Three days straight of sacrificing after school afternoons to studying for this back to school Maths test and Arian was starting to feel somewhat stressed about the whole thing. Saffy had ‘kindly’ given him little practice tests, but if the cousin-marked results were anything to go by then it seemed that he was heading for a pretty fat fail come test time in three days’ time. In fact the dark-haired teen had gotten desperate enough to start sleeping with a couple of his class books under the pillow – although he was yet to wake up in the mornings suddenly miraculously on top of all the study topics.

The tap on his bedroom door startled him, the thud of first his pencil case followed by scattered bits of stationary hitting the floor, the only warning that his flailed hand had knocked it onto the floor. Arian had been surprised to find, his cousin, some dvds and a huge bowl of what smelt like toffee popcorn on the other side of the door, but in the end he’d eventually let Saffy talk him into taking some time out in favour of watching a film with her.

Saffy had wanted romantic, Arian had had problems choosing between Legend and The Dark Crystal. In the end Saffy had tossed a dime and they’d ended up watching Pretty Woman – Arian having picked ‘tails’ and lost. Saffy had started sniffling from around the part where Edward had told Vivian to stay with him because she wanted to and Arian had quietly pretended not to notice, despite the fact that it wasn’t the first time that they’d watch this film and his cousin always sniffled at that part. Not that Arian could help the most likely somewhat sappy smile crossing his face when at the end Edward climbed up the fire escape with the roses to woo Vivian – after all he was a something of a sucker for happy endings himself.

There’d still been around half a bowl of popcorn left after the film and Arian hadn’t really felt like returning to the ‘bash his head against the wall’ that seemed to pretty much sum up the revision for the back-to-school Maths test, so he’d been pretty easily convinced to stay and watch another film, although it had helped that Saffy had decided that it should be his turn to pick the film.

One film had somehow become three, with Saffy ending up having to make more toffee popcorn to refill the bowl that they’d ended up emptying after the second film. It had been Arian’s turn to make a choice by the time the fourth dvd choice came around and so they’d ended up watching Labyrinth.

Maybe it was a result of his alter-ego’s nocturnal activities, but Arian found himself thinking on Sarah. As a heroine she wasn’t perfect (she’d wished her own brother away to the goblins after all) but she’d stubbornly continued through the labyrinth, refusing to give up because it had been the right thing to do – at least Arian liked to think that’s why she’d done it. And despite having the odds stacked against her Sarah had made it through too, in part because of her strong will that had allowed her to face down the goblin king, but also in part with the help of the friends she’d made along the way.

As he washed up the once again empty bowl – it seemed only fair given that his cousin had made the popcorn – Arian found himself wondering if maybe he could be a little more like Sarah. Stacking the bowl on the drainer, the dark-haired teen bit his lip. If he was going to be more like Sarah, then he was going to have to get stronger so that he could better protect people as Athene – after all right now if he was to be honest – he was pretty pathetic.

Maybe it was time to start looking seriously at some of those self-defence leaflets that Saffy keep bringing home.

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