lexie was tired, so she did was she always did when she was tired. climbed up out of her window and went for a walk.

see lexie didn't sleep. ever. it wasn't like she only slept occasionally and for a couple of hours or anything like that, it was like she literally never slept. never had either. she got tired, sure, but she just walked it off and it went away. her parents had noticed when she was a baby, but eventually they stopped noticing and stopped remembering it wasn't normal. she wasn't sure what they thought she did all night. occasionally they would ask her how she slept, and she would just look at them until they nodded and turned back to their coffee or tv or whatever had their attention at the moment. sometimes she got the feeling they thought she had responded.

that wasn't the only way lexie was unique. she could also turn things to fire. there is a distinction between lighting things on fire and turning them into fire, and that should be made very clear. for something to light on fire it has to catch on fire. it's savable. if lexie decided something should be fire, it just became fire. things that were easier to light were easier to turn, but lexie had been practicing and could even turn soft metals to fire. her parents had also forgotten about that. people have a tendency to forget things that don't make sense in their world, and a daughter like lexie certainly didn't make sense in her parents' world. their world was very normal, and lexie was very not.

sometimes lexie used her powers for good. at night she would do things like burn a house down where someone wealthy lived and steal anything she could take for anyone who needed it or find bad people (kidnappers, rapists, etc) and just light them on fire a little. or a lot. she usually tried not to think about the possibility that everyone didn't survive their burns. and when she did she reminded herself that they deserved it.

today she wasn't doing any of her usual nighttime activities. tonight she was following a girl she saw around every once in a while and absolutely did not trust. or maybe she just wanted an excuse to follow her. that is yet to be determined.

unfortunately, this girl was not exactly easy to follow. she liked to stick to the rooftops, while lexie preferred to keep her feet firmly on the ground. she wasn't scared of heights (or at least she wouldn't admit it), but she also didn't have any way to actually get onto the roof. she had yet to see how the girl got up there, and because she had only ever seen her on the roof she tended to think she just never got down.

there was a fair amount she did know about the girl, like the fact that she never put her hair up, she never looked down, and she didn't really seem to have any method to anything. there was also a lot she didn't know. like where she slept. or if she lived with her parents. or even how old she was. lexie wasn't sure if she wanted to find those things out, but she kept following her, watching her jump from rooftop to rooftop. lexie was very good at not thinking about things, which was probably how she managed to not think about how completely abnormal her behavior was. if she had stopped to think, she might have realised that constantly following someone she didn't know was completely not ok. unfortunately she hadn't, and unfortunately she had also been wrong about the amount the girl looked down. she had certainly been seen, and many times at that. in fact, the girl was watching lexie as much as she was watching the girl.

but we're getting ahead of ourselves. lexie did not yet know the girl knew more about her than she did the girl or that the girl had a far less sincere reason for following her. and as we have established, lexie hardly had a good reason.

lexie, blissfully unaware of the girl's knowledge or plan, continued to follow. perhaps she should have been more careful to watch where she was going. perhaps she never should have followed her in the first place. perhaps then she would have been home for breakfast instead of sitting on the edge of a balcony, trying not to look down.

lexie was running along, keeping her eyes on the girl as she jumped from rooftop to rooftop. suddenly, lexie tripped, took her eyes off the girl in order to catch her footing, and was flying through the air and set on someone's balcony.

"what-" lexie looked up to find the girl standing in front of her, bright red hair blowing in the wind.

"hello. you've been following me for so long," the emphasis made lexie extremely nervous, "that i just thought we had to meet!"

"who... how... what..." lexie was completely caught off guard and had no idea where to start.

"yes, i'm sure you have a lot of questions." the girl smiled, which did not help lexie feel any more at ease. she reminded her of a tiger about to kill its prey. "all in due time."

"why am i here?" lexie finally got her voice back, but she was not pleased to find it sounded uncertain and not nearly as tough as she would have liked.

"god? natural selection? fate? choice?" the girl shook her head and laughed, an almost sweet sound that caught lexie off guard. "there's so many possibilities, we could be here all day."

"no! why am i right here. with you. on this balcony." she motioned at their surroundings as she spoke. "how am i up here? who on earth are you? how the fuck do you expect me to get down-" she stopped suddenly when the girl caught her arms and held them still.

"stop!" she laughed. "keep motioning like that and we're both going to end up on the ground."

lexie wrenched her arms away. "let go of me and answer my questions."

"alright alright," she took a step toward lexie, and lexie backed up until she hit the rail. "i'm enyo. i brought you up here. i thought we should talk."