Free Apophis by Eliza Lentzski

might no longer be enough to heat the planet’s surface, but at least the moon was a constant companion.
    Our campfire crackled and spit ash into the night sky. I abandoned my gloves and hat and leaned forward to feel the rare luxury of heat against my naked skin.  Having a large fire was risky. Any traveling horde of bandits would be able to spot us from a mile off, even though we were sheltered in the woods.  
    “You’re blonde.”
    I turned my head at the sound of Nora’s voice.  Once again it was just the two of us around the fire.  Our fathers and my grandmother were early sleepers.  I liked sleep because it meant my body was finally at rest after nonstop movement for the majority of the day, but I liked soaking up the heat from the campfire even more. 
    The fire cast a strange light across Nora’s features.  She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders so only her face was really visible.  After I’d snapped at her, she’d been conspicuously silent the rest of the travel day.  The quiet was welcomed from her usual incessant chatter, but I also felt guilty that I’d been rude. My Midwestern civility was slipping the longer we wandered across the countryside.
    I self-consciously ran my hand through my hair and pulled at my long bangs.  I could feel they were doing weird things having been trapped under my knit cap for so many consecutive days.  “Yeah.  I’m blonde.  And you’re annoying.  What’s your point?”
    Her face wrinkled like she’d eaten a lemon. “Sorry – it’s just surprising for some reason.  I’ve never seen you without a hat on and I don’t know why I assumed you were brunette.”
    “My eyebrows are blonde,” I pointed out.
    She shrugged and absently poked a stout stick into the fire.  Another plume of red ash spit into the sky.  “I guess I didn’t look that closely.”
    Everyone in my family, except my mother, had pale blond hair and eyebrows, clear icy blue eyes, and pale skin that turned a healthy, ruddy color in the cold winter months.  We were Scandinavian by blood and proud of that.  My mother was darker – a European mutt, German and English and some others.  I had inherited my father’s features, not her dark brown hair and hazel eyes.
    I looked away from Nora and into the fire.  “I’m sorry if I was mean earlier.”  I blinked a few times when my eyes started to feel dry.  “I just don’t think it does any good to pretend that things are going to get any easier.”
    “I’m not pretending,” she mumbled over the continuous crackle of the fire.  “Do you want me to just give up? To be fatalistic like you?”
    I felt the anger flare inside me.  “You don’t know what I’ve been through,” I growled.  “Don’t pretend to know me or my family or our situation.”
    She tossed the blanket down, whipping it away from her face.  “You’re not the only one who’s lost loved ones.  You’re not special, so stop acting like the world’s been unfairly targeting you.”
    “Bandits killed my mother,” I snarled.  There.  I’d said it.
    Nora didn’t flinch.  “They killed mine, too.”
    “You said she was in Arizona.” I couldn’t identify the emotion pressing down on me.  I was still angry, but there was something else mixed in.
    She shrugged delicately.  “I lied.”
    I heard the sound of a zipper unfastening.  My grandma poked her head out of the tent we shared.  “Is everything okay out there?”  Her normally sharp voice sounded tired and thin. 
    “We’re fine, Grandma,” I told her.
    She looked back and forth between our faces, looking for I didn’t know what, but eventually she looked satisfied and ducked back inside our tent, zipping it closed.
    I stood up and kicked snow onto the fire.  A giant black cloud of smoke rolled off the charred logs.
    “I didn’t say I was done with the fire,” Nora complained, jumping to her feet as well.
    I snapped my eyes to her face and gave her what I hoped was an icy