The Wheel Breaks The Butterfly

"Okay so what the hell is up with people on the blogs?" I blinked and looked up to see Skye descending angrily down the stairs. "I mean at first it was fine but now it's just annoying."

"It's entertainment I guess. Or maybe they're hoping on a Slender Man version of Romeo and Juliet. I really couldn't care less," I sighed as I carried the vase of black roses over to the sink and refilled the water. I don't give two shits if they're from Smiley, they're pretty and they smell nice.

"It doesn't bother you?" Skye asked.

I chuckled and shook my head as I put the vase back where it was. "You act like this is the first time I've had people try to play match-maker with me." I smirked over at Skye as I hopped up to sit on the kitchen counter; he had a confused look on his face. "I did happen to go through middle school and freshman year before all this happened."

"W-well they could at least tone it down," he rolled his eyes.

"Yeah. The turkey comment from Chris - while clever and seasonally inappropriate enough to be funny - was a bit over the line. But I can't really blame them..." I shrugged.

"I guess you have a point..." Skye trailed off as he leaned on the counter across from me.

"I generally do, if only people listen." I chuckled again before sighing. "Besides," I paused, wondering how I should phrase my next sentence. "It's not like anyone could really find me attractive anyway," I shrugged.

"W-what do you m-mean Tori?!" Skye asked, a bit louder and more flustered than before. His face was starting to flush up.

I have a dry chuckle. "Have you seen my skin?" I gave him a hard stare while I uncrossed and recrossed my legs. Since that sparring match I had taken to wearing shorts and tank-tops around the house like usual. "Like I said before, you'd be hard pressed to find a square inch of me that isn't scarred. How the hell can anyone be attracted to that? God knows I'm not and I'm the one who has to look at myself in the mirror every damn day! So how could..." I trailed off and averted my gaze to the floor. I noticed that I had been yelling and I felt like I was going to cry again. I pushed back the tears - now was not the time to cry.

"B-but you're wrong!" Skye exclaimed. I looked up at him to see that he was blushing worse than before. But, he had a determined look in his eyes that I hadn't really seen much of. When he noticed I was looking at him his face turned the colour of the tomato that was sitting on the counter next to him. "I a-actually th-think you're r-really p-pretty," he mumbled, staring at the floor.

I stared at him for a few seconds before heaving myself off of the counter and landing lightly on the kitchen floor. "Thanks, but I don't need your pity."

"I-it's n-not pity!" I looked up at  him, surprised to see that he was looking straight at me. "I-I don't care if y-you have a-a thousand s-scars or none! I th-think that you're a g-good pers-"

"I am not a good person! I killed a runner that was your age or younger the other night! I offered to kill runners without blogs to -"

"So you wouldn't have to kill me! Now will you be realistic about-?!"

"I am bein fuckin realistic Skye so just shut the fuck up and save your pity cause I don' wanna fuckin hear it alrigh'?! The only fuckin reason someone'd look at me twice is cause I look like I got dragged outta a wreck, not cause I'm pretty! So just stop talkin and realize that!"

Silence hung heavy in the air. I had been moving closer to him as I yelled and now I was right in his face. It was then that I noticed that I had one of my throwing knives in my hand. I took a step back and dropped it. The clatter it made sounded too loud to me. "I-I'm sorry," I whispered as I stared at the ground.

"I-is that r-really how you f-feel about yours-self?" I heard Skye ask.

"Yeah, it is. I hate myself, and I have good reason to-"

"No you don't," he quietly asserted. I looked up to see that his face was still flushed, but he looked confident. "You're only doing what you are out of necessity right? A-and I d-don't care what you th-think. I think you're p-pretty." He gave me a tentative smile. I half-smiled back.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you," I apologized, looking up at him.

"You get a weird accent when you're angry," he blurted out randomly, and then blushed when he realized he had said that out loud.

I stepped back and put a hand to my mouth in an attempt to force back my laughter. "That's the Bal'more accent," I smirked. "Usually when people hear that coming out of my mouth they fear for their lives."

Skye chuckled and shook his head.  "Well I don't really care. I um... I s-still th-think you're p-pretty s-so..." His face flushed up again and he looked down at the ground.

"I still think you're pitying me you know," I shrugged and bent down to pick up the throwing knife. "But I think that's just because I hate myself, not because I don't believe that you truly think that." I returned the knife to my pocket.

"W-well I d-do th-think that!" he asserted, his face red again. He was still staring at the ground.

"Hey," I said softly, "Look at me." Slowly, he complied. "Thank you," I smiled.

"A-any t-t-time," he mumbled.

"I'd give you a hug, but I'd rather not you pass out on my kitchen floor," I gave a small laugh.

"Y-yeah. Th-that would be b-bad..." He laughed nervously. I smiled at him again before I waked over to the stairs.

"I think I'm gonna go read for the rest of the night. Sorry in advance if I wake you up in the middle of the night again. But you can leave me be if you want, it's probably a hassle-"

"Tori." Skye cut me off. "I-I want to h-help you so i-it's fine."

