~:~
down here in the atmosphere
(garbage and city lights)
you gotta save your tired soul
you gotta save our lives
~:~

she had spent the better part of her life as a child of the streets-- roaming them and learning the ways of concrete and steel since the age of sixteen. she wasn't your average homeless case, though-- she'd had a happy life living with her brother, samuel, and his girlfriend julia. nights with them were spent lounging; her and samuel's guitars chashing julia's amazing soprano. and her days, for a time, were spent at school.

eventually though, fate would work her spell, and change things. samuel and julia grew more serious and committed in their relationship-- in a way that a little sister just didn't fit into. payton had been happy for them, of course, and wished them well in a tear-stained letter that waited for the two on the overstuffed couch; where many a night had been spent curled with the two, watching movies meant to frighten them, but instead only made them laugh.

due to a pitiable aura that hovered around the girl (something that denied her true nature, to no fault of her own), finding odd jobs around new york's streets wasn't too difficult. she waited on your tables. she pumped your gas. she bagged your groceries. you never really noticed her. she breathed through this just as she had everything else in life. she existed-- she did not live.

nights were spent stargazing on a studio balcony that barely spared enough room for the petite, macilent girl. dingy blue eyes were cast skyward-- searching the atmosphere for answers that never came. she longed for change; for a reason to break out of the skittish shell she'd formed around herself, in the name of survival on the streets. it was only when starvation ran rampant, and money didn't run at all, that the threads of true reality began to weave their way into payton's pattern. by then, she wasn't a stranger to the things that lurked in nighttime's blessed shadows. she knew enough to stay alive-- she even made allies in the worst of the worst kind of vampires for the sake of protection and profit. but this wasn't enough. there had to be something else; there had to be more than this... she shouldn't feel so old and broken at such an insatiable age of seventeen.

it was that night, when she was coiled up on the metal grating of a balcony not fit for kings, but for crackheads, that it happened. she watched as the stars poured down like salt over her head, and wondered if the rest of the city could see such an outrageous meteor shower. they, of course, did not. she watched as colors became truer; more vibrant-- and little did she know that her eyes began to spin as she drank these dreamlike sights in: reeling in the threads of the tapestry at ungodly speeds, rendering her eyes a stark, unreal shade of electric blue. like a deer caught in headlights, she watched as the falling stars formed a shape, taking on the form of a sleek, black panther; she watched as the being crept towards her: outlined in a smattering of star-dusted silver, poured from the constellation of enyicara.

questing avatars never really beg a new mage's permission to meld inside of them. this applied to payton as well. eye to eye with the animal now, hers soon squeezed shut when she began to feel suffocated; ripped apart and put back together again as the avatar fused herself with payton's deepest core-- her conscience, her subconscious, her nature and her will. she felt electrifying, static sensations from her scalp to her toes: she could even swear she saw fragments of weak, miniscule lightning eminate from her fingertips.

"why me? this isn't a joke, right? it's... not a dream?" she whispered, as she crumpled to her side against the bare window that served as her entry and exit from the balcony.

this is not a dream... enyicara purred; and the sound seemed to come from everywhere, inside and outside of the young girl. in time, you will learn your purpose.

after this, payton slept for three days, and three nights-- sent on what would be the first of a plethora of seekings. she learned the basics, she was told everything she needed to know, yet in limited form. it was explained to her she should follow her heart on her path to ascension; that in due time, a mentor will find her, and if she has walked correctly, their tradition will match her path, her purpose, and her preferences.

when payton awoke, it became painfully obvious to her that she would never flourish on her path in the congestion of the city. still, she had no means to leave, and was scared to leave a job that kept her both financially, and physically secure. but a twist in fate would lead her into the desert; what started out as a simple day window shopping would end up in a carride across the country, with two complete strangers. leaving everything behind, payton abandoned the city, for the vast beauty of the desert-- attaching herself, and reinventing herself to and with new elements that caused her power to flourish. the sphere's of life, mind, and spirit became her expertise, while those of entropy and correspondence, and time were secondary.

her path was considerably light-- there wasn't a drop of evil in the frail girl (though pray for those who cross her loved-ones: that they not fall to the most terrible rote discovered by accident: and not without cost to this starchild..), however aimless wandering caused paradox to knock on her door more than once, and now Quiet threatened cooly to her in whispers that antagonized the panther avatar in a wolf's form. everyone payton had come to know in the past had disappeared-- a mentor she depended on gone, a best friend she had nearly grown to love.. gone. the girl was lost now-- wandering from realm to realm, finding herself in cities she never remembered arriving in, and fantasy-bleeding places that were such eye candy to her, and these were the places she could grow attached to; paradox wasn't as bad here; reminiscent to the nights beneath the desert stars, when she seemed untouchable.

~~:~~

~~:~~
i'm waiting for the sky to fall--
i'm waiting for a sign...

in time, and after a Seeking that wore down both body and mind, that whisper that was nearly a year old now was answered. the girl learned what her true destiny and path would be--something terrible to swallow, but was birthed from childhood wish, and she had no choice now, but to fufill.

friends, family and love would be re-evaluated; some meaningless and damaging tossed aside, and the rest (a cool-water sister, and blood-sibling returned in the hands of anguish) cherished, and clutched ever-close. one in particular...

the promise of engagement came chasing the heels of wintertime: a season where this girl of atmosphere-air was that much sharper; clear like ice: wild-eyed and sharp. open. a love like this was unreal to this starlit thing, who made a habit out of chasing constellations she never could reach. elopement came six days shy of the Winter Solstice wedding date (though celebration would still be had); middle of the night like lovers on the run, swept up by moments.

nickolas was her anchor: with him, she could fly free: and with him, she never forgot who she was.

raw-skinned and teeth-bared, she would no longer cower from her fate.

~:~
you're fallin' out of reach
defyin' gravity
~:~



~:~
i know you're out there
somewhere out there
~:~

b a c k