And the rest is rust and stardust

Today wasn't like any other day.

Today, Lei woke up with a purpose. There was no apathetic staring into the void, and there was no crying until her eyes went dry and burned under her eyelids. Lei's eyes were clear like the blue sky on a bright, sunny day. She sat up to eat the food on her bedside table for once, taking her sweet time as she carefully appreciated the taste and texture and watching the snow fall outside her dormitory window. Eggs were squishy. Sausage was decidedly a favorite. Orange juice went down sweet and thick like the gods' ambrosia.

There was a steady build up to all of this. The second week after their encounter was the worst. The third week, she became more and more lucid. The fourth week, she had began to eat at least once or twice a day, and in some days, started to talk to her annoying friends who loved to gather around her room as if her depression was a goddamn party. Fucking weirdos. She had learned the art of ignoring people when they were looking at you, and right now, she could feel at least two eyes directly on her. Right next to her food was Sid's notebook of stories, and stacked on top of it, WIP schematics of new fireworks. It surprised her only a month has passed. In the same vein, it upset her a month has passed.



Deith took so many things from her.

Deith took her first love. Her first time. (Thankfully, not her first kiss.) Her innocence, her sense of self, her self respect. Her future. The month of November. He broke her into a thousand fucking pieces, and that was November, putting herself back together. Clarence was right. She wasn't good. But she was better.

She wasn't fine with that.

And that was okay.

The best course of action now, she realized when she woke up this morning, was to start taking. Lei was done letting her dreams staying dreams, her idle fantasies getting washed out like sticks in a river. Lei was even more done with letting people trample all over her, kissing her without her consent, punching her, shoving her in her locker. How dare they? How dare they hurt her, and how dare she let them?

She realized the weight of her title, when she woke up: She was the child of a God. She saw the moisture in the wind, the water inside the drops of snow, the very blood that kept people's bodies alive and breathing. She commanded them. She was their master. She was young and powerful, and in her hands lied the possibility of everything. And she was going to take that, that everything, and she was going to use it to fill in the gaps in the cracks and the emptiness of the holes Deith so violently inflicted into her. She was going to graduate with a PhD, live as the girl she wanted to be, open up her dream business. She was going to kiss Sid, and she was going to kiss Clarence, and she was going to love another day. She was going to do her duty. At the same time, she was going to have Mei and Royce and SK, her beautiful children, and only then when she became that woman in the picture, scarred and confident and beautifully dressed, would she be content.

She was going to have all of this! All of this and more! She was going to hungrily, greedily, selfishly hoard all of these shiny, beautiful things and love them, and protect them, and appreciate them because they were rightfully hers, because she was the child of a God, and she deserved everything, and she was going to take everything offered to her. No more cowering. No more fear. No more hesitation.

She was going to make life her bitch.



Lei stood up, staring at the snow fall outside her window. And she thought: I'm going to take my well-deserved Winter first, and I'm going to feel the chill bite into my skin and love every moment of it. She placed a foot on the ground and realized her body forgot how to stand. Well, balls.

"Sid," she started, voice hoarse, eyes on the prize. "Take me to the tower, please."

Blizzard winds danced around them during their ascent in celebration. The cold and ice sang songs with a melody that appealed to her powers, and as she watched thousands and thousands of flakes descend from the gray skies, she realized she understood... everything.

She attached herself to Sid during, scent and skin and warmth familiar against her own, thankful to the Mountain God that she could still appreciate him after all this. She couldn't love him, not yet, not after everything she's been through — after they've been through. But she knew how she felt about him. He was her home.

As soon as they reached the top of the tower, Lei hopped off Sid, bare feet meeting icy ground, so cold it was burning. She took a deep breath and pressed her hands together, feeling the blood flow in her body and the powers that mingled with it. She let herself feel with no reservations and no hesitation, concentrating the last traces of her negativity into the base of her palms and building it up until she was content she'd cleansed herself of Deith's filth and poison. When she was content, she gathered the clouds above her and let the snow spread out across the campus, enveloping everything in a blanket of pure white.

A clean slate.

Catharsis.

She stood there and watched her handiwork, standing tall and proud. She turned around to face Sid again. For the first time since October, she smiled, but it was bittersweet. "Do you remember that time I disappeared?" She invited Sid to sit on the edge of the tower with her and cuddle for warmth. After a pause, she continued. "Of course you do. I can talk about it now."

She hugged her chest, sighing. "It was... a little after Halloween. I was in a really good mood, so I thought I'd go visit Deith in his house, you know? Things were starting to get serious between us. We were finally talking about his stuff, and he told me he loved me."

There was a brief, bitter stop there as she recalled the memory in distaste. She knew she didn't want to be with him, but she fell for it anyway since she was needy. Sometimes, you have to settle because you know that's the best you can do, she said once upon a time. Not in this damn house. Not anymore.

"I saw him fucking someone in his backyard." She rubbed her head. "Of course, I was angry, I thought he was cheating on me! I confronted him. It turns out he tricked me. He was fucking a corpse. He was twisted, and insane, and I told him I was leaving and he — he tried to kill me. He said we'd be together forever if I was dead. I got away."

"I'm not okay," she said as a matter of fact, absolute certainty in her voice, eyes focused straight into Sid's own. It was such a vibrant shade of red she loved so much. She wrapped her arms around his body and let the breeze carry warm air around them, snowflakes evaporating into steam.

Okay wasn't a state of being that came naturally to her, she realized. Lei Feng was born with nothing but her powers and a strength of character that could move mountains. She had no innate luck or talent like other people here. Rather, everything was stacked against her, from her looks, her brain chemicals, her naturally weak body and her surroundings. If she was ever going to be okay, it was going to be a work in progress. She has to fight for her happy ending.

It might not seem right, but that was just how she was supposed to do things. Luckily for her, she wasn't a quitter.

Trembling, she placed her hands on the sides of Sid's face and kissed him. Sid. <3 Sid <3, according to her phone. It felt too long since their lips met, and all at once, after years of feeling a terrible homesickness, her heart sang that it was finally home. She wanted to say something to him. She has always wanted to say something to him! She was sure of it, ever since they watched the sheep go off in the sky, but she couldn't quite say everything now, so instead she pulled him into a tight hug and said, "Thank you! Thank you for everything. The fireworks, the hugs, the kisses. You taking care of me. Thank you so much."

Lei clung to him, her laughter coming out like soft notes in the breeze. Drops of snow fell from grey skies and enveloped colorful building into a blanket of white. Everything was sharp and cold, and so overwhelmingly beautiful.

"I want to put all of that behind me. It's always going to haunt me, I think, but I want to push forward, with you and Clarence and everyone. I don't want to be that girl in that bed anymore." She paused, realizing what she said, wiping incoming tears with the back of her sleeves and chuckling. "Oh! Yeah! I'm a girl!" Her chuckle built into a full on laugh. "I'm a girl, and I want to make fireworks, a-and I want to start a business. I want to do a lot of stuff. I don't want to live my life afraid anymore! I don't know much about stuff, but you guys can teach me, all right? I'll take care of all of you too," she said. And she thought, they were hers. She needed to protect them. All of them.

Because this world, the future, everything around her — Lei cupped Sid in the face. He was so much more weathered and tired than the Sid she fell for all those months ago, less colorful, but still solid, loved — This, all this, they were all blinding, radiant, cruel but perfect all the same. Overwhelmingly beautiful.


@"A M E N O" —> @"Tom Marvolo Riddle"