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They don't all come at the same time for all people. It could grow in the moment your born. Or when you're two, three, four, five.
It can grow with friends—it's not uncommon. Not common either. People believe it to be a mark of soulmates, having your wings grow in together. That your growth coincides with the person that shares your time with you.
It's a wondrous thing, painless and beautiful. Each stage of feathers, of wings, marking your growth—in yourself as a person as you learn of who you want to be, of who you are. The feathers coming into color. The strength of them teaching you to fly—teaching you how to soar through the air.
It's freeing—it's freedom.
They're not supposed to change.
It's your soul.
It's your heart on your sleeve except it's growing out of your back even clearer for the world to see—feathers flaring in a beautiful array of colors.
They're not supposed to change.
Jinx gets them after the bridge incident. When she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, or hold on tight to the one thing she has left in her life.
She's Powder at this point. And her smiles are real and wide—and she can feel the joy in her chest with each grin. The way her wings flutter weakly, too small to do much more than be acessory.
They're blue—small weak things that fluff up with her emotions. Spots of brown dotting areas of new growth, places they've yet to reach.
Even down in Zaun everyone knows the meaning of each type of wing. Marks of your soul can't escape the stereotypes surrounding.
Wings of the bluebird, they claim hers is.
"Fitting," Vi says, eyes darting to her choppy powder blur hair. A smirk dances across her lips as her grey heron wings curl around Powder's smaller form.
"My little bluebird," Vander smiles as he ruffles her hair with his large hands. Owl-ish wings flare behind him pridefully.
"Naive," Mylo sneers. His chest puffed out in pride, falcon feathers raised in intimidation.
Claggor says nothing, a small smile playing on his lipes. The glare of the goggle lenses hiding his eyes. His swan wings—covered in the soot and ash ot the Undercity—stay tucked flush against his back. He looks proud.
They grow. Continue growing. The blue vibrant and not yet marred by the grime of the Undercity. They're small, fitting to her stature.
They don't let her fly, but they slow her descent as she runs across rooftops. She's several paces behind her sister, behind Mylo, behind Claggor, but she's never felt so free.
Ahead of her, they glide down from falling. Flying the larger distances. Not for one second does she think that of she were a little stronger, a little bigger, they wouldn't have to have their feet on the ground for even a second. Because she's in the air for minutes—seconds—longer than she's ever been before.
Vi left her. She—they (because Mylo is gone, because Claggor is too. Because Vander was never here on the first place)—left her here. Vi looks her in the eyes, tells her to stay. When she tries to run past, large wings block the door, shoving her into the room. The click is soft, but it echoes in her brain. Gone, gine, gone, it yells like she doesn't already know.
Mouse is useless. She winds him up but all he does is click, click, click. Jaw opening and closing but not detonating.
She can help, she swears she can.
The building is in flames and everyone is gone (your fault, always your fault. They left because you were useless. Then—then they left because you killed them).
And Vi is gone, gone, gone. Behind a wall of flames in building full of ghosts.
She doesn't—never—remembers when the feathers start turning black.
Jinx is chaos. She is destruction. Her bombs are a message—they are an artwork that paints the streets red with blood. Paints it black with scattered asohalt and the scent of gunpowder.
Jinx is human.
She hears the rumoes pass the streets. "She has no soul," they claim. "Wingless. She glides through the air but she has no soul."
It's a lie. She has wings thay stretch the span of her back. They stay tied down firmly, wrapped in layers of rope hidden by a coat colorful with grafitti and markings.
She's long since forgotten the ache of not using them. Of not preening them (because preening is for families and Jinx—Jinx killed hers).
She doesn't remember when blue feathers started mixing with black. When the tips started fading of color, when her entire wingspan was nothing but a midnight void.
She stopped checking too—stopped hoping the color would come back. That she would remember what the sky looked like when it was attached to her shoulder blades.
Jinx learns, too. She learns what they are, what they mean and maybe—
Maybe the rumors aren't too far off.
Crow wings, black as midnight. As the sky that higs the moon.
Transformation, adaptation, change.
The bridge between death (a murder of crows, except she's alone and it's all. Her. Fault).
Powder is gone (fell deep, down, down the well. The rope has been frayed and cut and gone beyond repair) and she is Jinx.
She never learned to fly—never learned the freedom of defying gravity. Of soaring through the air hundreds of feet above ground.
Too small when she was Powder. Too weak as Jinx.
Standing up here, against her sister. Against Vi (stands for Violence, stands for Violet, stands for—) and the Pilte Enforcer. Caitlyn.
She wonders if it would be better if she could. If the ropes tied around her wings, ripping into her skin, were looser.
If it would be better if her wings could flare out and rip through the ropes. If she could feel the wind under her feathers.
As it stands, she can't. They stay firmly pressed against her back and she has no weapins.
The barrel of a gun aims directly at her head as she teeters the edge of the ledge. Vi is reaching out, she's saying something. She knows, can see her lips moving, but rhe air is rushing past her ears and there's nothing to listen to.
Jinx—Jinx has never fallen before.
She's always jumped.
It's a lot more peaceful than she expected.