Brinly
She isn’t sure if she has ever met anyone as exuberantly happy as Isilya, and at first, it’s almost overwhelming. She tries to ignore the way her heart constricts with anxiety because she knows she will not be able to match her enthusiasm. There were some that were simply meant to be a shining beacon of light, but, Brinly was not one of them. She feels like she must be a shadow, a toxic darkness that swallows things that are bright and beautiful. She wonders how long it will take for Isilya to realize this, before she decides that nothing about her is worth her time.
But she lets herself be distracted by her brilliant smile, and the way her name nearly sings from her tongue. “Isilya,” she repeats her name, but it doesn’t sound nearly as lilting coming from her own mouth. She had a way of making everything sound harsher than it needed to be, even if she didn’t mean to. Even when her tongue wasn’t sharp, everything seemed rough – unpolished.
She is distracted enough that she stupidly has let her guard down, and she does not notice that the other mare is reaching for her until it is nearly too late.
A gasp tears from her throat as she reels herself backwards, abruptly yanking her nose away as she snaps sharply, “Don’t do that.” Her eyes flash involuntarily with a threatening spark, as she tucks her muzzle tightly to her chest while withdrawing several more steps. She is sure she must have felt the intense heat that had radiated from her skin when she had been so close, and she wasn’t sure how to explain it. “I’m sorry, it’s just…” she fumbles for an apology, and though her dark brown eyes still smolder there is something else there – a bright and burning pain, and a nearly palpable regret. “I didn’t want to burn you.”
— burn until our lives become the embers —