The beauty of having a personality like mine is that one second you can be bouncing around and giggling like a schoolgirl, and the next everything seems to be falling apart and no matter what a smile won't reach your eyes. But to the casual observer, there's no discernible change. I still smile and laugh and act like nothing is wrong because I don't want people to worry about me; they have their own problems, and I'm the one who's supposed to help. Sometimes, I wish someone would worry about me besides my mother, that someone would ask what was wrong, but overall I just don't think my problems compare to others'. Sometimes I don't even know what's wrong. That's kind of where this story starts.
A long time ago, when I was much younger, much dumber, I fell in what I believed to be love with a golden boy with emerald eyes and pearly smile. A childish blush would color my cheeks whenever we spoke as if Amourna herself had appeared at my side. I was more than willing to help him. Or his friends. Or anyone that would get me his attention. But the golden boy had an obsidian heart; dark and surprisingly fragile. His interests solely invested in himself and the multiple girls he tricked and broke. Slowly, Amourna became Arduinna. Though I still cared for him, it was not love. It was a small fragile thing, my affections, and though they had stayed with him for far too long they now fluttered away to the furthest inward place and disappeared. Mother had always said that I belonged to Arduinna, that my father had been a "pig that kept running through the slaughterhouse", but until that moment I had never felt as though I belonged to Her. I didn't cry, I never told anyone of the shattered state of my emotions. Something told me that Parker knew, but that's just because he could look at a granite slab and tell it's centuries long life story. Parker was my best friend. A mediocre mousy boy, with coffee brown eyes and hair and a good heart. He was the blacksmith's son, strong, but unlike his father, he was long and lanky. Mother told me that his mother had been a gypsy, beautiful and wraithlike, and that she had left when he was only a tad older than 6. He, for all his strength, was quiet, to the point where it was a common assumption that he was a mute. And I could get him to do almost anything, if he didn't talk me out of it first. "Parker! Come on!" I called down the game trail.
"You know this is a rather terrible idea, these woods are frequented by French soldiers and mercenaries." He muttered, though he was simultaneously glaring and grinning at me.
"I know," I gave him a halfhearted smile, "That's why I love it." I tugged on the bow slung around my shoulders and waited for Parker to catch up. "You know you didn't have to come with me."
"You and I both know that's not true, a lady like you alone in the woods with thugs and other such distasteful characters is not a nice idea." Small spots of red had colored his cheekbones, though with his porcelain skin this was not an uncommon occurrence.
I hopped up on a fallen tree and said, with quite the dramatic flair, "I am no lady!" I tugged at the trousers I had borrowed from him and the white shirt I had snuck out of the box of my father's belongings. The pants fit alright, but the shirt was tight through the bosom and a tad too long. Parker just shook his head and gave me a look that I had seen so many times over the years but had never been able to identify.
"Yes, I know. You're no lady. You're a huntress. A mistress of Death himself. Et cetera, et cetera."
"I'm a daughter of Arduinna! A force to be reckoned with!" I said with as much force as I could muster without coming off too harsh, I was mostly joking and didn't want to offend him. He was my best friend. He pushed me lightly, just enough to make me topple off the log, but not before I kicked his legs out from under him. He fell with a laugh, which for him was a kind of combination of shaking of his broad shoulders and quick exhalations of breath. I landed in the leaves with him on top of me, both of us shaking with laughter. It wasn't until I opened my eyes that I realized he had stop laughing and was now studying me intently. "What?"
"Nothing, it's just that that's the first time I've seen you laugh like that in a long time" His eyes hadn't left mine.
"What are you talking about? I laugh all the time." I push him lightly and sit up opposite of
where he had rocked back on his knees.
"Nevermind. You're right." He said with a crooked smile that didn't reach his dark eyes.
"Nick." I said with a slight whine in my voice.
"You know I don't like when people use my first name."
"Then tell me what's bothering you."
"You don't seem to understand that when you laugh, and I mean really laugh, you light up, your eyes close, you throw your head back and laugh. You hadn't done that since..."
"Can we not talk about him now? I'm over it. I'm getting close to my patron saint. I'm spending time with my best friend." I punched him lightly in the shoulder. "I didn't realize you paid that much attention." I turned and went back to looking for small animals' trails. Behind me, I heard him mutter something that sounded suspiciously like 'to you'.