They say we are what we are, but we don't have to be

He was usually such a cheerful boy. A ray of sunshine on a stormy day, a constant smile on a clouded face. That kind of kid, you know? And had she come to him on another day she may have encountered that cheerful boy. He probably would have laughed at her joke, grinning broadly and puffing up his feathers to enhance his small stature. "He'd better look out!" Zero would have agreed, lopsided grin illuminating red and silver sunbeam eyes. On a normal day Zero would have pushed aside his troubles, because what use were troubles when you were Zero the Badass, and the whole world was practically yours?

But today he wasn't Zero the Badass, and the world was not his. Today the boy was Zèklè the Grumpy, Zèklè the Lame, Zèklè the abandoned son of a stupid father who didn't care about him, the broken offspring of a powerful mother he could never measure up to. Today he was just Zèklè the Failed Inventor Who Couldn't Even Get His Stupid Golem to Work. Today the boy was just a boy- no. It was worse than that, really, worse than Megaera could ever have known.

Because today Zero was a teenager, and teenagers have little interest in being cheery little boys, or being reasonable, or really much of anything at all besides his misery and his anger and his, ugh, hormones.

He glowered at the Sunspear as she landed in the dust, powerfully bitter- she was just showing off, rubbing the boy's disability in his face. Zero pressed his body down, wing pulling tight against his side as he unconsciously shifted so she'd see that side, and not the broken one. He let his ears sit back, reveling in the ease of his anger, sinking further into himself as her friendly words crashed against his skull. He wasn't even close to tall, and she knew that! She just said it to make him feel bad! Did she even know who his father was? Of course she did! his mind raged back. That's why she said it! Because she knows I'll never be good enough!

(The teenage boy's brain is not a rational thing.)

He shied away as she slid to a stop, the movement pointed, angry and abrupt. He wished that the ground would swallow up his rocks, hide them away from her. What right did she have to look at them like that, little pieces of his soul he'd scattered on the ground. How did she know they weren't listening to him? Could she really see his failure so clearly? Or maybe Gaucho told her... The idea made his blood boil. Yeah, Gaucho had probably warned her about him, or worse, asked her to look out for his damaged son. The lightning child could picture the conversation. Someone has to keep an eye on him, Gaucho would have said, But he's so worthless I don't want to. Meg would have groaned, but agreed because Gaucho was in charge and everyone listened to him.

On a normal day Zero would have told Meg the truth, but today was a weird day, and he was in a bad mood, so he decided to try his hand at something new. Lying.

"No," the lightning boy snapped, raising his eyes to star up at Meg. "It's fine." His body posture begged her to challenge the assertion, and his mind ached for a fight. "I'm doing fine, an' it's all gonna be great, so you can go tell Gaucho he can keep ignorin' me an' I'm just perfectly fine!"