Immeasurable pain, blinding white light, red… then black…
…
My head throbbed as I slowly eased one eye open. Blue. I was surrounded by blue. I kick my furred feet and levered myself upright. A gasp escaped my throat as I felt the blue-ness surrounding me slide across my body and ease its way into my lungs. I felt instant relief and breathed the blue back out again, and calm overcame my body.
I smiled to myself. Of course, that’s how the colour blue worked. One of calm and serenity, but also of power. Frowning, I pushed myself forward through the weightless void and came into contact with cold, hard glass. Recoiling and long ears twitching, I drew back into the safety of my colour.
I am Blue. The physical embodiment of the colour blue and everything the colour represents. Tranquillity and strength, sadness and hurt. I am a Kin.
The Kin are the guardians of the world’s colour, there are seven of us in total, each of us with our colour that are destined to protect. We look like anthropomorphic rabbits in one sense, yet our ears are longer and we have a larger fluffier tail, our fur matches our colour also. Each Kin secretes their own pure colour.
My glass prison suddenly lurched and something streamed into the sphere where I was being held.
Black.
The dark shadowy thing slid towards me, pooling at the bottom of the glass. The blue that had been in with me, slowly seeped into its body and it engorged itself as it ate my colour. Finishing the blue, it turned to face me, black mouth wide open. Lunging forward, it struck and buried its shadowy fangs into my chest. I clenched my jaw and I began to fight back.
The Black held on tighter and slowly wound itself around my body, restricting my movements. I closed my eyes and waited for the end. This was it. The Black was going to drain me of my colour, and there would be no blue left in our world.
My eyes snapped open. I couldn’t allow this. No. I was going to fight back. Forcing my limbs outwards, I flung the Black against the glass and screamed. A loud and unearthly scream that shattered the glass around me.
I collapsed to the floor and hissed as sharp shards of glass stabbed at me through my white fur.
Standing up, I looked down at my body and trembled.
I was no longer blue, but white. All colour gone from my fur except for two blue rings around my forearms.
This didn’t make sense, when you’re killed by a Black, you turn black as well.
Shaking my head, I looked around at the pristine white room before me.
It was circular and had seven different coloured glass spheres embedded in the wall at equal distance from each other, each the different colours of the rainbow. Turning behind me, I saw an empty alcove where my own prison had been before it suddenly shattered. Then the sudden realisation hit me. The other spheres held the other Guardian Kin.
I ran to the other side of the room, passing colours. Green, Yellow, Orange, Red. Red. I stopped outside of Red’s prison and raised a paw to the cold surface. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes as I feared for the worst. But hope rose as I realised that his sphere was still full of his red.
Touching the glass with both paws, I willed it to break, like I had with my own before. Hoping it would work.
The glass shattered and a limp red male Kin tumbled to the floor.
Racing over the broken glass, I dropped to my knees by his side and he weakly smiled up at me.
“Blue, my dear girl, your pretty as ever.”
My heart flung itself backwards in my ribcage and I reached out a shaky hand to smooth the red fur on his forehead. Red spoke again, his voice soft.
“I never thought you would be a White my dear…”
A White!? No. That couldn’t be. Never in known history had there ever been a White Kin.
White Kin were the embodiment of all the colours and had prowess that would rival the strongest of Black. My shoulders slumped, not that we knew what the Black actually were.
Red’s voice broke through my thoughts. “I know that Indy and I never explained anything to you and even Vio was adamant not to tell you. You were the youngest of us. We never wanted you to grow up Blue.”
I offered him a reassuring smile. His eyes glittered as he saw it.
“And your infuriating habit of not talking was much loved as well.”
A small laugh escaped me and Red broke into laughter as well. He looked me full in the eye, and suddenly I understood. His strength, his fury and rage, but most importantly, his love for all of us and the world around us. I felt his red colour begin to envelop me and I could feel everything he had ever felt, everything that he stood for in the world, everything he had fought so hard to protect. I gasped as his limp body fell backwards and his breathing became shallow. His ear twitched as he gave me a final order.
“Free the others Blue, and defeat the Black.”
With that. He was still and the red in the air vanished.
Tears stung my eyes and as I raised paw to wipe away the tears, I noticed something stunning. On my forearm, close to my wrist, was a band of red around my arm. Red’s love and power. Scrubbing away my tears, I looked away from Red’s dead body lying in shattered glass to the next. Orange.
Stepping cautiously up to the Orange’s glass prison, I raised my hands to the glass and willed it to break. It broke with a loud crash, but less debris was flung around the room this time. I barely managed to catch Orange as he fell to the ground with a thud.
“Hey Princess,” He said with a smirk. “Never thought you’d be the one to rescue me.”
I grinned, Orange and I had been the closest of friends since forever, and I wouldn’t know what to do without him. His warm and bubbly attitude was always the best to pick me up when I was feeling down.
“So I suppose this is it?” He asked as I nodded and held his orange furred paw in mine.
A feeling of infectious laughter washed over me and a sense of incredible energy fizzed through my being. I felt every prank that he had pulled, every lame joke that had fallen flat, but he had laughed anyway. I felt his embarrassment that one time that he had walked in on me in the shower; I laughed at that one.
The feelings faded away and Orange grinned at me one last time before he closed his eyes. I looked at my arms. Now, above the red rings, were rings of orange. Orange’s laughter and energy.
I continued through the remaining spheres, becoming better at shattering them each time. And each time, allowing my kin to sacrifice themselves to help me destroy the Black.
I felt Yellow’s carefree nature and her childish personality seep into mine. Green shared his calmness and peace alongside his natural strategist ability and his envy. Indigo, or Indy as we called her, shared her levelheadedness, regality and confidence. Finally, I stopped outside Violet’s sphere.
Vio. The only Kin I had ever loved.
Confidently I stepped up the glass sphere and pressing my paws to the glass, it vanished, without so much of the tinkling of glass.
Vio weakly tumbled into my arms and he looked at me with such a tenderness, my heart leaped. Easing him to the floor, he began to speak.
“I’m sorry for keeping things from you Blue.” His voice trembled and he raised a paw to my cheek. “Red said it was for the best and now I’ll never get the chance to tell you the truth of how I feel about you and despite all my lies I told you I really wish that I had told you the truth sooner.” The words tumbled from his mouth so fast I almost couldn’t follow. “Blue! I’m so sorry, I just wish we had more time.”
Throat dry, I managed to ease out the words I wanted to say. “It’s alright Vio.”
He smiled at me softly. Vio was the only one that I ever talked to. Not even Red or Orange had received that privilege.
“Defeat the Blacks Blue, you have to.” He said.
“I-I don’t know how.” I stuttered.
He gripped my white furred paw with both of his. “You can. Blacks are just void of colour and you are the purest of white. All of the colours combined can defeat the darkness.”
Suddenly I was washed over with knowledge, things I had never understood before washed over me and I saw everything Vio and the other Kin had hidden from me, including his affections.
A smile lit up his face as he sunk back, “You were always the most loyal of us, Blue. Make us proud.”
With that, he breathed no more.
Pressing a kiss to his forehead I stood. Each of the seven colours of the Kin emblazoned on my forearms. Ready to fight the Black.
I am Kin, the guardian of colours.
ns 15.158.61.11da2
