//------------------------------// // One: Runaway // Story: Can Time Stand Still? // by xXSheltieXx //------------------------------// Neon Feathers sat at her computer, giggling as she chatted with friends over texts. Her hair filed in front of her face, making her push her black bangs backwards, the dark mass morphing with a beautiful spectrum of rainbow colors. Her wings were large, but folded; the inner feathers were blue, green, and violet. Her outer feathers were red, orange, and yellow. Her mashed up mess of hair went down to her feet, which were just as pale as the rest of her milky skin. She wore a purple jacket over her black shirt and had a black skirt on as she leaned towards her screen, waiting for a reply. She turned her eyes, her silver orbs watching the beads of snow fall and whirl in a snow storm. Neon's room consisted of a black bed with a wooden oak side table and dresser, a closet, and her computer desk and chair. She had three boards on the wall at the head of her bed, which held trophies that shone brightly, showing her expertise in flying, running, and almost every single sport at her school. "Neon!" A voice called from down the stairs. "Neon, get down here this instant!" "Hold on, mom!" She yelled back down. "I'm talking to my friends!" "What part of this instant did you not understand?!" Temperance growled, pushing black hairs out of her face, brushing over her horn. Neon rolled her eyes and got up, walking down the creaky wooden stairs, her feet like rocks smacking on water as if they were thrown into a river, her hands on her hips with a frown as she got to the bottom stair. "What's so important, mom?" Temperance held out Neon's report card in her green magic with a scowl, which held at most C's, maybe one B, but mostly D's and F's. Neon flinched, biting her lip. "I just... I'm... Uh...?" "How many times have I told you to study instead of fly? How many times have I said, open that book, and quit running around the house?" The taller woman growled with her hands on her hips. "Just wait until your father gets home!" "You're dragging dad into this now?" Neon snapped in reply, her wings spreading wide. "He has a right to know what his daughter's been doing, Neon." Temperance narrowed her eyes, facing away from her daughter, muttering, "Such a disappointment." Neon took a step back as if she were struck when she head her mother speak those three words. Her teeth clenched and her mother turned around, realizing just what she had said and done. Neon and Temperance stared at each other for what felt like hours, but was merely about a minute and a half. Neon's tears burned her eyes and cheeks as she watched her mother watch her. "So that's what you think of me? That's what I am? I'm a disappointment?" Neon scowled. "That my little brother is better than I am?" "Don't you dare drag Flash into this!" Her eyes flared as tiny footsteps approached the room of the two arguing women. "What, like you did with dad?!" Neon fired back, her eyes just as anger and hurt filled as her mother's. Everything was silenced with the taps of smaller feet and the echoing sound of a slap, followed by a body falling to the ground. The form on the floor's wings were flared tightly, her ivory hand holding her burning crimson cheek. Flash walked over to his bigger sister, looking at his mother. "Mama... what did you do to Neon?" He murmured, fear in his eyes. His mother had never raised her hand once to either of them, but he'd heard so many times, bragging that he was the perfect child and Neon was just a burden or disappointment. She had never stated it outright, but had said that she'd wished for a smarter daughter. Temperance had never truly connected with Neon, since their personalities clashed and Neon's dubstep aura blasted her classical aura out the window and down the street. Black Booth, their father, had never heard any of that, and had praised Neon so much, his rock aura moving in sync with his daughter's as well as his son's auras. Neon had loved her father so much more than her mother who disapproved of nearly everything the Pegasus did. "I..." She couldn't say anything as the front door creaked open. A tall man with black wings walked into the room, dropping his bag on the ground as he saw his family in such discord. "Neon?" He murmured, swiftly running over to his daughter, who held her cheek with her pearly ivory hand. "Neon, what happened?" Temperance could only shiver as she looked at her right hand, the very one that had so harshly slapped her very own daughter across the face not even five minutes ago. Flash's eyes watered as he began to cry, Black Booth turning to his son. "What happened, Flash?" He asked, picking him up. "Mama... mama and sis were fighting and mama got mad and... and-and she hit her on the cheek!" He choked out, wiping at his eyes. Neon stood from her shocked position, her hand holding her cheek still. She looked at her parents getting into an argument briefly before turning around and walking up the stairs slowly. She went into her room, her eyes hollow, her gaze darkened and dull. She went into her bathroom, looking at her face in the mirror, locking her door. Her cheek was still red, and her left eye began to swell with darkened colors. She turned the bath knob, pumping out warm water quickly. She dipped her feet in it and took her shirt and skirt off, throwing her clothes in her hamper to clean later. Her ivory body gently eased into the warm water, her hair spreading