Zara
Written for Manon.
Zara isn't beautiful, isn't nice, isn't wonderful. She's a spiny, awkward creature with too much red hair and no tact. She's all prickles and angles, and she knows it. Sometimes she's proud of it, and when she isn't, she never shows.
People are never fond of Zara, but they can't help looking at her twice. Mostly it's to raise their eyebrows sideways, the way one does a statue that doesn't make any apparent sense. Zara is like a statue that way, one of those sculptures that make one think the artist was simply drunk out of his skull. She could have been beautiful, could have been nice, could have been wonderful--but she isn't. So people look twice, and raise their eyebrows.
Florian, though, Florian looked twice, raised his eyebrows, and then called her 'my child'. No one ever did that before.
Florian is gentle. Florian pretends she's a girl, and not a spiny, awkward creature.
Zara doesn't want to be in love with him, but she isn't wonderful, isn't nice, isn't beautiful. She doesn't know what else to do, and she hates herself for it. She's not that weak. She's all prickles and angles. But it doesn't help her. When people are never fond of you, it's easy to fall in love with someone who's gentle.
It's easy not to show it, too. But she's always proud of that.
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