Week 10, Prompt 1 of 3

51. Just calm down and begin at the beginning.

Satisfying.  Feeling his jaw give under my clenched fist, his head snapping back, his teeth making a clipped sound as they clicked together; all I could think of was how satisfying it felt to do it.  "Hey!" he cried out in protest, everything in slow motion in my mind’s eye, watching his body being pushed back by the force of my fist.  Blood trickled from his lip.  "Hey!" he said again, as I moved, eyes wide in horror with what I had done, the satisfaction washing away, leaving behind disbelief.  Me, ME, the goody two-shoes, the girl who had cried when she got her one and only school detention (late homework) in sixth grade.  Me, hitting my best friend.  My jaw slackened in horror.

I turned from him, from the sound of the air letting out of his mouth, from the stumbling of his feet as he fell backwards, feet trying to find balance after suddenly and unexpectedly losing it.  I looked at my clenched fist, the horror growing along with the realization of what I had done, realizing the possible repercussions.  Let alone the possible retribution.

And retribution was swift, not from him, but from his best friend, no friend of mine, who came out of nowhere, a dark blur, tackling me from the side like a football player.  We fell against the bleachers, crashing into them, his body on top of mine.  I think I would have felt the pain of the collision more, but the slow motion unrolling of events leave me stunned and unable to think clearly.

….

“Come on everyone, let’s line up!”  Our science teacher waits for us to get into some semblance of order before taking us to the gym.  Excited whispers ring up and down the hall, in anticipation of what’s to come.  This is meant to be a treat for us, something to look forward to.  The gym room and anything that has ever happened in the gym room has never meant any good for me.  How can teachers think that something like dodge ball, a game of the strong torturing the weak, could be anything other than misery?  That to some of us in the crowd, the excited whispers of fellow classmates sound more like hungry wolves fighting over choice pieces of meat, rather than students looking forward to a bit of exercise?

And at this particular sport, I have somehow always been blessed and cursed.  Cursed; always having weak arms, pathetic throws.  While volleys of yellow foam fly past my face, I never bother trying to reach out and catch one, to throw one back.  Such attempts would only end in failure.  Perhaps, it would be easier to let them hit me, but my stubborn pride always gets in the way.  They’re all horrible to me; I can never bring myself to give them the satisfaction of “getting” me.

But there is a silver lining to the cloud.  Despite my lack of catching and throwing finesse, I am somehow a dodging genius.  I have always hated being hit with flying objects, to the point where I become as flexible and fast as a martial arts movie star, twisting and bending, feeling the wind of high speed weapons just centimeters from my face.  I’m shameless when I play, too.  I’ll stand behind anyone, using them as a shield.  I’ll pretend to be out and just watching, so as to become an uninteresting target.  On several occasions I have been the last person standing on my team.  But, like I said, this seems to be my only talent.  In the end I’m left with a sea of unfriendly faces, waiting for me to make a wrong move.

….

My friend’s name is Lewis, but we all call him “Chip”.  He’s one of my few friends here, one of the few people I can rely on to be kind to me at this school.  I can’t stand his best friend, Ben, but Chip has such an easy-going, kind nature that it’s hard not to like him.  We have simple conversations, laugh and joke about nothing in particular.  There’s a sense of fondness and warmth when I see his smile.  Somewhat unreliable and absentminded, nonetheless he is someone I can believe in.  Not like with the others, whom I fear and distrust.

….

We’re on the same team for this game.  That doesn’t matter for dodge ball though.  The painful intensity of the game means every person for themselves, in my mind.  The energy is high; I’m barely avoiding being hit as the volleys begin.  I feel my mind getting more stirred up as the game progresses.  Some classmates shout mean things at me, goading each other to “get me”.  I become more worked up, more anxious, as the game progresses.

Brian, a member of the opposing team, leaves the “jail” created for those already tagged by a ball.  He’s always had a particular mean streak for me.  He picks it up and hurls it at me.  I feel it tagging my side, and my vision is filled with red.  The unfairness of it all, how dare he, it didn’t count!  All this is pulsing through my mind as I go to tell the teacher, too full of pride to let this go, storming off to the sidelines.

And then there’s Chip, silly old Chip, who, without really thinking, points at me and calls out “ha ha, you’re out!”  Something snaps.  I turn to him and without a single thought deck him in the mouth as hard as I can, all that anger, all that red, finding its target in the foolish friend pointing at me.