"If you say so," I shrugged as I walked up the stairs. Once I got up there I remembered something. "Oh and Skye?" I called down the stairs.

"Yeah?"

"If we have turkey any time soon I will not be amused."

Just For The Record, The Weather Today Is Slightly Sarcastic With A Good Chance Of...

After our skirmish with that super freaking annoying Rose Bride, Skye and I decided that we needed to spar some more and work on sensing an opponent's movements when you couldn't see them. So, of course my genius suggestion was...

"Blindfolds, really?" Skye asked dubiously over breakfast. He'd made waffles, I'd drowned mine in maple syrup and confectionery sugar. Alaska was looking pleadingly from myself to Skye and back for a bite. I patted her on the head and gave her the hand-signal for "lay down." She complied with a huge sigh.

"Look do you wanna get your ass kicked by a damn Rose Bride again?" I asked him, eyebrows raised.

"No I don't wanna get my ass kicked by you, I'm still sore from my last ass kicking..." he muttered.

"Well then you can kick my ass, or at least try to." I smirked at him as I took another bite of my waffle.

M, who was sitting on top of the China cabinet, made a comment about how he probably wanted to do more than kick my ass. I sighed and craned my neck back to look at her. "Shut up M, not everyone's as sex-driven as you."

"Um..." Skye looked at me blankly as I moved back into a normal sitting posture.

"You don't wanna know," I half-smiled.

In about an hour the both of us were standing in the back yard I held a black bandanna in my hands and was in the process of folding it in a way that it would cover my eyes and actually obscure my vision. For added vision-impairment I had forgone contacts. So everything more than ten feet away was kinda hazy.

"Okay I haven't actually done this before so just walk around me as quietly as you can and I'll reach out when I think you're within arms length?" I shrugged as I put on the blind fold and made sure it covered my whole field of vision. It did. It was unnerving.

"Of course you don't have a plan for this..." Skye muttered.

"You shut up!" I growled as I kicked out to the right. I connected with his leg.

I concentrated on sounds and after a while I could hear the grass rustle minutely when Skye moved. I stayed still, moving my head around like I still had no freaking clue what I was doing. He was behind me now. Five feet? Four?

I whipped around and pushed out with both of my arms at my shoulder level. They connected and I felt Skye start to pitch back before he grabbed my shoulders to steady himself.

"I thought I was being sneaky," he joked. I could feel the vibrations when he talked on my hands. I had connected with his upper torso. Not bad, considering I wasn't aiming and he was moving slowly.

"You were, I just have better hearing," I smirked before stepping back. I felt his hands slip from my shoulders and heard him move out of my range of hearing. I crossed my arms and waited until I could hear him moving or breathing. Minutes passed and I still heard nothing.

Just then the wind picked up, tossing my hair around. Then I felt a light punch connect with my right side. Surprised, I stumbled away and flailed my arms around to regain my balance. "Yes!" Skye exclaimed.

I growled and dove from the direction his voice was. I felt his hands press against my shoulders but that didn't stop me from sweeping out my right leg to kick the back of his knees. And just like that we were sparring. I would listen to his breathing and not how it changed when I hit him or when he would hit me. Skye was holding back of course, after all we weren't training strength. We traded light blows for a while.

Then suddenly my legs were knocked out from under me and Skye was pinning me down on the (slightly muddy) ground. I tried to get my hands free but he had managed to grip both of my wrists in one hand and used his other arm to press down on my shoulders. After I squirmed for a bit, trying to break his hold, I slumped in defeat. The arm holding my shoulder down lifted and then I was fucking blinded. Skye had pulled my blindfold down.

"You did better than I thought you would. You sure your balanced is really that screwed?" I squinted up at him, trying to block out as much of the light filtering down form the cloudy sky as I could.

"My balance is fucked five ways to Friday," I raised my eyebrows as my vision slowly adjusted. "You didn't have to go that easy on me you know," I rolled my eyes.

"I'm sorry, whose pinning whom?" he smirked down at me.

"Ten points for not ending a sentence with a preposition," I smirked back up at him.

"You know, you really don't have to cover up your scars around me." With that he heaved himself off of me and walked back to the house, leaving me lying on the ground, confused. Where the hell was the stuttering, blushing kid that I picked up from Annapolis two weeks ago? Because that was not that kid. (I'm not saying that the confidence isn't an improvement though.)

"He just said that without stuttering," I stated aloud, still on my back.

"Tori, you're blushing," M teased from my right.

"Shut up," I glared at her before picking myself off of the ground.

"Tori's got a-"

"You finish that sentence and I will send you straight back to hell," I growled.

"You let me make a post on your blog and I won't," M smiled mischievously.

"Yeah, whatever." I waved her off and trudged back towards the house intent on a hot shower and downing some ibuprofen partially because the ground is rocky as hell (quartz, it's fucking everywhere out here. There's a giant chunk in the backyard from where the pool got dug out.) and my lower back perpetually aches and it was starting to get on my nerves.