This is my first American Dragon fanfic. A drabble-y one-shot about Rose's thoughts after The Hunted.
Rose sighed and sat on her bed. It's funny, she thought, how quickly your entire world can come crashing down. Just a few hours ago she had been fine. She could be Rose during the day, go to school, hang out with her friends, and possibly get to see Jake. Then when it got dark, Rose ceased to exist. Thorn came out. She was huntsgirl, she was fierce, and she didn't feel guilt. She could hunt magical creature with huntsman and not think twice about it. Thorn could slay a dragon. Thorn could probably kill a human, if she needed, or wanted, to. Rose couldn't, Rose knew it was wrong, Rose had morals, and thought of other people and beings. Thorn couldn't, or else she wouldn't be able to slay a dragon or kill other creatures for profit. Rose wouldn't be able to manage in the huntsclan, Thorn did it with ease. One never thought of the other and the two halves of her lived in peace. Ok, so it was a pretty warped version of fine, but it worked. It allowed her some sense of order, some semblance of normalcy in a life that was anything but normal.
Of course, that couldn't possibly work, it was much too easy. Just a few hours ago, the American Dragon, Thorn's hated foe, had revealed his human identity. And with that the wall between her two lives had come crashing down. He was Jake Long. Of all the people in the world, the American Dragon was Jake Long. That made him Thorn's enemy, and Rose's almost boyfriend.
Why couldn't it be some other person, some one like Brad, who she didn't care about? But, she argued with herself, if it was Brad, would I have killed him? She wasn't sure if she could answer that. Rose had known that dragons had a human identity all along, but it had never really occurred to her, that dragons had a life outside of, well, being a dragon. It had never occurred to her that there was some one out there who would miss that person. Sure, Brad was a pain, but she was fairly certain that some one, somewhere would have missed Brad if he died. Rose knew that if she had killed him, she would have missed Jake.
Rose hated it when she wasn't sure about something. And right now, she wasn't sure who she was and who she was pretending to be. Either Rose or Thorn was a façade, and she needed to find out whom. Was she Rose pretending to be Thorn, or Thorn pretending to be Rose? Who am I? She thought to herself.
Rose looked at her mask and sighed. Almost everyone around her seemed to think they knew who she was. Huntsmaster assumed she was Thorn. Her friends at school didn't even know Thorn existed. But Jake seemed just as confused as she was. He had saved her back on the ski trip, yet had avoided her at school. Yep, he was just as unsure of her as she was. She had to figure out who she was soon though, indecision was a weakness, and she couldn't be weak. She glanced from her hunts stick to her backpack, and she looked at herself, and knew that she was Rose, and Thorn was just the mask to hide behind.
Tell me what you think. Constructive criticism welcome, but please, no flames.