Pari exhaled, pressing her hands to her face. "... I'm sorry. I didn't mean that, Sparrow."
"It's fine." Sparrow replied quietly, picking herself up off the couch. "You deal with this thing however you want to. I should get back to work."
"Sparrow--" Pari began again, but Sparrow's eyes looked back at her witheringly, and the rest of her sentence died in her throat. "What?" Sparrow demanded. "Obviously you don't want help with this. You know exactly how you're feeling, because you always know exactly how you feel and how to fix things and the rest of us are just pathetic, nosey busybodies, aren't we?"
"No, that's not--"
"Isn't it? Pari, I wanted to talk to you because I care about you. But if you're going to be rude, then I won't bother. What's the point? I mean, who am I, anyways, to even think about helping you work this thing out?" she crossed her arms, glowering down at Pari. "I'm just some uneducated ex-servant who just so happened to inherit a throne. But I'm still not on equal footing with you or the other nobles, right? I never will be. You're always going to think of people like Feo and I like we're at the bottom of this ladder, while you're obviously at the top. We're, what, less than the dirt on your Manolos?"
"I didn't mean--"
"Maybe I shouldn't even mention our presences in the same sentence as your seven-thousand dollar heels!" Sparrow accused, "You give more of a shit about them than you do about us. You know that school's never been something that I'm good at, and you threw that in my face at the first inconvenience. Do you know how hard I'm trying, Parisa? Catching up on college, catching up on tiran politics, trying to learn about current events and government policies and mermaid history and diplomacy and -- you don't care at all about me, obviously, so how could I even think that you'd care about Feo? He's even worse than me, at least I'm a queen now. He's still just some random, orphan cat boy that Saskia picked up off the street--"
"Oh my God, Sparrow, would you give it a rest?" Pari hollered back, jumping up to defend herself. "That's so fucking untrue! Do you really think I'm that much of a bitch? I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have said that shit to you, but what the hell are you talking about with Feofil? He's my best friend! He's the only one that gave a damn about me when Kyros had my whole family locked up -- everyone else left! Feo was the only one who kept an eye on me -- the only person who would talk to me for fucking months. My own cousin wouldn't even look at me! All the friends I had immediately cut me off! He kept me from being a pariah! But he was just being a good friend, the only honest person in my life, and I was stupid enough to think that it meant more than just the fact that he's a good person, and I fell for him!" She jabbed her finger at Sparrow, her voice blazing with indignant rage. "So don't tell me that I think Feofil is some orphan boy when I know he's the only person in my life that I can one-thousand percent trust!"

Kyros had crossed his arms and leaned back somewhere in the midst of the reciprocal tirades, not keen on getting in the middle of it. Sparrow was not pulling punches, but he was surprised at how effective it had been in getting Pari to open up.

Sparrow's expression had softened during Parisa's rant, though her eyes were still shadowed with hurt. She crossed her arms and said quietly, "If you care about him that much, why won't you give him a chance?"
"Because--" Pari scowled, her words quick on an exhale. "It would never work out."
"How could you possibly know that, Pari?"
"Because I know him! And I know myself. And we don't mesh well together." Pari shot back. "In case you haven't noticed, I don't really mesh well with anyone."
"That's because of you. You push people away."
"I do not--"
"It's what you're doing right now." Sparrow lashed back at her. "You know what? Do what you want to. Convince yourself that there's no possible way you and Feo could work out, even though you've been friends for more than two decades, and go marry some delusional sixty-year-old, power-hungry asshole."

Pari watched as Sparrow returned to the papers strewn across the floor, picking them up as she stalked all the way to the door. "Sparrow," she tried, but Sparrow simply stepped across the threshold and shut the door with a gentle but firm click.

Kyros looked to his cousin, eyebrows raised. He respected Sparrow for walking out on Pari-- she didn't often stand up to her to that degree. They both knew she'd likely come back around, but for the time being maybe it would snap Pari back to her senses.

“Okay, I was a bitch.” Pari said after a moment, finally turning to look at him. Her expression, for once, was not full of derision and instead was crumpled with regret. “How do I make it up to her?”

"Give her a little time before you bring it up," he said, and gestured to the chaise in the room. His voice held mostly concern for his cousin, gaze fixated. "In the meantime, let's talk."

Pari, properly chastised, sank down into the cushions and folded her legs together. She frowned, running her fingers over the naked nails adorning her fingers. Altair didn’t really have any manicurists, and there was no fun in going alone anyways.