Discliamer: I don't own these characters….don't sue! Thanx
Hope
When we were little girls we used to sneak in the barn and play hide and seek, just the two of us. I wasn't allowed in the barn back then but Rachel always seemed to talk me into playing there anyway. Even back then, in pigtails, literally, she wasn't resigned to play just any old game, it had to have some sort of danger to it. As friends she was always there to push me, to inspire me, even though I probably wasn't always aware. In fifth grade, already much taller than everyone in our class, perhaps even our entire elementary school, she punched a boy square in the face simply because he threw some food at me during lunch. Afterwards, she calmly sat back down at our table and sipped the rest of her juice, smiling at me as our teacher called her name out in outrage.
Now she's dead. She's been dead only a month and already I'm forgetting the little things. When we were 8, I made anklets for both of us, as a token of our friendship. We wore them everyday, never taking them off. Even in middle school, as our lives changed unbelievably (and her fashion sense was at an all time high) there were days when I noticed that she was wearing it. We'd be sitting in the barn, planning our next mission usually, and I'd of course be on the ground tending to some animal. I'd just happen to look and see her foot, marvel at her impeccable toe-nails and wonder how she could possible be wearing those shoes in a barn and I'd see the anklet. It touched me so deeply once that I almost cried right there. I saw it and I felt her loyalty, her friendship, unshaken by the all the other changes that had seemed to take place within her. Even at her worst, even towards the living in the Hork-Bajir valley when we barely spoke, when I wondered if I could ever be her friend when it was all over, I'd see her and have hope. Hope that I could bring her back to the girl that was my best friend.