And then suddenly Ben is tackling me, hurling us both towards the bleachers.  Miraculously, though, before the situation can continue to move in this ominous direction, the teacher is calling us to line up, not even noticing this violent little drama that has been playing out in front of him.

….

We have science next, and I’m scared of what’s to come.  I usually sit across from Chip; how can I look him in the eye?  Kids in the hall start calling me “the Thumper”, a nickname that ends up only sticking for the day.  They have my card, they know that will probably be the first and last time I ever hit someone in anger.

Sitting down across from Chip, a lump forms in my throat.  I have a speech of apology vaguely prepared.  “Chip – I’m so sorry-” I can’t quite think of a good line to toss at him though.

But he gives me his same old goofy smile and says, “Naw, don’t worry about it.”  Ah, easy, too easy!  How could someone let something go so quickly?  For me, all the slights I have received at this school are like tattoos of hurt that won’t wash away.  I blink back tears.  “Friends again?” I ask, the surprise slipping out.  “Yeah,” he says, like we were just talking about lunch or the weather, “friends.”

Week 9 Prompt, 2 of 3

41. You never know what you have until it's gone.

He was a little weird.  He had a five o’ clock shadow, a bit pudgy around the face, and long, lustrous black hair pulled back into a pony tail.  At the orientation luncheon I watched with disgust as he ate his sandwich, smacking noises emanating from his mouth, bits of onion and green pepper falling from the sandwich.  He sat with me at an orientation video.  “I have to go get a pencil, to take notes,” I lied.  I moved several rows back and sat there.
….
They were friends and I wanted to be her friend too.  Inevitable that we should hang out together.  Things shift and we are the inseparable trio; if someone wants to find one of us, the answer is always “they’re with the other one”.  Things shift again though, and to my despair she hates me, I can’t repair it, can’t repair a problem I don’t understand.  He remains with us, separate but steadfast to both.  Eventually, she drifts from him, too.  Just the two of us now.  We become like brother and sister.  Closer.  I never had a brother, so I don’t know, but I feel closer than that.
….
I’ve grown so much as a person because of him.  He feels the same way, but I feel I am more student, he more a teacher.  Sometimes we become tired of our roles and we argue.  He has a snake charmer’s tongue, can make people decades older than him come around to his ways of thinking.  His gentle confidence exudes from him, always.  He tells me about his sad, dark past.  Sometimes I’m overwhelmed, hearing it.  I can’t imagine such cruelty growing up.  I’m kind and friendly to his parents though, when I meet them.  He knows my family in and out; he’s quick to support me.  I can’t imagine life without him.
….
He’s changing, but I don’t want to see.  Others see, but I don’t want to.  We’ve graduated but still live here, in this small, quiet town.  He gets irritated with me more, wants to see me less.  I can’t understand why.  He talks about how he sometimes feels the need to abuse smaller, weaker things.  He reveals to me that he put his roommate’s kitten in the freezer, long enough to badly scare it.  He trusts me, trusts me knowing this dark part of him.  He is still my friend; we talk about it in somber tones.  I try to be friends with someone I now consider a monster, try to understand something so alien to me.
….
California, in the southern part.  I visit him, struggling with my sad life, needing a break.  We spend two weeks together.  Tension is there, and the old camaraderie.  I don’t know why it has to be so different.  We hug goodbye at the airport.  I feel like I ate a whole meal, but I’m still not satisfied.

Week 9 Theme - Pointilism

I was dropped off the first day.  We were all given a chance to catch the rhythm of the room, learn to move with it, without having to worry about things like buses.  A shelf of toys lay off to the side; some of the toys were to become very coveted.  The wooden birthday cake in particular was one we fought over.  I rarely won.  There was an old brown couch surrounded by books, little tables and chairs, and a carpet with a rocking chair.  It all seemed like a fairyland to me.

They thought I could read, because I would spend long lengths of time alone, on the old couch in the back of the room, contemplating each page carefully, turning them slowly, as if each storybook’s pages were full of weighted words.

Sucking on blue cubed milk cartons during snack time, drawing sloppy pictures in crayon, laying down in the dark for "quiet time".  My existence was simple, but happy.  Every day I was a part of the group, yet separate.  I drifted to my own beat.

....

The smell of fresh paint and newly installed carpets are everywhere.  We received scathing threats about treating the new school with pride and respect.  We soon grew accustomed to trudging down the limited halls to each pristine classroom.  Small place, only 100 of us.  Small, but big to me.  We have to switch classes now, which intimidates me.  It was so much easier to just stay in one place every day.

