( • innocence, pt. i • )

"Careful, sister."

Under a pale star that brings the day to melt life into the earth, I trace careful steps across the cracks of a field made from ice. The winter has never been this harsh before. The skyscrapers have raced to tower over feet of snow that bury the glass of the city roads and the doors to the downtown shops. Every step is crunched and remembered, and I leave a trail for travelers to know I was here before them. We pass through uncharted territory with ease, using each other as crutches over sharp pits of blue.

"I've got it," I exclaim, stepping over another pit of ice that has dented itself into the perfect surface of the earth. She takes my hand anyway and helps me stabilize as I press into cracking ice again.

"The sooner we get through this ice field, the quicker we can find those blueflies."

The fireflies have turned blue to adapt to the weather that has turned home into something of another world. This season has gone on for far too long, and we're making the better of it by finding a few and catching them.

We trail through the last cracks just on the outskirts of our city. After reaching the field of snow just beyond, hundreds of hidden little blue pulses scatter around the white. The trees that surround the field play as a barrier in black, the wood being the dark to the constant light that shines with the horizon.

"We've made it," Libra says. Her voice is soft, and she uses her heated breaths to take in what sits before her.

"That we have," I say, standing next to her, "It's not far, but it takes a while to get here."

"Isn't it crazy? It feels not long ago when the snow started to fall, and now it won't stop. It'll be burying us all before we know it," she lowers her backpack hanging from her shoulder, "It's like the sun has glazed over. The heat isn't doing anything."

"I'd say this is beautiful," I contrast. She pulls out two containers in the shapes of spheres and hands one to me. "Winter has always been my favorite."

"When something is constant, it becomes repetitive," she reminds me. "Don't you remember what they taught us?"

"You should know I don't care much for our guardians," I grab the sphere and open it with a twist. The glass is sturdy enough not to shatter with a single press.

"They've given these gifts to us. We're not human anymore, and we should be grateful," she says.

"We're experiments of gods, Libra. Our names are taken from those of greater power, and we shouldn't be. We're a danger to society," I growl. She leaves the backpack to be bitten by the snow as it tries to freeze the handles dangled out. She sneaks toward one of the fireflies beaming around aimlessly, without an ounce of worry, and waits for the right moment to act.

"We're here to protect society. We're the future of the human race," she says.

"We're the end of the human race," I say.

"The end lies in the future, little sister," she reminds me, jumping to catch and enclose the firefly in the sphere. "We're only here to drag it out, you understand? We just have to listen to our guardians. They will tell us what to do."

"They're human, too. They want power and control, and we're the epitome of that."

"If they wanted so, they would've taken your branches for themselves. They've given them to you, instead. You hold something they don't."

"Why did they give them to me, then? What makes me valuable to them?"

"Innocence," she says. She raises the sphere to show me her capture, and it brings me a realization I've had yet to understand. The branches never tell me everything.

Within the glass ball in her palm, a fluttering firefly with a blue, gleaming pulse swirls to explore its cage. It shines with a purity that doesn't allow darkness to find it. It doesn't know pain like we do, and like a child, cries for happiness. Just as it does, I find I am the one locked in the cage, equal to the insect. I'm trapped inside, my abilities concealed, and only the ones who gave me my abilities can maneuver my actions.

I was once a child before I became Aries. I was different then, my thoughts human and irrational. I was innocent, with little knowledge of fear, and was perfect for holding the decisive, delicate persuasion of time. I follow branches to lure decisions, and I am the master of manipulating the dangers that come with the unknown.

I am the only one that knows where the ends of the universe hide.