Hesperia #Wattys2015

Look at the Stars, How They Shine For You

"Founders day is the same every year; we dress up, we meet strangers that we pretend we know and we walk around the Mayors Garden where there's pictures of Luna Falls through the years. There's a different theme each time, but the favourite seems to be the Masquerade Ball. So to be fair, every ten years we do one - and that day just so happens to fall in two weeks."

To say that the situation that I was currently in would be considered normal would be a complete understatement. It was Sunday afternoon and after having suffered a six hour long training session with Marcus, Lena and I had decided - since we only had one car, to do something strange - well strange to us any how.

I had begun to grow a very strange respect for Lena Beckham. She acted as though she hated the world and everyone in it and she drowned all her problems with a bottle of grey goose or shots of Tequila - sure. But as horrible a mask as Lena tried to put on to disguise herself... under the thick layers of pure bitchiness was an actual human. And that human was pretty cool.

So this was how Lena and I ended up sitting on the hood of her sky blue vintage Corvet with ice cream in hand and talking about Founders Day.

"So does that mean I have to get the whole ball gown and mask?" I asked shoving a spoonful of my chocolate and caramel ice cream into my mouth. "Because if I'm being completely honest here, I don't see the point. If Cedric's right and The Brotherhood arrive in town and try to kill us or whatever it is there doing - should we really be attending a party?"

Lena nodded her head, her eyes fixed on her french vanilla before she continued. "Emmett was talking to me about this yesterday, if The Brotherhood - or I'm sorry when The Brotherhood arrive they're going to want to be discrete. I mean think about it, yeah they're hugely famous in Luna Falls history but only as some old folktale used to scare your kids into eating their vegetables. No one here that's mortal actually thinks they're real and The Brotherhood like that. It's the whole reason they're coming when they do, they like big groups and the whole town goes to the Founders Day parties you know? So anyways, if we go everyones in masks it'll make it harder for them to make out faces. And if we wear our amulet's that Rowena made us to balance out our magic it can even serve as a shield so they can't sense our magic as strongly as they would without the amulets."

"Right," I nodded. "But how will we know who they are?"

"Bella, believe me." Lena sighed shaking slightly as a shiver seemed to run down her spine. "You'll know who they are the minute you see them. They're seven feet tall, faceless, and their skin is chalk white... and the eyes... red as blood."

We were silent for a few minutes our eyes glued to the horizon on Luna Falls. I had realized that despite having lived here for however long it's been now, I hadn't really taken the time to see just how beautiful the town was.

It was like something taken right from northern Europe, like a little piece of Iceland or Norway was right here with us in Louisiana. Of course, we didn't have snow obviously, but other then that the resemblance was clear. How was it that a town so incredibly and wonderfully beautiful and real could have such a dark and cursed past, hidden behind a curtain to protect the Mortals?

"What are you most afraid of?" I suddenly blurted out. "With everything that's going on, what scares you the most?"

I wasn't one hundred percent sure why I asked that, maybe it was just curiosity... or maybe it was that fact that I needed to know I wasn't only one who was genuinely terrified.

Lena took a second, or more like a few to silently think to herself as her pearly grey eyes seemed to take the town in and all it's features.

"It's kind of hard to pin-point something like that, every human, both mortal and supernatural has fears. Some people have a deadly fear of spiders, others fear being buried alive... they're all things that I don't know happen to you you know? I've been thinking a lot about the things I'm scared of that relate to The Brotherhood. I'm scared of dying painfully instead of peacefully, I'm scared of losing to them... but most of all I think I'm scared of time. It's so weird of a fear to say but it's true - I'm terrified of not having enough of it."