AN: Happy Halloween guys! So to celebrate Halloween, this is a short one-shot on Reyna probably set when she is around 5 and still clueless about the whole Roman thing and haven't met Circe yet. Hylla won't appear in the story but Hannah, her cousin and her cousin's best friend Angelina will (btw, they are my own characters :P) Enjoy!
Reyna couldn't wait for Halloween.
She had been waiting for October 31st for a whole year. Last year was great, but this year is going to be better. She is going trick or treating with her cousin and her cousin's best friend, Hannah and Angelina. Both, Hannah and Angelina couldn't think of anything to do so they went with one of the most common over-used ones, a witch and a ghost. However, Reyna had been planning this one since last year.
This year, her dream would come true. She would become a Roman Princess. A true one. One that she believes in.
"Oh my gods! This is perfect!" Hannah squealed as she finished the last pieces of Reyna's costume.
Angelina laughed. "Well, it's obviously better than ours. Yours is so sophisticated!"
Reyna blushed. "Thanks a lot for helping me with this costume!"
"You're welcome." Hannah gave a small smile but turned away swiftly.
"Let's get going!" Angelina urged. "I don't want to get seen with your five year old cousin." she muttered under her breath.
Reyna felt a twinge of guilt. Did they only want to celebrate Halloween with her because of her dad?
"Reyna, grab your pumpkin basket." Hannah said gently pointing to where Reyna's orange candy-collector is. Forgetting what Angelina muttered earlier on, Reyna snatched her basket eagerly ready to show the neighborhood her costume.
"Trick or Treat!" Reyna shouted enthusiastically before the doorbell rung.
"Trick or Treat!" Hannah and Angelina said following Reyna's excited cries.
An elderly lady opened the door and smiled at Reyna who had been bouncing up and down in her toga and gave her a handful of candies. Then, she looked up with an expression Reyna couldn't recognize at the teenagers and gave them a fair bit of candies. Although, it wasn't as much as Reyna's portion, neither of them were too bothered by the fact.
"Happy Halloween!" The lady croaked and closed the door.
As they walked to the next street, Reyna felt something wrong with her toga. Jiggling with it, it finally fit in place. All of a sudden, the back started tugging, Reyna pulled it self-consciously and then the wrap started coming loose. "It's falling apart!" she whispered.
"What? Never mind. We still have a lot of houses to visit. Walk faster." Angelina rolled her eyes.
Hannah looked at Reyna whom had been trailing behind them but quickly resumed her conversation with her best friend. "I'm sorry." she mouthed before turning back.
Reyna felt a warm fuzzy feeling in her heart. Hannah was never particularly nice to her, or at least she wasn't around Angelina. However, her costume isn't going to fix itself! Unraveling a bit of the cloth, she pulled it tightly against her body and wrapped herself around it again.
"Wait up!" Reyna cried as Angelina and Hannah were a few miles in front. They stood on the spot evidently annoyed. Reyna ran as fast as she could to catch up but her brown sandals slipped on a small rock causing the cheap quality pad in the bottom to break. Despaired, she took off her sandals and ran barefooted towards the teenagers up front.
Her toga slowly slipped away as the end of the cloth began to fall. Picking the ends up, she wrapped it around herself again. She tried this before Halloween, why did it work then? Almost immediately, the toga began falling apart again.
Feeling frustrated, Reyna pulled up the white linen cloth and wrapped it desperately around her again.
"Come on, Roman!" Hannah called from a few miles away.
"I'm running!" Reyna shouted as she dragged her cloth from the ground and ran carefully.
"Oh my gods, Reyna! Can't you run any quicker?" Angelina yelled under her costume so it made it sound muffled. Despite that, Reyna felt like she was letting both of them down.
"Go ahead!" Reyna was obliged to tell them to do so although she wanted to go with them. However, she couldn't fix her costume and please her friends. If she wanted to look like a Roman Princess that night, she'd have to sacrifice some time with her friends. She would still be a Princess if she manage to get the costume under control, just a lonely one.
It's not going to work. A little voice whispered in the head. Reyna didn't want to believe it but somehow, she knew it was true. Her night is ruined and nobody is there to help her. Sitting down alone on the curb, she felt tears streaming down her face. No, a Roman Princes must not cry. However, her eyes refuse to obey her strong-minded brain. Determined not to get spotted, Reyna wiped the tears off her face.
Reyna had told her friends, family and in fact everybody she knew that she was only going Trick or Treating for the free candies and money. If she was only doing this because of that, Reyna knew she won't have chosen to become a Roman Princess. She would become something like a vampire.
Some people said that she was already a Roman Princess, and by some Reyna meant her family. Despite her family's efforts to make Reyna's wish come true, she felt like it wasn't true. When she first put on her costume, it was a dream come true. That was of course, before the costume was ruined. Everything was perfect. She thought that Halloween was the only way she can become one, inside and outside. This proved her wrong.
With the torn toga, broken sandals and the wreath in her hands, she is a peasant. Not even a Roman peasant. She felt weak and untouchable. The dreams she had since she was young were just shattered on the ground.
Reyna's dark eyes look sorrowfully towards the night sky. It was one of those days were there aren't a lot of clouds but not a lot of stars either. It was like the stars shone as dully as Reyna's heart. It can be depressing if you look at it for some time.
Suddenly, a star shot across the star. A wishing star. Gazing at the gloomy night sky, Reyna won't have expected the star to come across. Out of all the almost lifeless stars up in space, for a brief second, it stood out brightly. For a moment, she knew. Someday, she would be that star surpassing others. She would be like that star, spotted in the middle of a huge crowd.
Slowly, Reyna realized as her hand reached the bronze wreath, that she doesn't need a toga, brown sandals, a bronze wreath or in fact anything to become a Roman Princess. She is a Roman Princess