Sid
Posts : 2229
Join date : 2016-03-30
Age : 24
Location : The pits of Hell probably
 |  Subject: Re: Let's Get this Show on the Road!  22nd September 2022, 8:39 pm | |
| Sid had become more used to doing her reading while working out, even if she wasn't also writing lyrics to go along with the story. She had a small collection of short stories that she'd been given set out before her, these wholly original works that their authors wanted opinions on before they decided whether or not they were "worth" putting more effort into. The next story promised to be especially captivating, if the note at the beginning was any indication. So, as she began her routines, she also started reading. The boy did not have a name. Those who lived in the slums often refrained from naming their children soon after they’re born, as no one knows when fever or weather or lack of food may take one’s child, and the loss was easier when the body and grave could go unmarked. Or so people liked to tell themselves. It was a particular tradition, in his mother’s family, to wait until the age of four to name one’s child. It was a lucky number, they thought, so waiting until that age could only bring virtue to the child’s name once it was given.
The boy’s mother died before she could give him his name, and his father had no interest in calling him at all.
He could recall, for as long as he could remember, seeing people surrounded in swirling motes of color. They looked like paint, especially in how they shifted and blended around a person. He was too young to form the words, but he was able to discern that these colors were tied to other’s emotions. So whenever his mother was painted in shades of blue, he’d do something silly to make her laugh and tinge her paints sunshine yellow.
His father was always red, with little else peaking at the edges. A deep, foreboding color. He tried to change the shade, like he did with mother, but it never seemed to work. The red would deepen, and he’d be made to hurt. He stopped trying.
The red of his father’s paint always seemed to grow deeper when he laid eyes on the boy or his mother, as though simply being reminded of their existence angered him deep within his core. And he would drink this strange, foul smelling liquid that his mother had warned against imbibing himself, lest he hurt his tummy. When his father drank it, his colors muddied, becoming a large splotch of angry red without even a hint of another color within it.
He’d hurt mother when he got like that. He tried to hurt the boy as well, but his mother always protected him from the onslaught, which only served to anger the man further. It got worse and worse, until the day when his father wrapped large, brick-like hands around his mother’s slim throat and squeezed. She had urged him to hide, to look away, as his father stalked upon her, but he didn’t. He watched the whole grizzly scene, not truly understanding what was going on but enraptured by it nonetheless.
He watched as his mother’s colors blossomed and grew more vibrant than they ever had been before. They spread across the entire floor, painting a landscape of seemingly every emotion the woman had ever felt in her lifetime. And as the paint spread with invisible brushstrokes, musical notes played in the background, drowning out the sounds of struggle and his mother’s throes of death.
She stilled and her colors sank into the ground, fading into nothingness, minutes after. His father left and the boy thought he’d best let his mother sleep. She was always tired after his father hurt her. When he awoke, mother wasn’t where she had been sleeping on the floor, but she also wasn’t anywhere else in the house. He asked his father where she was, but was ignored. And when he asked again, he was struck across the mouth and quickly silenced.
The boy’s life with his father, without his mother, was a strange circumstance to learn to navigate. His father’s red was more subtle, though still overpowering. It was also accented with swirls of indigo, the color of disgust, and a light blue that the boy learned to associate with a deep dissatisfaction. He wasn’t as explosively angry, anymore, and when he looked at his son he didn’t become violent unless he had been out and drinking.
The boy learned to do the chores his mother had taken care of. Cleaning, mostly. For a time, his father did their laundry but the boy learned to do that too as soon as he was tall enough to hang them out to dry on their rack without climbing onto things. His father always brought home food, and he wasn’t expected to cook. As long as he did his cleaning and didn’t upset his father, he could come and go as he pleased.
Other children didn’t seem to like the boy. The few times he’d tried to speak to them, he realized just how different he was from all of them. They each had names, and were shocked when he told them that his parents had only ever called him “boy”. What made them avoid him in earnest, however, was his uncanny ability to tell them exactly how they were feeling. When he explained the colors he saw, they called him a freak and ran away. It was strange, he thought everyone could see the colors.
He wasn’t upset that others didn’t want to play, he liked watching them and their colors much more anyway. He took pleasure in the way he could manipulate the colors in others with a few simple words. Even when it got him chased or beat up, he could always say something to turn the red of anger into the light brown of embarrassment, or the stark orange of fear. It was intoxicating, but not as brilliant as the change within his mother. He wanted to recreate that masterpiece.
Animals had colors too, which gave him the idea to try it on them. Stray dogs and cats could be befriended with offers of food, which was easily stolen when no one was looking. He could even practice on a few birds if he was fast enough. And eventually he practiced enough that he was always fast enough. It was disappointing each and every time, though. They never made the same spray of color his mother had. Theirs were smaller, their music softer and less composed.
Still he practiced, learned different ways to make their colors bloom. His father had shown him one, but he was a curious and innovative child. His favorite was opening them with a small blade he’d found one day, the splay of their most intimate pieces filling in the gaps that their miniscule colors left. It was his favorite pastime, creating these wonderful blooms of color, but the animals were beginning to grow dull. He wanted something that would make colors that were brighter, more bold.
Another boy, a bit older than him, seemingly took a liking to him. Other children didn’t like the older boy that much either, thought he was a “freak” in a way different from him. His name was Saez, which many others thought was strange but the boy had no metric to measure names by. He didn’t understand why Saez liked him, or wanted to spend time with him, but his colors spoke of contentment, a light lime that was tied to happiness, so he didn’t much question it. Before she knew it, Sid had worked through her entire regimen, so engrossed was she in the story of the boy. She took a sip of water and tucked the book away, already anticipating reading the rest of it during her next workout. ------------------------- Req. WC: 1284/1150 - Training Information:
Word Count Req.
D-Rank - Sonia Trick: Maneuver = 100
D-Rank - Ring Trick: Rhythm = 100
D-Rank - Gaia Trick: Shake = 100
C-Rank - Wing Trick: Dissipate = 200
C-Rank - Wing Trick: Foresight = 200
C-Rank - Wing Trick: Gravity Control = 200
C-Rank - Ring Trick: Harmony = 200
B-Rank - Sonia Trick: Nitro = 400
B-Rank - Sonia Trick: Acceleration = 400
B-Rank - Gaia Trick: Pressure = 400
*Total: 1150 (Base total of 2300 halved due to Genius Physical focus)
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Blade
Posts : 3780
Join date : 2012-05-06
| | Subject: Re: Let's Get this Show on the Road! 25th September 2022, 4:24 pm | |
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