I woke up from the few strands of light that managed to bleed through my blackout curtains and groaned. My eyes were sore from sleeping for too long, but I rubbed at them all the same with the back of my hoof.
"Good morning."
I rolled out of bed and belly flopped to the floor with an unceremonious thump. I didn't even bother getting back on my hooves right away. Instead, I laid there for a moment longer and contemplated trying to force myself to go back to sleep for just a little bit longer before forcing myself to get up.
I lazily walked by the standing mirror with a yawn. I noted the tangled mess that was my mane around my double horns. Most kirins only had one horn but nature had seen fit to bless me with two, my orange mane stood out against my black coat color as my tired yellow eyes and striking red irises looked back at me.
"It's about time you got up." I looked over to the sneering nirik as she spoke bitterly.
"It's well past noon, did your lazy ass plan on spending the entire day in bed or were you going to get up only when you were hungry?" She said in her deep raspy voice.
She was around the same size as me, her eyes were a white with the barest hint of blue around the edges that narrowed as she glared at me. Her body was a sickly redish brown color with plumes of fire that never seemed to settle on what color they wanted to be at any given time, it flickered back and forth between blue and white most of the time.
I sighed and looked away. "What's the point?"
I stepped out of my room and walked down the stairs, stepping around the various piles of junk and clothing that lay scattered about in random places.
"You can't even be bothered to clean the damn house. Why do you even bother living in this dump?" I ignored her criticism as I continued down into my cramped yet comfortable living room. I was a bit of a pack rat so the clutter was only a mild nuisance compared to the irritated snort that came from behind me.
"Living here would be so much more bearable if you got rid of some of this worthless junk." She looked at the various old stuffed toys and furniture that lined the room before a catty smirk came to her muzzle. "At least this old junk fits you."
I didn't even dignify that with a response as I continued into my kitchen. I was hungry but the meager food stock in my fridge didn't look appealing so I settled on a cup of this fizzy juice I couldn't seem to get enough of.
I had only just turned around when I came nose to nose with her, I reflexively jumped with a start as she pointed an accusatory hoof at the drink floating in my magic.
"You're actually drinking that?!" She practically spat the words out at me as her face twisted in disgust. "Yep." My short reply only pissed her off even more as she raised a hoof to smack the drink out of the air before thinking better of it.
"No wonder you're not losing any weight, once you get your hooves on something it goes straight to those pudgy hips of yours!"
"You're just a pound of sugar, aren't you?" I frowned for a moment and took a swig of my drink just to spite her. Her sneer didn't change but her burning eyes glowed as she leered at me. "Oh yes, I'm just as sweet as those cakes you love jamming into your fat mouth so much."
I pinned my ears and left her behind in the kitchen as I returned to my living room. I was thinking of just going back to bed when my hips bumped into one of my shelves causing the hoofball gear to raddle and a small scorebook to drop to the floor.
I cursed to myself and picked it up. I hadn't played in a while but I did like to go through my little booklet from time to time. I flipped through the earlier pages fondly as I remembered some of the highlights of old games. Flipping further I remembered why I stopped looking at it as the blue lines that indicated victory quickly turned into massive blocks of red; failures.
Loud, obnoxious laughter filled the room as she looked over my shoulder at the same page. "Wow! Eight straight losses in a row?! The only link in all those matches was you!" She somehow managed to laugh even louder and harder as my ears folded further back against my head.
"I did the best I could." I said with a small indignant stamp of my hoof. "How pathetic. You play the catcher, how in the hell do you mess that up? It's like the easiest job in the game, you literally sit there and hold a bucket!"
I snapped the small book closed with a grunt and shoved it back onto the shelf with my old gear. I didn't want to look at it any longer.
I looked back upstairs before snorting and turned to the front door. Even if I could sleep anymore I doubt she would let me do so peacefully. "I'm going for a walk, have any witty comments? Gonna say the ponies will start screaming about earthquakes? Anything?"
My harsh tone seemed to roll right off her back as she merely shrugged. "Good."
