This is for Joey dearest for GGE. I hope I did this couple justice... ily muy mucho! Thanks to Sam for beta-ing. You're the best.
You've always believed that big girls don't cry; the boys will laugh and the truth sounds better in a voice that doesn't shake. So at an early age, you sharpened your tongue and you kept it at the ready between your teeth and no one thought anything of it. They called you a little spit-fire and they thought your flames were beautiful, unique, untamable. It sounded nice when they put it that way.
But you know better.
Because disaster found you broken. It was a violent end but not for you, and your flames fizzled out. You like to think it was only natural.
And when the smoke cleared, she was dancing in the middle of it all, kicking up the dust and shaking it off. She was one hand waving free and tear-stained cheeks, and you swore there was never anything more beautiful.
How didn't you see it before?
She's your fairy child, skipping barefoot on a breeze, embracing her sadness like an old friend. She wraps her sorrow around her shoulders and she wears it well. She wears it as easily as her radish earrings and you wonder how she does it. You wonder if she could teach you.
She tells you it's all right to be weak sometimes, lets you cry into her shoulder and whispers beautiful nonsense into your hair, cradling your skinned knees in the palms of her hands. She holds your sharp angles and rough edges with care like they are the most precious things about you.
At night, she threads her fingers through your hair, holds your head against her chest, tracing imaginary lines between the freckles on your arm, creating constellations on your pale skin.
And in the morning you wake to her finger painting faces on the walls, two young lovers holding hands and you remember a time when you had a place on her ceiling. You remember a time when having friends was her greatest achievement, and her face lit up whenever you sat with her in the library. You remember reading the Quibbler upside down to make her happy. You remember the way she touched your shoulder whenever she left the room.
How didn't you see it before?
The first time you see a Thestral, she smiles. She walks right up to it with arms outstretched and it throws back its head in greeting. Milky eyes seem to watch you warily out of a black skeletal frame as if you've caught it doing something indecent. Luna doesn't seem to notice.
"Isn't it beautiful, Ginny?" she asks.
Beautiful is not the first word that comes to mind. Ugly, malnourished, devastating perhaps; not beautiful. Not something you really care to think about.
But that's the thing about Luna. She has a way of making you see what you could never see before. That there is meaning behind it all. That she knows it too. And none of it is the Thestral's fault.
So you put a gentle hand to its side, feeling the spaces between each rib, wondering if it hurts to be so sad. Thestrals don't wear sorrow the same way Luna does, but perhaps it's best if you don't expect them to. That wouldn't be a fair comparison, would it?
"They're not bad, I suppose," you say. "They're… sweet."
Luna looks at you thoughtfully. "Who did you see?"
You don't have to ask what she means, and it makes you shiver. You can't remember. You don't try very hard, but even if you did, you doubt you could remember. There are so many flashes of color that haunt your vision, but it's always the green that makes you choke on your heart in your throat. There are so many faces with blurry yet too familiar features and it's enough to make you sick to your stomach. You don't know if you could list them all, so you give her the closest answer to the truth that you can find.
"Everyone."
"Luna?"
She looks up with big eyes that reflect everything. You can practically see yourself in them, until she's too close and all you see are the tiny green flecks in blue irises and a bit of purple paint on her forehead, and you are so bloody distracted.
"Ginny?" she says, bringing you back to the moment at hand. She cocks her head to the side. "Did you want to tell me something?"
"I…" You trail off because all the words you want to say seem stupid, but she only nods in understanding.
"Wrackspurt got your tongue? Here, let me fix that."
You've never believed in Wrackspurts, and it's moments like this when you have a feeling Luna really doesn't either. But you're not going to question it now.
Her lips are warm against your own, and you almost expect her to say your kisses taste like Dirigible plums, but she doesn't.
She just says, "Thank you."
And maybe that's what you wanted to say anyway. Maybe, just maybe that's what you meant all along.