songbirds uncaged | pippa & manny

꧁  pippa   ꧂

Today marks a week since Pippa decided to blow her life up for a second time.

And the worst part, you ask? She can barely recall making the choice in the first place. Thumb pressing down on the trigger, but her mind lost in the clouds. She is a puppet tangled in threads of her own weaving — but the question remains, is she the hero or the villain of this particular tale?

All she wanted was to have fun, to experience something strange and new and exciting. All her life, these are the very same moments she has always rushed so recklessly into. The big ones — the ones that make your stomach flip like a pancake, that make all your emotions rush to your head until you can feel a little bit of everything, all at once. A long time ago, Pippa made her peace with the fact that her brain works quite unlike anyone else's in all of Snowspire.

Loyal, but flighty.

Brilliant, but fragile.

Kind, but frustrating.

What started as a girl's first night getting drunk has snowballed into her first detention of the semester. Not even because she went and got herself caught, no, but because she marched herself right to the Headmaster's private quarters in the dead of night, mind buzzing louder than ever before and fingertips tingling with static, nervous energy, regret and adrenaline and magic, too. "I've made an awful, terrible, horrible mistake." Is she a person, or is she a detonation?

Sometimes,

in the silence of the aftermath,

she has to wonder.

Faster than she can stop herself, she admits to everything, every little piece of the fantastical delusion she let herself keep for all of a single evening. Pippa is bold, and capable, and there is nothing she can't do if she sets her mind to it. All these years, all this time, all she has ever had is the melody of her own thoughts, her own reasoning, her own make-believe. Just because no one else seems to enjoy the sound of it, does that really mean it's so distracting? Self-love shouldn't feel like dancing on bombing grounds, and yet.

No one ever seems to know what to do with her. Too wise about subjects she has no business understanding, but blissfully ignorant about simple tasks that should be second nature to her. Everything she does is a little backwards, a little crooked, but what's the point of making a choice if you don't make it obvious that it is yours? The goal of this existence has never been to be loved / only to love, and to learn. And she's learned that too much alcohol makes her feel like she's dying.

And that when someone snitches on, firstly, an unsanctioned and unsupervised student party, and secondly, theft of a teacher's property, well... someone has to be held responsible for it. But foolish and dramatic as she might be, not a single name leaves her lips, not even when her judgment is still clouded by the liquor. The idea of breaking the rules, making herself sick, overwhelms her in a way that is tangible.

But she will not rat out Farrah, and she refuses to give her classmates any other reasons to be wary of her. So, we set our scene, girl right in the midst of an ordeal but no one else to receive the punishment. Sacrificing her next Saturday to spend the afternoon helping Charlie with groundskeeping in lieu of practicing her talent. Still, as she sways there with her arms crossed in the bitter, cold wind, she can't help but to click her heels together and imagine appearing somewhere else entirely. Her every movement is all an essential part of her show. You can't just turn that off.

For whatever unknown reason, Manny also stands by her side as they watch Charlie gather his equipment, still awaiting their instructions. To her regret, she really doesn't know much about the other boy. She remembers a few conversations throughout the years, always started by her, and quickly fled by him. Eventually, even she, ever the go-getter, stopped trying. And now she is left with this. Girl paying her dues when she would rather be chasing enigmas. A moment that passes without a mystery solved is a moment wasted. Cheekily, she leans forward, speaking under her breath but loud enough that he can't pretend not to hear her.

"So, how did you land yourself here? Or are you just passionate about volunteering?" A beat. The snowflakes catch in her hair, a winter coronation. "Me? I got detention. I am not passionate about volunteering."