Perfection [On hold - changing a lot of the story)

7║the way they enhance

Ⅱ For shadow/silhouette, who has just been bloody amazing in supporting me Ⅱ

         The train exceeded all expectations as it proceeded throughout its course without the cacophony of rumbling and clanging a train would usually make. It was almost as if it was silent, as if we weren't moving but we were. Everything seemed to just slip past ever so swiftly as I glanced out of the window, mesmerised by the speed we were actually travelling at.

        "You're acting as if you've never seen these things before," Stephan said, clearly shocked by my amazement of this new discovery.

        "This is my first time on a train."

        "Really? Wow."

        "I guess I never really needed to go anywhere," I said.

        Or never really had any permission.

        "Wow." Esther commented sarcastically, blowing on her nails. She continued dipping the brush of the nail polish back into the liquid and then painting the nails of her hand, intensifying the brightness with a cerulean hue with each stroke of the brush. A bottle of gold nail polish stood untouched beside the one she was using.

        Yawning, I kicked my feet up on the seat, placing my back against the window. I closed my eyes, allowing just the sound of people idly chatting to fill my ears as I rested peacefully in a comfortable position.

        "Oh god, what on earth happened to your legs?" Stephan asked rather loudly, causing me to jump and open my eyes in a swift movement.

        I followed his gaze to my legs which were covered in burns, scattered here and there in several places in a chaos manner. I ran a hand down my legs, feeling the rough surfaces of each burn before turning to him.

        "I got them in the process of rescuing Esther from the fire."

        Stephan turned to Esther, his hands clenched into fists. "I'm sure I told you to turn the fire off as soon as she dived in - "

        Esther placed the brush back into the bottle, rolling her eyes. "Oh, calm down, I was only having a bit of fun, it was nothing serious," she replied, blowing on the nails of her now fully painted nails.

        "Nothing serious?! Have you seen her legs? They're covered in burns, you absolute moron." He slammed his fist on the table, his anger reaching its boiling point.

        "Why are you so worried? She's not dead. She is still alive, very much alive as you can see. And she's not even that bothered about it. God, Stephan, you're too much... You're acting as if you care about her or something." Esther began blowing on her nails again, rolling her eyes as I looked up at her.

        I switched my gaze to Stephan and he immediately dropped his gaze to the ground, clearly unable to defend himself against the possibly false statement that Esther just hurled in his direction. After a few moments, he looked up at me, embarrassed. I shrugged the whole thing off, wanting to give him the impression that it didn't affect me whatsoever. What more could you expect from a person like Esther? I wasn't even going to give her a reaction, she didn't deserve one.

        Esther noticed the quiet atmosphere and spoke up, intervening silence in its course. "And do remember Stephan, she may be a part of our group but she is never going to have the status needed to officially and truly belong with us. She's rightly staying within her limits but I think you need to back down."

        "But that's the thing Esther, I'm sure you didn't 'truly' have that status before you began attempting to achieve perfection in secrecy," I retaliated, not realising what I was getting myself into.