use does the wind have of love?
Sentiment is a weakness, yes, but there is still much to be had from loyalty. Does Andhera realize, she wonders, that she fakes her accent too? When she heard them speak in public for the first time, and mimicked it the best she could to protect them both?
Whenever she hears rain, her first instinct is to cast Calm Emotions.
Suntar hums a little tune as she returns to her quarters, one travelling quickly through the Bloom. It's a song about Andhera, sending a princess away on a mighty steed. A replaying of one of her most embarrassing moments that causes a pang in her chest.
Some days, she is the shining gem underneath their skin; others, she feels like the edges, raw and struggling to heal.
She thinks of the prejudice against their court, and Andhera's pride this season. She thinks of Mucky, made of dark water and rising flames, and feels a little pride in them, too.
The phrase "come hell or high water" comes from their court, after all.
As she prepares for the ball that evening, her hands find an old hair pin. She doesn't look at it, simply uses it to secure her hair into a bun.
An obsidian shard, jagged edges perfect in its imperfection, with only a small part of its surface marred. Carved faintly, difficult to see in the dark rock, is a smiley face.
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