Twilight had long since given way to night, and with it had come the winter chill of an overcast sky that threatened snow. Sofia preferred it that way. She liked the solitude of the night, where she didn't have to be so careful to suppress her instinctive urges. She liked to feel the biting cold hitting her face when she went for a run with Kas. She liked to lose herself in that endless maze of gigantic trees and breathe in the smells as her faithful companion trotted by her side. That day was another one of many that Sofia put on her tracksuit and went for a run to exercise in preparation for the physical tests she would have to undergo in the coming months.

That day, however, she had a new partner. After discovering that they were both preparing for the same public exam, Dave had suggested that they work out together to encourage each other and keep track of their times. Sofia thought it was a good idea, so she agreed. The bad thing was that his presence was bringing out her competitive nature, something he was able to do because he could keep up with her without breaking a sweat. She had no choice but to admit that the boy was fit, so she was pushing herself to the max so as not to falter. With rhythmic snorting and a constant pounding of sneakers against the ground, they moved along a dirt road that meandered between tree trunks, ferns and holly bushes.

“Shall we do a sprint?” Dave asked between gasps.

“Do you think you can keep up with me?” asked Sofia, raising her head pridefully.

“I don't know. We'll have to try it to see if I can,” he said with a mischievous grin, one of those restrained smiles of his because he still refused to let himself go.

Before Sofia could respond, the young man picked up his pace and began to leave her behind.

“Hey, that's cheating!” she exclaimed, also speeding up.

Kas, who always paid attention to his friend, broke into a gallop. Dave ran, and he was quite fast, but Sofia had the advantage of the blood she had inherited from her father, which gave her some extra strength and speed. It didn't take her long to close the gap on him. That was the moment she realized that her lips were fully open in a wide grin, and in her throat bubbled a joyous laugh. That was the moment, when she tried to overtake him and he resisted, that she realized it had been a long, long time since she had had such a good time. In fact she couldn't remember if she had ever felt this free, this happy, this normal.

“Do you think you can follow me into more difficult terrain?” Dave said suddenly, that mischievous grin creeping onto his lips, wider, more spontaneous, more sincere.

“What do you mean?”

“Follow me!”

Suddenly Dave stepped off the path and dived into the dark forest. A forest that was a maze of pine trees dotted with large boulders and low lush bushes. A forest whose tall canopies barely let a few moonbeams penetrate through its branches like a rain of silver drops. A forest that Sofia knew so well that she was aware of the dangers hiding in its shadows.

“Are you crazy? You're going to kill yourself!” she exclaimed, jumping after him, closely followed by her faithful Dobermann.

Dave didn't kill himself. On the contrary, he laughed as he moved like a deer, nimbly leaping over ferns and dodging rocks, bushes and tree roots. Sofia had never done anything like this before. Yes, she had walked among those giants hundreds of times, but she had never let herself go like that, and she was enjoying it immensely. The energy in her chest throbbed, spilling trickles through her blood. That should have worried her, but it didn't, simply because she wanted to hold on to the strength it gave her so she could keep running for a while longer. She laughed, screamed and would have howled if she hadn't restrained herself in time, and all because she could no longer remember when she had had such an incredible time. Then something occurred to her, a crazy thing perhaps, but a crazy thing she wanted to share with him.

“Come with me!” she said, overtaking him.

The two teenagers and the dog ran through the forest, their steps guided by a haze of silver light. Just when Sofia thought she would not be able to run any further, just when she felt her lungs were about to burst, a clearing opened up right in front of her. A clearing with a spring whose water fell into a small pond surrounded by moss and ferns. Exhausted, coughing a little from the overexertion, the two teens let themselves fall on that bed of vegetation covered with humid dew. For a few minutes they both lay there, simply gazing at the sky while they caught their breath. The waning moon watched them from above, and the water gushing from cracks in the rock filled the clearing with its singing voice.

Sofia closed her eyes and allowed herself to take several deep breaths, inhaling the scents she could smell all around her. There were so many that they mingled in her untrained nose, almost overwhelming her, but at least those were smells of nature, vegetation, earth and life, not the bitter stenches of the city. Even her friend’s scent seemed to camouflage itself among that of pine and the intense musk emanating from Kas' body, who had lain down next to her. In her head she drew a mental map of her surroundings simply by attending to the information she was receiving through her nose.

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A quiet, restrained moan drew her attention, breaking the magic. Sofia opened her eyes to find her partner with his back to her, sitting up and curled in on himself. His sides moved with each deep breath he took, and he had one hand against his chest.

“Dave, are you all right?” she asked, sitting up and crawling over to him.

“Y... yes, don’t worry. It was just a pulled muscle,” he said. “The pain is almost gone, but it took me completely by surprise,” he added, letting out a long puff of air.

