Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men.
Time.
Celeste grips her pillow, the only signs of emotion left in her brutally young body being the tightening of fingers, the clenching of bone and muscle, the terrified contraction of self. Her hair stands on end as she feels the fire fizzle inside her veins. She wants to feel again. She thinks she would miss feeling if she could.
It hurts, pretending to be a normal girl all day. Mother has long since closed down the school and sent them away because she can no longer stand to see the last remaining fragments of the Thousand-In-One, the false children, the created kin. Mother does not even have the excuse of a diamond heart. She just does not love them.
Mother is as cold and hard as the Cuckoos themselves. She may be a better actress than they, she may pretend she gives a damn, but Celeste hears the naughty things her mind whispers at night, when she knows her girls are listening. Mother's presence - her vast, overwhelming being - is a warning to the girls to always remain detached and timeless. As if they had a choice.
Mother is a shining example of what not to be.
Time.
Phoebe lays on her back, her figure relaxed into the bed. Her room is sandwiched in between those of her sisters, and their minds are for once unlinked. They are learning how to be not-the-same, because it creeps-people-out. Phoebe vaguely remembers disliking humans for their fear of those stronger than they.
The Phoenix fire bubbles up under her skin, and her eyes pulse white-hot as, in one brilliant instant, she forces her way into the consciousness of every student of this fancy Sapien school. Beds creak as their occupants thrash, peaceful rest disturbed by the fire. If Phoebe can't sleep for the burning, then neither can they.
The fire subsides back into her heart, taking with it the giddy rush of emotion it always brings. She knows it is dangerous to give the Phoenix such free reign, but Celeste never gave her a choice when she forced the fire into their souls, so Phoebe is keeping secrets from her. The Phoenix may someday burn her to ash, but for now she can control it, and the fire is better than anything.
The fire is life.
Time.
Mindee is the only one who sleeps easy, most nights. When they sleep with their minds intertwined - rarer and rarer, these days - she can let herself wash over them, settling Celeste's not-quite-panic and Phoebe's fire lust. Mindee can play doctor to her sisters when they sleep as one being in three beds, but only when she is allowed to know every facet of their minds as intimately as they know hers.
Mindee knows her sisters for the personalities they once had - Celeste, the supine, always vaguely frantic over a mother they never knew existed, and Phoebe, the choleric, always just barely keeping her raw need from overrunning their shared consciousness. They used to be three facets of a five-sided girl. Now they are boxes built to keep in the fire.
She wraps her minds around things slowly, piecing together every bit of soul and persona she can, until she's come up with patchwork quilts made out of their old selves, quilts they can wrap around themselves during the day to keep the Sapiens feeling safe. This is Phoenix work, but with no Phoenix to do it, it falls to the hands of a little girl. If Mindee knows one thing about herself, and her sisters, it's that they are all falling apart, across millennia and dimensions, and that this coming storm is even worst than the last.
If Mindee knows one thing, it's that the Cuckoos must get ready to fly.
Time.