Chapter Text
[DESTINATION]
[TRAJECTORY]
REBELLION
It was almost a cruel joke, Taylor thought, staring at the little rectangle in her hand, that the very first thing she made, was to destroy more of her mother's legacy. It was with almost a fevered need that she'd woken up in the middle of the night, plagued by nightmares of having lost her mother's flute, desperate to not see herself in the brand new set of vanity mirrors that had been her father's christmas present for her along with a set of hair care goods, and found herself drawn to the basement, where she tore open the box labeled Annette's Music Stuff and did… whatever this was to it.
The cassettes that held the songs she'd been writing were overwritten, and with them her last opportunity to ever hear that flute again. But, at least, she felt with certainty as she pressed the button, it wouldn't be her own face in the mirror anymore. Her body filled with static, her perspective shifted, and in the handheld mirror she beheld a face with large eyes, feelers instead of hair, and a domino mask. It was an electric rush, as the magnetic tape turned the emotion of human imagination into a physical reality around her.
Her wings flared, and she knocked over a box. A sound upstairs made her realize that perhaps she'd alerted her father. She should change back, put this all away. This done, she just had to fight the wave of exhaustion to stay awake, and explai
She didn't go to school that morning, and that might have saved her life. Not her living alive life, but rather her on track to leave behind high school bullshit and graduate into college life. From a certain perspective it was almost the same thing. She wasn't sure, exactly, what would have happened if she had been in school instead of the hospital for her fainting spell and the resulting knock to her head when the police came to investigate the mess that turned out to have been in her locker.
She was sure Emma and her cronies had thought it would be funny to watch her get arrested for “felony vandalism” as the police who showed up at the hospital had put it. Her father had asked if they had her on tape from the hallway security cameras vandalizing her own locker. When it turned out they hadn't checked the tapes, just accepted the word of a random student, her father had asked why they were here instead of getting those tapes.
They hadn't come back. Neither had her father, who had gone to find a phone he could use without disturbing her.
Honestly she already felt better, and a bit fussed over, and she wanted to leave as soon as he returned. She vaguely understood that he wanted to make sure whatever wild rumors were running around the school didn't impact their insurance, but she just wanted to go home. She had built a costume, but she wanted to be a hero and just a costume wouldn't be enough to do it.
The things she needed were just on the tip of her… ear? There was a brief snatch of music that she almost unheard, somewhere in the hospital. It suggested something, but she wasn't quite sure what, and she needed to jot this down so she could try and write it manually. It went beyond the range of her hearing before she could find a pen.
Maybe she could keep an ear open. Maybe she'd hear something else. For now, she had an idea for how to improve a microphone to hear on the frequency she was listening at…