The Butterfly Girl: A Star is Born

Improper Introductions

[Sophia]

"Hey Sophia," Fleetfoot swung upside down from the platform of the tree house. "Did you build this yourself?" he asked me. I shook my head.

"No, it's been here probably longer than me. I don't know who built it."

Fleetfoot swung back up and stood up. I hopped up myself and went inside. I sat in the small chair and pulled out my phone, checking any notifications from a few of my games and my texts. Nothing new from Apollo.

Why do I have so many of these games? I hardly play any of them anymore.

I heard Fleetfoot hop off the platform and join his brother who was swinging on the nearby trees. They started talking to each other and I got up from the tiny chair and sat back down on the platform with my legs swinging over the side. I stared at them as they quietly talked to each other.

I wasn't paying attention to what they were talking about. I just watched them before I yawned and stretched my arms in the air, then dropped them back down at my sides. I went back to retrieve my bag and sat down again. I didn't know when Apollo would be back so I decided to continue to take advantage of this time.

I pulled out an old blue binder, a double-sided pencil case, and a whole pencil pack. I set the case and the pack on my left and opened my binder. A large stack of papers was held in the front pocket, though I knew it wouldn't last long. I'd have to take them out soon and put them with the rest of the drawing pile back in my room. Unless I wanted loose papers falling out every time I opened the binder or hold it at an angle. I've had that happen to me a lot.

In the double-sided pencil case I have a set of 5 black pens, each with a different size tip. I use those for outlining after sketching. In the other side, it houses one teal pencil and four mechanical pencils along with a large, dirty, pink eraser. I use the regular pencil for light sketches and the others for both writing and sketches. Yes, there is a difference from regular pencil to drawing pencil. Unfortunately, no one but other artists understands this...

In the pencil pack I have a set of marker pens held together in a tight rubber band, and behind those are 7 colored pens and 50 colored pencils also wrapped up tightly in a rubber band. Marker pens are good for colored outlines and to fill in small spaces. Colored pens are just... pens with colored ink of course. I only use those when I'm doing pen only sketches or writing in colorful ink. But they tend to smudge a bit, so I have to be careful when I use those. I don't use them a lot.

I pulled out an unfinished sketch, selected the teal drawing pencil from the case and continued the sketch I had previously started. At that point, I had completely tuned out the Twins' conversation. It was just me, the pencil and the paper. Everything else was a blur.

Hmm, the face looks wrong for some reason... Oh, that's- the eye is too high up. And it doesn't look like it's looking up, that's why.

I pulled out the eraser and fixed the mistake, before looking down at where the Twins were still talking. They're voices were hushed, but I stopped caring about what they were saying and started noticing the little details about their odd physic.

Huh, their hair is the same but they're parted oppositely. And their skin is more pale than I thought. I don't think I have that shade of grey. Oh, and the back of their shirts is really torn. Must be the holes for the wings. Have they been wearing the same shirt for so long? Yeesh...

Eventually, I snapped back to my drawing. But of course, every now and then I would stop, look up, and my mind drifted. This tends to happen to me alot. It's not really that noticeable, but it's just a thing I do. For some reason it feels like time has slowed down, but really I spent 30 minutes on the sketch before I finished it and moved on to the outline. I used the black pens for that.

Going slowly and making sure I was outlining the right places, I'd finish in no time. I was still debating on whether I should color it or not. As I thought about it, I heard the Twins climbing up to the platform and stepping over to me, but I didn't turn my head to look at them.

"What are you doing?" they both asked.

"Nothing..." I replied blankly.

Flyboy sat down next to me, looking over me as Fleetfoot leaned on him and looked over at me.

"Are you drawing?" Flyboy asked.

"What are you drawing?" Fleetfoot asked too.

"I don't know..." I replied blankly again.

I don't understand why people ask what I'm doing when I'm clearly doing something in front of them. I'm obviously doing something, and you can see me do it, so why do you need me to answer? I don't understand why they ask me what exatcly I'm drawing too. You have eyes, why don't you peer over my shoulder at an even more uncormfortable angle and figure that out for yourself?!

I'm sorry, I don't mean to complain. Just, y'know, artist problems...

"I didn't know you could draw."

"That's really good," they said.

"Thanks."

"How do you do that?" they both asked.

"Lots and lots of practice," I replied confidently.

And then they both asked me the one thing that you should never, under any circumstance, ever ask an artist.

"Can you draw us?"

I stopped and stared at the middle distance.

All I could say was, "Yeah sure, but not right now."

"That's okay, we can wait." they both said happily. Then they both jumped down and went to explore the tiny ponds of water near the tree house.

As they went, I stared down at my drawing. Now that my motivation was completely thrown out the window, I had no desire left to continue. So I packed everything up neatly and put it all in my bag. Perhaps I'll finish it another time...

As I was about to put my bag on the tiny desk inside, the Twins turned to me from below.

"Sophia!" they called. I looked over at them.

"Yeah?"

"Can we talk to you for a moment?" they asked. Something about that sentence didn't make me feel good. So I threw my bag in through the window before I carefully climbed down and made my way to where they were standing.

"What's up?"

The Twins glanced at each other for a split second then looked back at me.

"We were just wondering, how did you come across the tunnel?" Fleefoot asked.

"Yeah, why did you go down to the caves?" Flyboy added. Everything turned serious and at first I didn't know what to say. Didn't I already explain it to them when we first met? I guess I didn't explain it very well for them to understand. My mind had the right words, but my mouth couldn't keep up with the speed that my mind was relaying. I tried to force myself to calm down and speak slowly.

