Crystalline

Human

The world was turning, and she was a part of it. Were she to stop living, the world would continue to spin, and this was something she thought infinitely unfair and also very reassuring, for she was only one small person and, though she liked living, she wouldn't like everything to stop were she not there to live in it any longer. She did like living, though. She was not yet ready to stop being a person. Not when she had hardly even had time to enjoy the feeling of starlight against her skin as she lay in cool, damp grass on a warm night. Not when she hadn't seen a storm thrash the sky into a fury, clouds whipped through on errant winds as the world howled to make its anger understood. Not when she hadn't seen lightning strike the earth, a wavering bolt of pure energy slicing its way through the air with scalding, icy heat. Not when she hadn't loved. Not when she hadn't lived.

Through the window, the sky above roiled like the thoughts in her mind, clouds spilling into each other and pulling apart in a flurry of movement. They darted so quickly across the sky that she hardly realised they had moved at all til she shifted her eyes back towards the slight glow of the veiled sun and tracked the change in distance.

"Lissa." Kale's voice was sharp and more than a little exasperated as she turned back to face him, reluctantly tearing her eyes from the window and the scene outside. Kale sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair, ruffling it in a way that should not have looked as good as it did. She thought it immensely unfair to think that, should she do the same to her own hair, it would stick up in odd places and curl irritatingly at her temples. "You're not even listening, are you?" he asked, resting his heavy purple gaze on her.

I am, she thought, pushing her words lightly towards his mind. He raised an eyebrow, and she exhaled heavily, careful not to part her lips. She looked down towards the needle feeding energy into her body and pulled it out, watching a small, ruby bead spill from her skin and gather in a bright droplet. It's hard to listen, with everything out there, she admitted.

Kale rested his elbows on the table, leaning forwards slightly. "I know," he said, understanding softening his eyes and lowering his voice. "But this is important. Could you try, please?" She nodded slowly, and he smiled a relieved sort of smile.

"Alright. As I was saying, you should try to see if you can change the colour of your skin with a thought."

I can't just think a colour and become it, Kale, she told him, sounding amused but also tired.

He rolled his eyes. "I meant... You said emotion makes your skin change. Well, think of something that makes you feel... sad."

She tried to think of something sad. Many things in her life could be encompassed by that emotion; her whole youth had been a living tragedy. But thinking of it as 'sad' seemed like she was watching a story of herself on a screen, and she was unable to feel moved to sadness by that, was unable to feel pity for herself.

So she thought of Riley and his brother, and the way the wolf had pressed its face into the curve of the boy's shoulder and neck, and the achingly sad sound of his whine in the back of her mind. But when she looked at her skin, it was still the same, shimmering, mirror-like surface. She looked up at Kale, shaking her head slightly.

His lips were pressed into a thin, thoughtful line, and then his eyes lit up with an idea. "You said you blocked everything out. What if you stop? Stop blocking things out? And just feel sad, for once."

Stop blocking things out? How could he ask to her take down a wall she had been building up for her whole life? A wall that had been assaulted and battered and hit by bomb after bomb after bomb and still remained standing? A wall that she relied on, that she had put so much of herself into that it was impossible for her to differentiate between what was her and what was the wall?