She's the most beautiful person Dyssia has ever seen.

Which is saying something, when you consider that Dyssia grew up with Merilt, and if you look up "sex goddess" in the dictionary, you'd find a picture of Merilt there!

Well… no, no you wouldn't. Making a dictionary, writing up sex goddess, and putting a picture of anyone but Aphrodite--or maybe Demeter, depending on your definitions--is a good way to end up with a bunch of slag that used to be a factory.

But you get the picture, right? Merilt's the kind of hot that lets you walk into a room and instantly quiet every conversation. The kind that has options. The kind that doesn't have to settle for--

Look, it wasn't a crush, right? Dyssia explicitly did not want it to affect her relationship with Merilt. She was lucky enough that Merilt chose her, out of all people, to be best friends with.

Because let's face it, Dyssia is. Well, yes, attractive. She looks in a mirror and thinks, "Yeah, I'd do me." But in an unconventional way. Attractive, but. Not in a way that would let you go on the street and know that every eye is on you. Not in a way that gives you that easy walk, that confident gaze. Not in the way that would let you walk up to your best friend and ask whether they'd like to be more.

She's her best friend.

Was. Was, she needs to remind herself. Past tense.

It made so much sense, though. Yeah, you [i]might[/i] end up in a fulfilling relationship that goes places and ends with both of you sharing a life of adventure. Ooooor, you might alienate one of the only true friends you have--again--and end up in a gutter.

Or, you know, you could spend years pining? Pining is probably the wrong word. Being happy with what you have, telling yourself not to ruin it. Being scared to ask that first question, hoping against hope that maybe, maybe she feels the same way? Only to be stabbed in the back anyway?

Did… Did Merilt know? She always told herself that no, there's no way she could have. 

But right now, she's questioning a whole lot of her past assumptions. She can't have known. She had to have known. There was always that teasing look when she smiled. And, so you know, Merilt has a [i]great[/i] smile. Dyssia could look at the smile for hours, and god help her if Merilt laughed. Just, plain up girl-melting laugh.

Or, you know, it was. Back before. Before things changed. 

The smile she gives out now is… It's the same shape, right? Like, to a tee. Could photograph one, and photograph the other, and line them up over one another, and have no differences. But it's fake, Dyssia knows--the mouth shape is the same, but it doesn't reach the eyes.

You wouldn't do that to a friend, right? Wouldn't keep them by your side, letting them stew in--

Fuck, is [i]she[/i] the bad friend? Is that what happened, is that Merilt knew, and got tired of waiting for Dyssia to finally get her guts together and ask?

It's not fair. She wants to be angry--wants to nestle into it like a warm ball of energy, draw power from it. But now she's not even sure who to be mad [i]at.[/i]

The Pix has the same smile, you know? Like she's spent time with Merilt, and crafted her mouth to look the same, and spent hours perfecting that same smile under her tutelage.

And she's open, and willing, and wants her. She's even more of a sex goddess than Merilt, could have her pick of anyone, and is asking for her, and wants her, and--

And she's within arm's length now, she realizes with a jolt. No idea how she got through the jellyfish tentacles--she'd moved past them almost without thinking, on autopilot, just figuring out which way they were going and then not being there. Just… 

On second thought, it's not quite like Merilt's smile. Not like either of Merilt's smiles, she means--not the real one that she used in private back then, or the one she gives out to devotees today.

It's probably just the light, you know. From the jellyfish, and the bioluminescence, and the way the wings scatter and diffract both across the Pix's face.

It's a crafted illusion of a smile. But it somehow seems kinder than what she's used to.

She gulps, and stares at the Pix, almost at a loss for words.

"Come here often?"

Fuck. No, actually, at a loss would be better.