Pride-Niklaus's Point of View
♕︎ ♕︎ ♕︎
"You are always the victim, aren't you?" My sister's voice dripped with an acidic bitterness, each word crafted with the sharpest of sarcasms, cutting deep as she mocked me in the most cruel and dismissive way possible. Her tone was laced with venom, and her eyes reflected the distaste she felt for me, as though I were a mere nuisance to her.
"Of course, you would say that, huh? Because you're just like your mother, aren't you, Amethyst?" I shot back at her, the insult darting from my lips quicker than I could think. The words came out harsh and biting, more a result of the overwhelming frustration that had been building inside me rather than any real desire to hurt her. It was a low blow, but in that moment, I didn't care. I was desperate to make her feel something, anything.
"Don't call me that!" Her words hissed through the air like a snake striking, low and filled with raw, unrestrained anger. It was the kind of anger that she never seemed able to fully control when she was truly upset, the kind that came boiling out of her in waves, barely contained and always dangerous.
But Scarlet, ever the enigma, remained cold as ice, as usual. The venom I had just spat at her seemed to roll off her like water from a duck's back. Her expression didn't change, her face as emotionless as a stone statue, betraying no hint of the fury I had expected. She was unmoved, as though these exchanges were mere background noise to her. "Why not?" she replied, her voice devoid of emotion, flat and impassive. "You have amethyst eyes," she said, as though it were the most obvious statement in the world, and there was nothing strange or unsettling about the observation.
"Should I call you golden then?" Vain chimed in from the side, his voice dripping with mockery. He was always ready with a retort, always looking for a way to make a situation more tense, to stir the pot. His grin was sly, his posture relaxed, almost as though he found amusement in all of this. His words, however, only seemed to intensify the simmering tension in the room, fanning the flames of discomfort that now surrounded us all.
To our collective shock, however, instead of the usual sharp retort or biting remark, Scarlet simply tilted her head to the side, the movement almost imperceptible but deliberate nonetheless. It could have been mistaken for a gesture of curiosity, a moment of contemplation—but in her case, it was completely detached. "My eyes aren't golden, though," she said, her tone so calm, so disturbingly neutral, it bordered on the absurd. She spoke as if discussing the weather, completely unfazed by the simmering hostility that surrounded her, as if the question of her eye color was as inconsequential as any other small detail.
The room fell silent in disbelief. We all frowned at her response, struggling to comprehend what she had just said. I couldn't stop myself from scoffing, unable to let her cool demeanor slide past me. "What are they then? Black? Don't you have a fucking mirror?" I couldn't help but shoot out, the words laced with frustration and the growing unease that gripped me. The tension in the air was suffocating, and I was losing control of my thoughts, my temper simmering just beneath the surface.
Her eyes, cold and unreadable, locked onto mine, and for a brief moment, there was nothing—no anger, no mockery, no retaliation. Just a chilling indifference that sent a shiver down my spine. She stared at me with such detachment that it almost felt as though she wasn't even present in the room. "I'm not saying the lens I use aren't gold," she replied, her voice so measured, so completely devoid of emotion that it felt almost unreal. "I'm saying my eyes aren't gold," she clarified, as if it were the simplest thing to understand, as though we should all just accept it and move on.
"Since when do you wear lenses?" Nathan asked in disbelief, his voice filled with shock as he tried to process what Scarlet had just revealed. His words hung in the air, each syllable laced with genuine confusion. The notion that Scarlet, of all people, had been concealing something so seemingly trivial, yet potentially so impactful, caught him completely off guard.
"We've known you since you were seven, Persephone," Nora scoffed, her tone dripping with disdain, her lips curling into a smug grin. "Cut the bullshit," she added, her words sharp and pointed. She seemed to delight in the discomfort she had caused, a malicious glee evident in her expression. Her words weren't just an accusation—they were meant to provoke, to expose what she thought was a lie.
"And even so, you know absolutely nothing about me, do you?" Scarlet's response wasn't one of playful mocking, as it often was, but one of raw bitterness. It was the kind of bitterness that seemed to come from a place so deep it was almost unrecognizable, as though she was speaking a truth we were not ready to hear. Her words were not just an insult—they were a revelation, a sharp, jagged truth that cut through the thick tension in the room. "Why do you think I never shift?" she asked, her voice no longer calm, but now laced with an undercurrent of anger, a bitterness that took us all by surprise.
