royal blood // chrys, di, & minnie

[+ JAMIE]

Anarchy turning into something worse: uncertainty.

Storm the castle? Overthrow the government? Defeat evil? Become the hero?

Sure. Fine. Good. OK.

What next?

Diana the archetype of a hero: she never thought things through. Minerva too genre-savvy for her own good: overthinking everything. And then Chrys. Thinking just enough to see where things were heading. Just enough to reach the higher ground. To join the right team. To make the right excuses. To back up into his pillow fort until only his eyeballs were showing. Large. Unblinking. Gold. Darting between his sisters.

Diana: confused. Blind-sided. Ashamed. Obvious she had no idea what had happened. Where she had crossed the line. That there had been a line to cross. Out of touch with her own emotional reaction: the condescension, Chrys could handle. Her stunted emotional maturity come to play. But Minerva? Minerva had never liked it. Stung her pride. So she stung back.

With venom.

In the safety of his fort: she had a point. Diana's one great talent: steam-rolling. Chrys didn't mind. Went along with it. Easy and safe. Saved him the mental effort of making up stories himself. Of putting effort (at all) into things. If he didn't like it? He wouldn't do it. But mostly? He didn't care. More important: hanging out with his sisters. Being close to them. Being included. Also, he was a mama's boy. No need to fight for his father's affection: he had mom. (Not sure why Minerva was so bothered by it. Dad too bony for cuddles. Ouch.)

But. Minerva had a point. Points. Ones that never bothered Chrys like they bothered her. Still: valid. Diana pushed too far. Always. It was who she was. Just like Minnie couldn't take these things lying down. It was who she was, too. And dad's blatant favoritism. And mom's constant low-level worry. Just who they were. Take it or leave it. Drag them to Jesus for it. Don't be upset if conversion doesn't take.

(Chrys was proud of his philosophical attitude towards it all.)

But he was also who he was. And he got upset seeing his sisters upset. Oh: better at hiding it than them. For sure. Would get better with time. Repression a key feature of his character. So here's another key feature. A surprise-in-waiting. A shocking reality.

Chrys is the most emotional of them all. Just have to wind him up. Twist the key until it stops. Twist it one revolution more.

You won't believe what happens next!


DELAWARE [:ripples:]

[DELAWARE]

Nobody had EVER yelled at Diana before. Not like this: face screwed up, eyes narrowed to slits, so furious their skin was practically steaming, shouting so loud that it felt like thunder in the isolated quiet of Haven. Sure, cats had been upset with her before, sure there'd been raised voices when she did something stupid, of course she and Minnie and Chrys got into little spats... but it had never, ever, ever been like this. Diana was overwhelmed, knocked about, floundering in the rolling weight of Minnie's rage. Each new accusation felt like someone was tearing out the concrete beneath her paws and hurling the jagged slabs of it at her; Diana actually staggered when Minnie shouted "NO!", the full-body flinch painful. She couldn't comprehend exactly what Minnie was flinging at her - her sister was yelling too loud, talking too fast, was too angry and it was so scary, it was so scary - but she got the gist with horrible clarity. And, because Diana had no idea what to do with her fear and confusion and upset and anger, had no idea how to explain this dreadful feeling in her chest, like a pit had opened where her heart should be and was sucking, sucking, sucking everything in, she planted her legs, squared up, grabbed the easiest emotions floating on the surface - red hot fury and white hot hurt - and served it with all her strength into Minnie's stupid, stupid, stupid lying face.

"I DO listen to you! I listen to you ALL. THE. TIME! It's not my FAULT you always say the most BORING STUFF! It's not my fault you always want to play the most BORING games! Maybe if you don't want to be the villain you should come up with BETTER STORIES! Did you ever think about that? And so WHAT if I like to be happy?! So WHAT if I like to have fun?! Maybe dad greets me first because YOU'RE such a party-pooper! Not everyone wants to spend time with a stupid, boring, growly little TURD, Minnie!!!!"

Diana was losing steam faster than she thought she would; she was outclassed, and she knew it. From the moment they'd started talking Minnie had a way with words that Diana envied, a certain composure to her thoughts and phrases. It was one of the many, many things that Diana admired about her sister, one of the many things that made her look at her sister with stars in her eyes. And, now, it was just going to be one of the many things that Diana was never going to tell her, ever. Instead, she was just going to go lower. Because if you can't outclass someone? You drag 'em right down into the muck with you.

"I do NOT get everything I want! How can you even SAY that! You don't know a single THING about me! You just want to stay in your STUPID, BORING, LITTLE HEAD FOREVER with your STUPID, BORING LITTLE STORIES that EVERYONE ELSE HATES and NO ONE WANTS TO LISTEN TO! The world you want to make up is HORRIBLE and NOBODY CARES ABOUT IT. Nobody would EVER want to live there! I don't EVER want to live there! I don't want to live ANYWHERE NEAR YOU!!! I don't want to talk to you or play with you EVER AGAIN! Stupidhead! I don't,"

- and when had she started to cry? but it was too late to stop now, impulse control would never be Diana's strength, the train was rolling and she couldn't stop it, couldn't stop the way her face twisted up and the tears flowed out of her eyes and the hurt was lashing out, just trying to hurt more -

"I DON'T WANT TO LISTEN OR TALK TO YOU EVER AGAIN!"

And half-blind from tears, she lifted up her paws and shoved Minnie as hard as she could, as strongly as she could, away from her, before dropping onto the floor and hiccuping out sobs.


[ ooc gotta love siblinghood + JAMIE [:ripples:] also di is overreacting in a big way, at this point in her life she's had no emotional education at all AND she's never had to handle someone being truly upset with her. so minnie gets the two-for-one bargain price ]