“How’s the packing going?” Nova asks, having stopped by Faira’s room.

It’s very…organized. Nothing like what Nova grew up with. Everything in the Wild Thicket is alive and moves when it wants. Never the same with seemingly no order.

Nature waits for no one.

In here, every weapon is lines up, probably alphabetically. Her clothes hang in color coordination, making a rainbow in a shallow closet. The bed is smaller than what she’s seen in Princess Aziza’s room, but the sheets are perfectly laid, not a wrinkle in sight.

It strikes Nova how bare the room is otherwise. It’s like the smallest amount person needs. Bare minimum.

Kinda lifeless to be honest.

Faira’s back is to her, putting items in a leather backpack. “It is going well. I’m almost done.”

It looked packed to the brim, practically bulging with every object they could possibly need. One poke and it would burst like a bubble.

Nova doesn’t have to worry if she forgets anything. That’s for sure.

“Ward won’t be able to go,” Faira says. It sounds apologetic, but Nova isn’t surprised. She doesn’t need her feelings shielded.

“I know,” she responds but then adds, “He doesn’t that yet.”

She can picture his reaction already. He’ll want to be the chivalrous knight that he was trained to be. But there’s too much going on in the castle for him to leave.

There is a bit of silence that takes over them both. Nova isn’t sure if she should leave or not. She had come in just enough for the doorway to be behind her, but it felt wrong to not say more. They are friends…Nova thinks.

But this has been the hardest friendship Nova has ever had to cultivate. Which isn’t saying much because she doesn’t make a lot of friends.

Really the only positive relationship in her life used to be Haze and no one else. Now her world has grown, but it has brought a lot of unknowns.

Nova isn’t sure if she knows how to be a friend. A sister, yes. A friend, unclear.

Faira is the one to interrupt Nova’s thoughts and the quietness, “I wanted to apologize.”

That’s not something one hears everyday.

She gestures at a chair that is on the left side of the bed. It’s a rich color, made from a tree’s skin.

Nova sits and waits.

Faira takes a seat on the bed, heaving the backpack to the side. “I was really hostile to you in the beginning. I perpetuated a cycle that I myself despised. And I am truly sorry. I have no excuse.”

The bow of her head is deep, her eyes downcast. She means it.

It perhaps is the most sincere apology she’s ever gotten.

“I accept your apology. You’re much cooler now.”

Faira gives a chuckle.

The ‘perpetuated a cycle’ does make Nova wonder. The weight of those words hang in the air between them. While she isn’t good with emotional things, even she can pick up on it.

Haze says that Nova needs to be better at talking about that kind of stuff.

“I know you said you have no excuse, but I’m sure it wasn’t all you. A lot of preconceived judgments are learned,” Nova tries. Her words are a bit stilted and didn’t feel natural off her tongue, but it isn’t her fluent language. Her native language being sarcasm.

Faira blinks in surprise, though she recovers quickly. The glint in her eyes gives her this faraway appearance. Like even though her feet are firmly planted in front of the bed that she is sitting on, she is somewhere else. “My dad raised me. He always wanted a son.”

The words are simple but Nova has a feeling that it took a lot of courage to say them.

“Was he proud of your knightly accomplishments?” She questions. Something in her core, added with her pessimism, knew the answer already.

She sighs, “I used to think if I was the best, he would be. That I could reverse all the wishes for a boy if I was the best soldier that’s ever been trained in Oreza.”

It all makes sense. The puzzle is taking shape into something discernible. At the start, Faira hated when Nova taught lessons, showing her up. Nova never thought it could’ve been because of parental pressure.

It puts it in perspective now. A broken soul looking for approval that saw Nova as a threat. While it didn’t help that Nova and Haze part of the witch world, her need for her dad to like her is what drove her more than anything.

Fidgeting with a bracelet made from weaved plant leaves, Nova’s body floods with understanding. “It must be hard. I don’t claim to have a lot, but I never had to question Haze’s support.”

Haze and their mother were very open with their familial love. Or just love in general. Nova is lucky in that sense.

She never thought of herself as lucky before.

Faira continues, perhaps needing to say it, “I think it’s why I never wanted to admit about my…preferences. Because he had hope for a boy in the family if I wed one. He would say that he couldn’t wait for me to do what women were meant to, so he could have a son.”

Oh geez. Nova feels even worse for her.

No one should make their child feel like that. That all she had to offer was the opportunity to add a male into the family.

With the visible shining tears in her eyes and the tremoring in her voice, it might be the first time she ever said any of this out loud.

And Nova doesn’t know what to do about it.

She’s never been one to be all mushy. But from what shes learned from spending time at the castle, sometimes, the mushy stuff can help.

It can lead to a lot of good things.

“I want to apologize,” Nova offers.

Faira’s eyebrows raise in question, “What for? I was awful to you and your sister.” Her voice conveys her incredulous feeling.

She’s right of course. She was awful, but she’s not now. She learned and is better.

And it would be unprogressive of Nova to not learn too. She wants to go forward. Be better. “For my own judgment of you. It went both ways. I was so used to protecting myself and Haze from the stereotypes. The bullying. I narrowed my own thinking. I made assumptions because that was easier than accepting.”

“Accepting what?” Faira asks.

Nova sighs and tries to come up with the right words. Explaining her feelings doesn’t come naturally to her. She expresses herself better in battle. Ward somehow can read her mind, her movements, just her. She doesn’t have to verbally articulate anything. He just knows. “Accepting understanding. That people could actually be nice. Even though what I was used to was guards chasing us, that was familiar. I made these walls and anything unknown had the possibility of knocking them down.”

“And that’s the scariest part. Being exposed,” Faira finishes.

Grateful that Faira gets it, Nova nods, “Yes. So I apologize as well. For it takes two to continue the cycle.”

Nova can see the difference in Faira, even from the start of the conversation. Faira is much more relaxed, slouching, practically lounging on her bed. The mask of the rigid soldier has been taken off and now it’s just two people. Two friends.

“How about we agree to stop it here. That we are both smarter than that and will move forward. Together.” Faira holds out a hand.

Nova doesn’t hesitate to grasp it, shaking it. “Sounds good to me.”

It’s the start of a wonderful, understanding friendship.

———

(This was one of my favorite scenes to write. I think being vulnerable and admitting to one’s own faults is really courageous. While I love Nova, I wanted to express how she isn’t perfect and also judges quickly. A lot of the time a pattern continues because of both sides so I wanted both Nova and Faira to be open about what they both have done and accept one another’s apologies.)