Born of starlight and shadows

~Part twenty: Hannah~

"Well, this is unexpected," a girl's voice says, interrupting the steady silence that has settled over the room...cell, since I arrived a few moments ago.

She sounds oddly cheerful for being where she is-like she's commenting on the weirdly good tasting school cafeteria food instead of the fact that I'm now here, in a tiny, cold, prison cell.

Someone else-this time it sounded like a guy, grunts, "You could say that."

It takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust, and when they do, I could see that there are two others in the cell with me. There's just enough light for me to me to make out their features, but barely.

All I can tell is that the girl has bright green eyes, and that-hold up.

A few moments ago, I dragged my eyes to the other corner of the cell, where the guy is to find-holy guacamole and rice!- something is glowing.

It's dim, but it's definitely, definitely there. No, I'm not hallucinating.

"You're staring at me, aren't you?" the same guy asks.

"No..." I say slowly. "I can't see enough to even tell-oh. Wow."

"Not all of us-" the girl spits the name like it's a curse, "-Star children have tiny, little, barely noticeable markings, you know."

"I know, I just never thought..." I don't finish my sentence.

"That one of us would look...how do you-ah, like-?" the guy asks.

He sighs, and after a moment, adds, "Like a...a freak."

"I-"

I look back in the corner of the cell, and now I can see that what is glowing are marks-tattoos?-on the guy's arms. They are arranged in a seemingly random pattern of swirls and spirals, and they're all colored in warm shades, reds, oranges, yellows, and a color that could definitely be considered gold. Oh. And those are what's glowing.

It's a faint, faint glow, but it's there, and its the same color as his eyes-a should-be-impossible golden color that I can now make out in the gloom. I know it sounds weird, but his eyes seemed to be full of fire-like, literally, it was fire.

Lil baby flames just chillin' in his eye sockets, hiding behind all that glittering gold. Except-wait, no, his eyes aren't actually glittering...

No, just sort of illuminating, maybe? No, not maybe-they aren't. They aren't glittering, or illuminating anything.

Argh, I'm doing a terrible job of describing this.

Look, his tattoos/markings/thingies/whatever were glowing with a faintly golden light, which was the same color as his eyes, which seemed to have a bunch of flames dancing behind them. Maybe flickering is a better word than dancing. But anyway. The flames are there. Easy to miss at first, but there.

That's the best description I got for ya of this weird-

I wish that word hadn't just crossed my mind, but now I can't take it back.

I'll at least finish that sentence so you know where I was going:

This weird, mystical...phenomenon? Yeah, that's the right word. I think.

This weird, mystical, phenomenon I was witnessing.

I turn back to the girl, half expecting to see something off about her that I missed the first time. But, no. As far as I can tell, she looks-I don't want to say the word 'normal.' I have reservations about calling people that, about placing labels on them and effectively chucking them into one box or the either.