It had been a week since that incident in the meadow. Red thought often of that moment in time and recalled with a twinge of regret for what followed after. Pinching the bridge of her nose her mind replayed the feeling that stuck when she was finally touched with kindness and not anger. Yet, it lasted a brief second, that unfamiliarity that she knew would not only shatter her to a million pieces but also hold her bound so tightly. Before she even raised her head to reach Kieren's eyes she was already reaching for her blood red shield. Dashing out of his grasp to the comfort of the known path. The last thing Kieren saw before she disappeared was a grim reminder of her future, as a blood red scare cut through the lush forest. To say she regretted that moment would be wrong to assume, in all honesty Red actually wished that were what was causing her pain. Though, as she sat in the tree that overlooked the meadow she could not help but regret that she ran away. In fact since that moment Red's body had never felt more alive, buzzing with uncertainty as her heart and mind were at war. She was never more alert but only when it came to one person. She was never happier though only when her thought returned to that meadow, which they rarely ever left. Red found that she was making more trips to the market, casting sidelong glances at the blacksmith shop, hoping for a small glance of someone she hardly knew. Her mood did not go unnoticed by her parents and every smile bought her more gifts of pain on her forever-tortured body. Today was no different than the others before but she thought she might have been smiling more, because upon her return home she found a flower she didn't buy in her basket with a telltale smudge imperfecting the stem. Delicately rolling the flower through her grasp while allowing its smell to fill her mind she carelessly walked into the place her parents lived. When her thoughts finally became her own she found herself lying in the grass behind her parents home. Vaguely remember the unnatural feeling that assaulted her upon entering her house. She recalls her fathers face sober and menacing, angry at the little mead she had and calling her every name he concocted meaning whore. He ripped the flower she held in her grasp and when he reacted to pull it back she found her self flat on the floor. Her mother entered due to the noise and asked her father about the flower he held in his hand. She remembers slightly her mother kicking her face, something about who would want a girl with a disfigured face. Her father had downed the bottle of mead when she comes to next and he drunkenly scolds her for ever wanting to leave him. She tries to stand but that makes him angrier as if the very action is confirming her desire to leave. She remembers the feeling of his boot connecting with her chest as she plummets back to oblivion. Not before hearing his boot connect again with a sickening crack, she can't say how long he continues only that he did not stop at two. It was dark she noted when she could finally crack open an eye. She looked up to the pitch-black sky hoping for a beacon of light to guide her. Yet, she was met with darkness that she felt all the way to her heart. If she could have laughed without pain she might have, she couldn't help but thing how fitting this night was as she tried to shift. Pain tore through her as a confirmation of what she already knew, at least finally she could giver her parents what they always wished for with out doing so by her own hand. Red lay there staring lifelessly up toward the dark sky, closing her eyes as she lost her last reason to hope. Letting her lungs empty she breathed in for a final time and all at once she was surrounded in a smell she thought was lost forever, as the petals of a ash smudged flower blew through her hair.