16. Colours of the world

The play came to an abrupt end as the boy playing whom I assumed to be ‘Diid’, toppled over ‘Seeir’ and ‘Fey’, creating a pile at the front of the stage.

The room entire room exploded in laughter. 

All throughout the play, I couldn’t hear the lines of course, but I could tell they were hesitating on difficult words and sometimes forgot their lines completely. They also tripped several times on the poorly made costumes and props throughout the play. Someone even managed to tear apart the wooden prop that I think was meant to represent the ‘seed of the gods’.

It was quite funny to look at, but I had tried to keep a straight face as long as I could.

They ended the story at the establishment of churches and their role in keeping the balance between what the gods had intended their blessings to be for, and what they were truly used for. 

Blessings are the powers we were gifted by the gods. Contrary to miracles, which were a manifestation of holy power by gods themselves, any kin could use a blessing from a god they descended from after receiving their baptism, as long as they could muster the right emotion.

I was still too young to be able to use blessings as I hadn’t received my baptism yet, but I knew they were achieved through faith in the doctrines a god taught…

While I was distracted, I noticed the room started clapping and I hurriedly followed suit.

The white haired man came up front to congratulate the actors. He turned toward the room and announced something. A lot of the kids around my age looked excited, while the older kids looked slightly annoyed.

The other kids slowly dispersed, and the others went back to play, but I sat there for a bit.

Now that I was thinking about it, winter was well on its way. Having a religious play was nothing unusual, but this one specifically was designed to familiarise people with the gods. This season had many holidays, but it was hard to narrow down which one this was for...

I had never really thought hard about it when living at the estate, as almost all of us were Meiriem or Seeir Kins, but there were a lot of gods and probably even more heritage mann received from them. 

That meant that there were probably many more holidays and events I wasn't even aware of. 

I looked back at the man who was helping dismantle the scene. He had white hair and red eyes. Whose kin was he? His hair was white, so perhaps he was a kin of Solomon, the white Miasma? But then again, in drawings, Solomon was usually bald, and his eyes were black. Red eyes might be more telling. Red was the colour of life, and her hair was always hidden by flames, so perhaps… Fey? I guess it could also be from another minor god altogether… 

I started looking around the room at the other kids and tried to guess where their traits came from. Many of them seemed to be of mixed origin, but maybe I could still tell?

Red, blue, pink, green, purple, silver… Eyes in all the colours of the rainbow and sometimes streaks of colours mixed in. Some of their hair grew even wilder with different shades and streaks. One of the boys even had dark blue streaks running all throughout his pristine silver hair like sapphires on a silver crown.

 It all meant something. They told a story spanning generations. 

I pondered on this idea. Light pink and blue was always Meiriem, that I knew. Silver eyes and hair was Seeir. My mom had explained that one through and through when talking about my eyes… Well, my old eyes. 

The head maid had always said that green was the colour of mischief, so probably Diid? 

Unless perhaps it was Scorn… That would also make sense, Scorn is mean to everyone. Even the grown-ups avoided talking about her. No one likes her and she makes people cry… That sounds mischievous too.

Solomon had black eyes, while Fey had red ones… There was a boy with dark blue eyes and crimson hair. It was similar to Meiriem, but darker. What could that be? 

A thought occurred… What about the new me? Those golden eyes, what did they mean? Did that mean I wasn’t just a kin of Meiriem and Seeir anymore? The thought stirred something in my chest. A strange feeling of discomfort that I couldn’t quite put into words.

As those thoughts bounced in my head, I noticed a girl with golden hair walking toward me.

It was the girl from yesterday. The one who had hurt Horsie. I felt an uncomfortable chill run down my spine when I spotted her and quickly got up to walk away. 

There was no way I would be playing with her again any time soon. Before I could leave, the girl grabbed my hand. I spun around, ready to fight her off, but froze.

She was clutching my hand with both of hers, her face was filled with tears. I stared at her, dumbfounded as she awkwardly fiddled with my fingers and tried to speak to me, her eyes cast downward only glancing up every so often with her swollen green eyes.

Was she trying to apologize? Useless. 

The white-haired man probably just scolded her and forced her to.

