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The warm reddish pink was from her mother, and the soft almost purple brown was from her father. Other than her own (dull almost flesh toned pink) those two colors made up most of her wingspan, feathers still slightly fluffy in her youth.
Of course, like most people she had sprinkles of other colors tucked away too- a kind yellow-green from her fourth grade teacher, a stripped purple feather from her aunt, sprinkled yellow and bright feathers from her little brother, who’s own wings were still mostly just soft down.
Hitomi and Sayaka- her two old dear friends both had quite a few rows themselves, a refined mossy green and playful bubbly blue respectively. She’d never admitted as much out loud, but she’d been ecstatic at Sayakas contribution the most- in that selfish way children can often be- pleased with the sharp electric colors contrast with the rest of her more gentle pallet.
Madoka couldn’t fly yet, though that was hardly unusual for a girl her age- but she could flutter shakily into the air for a few seconds, and if she was up high enough, she could sort of glide in a way that was honestly a bit more like prolonging her fall. She was envious sometimes, of other kid’s wingspans in her grade- some people have more love and some people have less, she supposed- but then she’d feel guilty, because she’d definitely met others with wings smaller than her own.
Her parents would always assure her that her own wings would grow in time- as she learned to love herself more, as adults often did, more comfortable in their own skin. Not to mention with the addition of more friends and loved ones as she grew up. She believed them of course, and it always sounded so reasonable when they were talking! But then she’d be alone in her room at night, the stretching hands of the dark pulling the curtain of her thoughts aside, head swarmed with fears and doubts.
Would her wings ever get bigger? What if she never made any more friends? What if she lost the ones she already had? What if she was destined to be unremarkable, and plain, and selfish?
Madoka sighed, burying her head into her own pink pillow, and tried to fall asleep.
The floor is a crumble of broken black and white. The sky shakes and collapses on itself, multicolored fire burning it down, down, down, falling all around her.
A small white creature sits in front of her. Its eyes are red. They don’t blink.
Skyscrapers crash and the world screams along with the girl in the sky- glossy black hair tangled and bloody, clothes torn and singed, skin bruised and spurting red, she falls.
And falls, and falls.
Madoka keeps expecting her wings to flash open, to catch herself, to at least slow her mad descent towards the crumbling earth. She doesn’t. That’s when Madoka realizes it.
She doesn’t have any wings.
She looks down at the white creature, tears springing to her eyes- heart aching, bleeding, tearing, for this girl- falling all alone.
“Doesn’t- doesn’t she have anybody? Does no one love her?” Madoka cries, suddenly feeling sick, feeling so horrid and awful and stupid, because there’s something wrong, wrong, wrong- because that girl does have someone, she has-
Madoka wakes up with a start, gasping great heaving breaths in the foggy morning’s dawn, heart pounding furiously in her chest. It takes her a moment to remember where she is, to remind herself to calm down, that there’s nothing to worry about. That everything is okay.
A dream. It was just a dream. A really vivid one maybe…but still. Nothing to freak out about. No reason for this sudden helpless grief that clings to her. This feeling of profound loss.
(She hasn’t lost anything- has she?)
So Madoka gets up, groaning a bit in mild frustration- her hair is a mess from all the tossing and turning she did, and her back aches for much the same reason. Her beds a disaster too, pillows tossed and blankets on the floor, tossed carelessly by her flailing. With a sigh she bends down to pick her things up.
She’d in the middle of brushing her teeth when her mama comes in, probably to join her in their shared daily routine- when suddenly she stops with a shocked gasp, causing Madoka to spin worriedly around to face her.
Her mother’s eyes are wide and her mouth is parted in surprise, a look Madoka doesn’t see often from the normally composed and in-charge woman.
“Y-your wings!” Is all she gets out, but it’s enough- and Madoka quickly snaps them out, anxiety rising in her chest in a tidal wave of cold fright- what if Sayaka hates her now and all her blue feathers fell off? What if her Auntie died and this is how they learn about it, her purple feathers turning pitch black?
