The Beauty is the Beast

-1

(8 years ago)
"Jacob wait!" Jade giggled as she ran after her big brother. She looked like a wild child, hair flying around her, her knobby knees and feet stained with dirt and grass.

"Leave me alone Jade!" Jacob snapped at the bouncing young girl.

"No, Jake, I want to play!" She squealed, her curls falling madly around her eyes.

"Jade you're not old enough to play with us!" he yelled before storming away towards his friends.

This was a common exchange between the Black siblings. Jake never wanted to include his baby sister, not that she gave up trying.

Jade felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around, coming face to face with Seth Clearwater. The two were the same age, yet Seth seemed to chase Jade as much as Jade chased her brother.

"I'll play with you," he said shyly. Jade pondered this for a moment, examining the Clearwater boy as if to see if he made the cut as her partner in crime.

"Okay! Let's go play in the woods!" She cheered, excited to finally have someone to play with.

The two children disappeared into the trees, tripping over branches and bruising there shins without care. Their childish laughter was their armor, the bruises would not hurt until morning.

"Okay so what do you want to be?" Seth asked.

"Um... oh! I want to be a wolf!" Jade grinned excitedly.

The two began to run again, sometimes on all fours, imitating the enormous creatures their parents told them stories about. Jade felt as if she really was a wolf, standing on a boulder, feeling like she was three times her actual size. She never wanted to be human again.

"Hey, Jade check this out!" Seth yelled excitedly, making Jade jumped out of the tree she was hiding in.

"What is it?" she asked as she approached him.

"Look," he said, urging her to follow her to the edge of the tree line.

"Wow," Jade exclaimed breathlessly as the river came into view, rushing southward with the power of that morning's rain storm.

"Want to swim?" She asked Seth with a mischievous look in her eyes.

"O-okay," he replied with a nervous smile.

Jade held little hesitation as she ran for the clear blue abyss, Seth following swiftly after. The two small children hit the water, causing little disruption to the natural flow.

"Whoa this is deep!" Seth exclaimed when his feet never touch the bottom. "We should get out, this is scary!"

"That's what makes it fun!" Jade giggled before she dove deep into the water.

"Jade... Jade?" Seth cried as he spun around frantically, searching for a sign of her.

She broke through the surface on the other side of him, scaring the daylights out of the small boy. She splashed him as she laughed and turned to swim upstream towards the water fall.

They spent hours swimming, and too quickly did the sun fall below the trees and the moon rise. Finding home proved to be difficult, as they had no concept of how far they had traveled. Seth insisted he could lead them home by the constellation, but jade told him he was full of malarkey. 

Yet despite her doubts, the light of the campfire illuminated their path as they found the tree line. Sarah Black's voice could be heard ringing out above the lull of friendly chatter.