I thought about slapping her hands away, but hesitated. Despite my feelings about it, she was still crying, and it made me feel bad. 

She continued talking to me as I stared at her coldly. She tried to pull me along somewhere. I resisted at first, but eventually allowed myself to be pulled along, slightly curious what kind of phony show of apology she was trying to make. 

Snot hanging from her nose, she dragged me through the corridor to the an empty playroom, the same as yesterday. I grimaced as she headed for the toy box. 

She awkwardly dug through the toybox, obviously struggling to find whatever it was she was looking for through the tears and snot streaming down her face. I awkwardly sat down and waited.

“What do you think that she wants?” Darkie asked me.

[I guess she wants to apologise…? But… It feels weird.]

Eventually, she took out Horsie from the box and tried to smile as she showed him to me. She tried to play with it, but she could only manage to make it gallop twice before he slipped through her trembling fingers and she started crying even harder.

[Now I’m starting to feel like a bad girl for some reason…] I mumbled to Darkie.

Why was this girl trying so hard?

She tried to calm herself and reached out for my hand, which I allowed. She held it as she looked at it intensely. She started lifting my sleeve. For a moment, I felt my heart race and considered stopping her, but there was no point. She was probably curious about whatever the white-haired guy had told her…

The sleeve gave way to my skin. The purple bruising, the yellow stains and the scars shone under the afternoon sunlight. I could tell from her expression that she was about to explode into tears again, but was trying her best to keep her composure. After looking at it for a moment, she carefully pulled down the sleeve and released my hand.

[You got what you wanted, so leave me alone.] I said out loud, hoping to sound annoyed, as I flattened the crease on my sleeve. 

The girl stood up and started lifting her skirts. I got up in a panic. 

What was she thinking?!

[Hey, hey! Girls shouldn’t show what’s under their skirts! A boy could see it!] I tried to reason with her, but she ignored me. 

After pulling up her skirt, she pulled down her left sock and there it was.

Something I could never have imagine in my wildest dreams.

The skin of her leg, from the very top of her thigh all the way down to her toes. 

Scarred, stained, disfigured.

All along, tiny circular scars spotted her skin. 

I had never seen anything like it. As though hundreds of bugs had burrowed into her leg.

The skin bulged around craters, at the centre of which, her skin turned sickening yellow tints. 

It looked painful. It had to be.

I instinctively went to touch it, but caught myself remembering just how much my own wounds hurt when others touched them, but seeing my hesitation, she simply pushed my hand against her skin without a second thought. 

I felt the deformed skin of her leg under the palm of my hand. 

It was tight and taut, as if dried and pulled like a piece of leather over and over again until it became more stone than skin. 

The heat from her leg was uneven, and the bulges around the browned holes felt as hard as nails in some places. 

I couldn’t imagine what could have caused her leg to look like this, but I could imagine how it had felt. 

I looked up at the tearful girl's face again. She wiped yet another string of snot hanging from her nose. 

After wiping her eyes once again, she looked down, and our eyes locked. 

In her twinkling jade-coloured eyes, I could see myself. Hurt in ways others couldn’t even begin to imagine. Beaten, scared, betrayed, and yet, somehow, still hoping for things to get better someday.

My eyes suddenly felt very itchy. I broke eye contact with the girl, and rubbed and rubbed, but they only itched more. As I looked at my hands, I noticed tears had stained my sleeves. I looked up at the girl, but before I could say anything, she hugged me tightly.

I tried to hold out for a moment, but gave in.

I cried and cried as she hugged me tightly. It hurt. My whole body was sore as I still recalled the crop striking my skin and my own mother’s hands around my throat. I didn’t want her to let go. I didn’t want to feel alone. I could feel her tears wetting my shoulder as I cried in hers.

It was a long while before my tears finally began to dry up. I could still feel her tears falling against my shoulder, so I brought up my arms and held the girl tightly, along with Darkie. 

I looked at his golden button eyes as I felt the girl shake and cry in my arms.

[Do you think it’s ok to forgive her this once...?] I asked him.

“I think it’s okay to forgive friends.”

I nodded and squeezed the green-eyed girl even tighter. 

It was a lonely thing to feel this way. No one should have to go through it alone.