I dread contact with my fellow students.  The bell rings and a sea of unfriendly faces surround me as we pass to class.  “You’re a bitch!” one of the boys yells to me, for no particular reason.  As usual, no intelligent return quip comes to mind.  I hang my head in frustration.

Every day here passes at a glacial pace.  A boy throws chewed gum in my hair while the teacher is out.  The entire class laughs at me when I start to cry.

….

I had eight nightmares about getting lost the summer before I went.  Really quite silly, when you consider there are only four major halls here.  I’m convinced that I’ll never get the hang of things, but a couple of weeks later I’m one of the natives.  Two more town’s worth of kids fill these halls, throwing off the dynamics of all the popular people.  I meet with cruel acts daily, but my fellow nerds make the days come and go a little easier, easier than before.

As usual, I pass my days daydreaming.

….

It was like no other experience I’d ever had.  It was like how it should have been, always.  It was coming home after a long battle.  I could choose what I wanted to study, what a revelation.  I find friends; we flock together, soon inseparable.  We eat together, sleep in rooms side by side.  Almost like a family.  We lounge on couches outside the cafeteria, discussing ideas that interest us.  In between the craze of tests and papers, I find the greatest amount of peace that I have ever known, here.  Here there are too many people, too many that have moved beyond childish, petty ways, for there to be “the popular” and “the unpopular”.  We are all just fish drifting in a sea, focused on ourselves too much to worry about others.

Week 9 Prompt, 1 of 3

I enjoyed making this list much more so than I thought I would!

42. Try one of these lists about yourself:

1. I think the best way to roast a campfire marshmallow is to burn it, peel off and eat the outer layer, repeat, and then lightly brown the remaining part and enjoy.
2. I sleep with a stuffed Fizgig in my bed.  The other side of the bed is usually taken up by a giant ice cream sandwich pillow.
3. I'm trained in level one Reiki.  My training completion certificate was accidentally left in the glove compartment of a car in New Zealand.
4. I stick my metaphorical head in the sand when problems overwhelm me, which is often.
5. I consider myself a foodie.  I fantasize about learning new cooking techniques, and all the tools and gadgets I'll have to help me do it.
6. Purple has always been my favorite color, closely followed by blue and green.
7. Sometimes I have incredibly intense, vivid dreams, with elaborate plots.  They're soon forgotten in the morning light if I don't write them down.
8. I desperately want to please people, but can never trust that I truly have, even when they say they're happy with what I've done.
9. I think reading a good book is akin to a parched person drinking deeply of cool water.
10. I worry too much.  I worry about problems that haven't even become problems yet too much.
11.  I'm obsessed with pugs.  All of my family members know about Simon, the (now) imaginary pug that I plan to buy someday.
12.  I love chocolate but can't stand chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.
13.  When no one is looking in a park, I sometimes hug a tree.
14. I have the worst temperament - quick to anger, slow to cool.  It's getting a little better with age though.  I think.  :-)
15. I left one of my tastebuds on a piece of paper in a refrigerator in a hotel in Osaka, Japan.  It's one of two taste buds I've accidentally left in Japan, and one of four I've lost and attempted to save (and failed at) for some hilarious, undefined purpose.  I sometimes worry that no one else seems to lose tastebuds.
16. I have a track on a CD that is just the sounds of humpback whales singing.  When I listen to it, I cry.  I tried to share that magic with my classmates in high school once, and they laughed at the noises.  I silently hated them for that.
17. Several times at parties I have been mistaken for the most drunk person in the room.  I hadn't even touched the liquor.
18. When I was in grade school I pretended for the longest time to understand how to read a clock.  I didn't understand at all, and I didn't get how other people were able to do it.
19. I'm too hard on myself, much of the time.
20. Tuesdays with Morrie is my standard go-to present for people I only know sort of well.
21. I still feel embarrassed about events as far back as middle school, even though I'm surely the only one who even remembers anymore.
22.  I once found a live squirrel in a toilet.  And another time a live leech.  I have four strange toilet experience stories I save as ice breakers when meeting people.  They either go over really, really well or horribly, horribly wrong.
23. I used to be able to watch horror movies, but now they bother me too much.  I haven't watched one in several years.
24. I have a penchant for writing haiku, and reading the old-style Japanese ones.  I love Kaga no Chiyo's haiku about the morning glories growing along the well.
25. Every year I make plans to build a gingerbread house for Christmas, and every year I fail to do so.  I worry, too, about eating too much candy while making one.  Maybe this year will be the year I build one.
26. If I was rich I would have my own private massage therapist and get massages every day.
27. I learned how to tie a shoe using a shoe box with lace threaded through it.  It took me a really long time to figure it out, but I finally did.  Then a few months later my mom bought me velcro sneakers.  When I finally upgraded to a new (laced) shoe, I had to relearn shoe-tying.
28. I'm easily irritated with puzzles.  I feel like I have the brain power to solve them, but not the patience.
29. I'm a talented loon caller, along with several other animal calls.  I try not to do it often at lakes though, as the loons will get worked up upon hearing the call (it's territorial).  It's really funny to watch people on docks looking for the non-existent loon though.
30. Sometimes I wish I was walking down the street and suddenly I and all the people around me would break out into song and dance.

