stella } district 2 . fin

{ stella chrysalis } ;

Flamingo -- they snap walking down the streets, the setting sun's pink strains in the sky reflecting in every vantage point in every store window, boots bouncing off the street pavement. Piper smacks bubblegum as Stella mutters words with the crack of her fingers: "black, white, green-"

"Blue!"

"Show off your natural hue,"

"Nice save," Piper flicks her ear and Stella chuckles and stuffs her hands back in her pockets. 

And the pattern repeats, rhyming to colors and passing by their teen reflections -- it's nice. Nicer than it had been and the niceness that Stella had been accustomed to. The summer day warm on their skin and the city's hum in their ears like ambiance, she had always felt it. The familiar vibration of friends she hadn't met riding through her body; she'd always felt it. Six years into life and preoccupied with the agenda of a spoiled child and shopping with her father alone, annoying him and being met with a sigh and, "just this last one, Sirius."

She had always loved the noise. 

('Stella!') Piper grabs the sleeve of her arm, practically screaming murder in her name, "wha-"

"Stella, lookit them bitches! Look at theeeeEEEeeemmmm," faking a heart attack and pointing at a fur coat in a passing window, "look at 'em, look at 'em, look at-" 

"I saw them," dead pan and yawning, "andidontcare- come on, I don't wanna miss it, P."

"You can't wear meteors, Stella," 

"Watch me."

---

("It's a title, Aeron, and I will not see him ruin it-"

"She's only thirteen, Celene, she can still grow into it.")

Steam from the shower melting onto the mirror, a single opaque streak open as Stella smeared peppermint shaving cream on her neck and chin; ("Aeron, at this rate he won't just grow into it.") Her mother's voice faint, laying over the whistle of the running water, Stella's leg propped on the sink's ledge with her face close enough to the mirror to fog it back up with every exhale. Damp hair slick down the nape of her neck, lemon strands barely kissing the indent of her collar bones - ("why can't you just give her a chance, Celene?"

"I have. And I am tired of wasting them.") 

Damp towel loose against her skin, it's all the same as it's ever been. 

---

Piper's hands slap against her's, technicolor heart beats and the pink sky line framing short teen frames as they walk uphill:

"How many shrimps do you have to eat-"

(clap)

"before you make your skin turn pink-"

(clap)

"Eat too much and you'll get sick-"

(clap)

"Shrimp are pretty rich," the last wilting hours of the day bleeding into the night sky's freckles, grinning at the outskirts of vibrant district two.

---

Sirius grabs his father's hand, the warmth of the forest's afternoon mist enveloping the pair and blonde hair frizzing in the thick like carpet shocks as a bubblegum trap beat reverberates through his skull. The forest's cries whistle out their names, their titles in a hollow tune they're accustomed to as Sirius climbs on his father's back, trudging through moss and dirt. They spit rhythm from their mouths in pianissimo -- "before you make your skin turn pink" -- his father grinning. 

"Eat too much and you'll get sick, Sirius," his six year old son's wrapped around his neck, and Sirius muttered through gapped teeth a threat to the universe into his father's hair: "no shrimp's taking me down." And he crossed his heart, "I guess my little star's too strong, huh?" 

---

Dandelions crumple under the weight of their skin, Stella's hand grasped in Piper's as they reach the top of the hill, a beaded bracelet dangling below their palms; cherry laughter follows in the air around them. Stella scratches her chin, looking back to the market and the fur coats and candy stores with heavy eyelids, the summer heat drowsy and comforting between her skin and the fabric of her flannel. The pair sit cross legged in the grass, playing snaps with Stella's hair intertwining with the flora, the sound of strangers talking at once a ghost in her mind.

("You best not pass out on me, Star-"

"Then you better not stop talking!")

The never ending beating of the drum in her head muffled; "ugh, how much longer until the shower. I totally could've bought-"

"Not that much longer? But besides, didn't you father like, ground you from shopping or whatever?"

"I'm a free man, Star." 

And they grin cola laughs and Stella rests her hands on her stomach -- the sky is her's. Eyes of the stars, not much longer, and she blinks once, blinks twice.

"Hey, don't pass out on me, loser,"

"I'm a free man, P."

---

It smells like fresh grass. 

Sirius drools into his father's hair, sleeping on his back through the hike, waking up only ontop of the hill when his father places him down with cotton mouth. He yawns, rubbing his eyes with balled fists as he sits on his legs, the afternoon sky watercolored and gradiented into those natural hues. His father's eyes trained on the sky: "it's a meteor shower, Sirius,"

"We made it?" 

Foggy and tired, his entire body feels like it's made of cotton and his father breathes calm -- "yeah, we did." 

---

stella perihelion ;
female, seventeen, district two
trans galaxy child
star vs the forces of evil

flamingo