"Because you're disabled?" Micah's voice was filled with sarcasm, dripping with the same venom that had infected the room. His words hit with the force of a slap, and they only served to escalate the animosity between us. We had all been harboring our frustrations, and now, they were all coming to the surface in a rush of cutting words.
Scarlet's gaze shifted to Micah, her eyes locking onto his with an intensity so fierce that it almost felt like the air around her thickened.
Her glare was sharp enough to pierce through steel, and for a brief moment, there was something terrifying in her gaze. "I'll pretend you didn't just suggest that, Archangel," she hissed, her words sharp and filled with an edge so cold it could freeze blood in its tracks. "I am not bloody disabled," she continued, her voice dripping with contempt. "I simply don't wish to show the likes of any of you how I actually look. What? You thought I was a red dragon with golden eyes?" She scoffed at the thought, the idea seemingly ridiculous to her. "My scales are red, and neither are my eyes golden. But how would the likes of you know? You've only known me since I was seven," she spat bitterly, her words laced with venom that echoed in the silence that followed.
And then, as if we were all beneath her, Scarlet pushed through the crowd with surprising strength, her movements swift and calculated. She disappeared from the bathroom without another word, leaving us all standing there, stunned, lost in the aftermath of her words. We stood there in shock, unsure of what had just happened, and the room felt suffocating with the weight of what had been revealed.
The oppressive silence that followed stretched on, thick and heavy, as if the very air had been drained of life. For what felt like hours, none of us spoke. We were paralyzed, each of us caught in our own thoughts, unsure how to process the sudden shift in Scarlet's behavior. Her words, harsh and raw, continued to echo in my mind, and I could feel the weight of them, heavy and unyielding. I ran a hand through my wavy black hair, trying to shake off the discomfort that had settled in my chest. The unease lingered, and I couldn't escape the feeling that something had changed—something deep within Scarlet had shifted, and we had all just witnessed the first cracks in her carefully constructed facade.
"Hah, this is going to be a long and unpleasant year again," I muttered under my breath, trying to dispel the tension that lingered. But no matter how hard I tried, the weight of her words refused to be ignored. It hung in the air, suffocating me, and I knew—deep down—I wasn't going to be able to forget what had just transpired.
"Did she mean her hair isn't red either?" Dom's voice finally broke the silence, his words low and full of confusion, a desperate attempt to make sense of the chaos we had just witnessed. His mind was still trying to piece everything together, and his question felt almost trivial, yet so important in the wake of everything else that had been revealed.
"I think she's just mocking us," Kai growled, his frustration evident in every syllable. His voice was thick with impatience. "If that were the case, we would definitely know by now. She's just toying with us again, trying to get under our skin like she always does."
"What are you talking about?" Atlas and Apollo, Scarlet's youngest triplet brothers, suddenly appeared in the doorway, their faces filled with genuine curiosity. Their sudden arrival cut through the tension in the room like a sharp knife, their presence both surprising and unsettling.
"Oy, we felt Dora around here," Atlas said, tilting his head slightly as he observed us with interest. His golden eyes locked onto mine, his gaze intense as if he was trying to read me, to understand the situation. "Did you two fight?" he asked, his tone casual, almost as if nothing unusual had just unfolded.
"Maybe," I replied, my voice flat, unwilling to go into any details. I didn't know how to explain the explosion of emotions that had just occurred. I wasn't sure I even fully understood it myself.
"Well, be careful," Apollo spoke up, his words slow and deliberate, a warning in his tone. "You know Scarlet doesn't take kindly to being forced to reveal herself. She'll come at you with everything she has."
I could only nod, the weight of his words settling in. I knew all too well the consequences of pushing Scarlet too far. The next time we crossed paths, it wouldn't be pretty.
It was already clear to me, though—this was only the beginning. The cracks had already begun to show, and I knew that whatever was happening to Scarlet, we were all going to feel the impact.
The storm was coming.
And we were all in its path.