Week 8 Prompt, 3 of 3

Gah, I don't know why I've struggled so much with the vignette concept, but I can't seem to make it click.  I hope this is at least a bit closer to the goal --

 

38. The bluebird of happiness flies over the battlefield and lands on a boot left behind.

I had never felt so much pain as the pain that was flooding through my foot at that moment.  My worn brown sandal lay off to the side, forgotten, as I struggled even to just breathe in, the world faded to a pinpoint.  Finally, all at once I was able to heave oxygen in, hunched over and crying out, the world and reality rushing back.

I lurched forward after a few moments of moaning; stumbling, again crying out as I tried to slide my foot back into my sandal.  My landlord drove down the hill as I was drag-limping along and offered me a ride into town.  I humbly accepted.

My professor sent me to the hospital upon seeing the alarming purple shades forming on my foot.  They took x-rays and called me in to discuss them.  Not broken, they assured me, but badly sprained.  Crutches would be necessary.  My heart sank at this irritating burden.  I wouldn't even be able to drive.

I wasn't used to getting around this way.  In the cafeteria I needed the help of another, or I would need to fetch my dinner in small quantities.  People often weren't around when I struggled with a door or to get down stairs.  I humped along while desperately trying to hold onto school books.  I calculated faster roots and began to plan ahead in anticipation of inconveniences.  Strangely, I started to feel more independent, not less.

Things had been going badly with my boyfriend for awhile.  I hadn't wanted to face the colder moments, the greater distances between us.  I can't explain how an old sandal resulting in a twisted ankle ended up giving me more courage, but it did.  In our new apartment, sitting on the green velvet couch my mom had given us, I looked at the purples and yellows of my foot.  I heard the front door open and shut.  "We need to talk," I told him.

Week 8 Prompts, 2 of 3

33. "We are gathered here today to remember....."

Stuffing my face when I was five.  That's what I remember of my great-grandmother Beaulah.  I loved her, I'm sure.  But in fact, most of my memories of her revolve around me, not her.  Of my experiences at her house; not our conversations, and barely her face.  Just me.  And her dead body.  So pale and waxy at the funeral home, it was the first dead body I had ever seen.  Did I have to kiss her cheek? I asked in a horrified voice, watching those in front of me do so.  No, I was told.  I remember the relief I felt, looking at that powdery, still cheek.
She loved me, I'm sure.  My mother brought me to Grammie Beaulah's (as we called her) house for lunch.  Adults were always entertained by my voracious appetite at that age.  Beaulah emptied her refrigerator trying to feed me.  I don't remember most of what was offered, but I do remember she finally was down to just cottage cheese.  I had never had the stuff before, but determined to maintain my apparently hilarious status as a food monster, I ate that too.  I don't think I'd have eaten it otherwise.
I remember, too, the dining room, connected to the kitchen, with its big wooden table surrounded by cabinets of expensive china dishes.  Those dishes made me nervous.  I was scared I would break one and get in trouble.  Our family would gather in the dining room for big, traditional meals.  I was always bored by the adult conversation that flowed over my head.  I stared at the dishes.  I wanted to touch them.
In the living room, with its mottled brown rug, was a plastic container filled with marbles.  My older sister and I fought like ogres over who got to play with the marbles.  Finally we would separate them out and split them in half, snarling at each other, convinced that the other had gotten most of the good ones.  I would snatch an aquamarine and white swirled marble, my sister would steal a fire red and orange one from my hoard.  We would snipe back and forth, hugging them close to us like dragons resting on their gold, until it was time to go home.  I don't remember actually playing with the marbles.
Beaulah lived across from a large graveyard, her yard and the street sloping toward the marble stones.  Playing at the edge of the yard, toys would often roll over to the side of the dead, and it was always an unpleasant task to go and fetch them.  One time a golf ball I had rolled over there.  I searched and I searched, having a vague sense of where it had gone, but coming up empty handed.  I hurried back to the other side of the street again, convinced that ghosts had my golf ball now.
Another memory comes to mind.  Once, helping clean out Grammie Beualah's garage after she had died, I found a dead hummingbird.  I don't know why, but I somehow convinced myself that it was a stuffed hummingbird that Beualah had owned, and therefore okay to touch.  I picked up its frail body, admiring the delicate wings, the metallic green feathers, the miniscule feet.  I played with it for awhile, making it swoop around the room, turning its head this way and that, until finally the head came off in my hands.  I discreetly put the hummingbird back where I had found it and moved on.
I wonder now what Grammie Beaulah would think of all the random memories I have of her and her home, stored like dusty boxes in the recesses of my mind?  That when I try to think of her, the first thing I think of is stuffing myself with cottage cheese.  And of that powdery, still cheek.

