{ h u s h } child // South

Growing in numbers
Growing in speed
Can't fight the future
Can't fight what I see

Mama and Papa used to call me their little princess. They would smile down at me as if I was the most beautiful, wonderful thing they had ever seen. Mama would let me try on her jewelry and prance around through our faded, rickety living room in her best heels, even though she only had one worn pair, and Papa would pick me up and spin me around as if I was weightless until I truly believed I could fly. And Mama and Papa wouldn't lie to me, of course, because they love me, so that must mean I really am a little princess, even though they're dead now and I don't have a fancy crown and all my clothes I buy from the most inexpensive little shops owned by old men and women with crinkled faces and scarce white hair. They said I'm royalty so it must be true.

And what do princesses do? I wouldn't know exactly - I only own a few tattered storybooks, after all - but I do know one thing with absolute certainty. Princesses dance. And so I do, too, sneaking out of my home in the dead of the night even though there's no one left to stop me, my jacket just barely managing to deflect the frigid winds as my numbs hands hit against the frozen ground in messy cartwheels. I fleetingly think of Rubik when I pass by the deepened valley, our imprints upon the snow buried after months of the blizzards District Eight is infamous for, but decide that waking him up this late in the night would only make him sour company and decide to dance alone tonight. At one point my hand slips on a patch of ice and I tumble to the ground, the side that took the worse of the fall aching but my laughter painting a silver mist into the air as it passes my lips.

The square is nearly dead silent at this time of night, with only a few people still out. They move in the very strangest of ways, footsteps silent and eyes darting around, one hand always at their hip though I can't imagine why. A few smile at me and I of course smile back, but the lights don't seem to like that particular tilt of their lips, rainbow hues shying back toward me and then urging me onward. I obey without a second thought, my hums echoing against soiled brick walls as I enter the less clean part of the district, dodging dumpsters (and something inside me screams at the memory of hiding, shouting, broken glass, Will, Will, what's wrong with you Will? where did all that blood come from?) and rotting garbage strewn across the gritty streets, turning pale snow gray under flickering streetlights.

In a certain spot nestled in a narrow walkway between two buildings the lights pause, bobbing gently on the air. This area isn't like the open streets where the icy winds that pick up snow from the ground and plaster it against me, instead possessing a quiet calm that for some reason I feel like I shouldn't hear. Plastic bags hang from frozen metal pipes that jut sloppily out from the walls, the only witnesses to our dance. The lights slowly begin to twirl around me in a funnel of color and light, leaving trails of glittering hues in their wake, and I can just barely hear their whispers upon the wind, like the laughter of stars. A few swoop down to nestle themselves into the pale brown strands of my hair, gathering close to my ears, reddened by the cold, though their light offers no heat. I smile lightly at their encouragement and rise swiftly onto my toes, one leg kicking out in a wide arc while the upper part of me dips down in the opposite direction.

It's an intricate dance I learned from my mother, though it's supposed to go a lot faster. I have a distant memory of her in a pale gown - her wedding dress, I think, seeing as it was the only truly nice garment she owned - repeating these very steps, feet swiftly drawing in and out to the sound of my father playing the ukulele and arms moving as if they were delicate wings that could carry her away. And they did, eventually. Mama's wings carried her right up to the stars to be with Papa. It's quite an honor, to be made into a star, though an even greater one to be made into a light. That's what I want to be when I die - a floating light just like the ones that surround me. Because that's what they are, really. Souls of the people with the very purest of hearts, allowed to be free and wild and childish for the rest of their lives.

All at once the dancing stops, though, the lights falling away suddenly and spreading back into the air and hanging suspended around me, as if tense. I stop, too, stumbling in the middle of one of my steps and frowning. I could have sworn I heard something, like the crunch of snow beneath a boot, and I tilt my head to the side slightly, lips slowly spreading out into a wide grin as I peer into the darkness, trying to find the mysterious stranger. Giving up, I straighten and call out pleasantly, "You're welcome to join, you know."

People they come together
People they fall apart
No one can stop us now
'Cause we are all made of stars