❝ And you could even have one of those white horses with really long hair. ❞ Caspian went on, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he looked back down at he tin tray before him. Fingers were messed with his meal, the naan bread doing a good enough job to suck up much of the sauce as he brought it to his lips, hunching over the table some as he took a fair sized bite. Rice stuck to his lower lip until he licked it away, chewing for a few moments.
❝ Or it could be died blue, or purple, or pink. ❞ He mused mouth half full as he tucked his food into his cheek to talk, looking back at his meal as he chuckled. He had grown closer with Belle over the past few months –– drawn to her insatiable desire to smile and have a good time. He needed that in his life –– Gods knew just how much he needed that.
With her legs half crossed on the awkward benches on the high school lunch room, Belle sat half turned to her friend. Her hands waving around wildly as she described her thoughts in detail. She paused, looking up at the ceiling, “No way. My hair’s blue. The horse can’t have my hair color, that’d be silly, Cas. Besides, modern princesses are going jewel tone. It can have deep emerald color hair. It would bring out my eyes.”
She’d truly hated to admit it, but she wasn’t sure if she would have even stayed at the school if she hadn’t met Caspian. Her fights with her teachers, especially in math and science, were epic. That they refused to accept simple logic or accept that they were clearly wrong and that the textbooks were poorly written baffled and frustrated her to no end.
The constant feeling of the other kids staring at her, making her doubt everything about herself, made it nearly unbearable to exist in the school. Was she passing? Did they see through her? The terror she felt every morning as she stared into the mirror with puberty taking its toll on her body. She’d never get the changes the other girls got… she just prayed, begged, that the HRT would be enough to keep her from ever having the other changes. Surely she was old enough now to stop worrying… that it would have started if it was going to happen… but she didn’t want a beard. Didn’t want her voice to change.
But sitting her with Caspian, ranting about princesses, without being told that she was too old to love them anymore; it let her drown out the rest of the school. The sound of the teachers and kids. Not really, she could still hear all the banging and what sounded like a million voices all at once, but it was more bearable. Those things weren’t as important as explaining it great, excruciating detail, the nature of the gown she would wear.
“I mean, especially if I’m going to be riding a horse off to save the Prince, then it has to be able to pull up and tie at the sides. Side saddle is stupid. But then it should unfurl like a sailboat, right? And… oh! Light up at the bottom, that would be so cool! I would wear practical shoes, of course, I mean who’s going to even see under the dress, right?” she could accept the idea of sword fighting her way past a dragon in a dress, but not in high heels. That was just silly.
RP backup 