Week 8 Theme - Vignettes

Every fall we had to deal with the tomatoes.  I hated it.  The days were growing shorter and shorter and winter was knocking at the door.  The warmth of the slanting golden light threatened to fade away in a few weeks.  These were weekends not to be wasted.  These were weekends that should be spent playing tag or going for a bike ride or searching for fallen chestnuts.
But every year our parents' words of thinly-veiled threats wrapped around us like chains, binding us to the odious task of helping them harvest the tomatoes.  The sky such a deep blue that only seems to come with fall and winter, the warmth of the day, only added to my agony.  Like a tortured Egyptian slave moving great slabs of stone, I helped to gather tomatoes and carry them inside.
The vines were supported by metal cages, every year weighed down by their globular fruit and needing that extra support.  Many of the tomatoes weren't ready for consumption though.  These we placed in the window sills of the porch, the green and the pale orange ones, lining them up to ripen in the dying sunlight.  A tangy fresh tomato smell clung to my hands as I pulled off each tomato.  I was terribly squeamish of touching tomatoes contaminated by bugs, terrified that the ones with scarred-over holes would suddenly burst forth with worms.  My parents were the down-to-earth gardening weirdos.  I ate normal, clean grocery food.
Of course, there were simply too many tomatoes produced every year for just fresh eating.  Most of these tomatoes would need to be canned.  I don't know which I detested more - picking and laying them out, or being in charge of the plain tomato sauce we prepared on the stove.  A huge black pot would fill with tomato sauce, and my mother would hand me a wooden spoon and I would stir the sauce while it bubbled and steamed.  Dire consequences would occur if I let anything in the pot burn, so I stirred constantly, sweating with anxiety at the thought of ruining an entire massive batch of the sauce.  Scrape, went my spoon, pushing through the thin layer of paste forming on the bottom of the pot.  Up to the surface, around a few times in the thickening liquid, and down again for another scrape.  The stove was adjacent to the kitchen window, and I could see the light and the green of the trees, reminders of how much this weekend was sucking for me.  When you're young, it's all about the drama.
I didn't have to deal with the glass jars and the preservation of the sauce, thank god.  Even now my overactive imagination envisions an explosion of shards permanently blinding me, boiling sauce covering my face and arms.  Better that that sort of thing be left to the experts.
Sweating from the hot, steamy kitchen, the house filled with a rich tomato aroma, the daylight would fade along with my hopes of being able to enjoy it.  My parents would finally come in from their harvesting and fall yard work, all of us calling it quits for the day.  Yet another perfectly good weekend ruined for me.
How many weekends did I spend harvesting and preparing those vile things?  I cannot say.  But how funny our adult minds are, twisting once hated memories into something new.  Now the smell of tomato vines brings back memories of that ever present golden sun, that mouthwatering sauce smell, and a fondness for days gone by.

