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Moonshine knows she’s beautiful. She knows she’s curvy, busty, soft-skinned — that her eyelashes can’t help but flutter, that her smile can’t help but allure. She knows that her long hair curls wild and her cheeks dimple. That people like her laugh. That people like her figure. In a Galaderon bar, in the Feywild, she crosses her legs, drawing her foot up and over slowly, with a smile, hoping that people are watching. Knowing that people are watching. Liking it.
Moonshine knows she’s beautiful. It’s just that when Queen Ezra opens her mind and shows her her mother in bed with fine hair, fine fingers, high, fine cheekbones on a fine boned face — she can’t think of any other word for it but ugly. The feeling crawling all over her, sticky, dirty, that this whole time, she’s been someone else. She knows where her freckles come from, yes, but — what about her nose, so pointy where Jolene’s is round? Her thin wrists? Her thin cheeks? It’s just that —
She can’t stop thinking about it. Hardwon’s eyes, all deep indigo in the dark, heavy on hers. His big hand cupping her cheek. His just-on-hers lips wrapping around vowels as he tells her, “You’re beautiful, is all I’m saying.” His itchy-with-beard lips. His lips.
Though, of course, they are both half pretending he didn’t say it.
In fact, they are half pretending the last day didn’t happen. They are chugging drinks, starting fires, doing anything that will help them pretend that they feel totally fine. Anything that will help them forget. And they’re doing a pretty good job of it. With the fireworks going off and the alcohol being passed around, this might very well be a normal sixteenth birthday party, complete with un-but-probably-should-be-supervised drug use and people making out in corners.
Huddled together on a blanket, Hardwon raises his flask. “To Bev,” he says, half slurring, half covered in mud. “Happy birthday, bud.”
Moonshine raises her mug and smiles. “To Bev!”
Beverly grins, tiredly. “To me.”
They drink.
When Moonshine tips her head back down, Hardwon is still drinking. And still drinking. And then, finally — releasing his lips from his flask, but not without a wobble to the arm that’s supporting him. He probably shouldn’t be still drinking. Or making toasts. Or doing anything that’s not curling up with a glass of water. But who’s she to stop him? Who has she ever been? They’re Scoutmasters, drinking buddies, flint and steel starting the spark. Diving off the cliff and then bandaging up the cuts, not stoping each other from jumping. If he wants to get wasted, so be it. If he wants to forget, then — that’s fine. Moonshine is fine with that. Really.
The fireworks light up Hardwon’s face, all red and green and blue. Eyes half lidded, watching the sky, tongue running over his lips. Too drunk to notice that he’s licking dirt. Moonshine remembers the cold she’d felt, remembers the pain blooming in her chest, like her ribcage was collapsing in, before he — before his lips — she means, whatever Queen Ezra made her see, and the pain she felt after it, must be nothing compared to him. Him and his dead-mom, dead-dad, walls-up hardships. Him and his starburst-scar-covered chest. She watches him watch the sky, lean back on a shaky arm, and wishes she knew how to do anything other than nod her head, purse her lips, give him the space that he wants. That she wasn’t so gullible. Wasn’t fearless only in battle.
He could take it, couldn’t he? Hardwon who takes blades to the back, Hardwon who takes spells to the face, Hardwon who takes the blame for loosing Gemma. Hardwon who pulled her out of the throat of a purple worm, acid rising. Hardwon who carried her. And carried her. Maybe, if she just told him that he could, and be okay, he’d let all his walls down. Maybe, if she just teased him a little less, let the whiskers on her chin grow in —
Hardwon looks at her. Dark eyes, thick beard, and Moonshine feels her whole body flush. Oh Melora, she’s been staring, and he’s caught her, and —
Hardwon falls back into the grass.
Right. Hardwon is drunk. Very, very drunk. He won’t remember tonight. He probably doesn’t want to. He kissed her, but that was before Queen Ezra showed him his mother in Shadowfell, enslaved to Galad, punished in whatever way has made him slur stay away, everything I touch dies all night. Moonshine smiles at Beverly, throws an arm around him, and looks up at the sky. This is the real world. Full of important things, like devils and armies and self-righteous gods. Not emotionally clumsy, long-bearded fighters. Not kisses. And whatever tender boyishness she saw in Hardwon’s eyes — felt in his callused-all-over fingers so soft on her cheek, saw on his covered-in-forest face last night as they passed a flask back and forth, as their fingers touched in the dark — in his all husky voice saying —
He didn’t have to tell her. Moonshine knows she’s beautiful. She knew it, even when she was standing there, feet freezing to the ground, heart breaking in her chest. Hardwon knows that she knows. Hell, Hardwon knows for himself. She feels his eyes, when he thinks she’s not watching, tracing her hips, or her lips, lingering too long on her face. But he’s not — and they’re not — Moonshine digs her toes into the grass. Thinks of Hardwon’s eyes on hers, lips on hers, desperate to make her not afraid.
The fireworks bloom. Beverly begins to fall asleep at her shoulder. Moonshine won’t fall asleep, doesn’t want to, doesn’t want — but before she knows what’s happening her lids are heavy, and the grass is thick under her head. She closes her eyes. And feels beautiful, more than ever.