Firewood
“Why is it that every time you do something stupid, Percy gets mad at me too?” Beatrix grumbled as she nearly tripped over a tree root. She shot a glare at her companion as if he had somehow willed her to trip. Knowing him, he probably did. In her opinion, their being sent to go gather firewood was entirely Devon’s fault. And also, she was rather unsure how much she trusted being led down a thin trail in the woods by a young man with a pickax who was known for his severe dislike of her.
“I don’t think he’s mad at either of us really. More like upset with the whole world right now. He’s very moody sometimes,” Devon replied, glancing back at her to check that she actually hadn’t completely fallen.
“I’m not even as moody as he is, and I’m the girl,” Beatrix replied, quickening her pace so that she could follow Devon’s footsteps exactly, thus avoiding any other sneaky plant life that would harm her.
“Luckily, you were blessed with the trait of being a constant bitch, rather than possessing constantly fluctuating emotions,” Devon muttered in a tone deliberately audible enough for her to hear.
“Oh, look, a broken tree,” Beatrix said, pointing over Devon’s shoulder. “How convenient.”
“What does it matter?” Devon asked. “You think he actually wanted us to get firewood. We have firewood. We almost always have firewood. We rarely burn fires. He only told us to go get some more because he wanted us to leave him alone.”
“He’ll still be mad if we come back empty handed,” she insisted. “Go cut up the tree.”
“I’m not cutting up the tree. It’s a waste of energy for something that he doesn’t really want anyway.”
“You don’t know he doesn’t want it. You just don’t want to do it,” she said.
“You just want me to do it because you know that you don’t have to do it,” he replied. He sighed and set the pickax down on the ground next to him, lazily leaning against a tree. “We might as well just hang out here for a while, and then go back when he’s cooled down.”
“Fine, whatever. If he’s mad, I’m not taking the blame,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.
“Why do you care so much about what thinks anyway? Just let him get mad, that’s what I do,” Devon said.
“I want him to like me. We are, after all, living together,” Beatrix explained. “It’s hard to avoid him when he’s mad.”
“Yeah, it’s so hard to deal with complete silence,” Devon commented sarcastically.
“I think it hurts you more than you let on sometimes,” she said.
“It doesn’t.”
“I think it does,” she insisted. She tapped her forehead. “It’s the feminine intuition.”
“Well, think whatever you want. Just because you’re a girl doesn’t make everything you say true,” he said with a lazy shrug.
“Or maybe it’s true, but you just won’t admit to it yet.”
“Well, then, let’s get back quickly so that I can go discuss my feelings with Percy.” Devon rolled his eyes blatantly. “You really don’t understand us at all, do you?”