Blanka

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In the back of the lair, hidden behind some forgotten sculptures and old furniture, there is a pile of garbage.

Everything in the pile is gray, black or white; colourless and faded; discarded like the junk it clearly is. Not even the largest packrat in Sorneith would want to steal from this hoard of trash. They may be trash now, but the items in this pile once held meaning, as surely they once held colour. Perhaps to a certain dragon, they might still hold meaning...

Occasionally, a brightly-feathered Coatl comes along in the quiet. She only ever visits the pile at night. The softly-glowing runes along the walls light the way, basking her in their dim warmth. Her colour stands out even in the hush of darkness. She hums softly as she goes, and it is the only noise in the narrow hall except the light rustle of her wings against the walls, her pawsteps along the ground.

She does not come this way often, but it is still more than any other dragon. She always holds an item in the curl of her tail, although it is too dark to look at it closely. She knows the item by touch, though, and that is all that matters. This one is a small painted shell, decorated by a BeastClan tribe from the far north. And although she cannot see the colour, she knows it is there - she can feel it pulsing beneath her touch, like a heartbeat. Each item has its colour, and a matching pulse. It is like the soul of the item, a liquid language which she can speak fluidly. The shell in particular is heavy and condensed, made of deep hues that seem to rumble steadily.

But as the Coatl makes her way down the hall, something strange happens. As the runes along the wall twinkle innocently, and her hum echoes back to her, the item in the Coatl’s tail lessens.

The colour drains - the pulse slows - the soul dies.

And with each step, the Coatl’s bright feathers grow brighter. She has one more item to add to the collection of garbage.

When she arrives to stand before the pile, she pauses to look over each grayscale item. It is always this way. Now the shell is held aloft, as if she is caught in a luring thought and forgot it was there. There is a wistful expression on her maw, but her eyes are slitted. Anger simmers beneath the surface in these moments, fighting for a purchase against her otherwise cheerful demeanor.

Each item has been forgotten by the others, but the Coatl knows this pile like the feathers on her own wings. She remembers their stories, because they are a reflection of her own, and they are as pale and lifeless as she once was. Most nights, she remembers the colour they gave her. She remembers the exact moment as if it had happened moments ago; and she merely smiles with that same fury in her gaze.

This white bowl used to be an elegant piece, sitting front and center on the mantle with rose-and-lavender potpourri. It came from the home of a lovely Nocturne pair; they had carved it together from wood and painted it to resemble the flowers they grew in the field. When she carried it to her pile, it had brought her bright pink feathers along her wings.

And that black jar had once held a flavourful, bright-purple wine made from magical fruit of the Starfall Isles. The song it had sung as she drained its colour was lilting and lovely, the dying gasps of an opera star. It had given her toxin-green scales which she happily flaunted.

And the gray window leaning in the corner had once been stained-glass. Now it was broken with jagged glass pieces glinting like vicious teeth, snarling defiantly at its murderer. And she would smiled viciously in return, remembering how it had gifted her with a glimmering underbelly.

This was what she normally remembered as she stood over her pile, taking in all the gray.

But tonight is different.

Tonight, without meaning to, without wanting to, she thinks of her family. She pictures it perfectly: Her dame and sire standing above their newborn hatchling, emerging from her shell with sickly snow-white feathers. Their faces as ashen as their homeland as they looked upon their daughter, a scourge upon the Clan. Their voices dark and dangerous as they named her, cursed her. The first and last words she heard from her parents, “Blanka,” before they turned their backs on her. Their tails twitching as she watched them walk away.

They never looked at her again.

She went for so long in life without family, without love, without colour. But now she has colour, and that will be enough for her to gain everything else, too.

She believes she is strong enough. Colourful enough. She has stolen as much colour as she needs, and she does not plan to hide her shame like a criminal, not any longer. All traces of her blank feathers are gone, now that she has magicked colour into them. She is bright, and bold, and everything a Coatl should be.

She will abandon these items, and forget about them, just as her parents did to her. Nobody needs these things anymore. Nobody has needed them since she stole them in the first place, and now, without their colour, they are worthless to her, too. She will emerge into the daylight, and she will show off her feathers, and she will hunt down her parents, and win them back, and make them proud - one way or another, she will.

“May your colour guide my path,” she whispers in the Coatl tongue, before she drops the shell and turns away from the pile of garbage. She does not even wait for the colourless shell to settle loudly in the pile, its last, dying pulse.

She won’t come back here, not again.

By clarax #150307