I lean back at her words, black and white lashes sweeping down to hide the mischievous glint of bubblegum, a grin gracing my lips. She is still young, lacking the experience of true fear, of feeling the scattered pieces of your life begin to slip out of your grasp— the laboured breathes signifying the downfall of a broken child, whose body is littered with scars made from love. She thinks she is fearless, thinks she has seen it all— that those monsters under the bed are nothing, but this little girl does not know. Those monsters aren't monsters at all, but ordinary people and feelings, twisted and tortured until something breaks and it all collapses. "That you are," I murmur, hiding the smugness, the knowledge I keep. She will learn, in time, that even the hardest to frighten wither under harsh conditions.

"Is that what you believe?" I ask her, looking down upon the fawn faced filly as the words leave her lips. Did she really believe such? That hidden beneath rugged features and broken faces she could find something of interest? What an interesting idea. I'd been fed the truth idea that true horrors lie behind those least expecting, that under ordinary hide there's much to be found (Mother offered this lesson, with her casual appearance and sickening habits). "You'd be surprised how much can be hidden behind the most ordinary faces." My neck lowers, voice hushed as I weave a tale of deceit and mystery hidden behind the common faces we pass by everyday. Behind each there is a story untold, a mystery to solve— with the right words and patience, those stories can be brought to light.

She calls me boring— me! The grin cracks wide across black and white features, charming as I let out a soft laugh. How absurd that she thinks I'm boring. She thinks that my wandering hours are dull, an uneventful practice that just stretches on and on and I escape from Mother's steel gaze. The filly is striding away on fawn legs, glancing back with silent question— I follow, slow stride keeping me a minimal distance away from the little fawn.

She does not know just how exciting I am— that behind these deceptively pink eyes there are unimaginable things. There is the outlying hatred, the bitterness of a shitty childhood— somewhere buried beneath the confidence and monstrous ego, suffocated beneath big dreams of conquering kingdoms and glory, stored under the hopes of greatness, of being something more. It's hidden well, stuffed desperately under cunning and callous, beneath uncaring and practiced distance— it's something I will not admit exists, something I'm ignoring with all my might (lonely).

The first name that comes to mind is not my own at all, but King Chickenshit— the title I'd given myself in the presence of my friend, the electrifying (see what I did there?) filly I'd gotten rather close to. But that name was not appropriate for young ears (even though I too, am young), and instead I offer my own boring name. "Kid. Although, boring skeleton seems like a better name." I look at her in her one-of-a-kind glory, prancing through the recently blooming flowers and tip toeing past the fauna— she seems in her element here among the greens and sweetly hued flora. "And what of you? Perhaps I'll call you little fawn," the title is true to her appearance, white spots freckling her russet hide like that of the baby deer I see in the forest, stumbling after their mothers on graceless legs.

"Talk."

kid

run my reputation.