"Well, I was just out exploring that day and I'd never gone out that far before. And that's when I saw the whole field of strawberries and I saw that huge hole in the ground so, um... I thought I had time to explore it. I had never seen it before, so I uh- I thought it was okay to check it out." I explained, stuttering the whole way through. That's usually how most of my explanations come out. All disorganized and unclear. But it's the best I can do for someone like me.

"What do you mean you've never gone out that far?" Flyboy asked. Suddenly, my eyes couldn't focus and instead of making eye contact I just stared straight ahead and pretended to look at them.

"Well, I usually set my own boundaries when I'm in the forest and um, I just thought I'd change it up a bit and explore." I said.

"Set boundaries? What do you mean?"

"Well um, the forest isn't really safe so uh- I have to be careful when I'm going somewhere."

"What do you mean not really safe?" They both asked. My mouth closed and something in my chest dropped.

"I thought you said we'd be safe?"

"You said we'd be safe here."

I tried to pick the next sentence carefully, but again my mouth couldn't keep up with the rate of speed my mind was going. Even though I couldn't look directly at them I could see in the corners of my eyes that they were glaring at me. I quietly took a deep breath.

"Well um, sometimes the forest is okay and sometimes it's really dangerous. But um... as long as you're with me, I promise you'll be safe." I said. The Twins looked at each other for a moment then turned back to me.

"Okay, we believe you. Please just keep us safe." they said in a deep tone. I felt bad for not telling them the whole story the first time, but I wasn't sure how much they'd be able to understand or even process if I tried to explain everything to them. I wasn't sure how they would react either.

After that, they started asking me more questions and I soon grew tired of talking so I decided to find the confidence to ask more about them. Which is never a thing I do, but I've never seen anything like them so it was worth a shot.

"So you don't know where you got those wings either?" I asked.

"No. We've always had them. We don't think they're weird, we like them." they answered. Which I found strangely intriguing.

I've had these wings for as long as I can remember and I still have absolutely no clue as to how I got them or how it's even possible for me to have them. But the one thing Apollo and I both knew is that we should never let them show if we're going out anywhere in public. Which is why we don't go outside that often. We try to get out every once in a while, but we have to be really careful.

"So then, um... I'm guessing you don't have any other... family with you?" I said, trying not to pry into anything personal.

"No, of course we do," Fleetfoot started

"Yeah, but they're just not with us. Not even our parents," Flyboy added.

"What...? What do you mean?" I asked confusedly.

"Oh, we know they're out there somwhere, but we don't remember a lot about them. What about you, don't you have any family?" they asked me. I looked away from them.

"No, I don't have parents. Or a family. It's just me and my friend."

"You don't have parents?" they said with a stunned look on their faces. I shook my head.

"Nope. It's just me and my friend," I repeated.

"That... must be really hard for you," Flyboy said in a sad tone.

"Having to do everything by yourself," added Fleetfoot. I blinked, comepletely unfazed.

"It's not so bad after a while. You get used to having a lot of responsibilities. We lived through it." I explained calmly. "What about you, though? If you don't remember anything about your family, then what about your parents? Don't you know anything about them?"

"We don't know where they are," they replied.

"You... don't know where they are?"

"Yeah, we don't know much about them either." Fleetfoot answered.

"We don't know where anyone is or why they're not with us." Flyboy added. This confused me even more.

"So, you don't know where they are or why they're not with you... But you know you have family somwhere?" I questioned. The Twins nodded.

"Doesn't that seem a little odd though? How do you know that you have family if you don't remember anything about them? Don't you think something happened to them?"

The Twins looked at each other again.

"We don't know," Flyboy answered.

"We don't remember," said Fleetfoot.

"So, you two have just lived in those caves your whole lives?"

"Yeah, pretty much. We're the only people in those caves and we've lived there for as long as we can remember. We've been too afraid to go out into the light because we were scared of what's out there. And we thought if we stayed in the caves, we would be safe."

"How big are those caves? When I went down there, it looked a lot bigger than I thought. I've never seen caves like that before."

As I asked that, I thought back to those caves and how huge and dark and strangely silent it was down there. For some reason, it almost felt odd that those caves were so quiet. I almost thought that something else would be down there with me. But it felt more like a thousand invisible eyes watching me. Observing me. But it felt weak.

"Those caves go down really far. If you went down there by yourself, you would get lost in no time. You'd probably never see the light again." they replied.

I have heard of many cave systems around the world that are similar like that. Dark and deep and twisting in all sorts of ways that made it almost impossible for any person to explore completely. The way the Twins were describing it told me that those caves and tunnels must go down for miles. A part of me suddenly felt almost excited to go back down there one day to explore for myself. When it was safe enough, at least.

I was about to ask another question until from behind us, a figure appeared with a backpack on his side. The Twins froze as he approached.

"Hey Sophie!"

I turned around to see Apollo, but he didn't notice the Twins standing behind me at first.

"I brought some of those chips because I'm hungry." he said as he pulled out a bag of chips out of his backpack and opened them with a loud pop which made the Twins flinch.

"Sophia... is that your friend?" the Twins asked. I looked back and forth from them to Apollo, unsure of how to properly introduce them to each other.

"Uh- yep, that's him," I replied nervously.

"Sophie, are these... the Twins you told me about?" Apollo asked timidly as he stared past my shoulder.

I imagined a large, comical sweat drop slowly running down the side of my face.