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Part of healing from the final battle, for Udonna, is the loss of… everything.
Yes, the darkness is gone, but so are pink blushes, yellow sunshine on blue water and green grass…
That’s all gone.
Udonna collects the wands from the battlefield with a heavy heart and an aching soul.
But She knows Leanbow is alive.
She doesn’t know it in the colorless blood on the ground and fallen blades all around her. She doesn’t know it in the five greyscale wands in her arms. And in her own mind as she’d watched the red magic circle carry him and the villains both down down down…
It hurts so much, in the aftermath, and Red seems to just follow her, everywhere.
He could be alive but he’s gone all at once and it hurts almost more than the death.
Worse than the blue lake turning grey.
(She misses Filein’s endless optimism as water danced around him.)
Worse than the sunset going red and black.
(She remembers the way Liana was always sharp with her words but open with her heart.)
Worse than red-and-grey trunks rustling with colorless leaves except for when they fall down looking like blood.
(She wishes for Lan’s grounded-like-the roots calm throughout the war.)
Worse than even the sun being grey in the sky.
(She dreams of Alezi’s hyperactive personality, just like their bright yellow lightning.)
And most of all she aches for Leanbow, her husband. For a world of grey and wondering where is he and what must they be doing to him ?
They’d all been soulmates, a team together and a family happy with the younger additions they eventually gained (but even those are gone now).
Whenever one was hurt, they’d said “do not lose me my precious colors” like a prayer.
But then they were all gone in one horrible, legendary battle.
Even light is gone, because white was her Color and it can’t hold on alone.
But then…
Then the nightmares start and she sees him, Leanbow, always chained down and tied to a man in purple (in her dream the colors return).
Right after she wakes up, Red returns for but a few moments.
But she’s not stupid, and she loves Leanbow, misses him so much , but…
She wants to run to him, to save him, but what if that breaks the seal?
She wants to save him more than anything. The last light and color in her world.
And so, despite Mystic Mother’s worries, she does go, does get that helpful push.
She finds him. He doesn’t respond to her, but the sky is red .
“ Leanbow… my husband… ” she whispers, heart aching. “What happened to you?”
“He cannot hear you,” a voice says, alien to her ears. She looks up and it’s the man in strange armor. “He hears Nothing . ”
Udonna jumps up.
“Who are you?” She asks.
The monster gives no physical response as he throws an emotionless “That does not concern you.”
“It’s not my concern?” Udonna asks incredulously, pulling out her wand. This is so very much her concern. “We’ll see about that!”
Magical source, Mystic Force.
Galwit Mysto Ranger!
The monster remains motionless.
“Leave while you can,” he says. “There is nothing for you here, witch.”
Udonna growls.
“My husband is here,” she says. “My Firelight. My joy. My everything I have left . He is here.”
He bats her aside like she’s a harmless fly instead of s trained sorceress who had created her own wand to fight beside her soulmates.
But she’s not giving up when Leanbow is so close to her.
“I will fight and I will win or I will die !”
“So are you in love with Leanbow or simply hopeless causes?”
He knocks her away again and, this time, it breaks her helmet. She lays on the ground, breathing heavily.
“Not yet.”
The monster stands over her. She knows this is her end… but then, instead of ending her, he kneels down before her.
“ I have immense respect for your devotion,” he says, and this is a voice that sounds almost familiar yet simultaneously implacable . “I could destroy you, and still you persist. So let us speak plainly. Your Leanbow is dead, and you… you cannot unlock his chains. But you still live. So go, and live, or be bound in your own.”
And, for whatever reason, Udonna listens. She leaves.
And the red lasts a little bit longer, this time.
“I tried to tell you,” Mystic Mother says. Udonna smiles.
“You were right,” she says. “It’s time I looked to my future, rather than my past.”
Mystic Mother laughs.
“Well then I suppose there’s someone I’d like you to meet,” she says. Udonna looks up in surprise.
“Who?”
“A fellow earth White,” Mystic Mother replies. “He doesn’t particularly like me, but he’d never turn away another Ranger. I think the two of you would get along.”
“Who is he?” Udonna asks. Mystic Mother smiles in that sad, regretful way she sometimes gets.
“His name is Tommy Oliver,” she says.