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Pink
It was the color of the hottest parts of the lava on his moons-blasted volcanic island home, molding into its neighboring hues of orange and yellow with deceptive ease.
It was the color that translated hauntingly onto his mother’s piercing gaze as she announced yet another expenditure that she had been required to spend on the mainland. What she started there, what she did there, what she finished and what she left behind, followed unmemorably with yet another quick five-moon trip back to their island, he would never fully understand. At least, that’s what he used to fear.
But he wanted to know desperately. The thought stayed a bug in his naive dragonet mind that no amount of stomping around could get rid of.
He wanted to know. With every snout-scrunching bite of volcanic carrion he ate, far away from his peers. With every isolating midnight flight across the murky shore of the island, during the soul-crushing training session unnamed, elusive authority figures put him through. With every hit and fall he took in the name of stealth and strength, what was he even doing this for?
He wanted to know where exactly his mother disappeared to. And the secret, desperate parts of his mind wanted to go with her, stay with her. Isn't that what dragonets usually did? At least, that's what he had gathered from moons of careful observation of his fellow dragonets, watching them in the dormitories hug and embrace their friends, their families. Dragons, reunited, laughed and smiled and belonged to each other.
A warm tug pulled at his insides at the thought. It must have been jealousy. Once, he remembered watching a dragonet only a few moons older than him leaving the dormitories with her moms for a holiday. He had been studying ancient Rainwing history and battle culture for a test that weekend when his eyes caught the black figures outside, padding down the path to the entrance. Rain suddenly began trickling down as they walked, a usual cold relief from the heat of the volcano. His eyes squinted as he watched them run in the rain, her mother shielding her daughter with an outstretched wing as the family galloped across the stone pathway in booming laughter.
Would Quickstrike have done that for him? She was partially the reason he was here... If only he could memorize his textbooks well enough, he thought while dipping his talon in stale ink. If only he could camouflage into a son.
Nonetheless, he would much rather follow her to the ends of Pyrrhia than stay on this moons-blasted volcanic island with his moons-blasted tribe. At least, that's what he thought, when he was nothing more than an abandoned dragonet.
What a fool he was for wishing that fate on himself.
Pink was a lonely color.
♡⊹˚₊
Pink
It was the color of the blood, and no matter how long he stared at his own two talons he could not will the pink away.
It was evidence. Evidence of who he was becoming and who he had lost. A whisper of an impending fate yet the seal of his past all the same.
He could turn back now, he tried to reason with himself. Was his heart trying to preserve what stability he had remaining? He could be a different dragon, worthy of better things.
Frantically he dashed to the small pond a few paces away, dunking his talons into the cold water like a starving Icewing hunting for prey. Again and again, the force of his desperation evident in the droplets of water scattered on his face. For a second, the cold of the water mixed with the heat of lava in his mind and he could only imagine his own death, as a loyal assassin solidified in obsidian.
The water was now a deep shade of unrelenting purple, and his talons were black again. There was no relief now, nothing had changed. And he was still alive and he was not an Icewing and he was not hunting for his prey. He was a murderer, and reality loomed over him like his own mother’s ghost.
His mother. Another helpless truth, he was completely alone now. A warm tug pulled at his insides. He left it unnamed. The blood had been washed away, and there was only a vague sense of guilt for the polluted water left behind. He opened the pouch hanging from his hands and grabbed his scroll.
A scratchy check made with trembling talons on damp paper. A passive acceptance with a head hung low and eyes screwed shut. A lonely creature of habit.
Realizing he was ending up where he always began, a deep sigh escaped him while the comfort of avoiding his reality finally announced its arrival once again.
Pink was the promise of death.
♡⊹˚₊
Pink
It was the color of her scales when she swatted him away in the shadows of pretty pink trees and drew him closer still.
It was the color reflected on her face, in her shining eyes. There was something about her eyes. There was something to be said about all of her, really, but her eyes. Incomprehensibly knowledgeable and caring and present. There it solemnly resided, hidden away was depth of the sky and the twinkle of the stars and the combined beauty of the moon and the moon and the moon thrice over, bright as day yet somehow even more obvious at night. Her eyes saw right through him, no matter what mask he attempted to wear. But no matter what she saw with her pretty, pretty eyes, she stayed.
Unlike anything he had ever seen before, even after moons upon moons upon moons thrice over of roaming in isolation on Pyrrhia, was her.
Sometimes, they’d rest together in the quiet between the setting sun and rising moon. Sometimes they were silent, words hanging in the crisp rainforest air, sometimes they were loud, expressive like the pelting raindrops above the canopy. They could be laughing or crying, but he was happy either way. As long as it was her.
The phenomenon of death playing any role near the ruler of things that thrived and grew. She was so alive. So alive. A target, survivor, and a heartbeat he almost wanted to tear away and cradle, simply for the sheer proof of the beauty of her lively existence. No. He dragged his mind back from the edges where love kissed hate. She was just full of life. That’s how normal dragons phrased it.
But sometimes he’d see, out of the corner of his eye, the black of his own scales reflected onto hers, and he’d desperately rip himself away. To save her from whatever kind of monster he had become in these moons of cascading guilt and death that stopped for none. Incomprehensibly existent, an agony so far conceived from any such reprieve as the brilliance of her eyes that her eyes themselves almost scabbed over the pain. Almost, it was almost gone, the pain, but as many incomprehensible things are, there can be no calculation made of it’s extent. That unique perception has no such anodyne.
Except for her, it seems. The ruler of living things that flourished and breathed could not logically pertain to any sort of cessation or end. But there was no clear logic in the magnificence of her actuality, so she was his surcease nonetheless.
It was why she’d then proceed to pull him back, yet again. Time after time, tethered together like grapes on a vine, he was dutifuly grasped out of spiraling thoughts of moments long past. Why she wanted him, he’d never know. He was a monster, but she had always sought refuge in his presence, foolishly and without hesitation, nowadays. Foolish, and a foolish hypocrite he was, for he had lost himself to her the day she met him.
Pink was the color of the trust she had left visible for only him to see, as they basked under the beautiful moons above.
A warm tug pulled at his insides. It must have been love.
Pink was a beautiful color.