However, spreading her wings it doesn’t look like she lost a single feather. Quite the opposite in fact.
Bottles of perfume and soap and conditioner smash into the ground, a shelf full of towels beside her jostles, almost tipping over despite its weight- her mother has to take a alarmed step back so at to not be potentially knocked over- because- because Madoka’s once ordinary average and perfectly boring wings are suddenly huge.
They span the entire width of her bathroom, and even then they’re cramped for space still- bent slightly against the wall and mirror respectively to fit. They’re the biggest wings she’s ever seen on a child, or even on an adult- they’re twice the size of her mother’s!
That in itself would be shocking enough, but they’re incredible in more than just their size now- because instead of a pinkish wing mostly with large patches of other colors she now has almost completely black wings. The other colors are still there- now spread out like stars in an ebony galaxy- but still! Black! She has giant black wings!
Everybody knows that feathers only turn black when somebody dies- no one is born with naturally black feathers. It’s why a lot of cultures wear black at funerals, why crows are considered bad luck, and why most religions death gods have the pitch dark color in their motifs.
And yet, her wings are still black. But still, even as she can hear her mama panic- fuzzy and dimly, almost in the background of her thoughts- she notices, that in the shining light of the bathrooms white bulbs, her wings actually aren’t just black. They’re multicolored, glimmering and iridescent, like oil on water or a dark beetles shining back.
Beautiful, she thinks, before her mother grabs her shoulder and she snaps out of her daze.
She still ends up going to school despite the panic and confusion of her morning- she begged her parents to let her go actually- she has no idea what she’s feeling. Either she’s excited and can’t wait to show her friends, or she’s terrified and doesn’t want to drag the drama out, but either way, she helps nothing by sitting at her house and worrying.
Plus, she flies! Actually flies to school! It’s amazing really, all the descriptions, the movie scenes, the swelling love songs with fanciful metaphors about air and wing beats- they still pale in comparison with the actual feeling. It’s a freedom so sharp and wild she’s certain she’s never felt it before- a burst of warmth and love for everything, for herself, sweeping away the doubt and shame and anxiety she seemingly always carries; leaving her breathless and smiling so hard her mouth hurts.
She lands stumbling beside her two friends who cheer and burst into congratulations, voices raised and cheeks pink with glee and shared celebration.
Still, after the excitement and squealing fades a bit Sayaka tilts her head and asks;
“So what’s up with the color? I know you said that no one you know has died, and like that’s great and stuff, but why are they black?” Madoka shrugs in response, foot twisting awkwardly on the stone pathway. She doesn’t know, doesn’t have even a clue, despite how obvious it is that the feathers are from-
Huh. How weird.
The bell rings.
There’s a transfer student joining them today, which would be normally enough for their class to break out in whispers anyway- but Madoka’s sudden change from having average looking wings to having the biggest pair of them in the room means that the classroom is in barely concealed hysterics.
So not everyone is paying attention when the new girl walks in- but Madoka is. In fact, she’s pretty sure she’s never paid so much attention to something in her life.
Because she knows this girl. It’s all familiar; her flowing black hair, draping luxuriously down to her skirt, her posture, stiff and formal , her eyes, cold and precise and an mesmerising purple. And her wings- or rather, her lack of.
The girl turns to write her name on the board and the class lets out a collective gasp before falling silent- it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why.
The skin of her wings is bare and pink, muscle and bone barely hidden by the prickled fleshy skin surrounding. There’s not even a hint of feathers, no baby fluff, no black wisps to symbolize death, not even a few paltry plumes of a stranger or neighbor or acquaintance.
It’s horrible. And it only gets worse once Madoka understand what the bareness really means- that this girl doesn’t love herself even a little. She doesn’t even like herself. Madoka’s never heard of this happening- sure, she knows that some people only have a few feathers for themselves, or some people will even pick at their own wings- another form of self-harm- but they grow back within seconds! That’s just how it all works! You can’t keep a wing completely bare! It’s impossible.
