WFPDH Shorts

Her Beauty

{ This is a backstory written through Rocky's view from my lovely friend Phoenix! She sadly no longer has WP so I'm posting it for context.^^}

It was a day full of sunshine and possibilities when I first saw her, laughing with an innocence that was hard to come by in the small village that was no stranger to the war that raged around them. The village that had grief echoing in every wall, filling the ground and the air and the sky. Dozens fell to hunger and illness with each passing day. It wasn't a good time to be alive in the world, but somehow she was still smiling.

Why was she smiling?

"Hello! I'm Analia! What's your name?" her eyes were such an intense teal color, as if they held a great sea. Her face was chubby and round with baby fat, and in her small hands she held a little bouquet of wild flowers. Even then I could see how small she was. How fragile she looked. As if with just one touch she would break apart like porcelain.

I don't know when, but somehow in my daze I was able to get out my name. If possible, her smile got even brighter.

"It's nice to meet you Rocky!" Analia chirped, before standing up on her tip-toes (even then, when we were both too young to understand even the darkest parts of the world, I towered over her) and tucked one of her wildflowers behind my ear. Now normally, I would have taken the thing and thrown it on the ground, crushing the delicate petals underneath the heavy toe of my boot. But something about her made me pause, letting her take my hand in hers, and slowly tug me after her, and into the brightness of her life.

Back then, I didn't understand the beauty of the girl who always smiled and laughed. Who cried when someone else cried, who picked wildflowers and loved her family more than anything else. Back then I didn't understand how much I needed her; not until she was almost taken away from me.

------

"What did you just say?" I had visited the village once again. I didn't know why; that time it wasn't required, and I had just came a few weeks ago. But I couldn't get her face out of my mind; as if it was some kind of disease. And so I decided to come and deal with the problem right at its source.

Little did I know that she'd come up with some ridiculous nickname for me though.

"Rockstar!" Analia repeated, hands clasped in excitement. "You know, because your name is Rocky, and you are as bright as a star-"

I cut her off before her words could affect me. "That's just dumb."

Analia's face fell at the harshness of my words and, deciding that the sad look on her face was worse than whatever embarrassment the nickname brought me, I amended them. "Though I guess some of the best things are dumb..."

The bright smile she gave me was worth everything.

------

"Rockstar!" I turned, and all I could see was the brightness of her eyes, and how her pale hair glimmered in the sunlight, as if made out of the finest materials. It had been at least two months since I last visited the village, and seeing her here made my heart pound in a way I'd never experienced before. We were nine at this moment; both leaner and taller, though her skin was still soft, and her smile was still innocent.

My skin was rough from work and travel, and my mind held horrors that no child should suffer from.

Maybe that's why I stuck around, indulging in this friendship that could never last. To hold on to the last string of childhood innocence I had left.

------

"Hey Analia" I found myself grinning. I seemed to smile a lot around her.

"You haven't been here for a little while. I missed you!" she said, and I found myself turning pink at her words.