Even without using any power but flight, Danny was all but invisible against the sky. Camouflaged. Shadowless blue against blue. A tiny splinter of color against clouds.
Skylocked, skyshard, they called him. Explorer. Celestial child, and-
He could feel it when the clouds rolled in. Moisture and mist against his skin, their patterns undulating and coiling up his arms and legs and neck like tattoos. The thunderstorms might set his heart twitching, but his scars lit up blue-white and yellow and palest purple.
High enough, the atmosphere tasted like ice, and that was what lay on his tongue when the ghosts came and they wondered-
Why was he staying here? Skytouched. Windswept. Explorer. Could he not see the open world before him and behind? Did the mysteries beyond and above the horizon not beckon? And-
They did. They did and it hurt, his home a barbed-wire wrapped anchor tied to his ankle and he was bleeding. He suffocated on the ground and under air, the fingers of buildings that barely scratched the sky reaching higher than he dared.
His responsibility.
How could he open more doors?
But- How could he stay earthbound when he could fly high enough to see the earth curve away beneath him, all boundaries washed away as human imagination? How could he be satisfied with imagination when he could have truth? Satisfied with the shattered-diamond patterns on his skin when he could have the stars themselves?
He didn't know how much longer he could do this.