“It seems I’m fitter than you,” said Sofia, laughing.

“That’s what it seems, yes…” he laughed. “It's an incredible place...” he added in a slightly quieter voice, as he observed the clearing with an expression of absolute fascination on his face.

“Yes, it is. I discovered it on one of my walks,” Sofia approached the pond and let her fingers trace furrows in the water.

“Do you often come to the woods?” He asked, dipping his hand into the icy water and creating a series of ripples that merged with those that her fingertips drew on the surface.

Sofia tensed her lips in a small grimace of bitterness.

“I have no friends. Yes, coming to the forest is one of my hobbies. It helps me clear my mind,” she explained.

“You don't want friends, but you'd like to have them. What happened to you to make you end up like this? There's a side of you that you don't let anyone see, that you hide. Why?”

Sofia looked away abruptly and fixed her gaze on the pond, disturbed by the ripples created by the spring that poured its water in it. Doubts, fears, longings, an amalgam of feelings suddenly welled up inside her, reminding her that no matter how much she had hidden them, they were still present.

“People don't like the face I show, do you think they will accept the one I don't show?” she said, her voice bitter at the thought of the genes she had inherited from her father.

“On the contrary. The mean face is the one you protect yourself with, but when you relax you show your true self. If people were able to see what I see...” he whispered, and moved his hand in the water until their fingers brushed in a shy caress.

The water that gushed from the very bowels of the earth was so cold that it was painful. However, that did not prevent Sofia from feeling that insecure, inexperienced graze, that caress of trembling fingers that sought and at the same time avoided the touch of her skin. When she felt his fingertips brushing the back of her hand, when she heard those words, when she perceived the tone of his voice, Sofia felt an explosion of butterflies in her belly and looked up suddenly. Their eyes met and her cheeks started burning with an intense blush. It was at that moment that she thought she saw it, though perhaps she imagined it. For a fleeting instant she believed she caught a brief greenish glow in his pupils. It was only for a thousandth of a second, for the young man, embarrassed and with his cheeks so flushed that they seemed to radiate a light of their own, abruptly pulled his hand away and lowered his gaze.

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that...” he mumbled in a voice so quiet and rushed that it was almost impossible to understand him.

“No... it's ok...” said Sofia, focusing on her dog just so she wouldn't have to look at the boy next to her. “I didn't ask you, what did Lola want from you?” she asked, trying to relieve a bit of the awkwardness that had appeared between them.

“Nothing important,” said the young man, standing up to move away from the girl, a gesture she was grateful for because feeling his warmth and smell near her was becoming unbearable. “She wanted to apologize for how she had behaved. Told me that you had given her a lot to think about and... she confessed that she liked me.”

“Oh...”

Sofia, who normally would have had some kind of cynical response ready, was completely at a loss for words. It wasn't only because of the sudden rush of anger, nor because of the discomfort she still felt at having him around. It was also because if there was one thing she never thought she would ever hear, it was that she had given Lola food for thought to the point of getting her to apologize to someone else. Not to her, naturally, that was asking too much, but that she had apologized to Dave was already quite an accomplishment. Of course she hadn't done it out of the goodness of her heart, Sofia thought holding back the urge to growl. She liked Dave and was trying to get back to square one to see if she still had any chance after screwing up the way she did.

“I told her no. I'm not looking for a girlfriend right now,” he said, looking up at the moon.

“Why is that?” Sofia asked, sincerely intrigued.

He was a very attractive boy. More than that, he was kind, honest and loyal. Any girl he wanted would fall at his feet without too much effort. However, a sad grimace appeared on his lips and his eyes glistened with restrained tears that he was struggling not to shed. They were silent for a while. Sofia respected his timing, aware that he needed to regain his composure to keep talking. Even if he chose not to say anything she would accept it, because she understood that some words were too difficult to pronounce.

“I just lost my whole family, my friends and my whole world.”

He said no more. Sofia didn't ask either. She accepted that explanation because his face radiated a sincerity that was painful. In a way, his life was like hers. Sofia had not only lost the love of her life, she had also lost her mother and all her friends at the hunters' guild, her only family. By deciding to break with that world she had broken with all the people who had been part of her past. That certainty made her feel a kind of connection with him that she had never felt with anyone else, not even with Angel.

“I don't know how to be a good friend, it's not one of my skills, but if you ever need to talk or anything, you can count on me,” she said, biting her lip and approaching him to shyly brush his hand with her fingertips. “I don't know if I’ll be able to give advice, but I know how to keep secrets.”

“Thank you, really,” he replied.

With their gazes intertwined, with that restrained smile on his lips, the young man's fingers closed around Sofia's hand in a gentle squeeze. It was at that moment that it became clear to Sofia that, for the first time, she had begun to think of Dave as a 'friend'.