Crystalline

Past

The sun shone above her, a bright ball of molten fire, hanging suspended in the sky so that she thought it might fall, a fell breeze pushing it from whatever small ledge it sat upon. Rays of heat beat down upon her skin. The rough-soft texture of the towel beneath her was thin, the cool concrete below it soothing to her skin. She sighed and closed her eyes, stretching out luxuriously on her stomach.

And then a sound and a splattering of water, frigid droplets clinging to her skin, shattered the peace. She rose in a quick motion. "Tanner!" she yelled, irritated, wringing her hair between her hands to get the water out.

He broke the surface of the water and grinned, his dark hair plastered to his head, ordinarily the same colour as hers but made black by the wetness. Bright green eyes sparked mischievously at her as she picked up a ball from the side of the pool and threw it, narrowly missing his head as he ducked beneath the surface. The ball hit the water with a dull splash and bobbed up and down in the wake he had left.

She grumbled angrily to herself as she lay down again, this time on her back, so that the sun could dry her damp hair. It curled at her temples as the sun sucked the water from it. She heard the sound of water slapping against the side of the pool and kept her eyes closed, even as wet footsteps trailed towards her. She started as Tanner flopped down beside her and curled into a small ball, his arm over her stomach, his wet head pressed into the curve of her ribs at her side. He was radiating heat despite being so wet. She didn't recoil from the affection, as she did from her parents. From Tanner, it was ok. He was a kid. He didn't want anything from her but company. She opened her eyes and brushed his wet hair from his forehead, smiling slightly; he was already asleep.

She sighed and put an arm around her brother, relating him to a small puppy, easily excitable but also easily exhausted.

That had been the perfect day. Her parents out, just her and her brother. No pressure to do anything, be anyone she wasn't. Just the heat of the sun and the small body by her side, who she felt more of a parent to than a sister to.

And then everything changed.

That night in the darkness of her room, the air-conditioned house cool but her limbs coated with a layer of sweat. Kicking off the sheets to rid herself of the suddenly inexplicable heaviness of the light fabric. Her hand pushing hair back from her face as she woke, confused. And then screaming as pieces fell away in her hands. Strands of crimson caught between her fingers, snagged on ragged, bitten fingernails. Hair falling from her head in a light patter. Her eyelids prickling. Dark lashes fluttering to the sheets of her bed, stark against the white.

She screamed again, but no one came. Her room was further from the rest, something she had used to be grateful for. But not then.

And then the pain started. It began as a shiver. Her scalp prickled, goose bumps rising along her flesh, her bare scalp. Her eyelids fluttered, her fingers clenching on the sheets. She wanted to move. She wanted to run. But she could not make herself move a muscle as something started pushing beneath the surface of her skin. At first soft, and then not at all, dull needles requesting entry before pushing harder and harder, tearing their way through her skin. She screamed, a high wail, as hundreds of needles tore their way from her scalp, sharp pricks slipping through the ends of her eyelids. Her body shook, her skin rippling as small needles pricked her arms and legs. She screamed again, her throat raw, and tasted blood. And her door swung open.

Her mother stood in the doorway, slim and pale as she looked at her daughter. Elegant in every situation but this. And she watched as her daughter screamed. Watched as she screamed and screamed and grasped her sheets, unable to move as things crept from her flesh, growing longer and longer til thin tendrils brushed her cheekbones and then her neck, her shoulders and her back. And then it stopped.

She gasped a breath before collapsing, heaving breaths in and out of her lungs as if she were forcing them to enter and exit her body. She felt as if, were she to stop forcing the breaths, she would simply cease to breathe. She stayed still as she heard her mother approach the bed. "Nella?" she said, soft. She felt her mother's hand alight on her hair, her bloodied scalp. Run her fingers over a feather as red as blood. And then she screamed and ran from the room, slamming the door behind her.

Thus had begun a life of doctors. Hidden faces and covered skin. Travel in jets and hiding in expensive hotel rooms, alone. Tanner at home, forbidden to see her. She remembered wondering how he would have felt. Abandoned. Left alone with two parents who didn't care.

She remembered hair pulled from her scalp. Operations which left her bleeding and sore and tired and without feathers. But they grew back. They always grew back. Startlingly quickly and without a moment's notice for the pain she was to endure. Blood tests and transplants of hair that fell from her head. Useless, money-and-time-wasting things that only left her more in pain and fatigued than the previous.

And then had come the day it had stopped. When her mother had given up. When her father hadn't come to see her in her hotel room. When it had been another man, someone tall and broad-shouldered and menacing. Someone she did not trust. And she had been dragged, kicking and screaming. And no one had helped her, had said a thing. Because the truth of it was that her parents had sold her, sold her like an animal or a house or an old painting they were no longer interested in. And the truth was pain. So she forgot. She forgot the agony and the life of before, because memories were pain, too.

"Forgetting isn't exactly the way to make anything better, though, is it?" she asked, her voice soft. Riley uttered a low growl, one that rumbled through his chest so that she felt it through his back, where her fingers tangled in his fur.

She didn't want to talk any longer. She felt empty. As if telling Riley how she had come to be what she was, where she was, allowed him to see who she was. And she didn't like that, but she did not have it in her to care. Not about that. Not about anything. All she could think of was her little brother, who she'd left behind with their parents who didn't care about him, who were probably just as likely to sell him off as they had sold her, albeit in differing circumstances.

She shuddered, the movement going through her whole body. She felt heat rising to her eyes, and tears stung her skin like bitter acid as they flowed down her cheeks. She felt the mascara she'd meticulously applied running like dark paint along her cheeks as she closed her blurring eyes. She didn't want to hold back her tears. Because for two years she hadn't cried. She had screamed at the pain and then bit her lip and waited for it to end. But never had she allowed herself to cry. Never had she permitted herself the shame of it.

She put her other arm around Riley's neck and hugged the wolf tight, pressing her face into the stiff-soft bristles of fur at his ruff. And she let herself cry. Because, then, it felt less like something to be ashamed of and more of a release.