Or it should be.
It should be.
Somewhere else in the city a group of nurses scratch the back of their heads, murmuring to each other in confusion. Hospitals can be places of loneliness, of sadness and loss- they’re used to picking up a few molted feathers, no matter how it heavies their hearts to do so.
But they’ve never seen something like this- a whole bed, covered in feathers- every single one of them pitch black.
Sayaka shakes her head stubbornly, fist tightening at her side.
“I knew something was weird with that transfer student! With wings like that, I mean, clearly she’s not the kind of person you love.” Sayaka states aggressively, not noticing Mami’s slight flinch, her own wings tucking into her body further.
Madoka winces, wringing her hands- she loves Sayaka, but sometimes she can really be too blunt! And as smart as she could be, also a tad oblivious. Mami didn’t have that many feathers herself, a few patches of small golden flakes, lots of black- (her parents, the thought made Madoka tear up)- and an odd trail of a deep blood like crimson.
But it’s not just Sayakas insensitivity towards Mami that upsets her, but her harsh words towards Akemi-san.
She has no reason to like the girl, even if she might have dreamed about her- she’s cold and rude, seems to always be watching them, and gives off an aura of being barely stable. Plus, she’s trying to fight Mami, or something, and she hurt Kyubey! Mami even said she was probably just trying to prevent them from contracting so that she could have all the witches for herself.
But… Madoka can’t help it- she feels bad for her. Her eyes are always so empty, shoulders slumped with exhaustion. When she speaks it’s like she’s just reciting lines of a play that her parents signed her up for, and last night, when Mami scared her away…she almost looked hurt for a few seconds- eyes clamping briefly shut like she was bracing for a hit.
And then there’s her wings…Madoka can’t help but think Sayakas wrong- it’s not like it’s her fault that- that- that no one-
(that no one?)
“- How come you don’t realize there are people who would be sad if they lost you?! What about the people who are trying to protect you!” Homura’s voice was not robotic or icy or deadly-calm- it was breaking, an animal wailing as it fled from bloody pain, a cold glass plate shattering against screeching metal.
She was crying. She was crying and falling- her legs dropping her to the ground when they simply gave up on carrying her, head pressed against the stone in miserable prayer.
Madoka’s heart beat, beat, beat- slamming its way through the veins surrounding it, cracking through her fragile ribs and piercing through her skin. She hated seeing people in pain, couldn’t stand to watch someone cry without doing so herself- suffering was not abstract with her, it was personal.
But this wasn’t that. This wasn’t her feeling bad for some stranger she pitied.
This was grief. This was sorrow. This was loss. Homura was sobbing and Madoka was watching her and everything was wrong, was wrong, was wrong- she wasn’t supposed to be here standing politely while her best fr—while her- -always- trying to protect you-
“Homura-chan…” Madoka’s head swam, fuzzy, static, doubles on top of doubles, there were two Homura’s fading in and out of her vision- no three, no four, no seven, no fifteen, no forty-two, no,no,no-
“—Have we… Have we met before?”
Madoka smiles, for once sure of herself- confident and happy and stubborn.
Homura reaches for her, tears spilling down her dirty face, mixing with blood and dust, dribbling down her chin to join the rest of her stains on her shirt.
How could she have thought this girl was some sort of removed psychopath? Her eyes weren’t empty they were in pain, a girl living through her own personal hell every single day, for months, for years, looking and wanting for nothing but her only friends happiness.
Such a noble sacrifice, and from someone who barely had anything to give. Nothing except for herself.
“I understand now.” She says, her own tears falling in unison with her beloveds- ah, she always was such a cry-baby. Looks like some things never change, even when you’re a God.
Homura’s wings snap forth all at once, exploding in a hurricane, a flood, a whirling rainbow of pink. Every tint, every shade, patterned or plain, speckled or striped, light or dark- pink, pink, pink- every iteration of every Madoka who had ever loved her, all coming to being at once.
It was just as she thought.
Beautiful.