I stepped outside to the pleasantly chilled air feeling nice against my heated face. I took a deep breath to calm myself before setting out on one of my favorite walking paths. I waved politely at any pony I passed but didn't venture close enough to start a conversation. It certainly wasn't from a lack of trying on the ponies part, as friendly as they were.
I was a rather private person even by other kirin's standards, idle chit chat was never appealing to me, especially with folks I barely ever spoke to for more than a minute or two.
She fell in step next to me. She didn't even need to speak, her mere presence draining my energy.
"Hey Sai! Over here!"
My ears perked up to the shortened version of my name by the familiar voice of my friend Sea Breeze. She was a tall light blue earth pony with a slightly darker blue mane. She was dressed in her slightly sweaty hoofball gear and gave me a friendly smile as I walked over to her.
"I was playing a few casual games today and saw you out, want to play?" She asked excitedly, likely on a high from a good couple of games.
It was rare when I would actually get to play with her anymore. Normally she was practicing for a competitive game with her other friends that were much better players than I was. I thought about it for a moment, this might actually be fun. I opened my mouth to accept when she spoke up.
"Are you really gonna drag her games down? She'll destroy the other team with ease while you'll just be riding along on her tail. Does she deserve to have to cover for your lack of skill the whole match?" Her voice was soft but cut deep like sharpened steel. She said this with her all too familiar sneer. My mouth worked soundlessly before closing as I thought about what she said. No. It wouldn't be fair to Sea Breeze.
I gave her an apologetic smile but shook my head, not trusting my voice to not immediately crack. "Sorry Breeze, afraid my equipment needs some repairs and none of the gear here looks like it will fit me."
The only thing wrong with my gear was the thick layer of dust that had settled over it. She looked slightly disappointed for a moment before nodding and turning around to return to her current team who were waiting for her. "Alright, well if you find any that fits I'll be here for a while!"
Thankfully she hadn't noticed the cracks starting to form in my mask. This is for the best, she'll do better without me weighing down her team.
I waited a moment longer before shaking the idea from my head and going back to my walk. I liked to walk along this path, it was out of the way of the small little town and had some pretty flowers that smelled much better than they tasted. It helped to clear my mind, calm me down and let me think of better times but pretty flowers could only do so much to distract me from the splenetic nirik.
She was like a heavy blanket that was smothering me. Why couldn't she just go away? No matter where I went, she was there. No matter who I was with, she was there. She would sit quietly and just watch me, sensing, waiting for her opportunity to berate me with snide comments or a venomous hiss.
I couldn't ever truly escape her yet I also couldn't find the strength to confront her either. She would just go on like that, no one would say anything about her either, after all they were mostly ignorant to her presence. I guess that was mostly my fault seeing as I never brought her up in conversation. Just as I didn't have it in me to confront her, I also didn't have the nerve to expose her either.
Whenever I was actually around others I would always smile, laugh or have a constant stream of jokes going. The few times my mask slipped enough to be noticed and someone would ask if I was alright, I would briefly entertain the idea of saying something, getting it all out and pray someone could help me, she would be able to shut it all down with a single look. It was always enough to shut me up, make it so my tongue would refuse to get the words out so I would give up and change the topic.
"Coward"
I stopped in my tracks and turned to face her, she looked down her nose at me, contempt on her imperious face, disgust in her fiery eyes.
"I hate you."
She turned her nose up in superiority. "The feeling is mutual."
"Hey Saita, I saw you out walking and wanted to say hello."
I heard my name being called again and looked to see another friend of mine. My happy mask slipped back on my face almost effortlessly as Golden Fields, another earth pony friend of mine, greeted me with an almost unsure smile.
"Hey Goldy, it's been a while."
I wanted to leave before the cracks reformed but I gave my old friend a few minutes before leaving again. He smiled but looked like he was thinking about how to ask me something he thought was stupid.
"Sai, who were you talking to?"
I spared a glance to the side, the nirik scowling at me as I looked back to my friend with my most convincing fake smile.
"Just talking to myself, Goldy."
He hadn't caught what was said, only that I was talking to the empty space next to me. My own personal nirik imperceptible to him.
"Just myself"
