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Have you ever watched the moon break free behind the clouds? Did you watch how it lit up the world beneath, basking everything in the softest glow, turning the Earth white and pure? Did you see how it washed away all the darkness from the world and gave all the little girls and boys spotlights, the most amazing hidden places and shining corners to dance, to laugh, to cry? Have you seen how it lights a child's tears? Have you ever looked at the one you love the most in the world and just stood breathless, lost in the stars and moons and galaxies in their eyes?

Beauty is a distinctive thing. It can be found in the rabbit holes and ruined forests of the world as long as you squint, as long as you wait and wait and wait until you can make everything gorgeous again. Then there's things that everyone agrees on, those wonderful views of a sun rising above the horizon and making the skies a mix of the richest, most luxurious colours in the world, turning the clouds into beckoning blankets that you want to cover yourself in, bury into and never come out. Beauty is a deceptive being, but there is nothing hard to see about some types of this creature.

He is one of the lucky ones, one of the boys with broad shoulders and narrow hips, muscles rippling under the thin fabric of his worn, dirtied shirts. His face may be smudged with oil, but it sings to you, asks you to wipe the offending grease away with the gentlest strokes you can manage. Wipe away those mistakes with turpentine, and when you're done, burn the rags. Take it all away, make the bad of the world disappear. Big brown eyes, like the chocolates that have never touched his lips, rich truffles covered in cocoa and sugar. Softer than even the clouds.

But something hides there. Something that tells you to keep your distance, no matter how badly your body screams at you to take just one step closer.

His hair never stays in place; it's a mess of feathery strands splayed around his head, falling onto his forehead but never covering those dangerous eyes. The ones with something gorgeous in their recklessness, hidden away under thick lashes like spider's legs. They are eyes alight with a thousand hidden dreams. Keep looking? Can you feel it? Can you hear your blood rush in your ears? Do you start to feel it, the tingle over your skin, the itch in every single limb to run, to jump, to sail through the sky and never look down? Can you feel what he feels, the ache to break away, to fly away from the restrictions of regulation, of routine, of rule?

I hope you do.

Remember that face, remember all those beautiful features, carved out of caramel. No, something stronger. Carved out of diamonds, his skin glowing with an itch to go where no one else has ever gone. To go farther, run faster, fly higher, swim longer, jump into the sky. His jaw is cut out of a block, chiseled into hard lines. His cheekbones create planes, sharp edges and dark shadows, bronze and kissed by every light to ever touch his skin. Try to find a flaw in the curve of his pillow-soft lips, I dare you.

He could steal the Sun's light if he wanted.

But no.

Not even that is enough for him.

Take a deep breath. Now hold it. Keep going. Count to ten. Then again. Again and again and again. Can you feel your lungs ache? Good. Keep holding it. Are the edges of your vision blurring, turning black? Close your eyes and clamp your hands over your mouth, kick your feet, pinch your arms. Do whatever you can to keep holding. Don't breathe. Don't you dare. Count the sparkling fireworks that burst under your eyes. Do you know what they're called? I bet you don't. Keep holding until you remember. Wait, wait, wait. This is an act of will power. Do you want to be weak? No. Of course not. No one wants to be weak.

Fine. You can breathe.

Doesn't the air taste so sweet? Go on, gasp, fill your lungs. It's better than anything in the world. Air, so simple, so pure. The thing that you rely on to survive. It's filling your body again, pumping through your veins, filtering through your heart and rushing to your mind. You can think clearer now, clearer than ever before. Isn't it incredible? Isn't it amazing how everything's so much better now that you can breathe again, now that you feel so free? Light. You are light. Float away now, escape the confines of your body, and just keep going. Go, go, go. There's nothing here for you.

Hold onto this moment, since soon it'll fade away. Your heart will stop pounding and your breathing will slow. The world will fade back into grey, the bright colours that you saw exploding in your eyes will all turn to dust and fizzle out. But not for him. For him that's life. Explosion after explosion of colours, a permanent soundtracks of pops and crackles, of thundering veins and straining breaths. He may listen, and he may work. He may do everything that's expected of him, but once he's done, no one can tell him what to do.

Find this boy playing with discarded materials, with shrapnel and sharp edges, with blaring motors and flaring engines. He will tinker and toy, will turn junk into something incredible. Count his sins. You'll lose track before he turns ten. He is his own tempo, his own master. He works on his unique wavelength, and you'll never be invited in.

His laugh is a wild thing, crawling into the dark corners of a room and drawing out the dangerous things, spinning them around. He makes them all angry before letting them go, just to have something to chase. He finds the creatures that gnaw at your children's minds, sings to the monsters that hide under their beds until they'll come out to play.

He just wants to play.

He just wants to live.

He is a breath of fresh air.

And he will fuel an ember. He will spark a fire. To feel something. To see something just as reckless as himself.

He is brave. He is broken.

He will watch the world burn to his feet.

What can turn a normal boy into something crazy? What can rewire him, change him and reform him until he's not quite right in the head? What does it take to turn a normal person into someone who thinks of themselves as immortal? Did someone tell him when he was little, whisper in his ear that he was drinking a magic potion, and he never let it go? Was it a dream where he jumped off a building and didn't fall, instead flying higher than the reaches of anybody's screams for him to come down? Or could it be something else entirely, something bred into him, a gene that made him think that he could do anything and come away unscathed?

More importantly, does it even matter?

You can pick apart his past if you want. Step forwards, put your eye to the looking glass. Pick apart all of the pieces and analyze at will. What do you see? Just a little boy, told to do as he had to. School first, every day for years of his life, wasting away behind a desk, trapped by four walls and windows covered in grime, coughing up chalk dust and swallowing numbers, failed revolutions, death tolls and broken dreams. Then when he had to, it was work. Hazel already worked, he had someone to show him the ropes. And after her it was Greyson, who he had to teach himself.

He didn't tell his little brother how to hide away tiny things that could be used as flares, didn't show him the faster, potentially deadly ways to get around the oil rigs.

Maybe it was out of necessity that he became fearless. Maybe it was when starvation scraped it's claws along his insides and bit at his stomach until it felt like it was turning inside out that he learned sometimes it's best to just do what you can. That sometimes it's worth taking the risk of ducking under a fence or two even while it buzzes inches above your head, signalling something fatal. Maybe it was when he first felt the bite of a whip along his back and then the lashes that followed immediately after, making blood trickle down every visible bump of his spine to pool in the too-deep ridges of his hipbones.

Maybe it was when he turned and saw his father whipping him, making a show of it in front of as much of the district as could gather in the square, that he learned to be careless. Really, nowhere and nothing was safe, so why even try? Jeremy certainly wouldn't take pity on him. Why should anyone?

Even his mother scolded him. Lilac, with her mousey brown hair and gentle green eyes just pursed her lips and shook her head as he tried to explain. Even though Jeremy had left her. Even though he was the traitor, not her little boy.

Why do people change?

Because they have to.

He had to survive, and no one else would help him.