Week 8, Prompt 1 of 3

37. Down in the boondocks

"Can you handle living in a small town?  There are only 300 people who live here." My potential employer had a slight accent, not the Kiwi accent that I had long since grown accustomed to, but something else.  Danish, I was to find out.
"Oh, yeah," I say, waving her off breezily.  "I grew up in a town of 2,000, I'm used to small town life."  This is true, but of course I don't mention how much more isolated Tekapo is than Winterport.  I think back to this conversation as I pull up, five weeks later, to my new home for the next six months.  The closest towns are 30 minutes away on either side of the lonely highway that travels through the center of this place, towns that are as pathetically populated as Tekapo is.  You know you're exiting civilization when the convenience store-sized supermarket the town over is "the" place to shop for groceries.  This is a town where, once the post office employees know you, you need only have things addressed to your and the town's name, and the letter will still find you.
Still, Tekapo is beautiful; even the most jaded would be hard-pressed to say otherwise.  Taking in that first sight of the unreal aquamarine color of its lake, it's hard not to feel awe rising up in you.  And in the spring of November, the roadsides absolutely carpeted with invasive lupine blooms, it seems like every photo you take could be sold as a post card.
Then, too, are Tekapo's skies.  A vast portrait unfurled over your head; vivid sunsets and sunrises every day, stars at night that shine in multitudes through the mountain-thin air.  On Mount John, the mountain that isn't really a mountain, a small observatory can be seen, testament to the perfect conditions created here each night for astronomers.
All this vast natural beauty encircles a little town, barely more than a rest stop for tourists on their way to the famed Mount Cook.  Residents' houses are off to one side of the town, away from all the tourist activities.  A single-room schoolhouse sits on a hill, facing the downtown center.  The downtown is literally no more than a miniature strip mall, if it can even be called that.  Restaurants line this miniscule center, squeezed in between souvenir shops, a post office, and a teeny supermarket, all facing the glorious lake.  Tourists get out, stretch their legs, buy some sandwiches and board their buses a short time later.
Despite the town's size and limited offerings though, there are a sprinkling of hostels and a couple of high class hotels.  The view and peace of this area demands an overnight stay in order to be properly savored.  But those who become enamored with Tekapo (and we all do) soon regret their decision to stay a week, or even more than couple of nights.  The melancholy of the place, the quiet, the same handful of places to eat, the total lack of night time (or even day time) entertainment, begins to grate on its guests' nerves.
You stay and you go on the popular walk from downtown to the top of Mt. John's, admiring the view.  You stay another night and go on the observatory tour.  You stay and you wander the few back streets of Tekapo, soon realizing that the buildings and roads don't stretch far from the lonely highway that cuts through it.  You stay and you go to a different restaurant for the night.  Not because it is well known for its delicious food, but because it's something different to do.  You find your list of things to do already exhausted, but you're here to stay for much longer.
Eventually, for those staying in Tekapo for a longer term, a balance is found.  You go crazy at the lack of socialization available one day and bury yourself in t.v. and internet.  Then the next day you feel honored to wake up and witness this place, one of only a few "townies" that looks at the tourists drinking their bottled water and boarding their buses with disdain, for not realizing what a treasure they are passing by.
The town feels timeless, unaffected by the many traveling through, refusing to yield to their demands for change and growth.  Like the lake it sits beside, Tekapo is a gem.

Week 7 Theme - Character

She's a mixture of dark and light, hard and soft.  She can be so quick to sneer at you and bark out a sarcastic quip; but when you're sick she's by your side, her voice soft and low, her eyes concerned.  She loves animals and small babies.  She can't stand older children or adults.  Does that mean she can't stand herself either?
She loves a particular comedy show.  We laughed hysterically together when we watched it.  But she doesn't make jokes of her own.  She smiles seldom, but when she does it's like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.  You can't let her see you watching though.  She's quick to hide it again.
Her art is amazing, amazing.  Like Midas, everything she touches turns to gold.  Photography, jewelry making, drawing, quilting - everything is unique and glowing with effortless skill and beauty.  And maybe it's because it's effortless (or more likely because nothing escapes her scathing tongue) that she doesn't believe in herself.  She has piles of art of various media that she could easily sell, yet she shrugs in indifference when you mention it and quickly becomes sour, changing the subject.
She loves to win at things.  She is the sorest loser in the world, growing instantly cross and quiet, then suddenly flaring like a volcano.  If you lose, she will invariably comment that you are a sore loser.  She brushes off wins like they never mattered from the start.
Her armor looks like the thickest steel, but it's really just egg shell strong.  If you punctured that armor, she would breath flames before dissolving into tears.  I remember how I once saw an earthworm being attacked by ants.  Its skin was soft and vulnerable to their cruel mandibles, and yet whenever it was touched it thrashed and spun like a mighty serpent, violently throwing off any would be attackers.  But its skin was soft and vulnerable, and it eventually yielded to their appetites.