out like a darkened squid that had been overcooked. She took a gray rag, scouring it in warm soap before gently rubbing it on her cheek, which burned. "Son of a bitch," She growled as the pain burnt her cheek for the second time. She sighed, looking at her ceiling. She knew her mother loved her ever since she was little; they'd done so much together before her younger brother was born, and then she was cast aside like she was garbage. Neon now realized that she was merely a wasted bag of bones. Her mother had called her a disappointment, and favored her brother ever since he could walk. She only ever connected with her father, and she could hear him downstairs arguing with her mother. Neon could only make out so much. "What did you do to my daughter?!" Her father yelled. "Your daughter?! I carried her for nine months! She's our daughter!" Her mother screeched in reply. "It doesn't matter, you slapped her over the cheek! For all we know she could be doing anything right now!" "I didn't mean to! Maybe if she listened to me more-" "Now it's her fault she's not a perfect daughter or student?" Neon could hear tiny footsteps running up the stairs in a hurry. A small boy with a horn knocked on his sister's bathroom door, begging to come in. Neon opened the door after wrapping herself in a towel, locking the door and laying against the wall, holding him warmly. "I love you, Flash. Don't ever let anyone say anything different." Neon said with an unconvincing smile. "I love you too, sis, but mama and papa, they're... yelling so loud." "You can't use your words, Temperance!" A deep voice howled. "And you can't even discipline your daughter once!" A lighter voice snapped. Flash held onto his big sister tightly, salty tears running down his cheeks. Neon picked him up and opened the bathroom closet, going in to change into a bathing suit. "How about we drown out the fight with fun?" Neon gave her brother a quirky smile. He nodded and ran into the closet, coming out of it with his own bathing suit on. Neon picked him up and placed him in the tub, stepping in after him. They relaxed in the warm water, but even their idle conversations couldn't drown out their parent's yells. Neon sighed and came up with an idea. "Let's see who can stay underwater the longest." She took a sharp inhale and plunged her head underwater, her brother following through. The two smiled as they looked at each other, not able to hear Temperance and Black Booth fight downstairs. They popped their heads above the water for breath and giggled before the yelling resumed, making both frown. Neon's brow furrowed, picking her brother out of the tub and draining it, giving him a towel to dry off with. She sat on the side of the tub, wishing for him to go to his room; she didn't want him to see her like this. He frowned as he walked over in his pajamas, reaching up to her cheek, making her recoil. "It hurts... doesn't it?" The horned boy asked with a frown and concern. "It's nothing I can't handle, Flash." Neon murmured, looking down at her feet. "Sis..." He whispered. "I can feel that it doesn't only hurt here, but here, too." He pointed at her cheek and then her heart, and she looked away from him, looking at the window where the snow fell peacefully, combining with the 6 inches of snow already on the grass and cement. "Y-Yeah, it does." Neon nodded. "But don't worry about me. It's almost 8, already past your bedtime." "But sis," "Flash, bedtime." Neon's voice hitched. "Okay." He murmured, walking out of his sister's room and laying in his bed, quickly succumbing to sleep. Neon Feathers changed into her usual clothes: a black tank, black jeans, boots, and a purple jacket to put over the tank. She dried her hair out and spread her wings, the water dripping off of her feathers quickly. She tied her hair back and put her goggles around her neck, throwing a bunch of her junk in a string bag. The contents: a journal, a pen, some canned food, water bottles, and a small framed photo. Her door was locked still, not that anybody would be checking soon, as she could still hear her mother and father exchange heated, angry words. She looked in the mirror and put a swatch of bandages on her cheek, taping it down on four sides tightly. She blinked and twitched her eye, getting used to her new bandage. She held her bag on her back, looking at her large window. Neon walked over to it, her hand hovering over the switch to keep it closed, but wavered. Neon stepped back, putting her hand on the cold glass. Was this going to help her? Would running away fix this? She shook her head, walking over to her desk. She opened a Word Document, writing on it for about fifteen minutes. She left her computer on and deleted everything about her; every social networking site, every single picture of Neon Feathers deleted or colored over with black ink in Paint, and now, she was nothing more than a person, not anywhere on the internet. She cleared her entire computer and turned the screen to her bedroom door before walking to the window. A tear cascaded down her cheek, seeping into the bloodied bandage before unlocking the hatch, pushing the window open and jumping out into the cold, frozen world, covered in a white blanket of snow, nothing left in her wake save for a letter, an open window, a cold breeze, some fluttering curtains, and a single feather from her right wing, blue in color to match the pain and sorrow she felt as she flew off into the distance without one look back.