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BARBARA ALLEN likes to think of herself as a good friend. Or, something close to that. She's attentive, always there to listen, and she's not exactly a raging asshole to those around her— not always, anyways. Besides, she's never like that to her friends.
She thinks she can recall the exact day Harlow Kings became her best friend, or at least the week around it. It was Harlow's first summer with them, and she had that freshly disturbed look most newly claimed demigods wore like a bad outfit. She wasn't clumsy, but she wasn't exactly fluent in the works of Camp just yet. It was endearing, sort of like watching a baby giraffe try to find its footing in the world.
Post-light show that was Harlow's claiming, she was pulled into the ebb and flow of the Apollo cabin, and fit perfectly like the strange puzzle piece in the middle of a jigsaw, flaws, fumbles and all.
It was then that they became friends.
It started small, seeing each other around camp, with Annabeth and Barbie arm in arm as they strolled to the canoe lake. Then, it was March and Ataru grouped their two cabins together for any activity they could, and suddenly Barbie and Harlow were side by side at the campfire. It was one of the rare occasions that Barbie would sneak to sit by the Athena Cabin, and it was the one night when the Apollo cabin was placed shoulder to shoulder beside the wisdom Goddess.
Whilst not everything hinged on fashion or fabric, Barbie's eyes had a knack of looking for it regardless. And when you find yourself shoulder to shoulder with a girl who can pull off brown corduroy in the heat of summer, it's essential you know them.
All it took was one compliment, one grin, one smile, and suddenly their lives were intertwined like two stems of a flower. Twirled with laughter and late nights by the canoe lake, Harlow Kings and Barbara Allen were something rare, like a meteor shower, bright and fizzing with energy.
She remembers last summer, when Luke had come back from his quest, and Barbie's brain had a bout of bitter thoughts.
She couldn't blame anybody, not necessarily, but she wanted to, desperately. To be a demigod, to be recognised and to be known wasn't all about quests, but they certainly helped. Quests were carved out of glory, sung on the tongues of satyrs and centaurs across the land and whispered into every river and leaf of a tree. The victory of one could fuel you for decades, even spin itself into history if it were potent enough.
The fact was that Barbie needed it, not just for herself, but to prove something. Morbid as it was, a quest was the only way some lowly daughter of Aphrodite was going to make a name for herself. Nobody spoke that, of course, but it was a silent thought that spread to all of them like a wildfire.
