The Last Red Year

ELEVEN: True Colors

 The pulse of the rain barrier spills across the floor, pushing out and drawing in like a slow ocean tide. Kas can't sleep. Tallin's letter is still haunting them. Mirei said their village would be compensated greatly for giving up two children to the Magescourt--things should be good back in Callocast, better than ever before. They don't understand why the letter seems so off.

They're tired in the morning, but they drag themself down to breakfast anyway. They figure it's best to take their mind off things. They don't have class today--it's Saturday. Maybe they'll go for a walk. There are some shops off the citadel island they want to browse through, maybe see if they can buy some casual clothes for trips out of the Magescourt so they don't stand out so easily. It's not that they feel any shame towards being a mage--it just gets them a lot of unwanted attention, and they want to just be a normal kid for a little while.

They ask Sorine at breakfast if they want to come with--Mauragan always disappears early on Saturday mornings, and they don't really want to go alone. Sorine's busy, though--they're helping Brittleith chop up some firewood and move things around, hoping for some more spare pocket change. The two mill about and chat by the fountain for a bit after breakfast. Kas doesn't mention the letter. They aren't entirely sure if they should. They know they get too worked up about meaningless things sometimes--this is probably just another silly worry that won't matter in a few days.

"Hey, purple kid!" Brittleith calls to Sorine from across the street. "You ready to go annihilate some trees!"

"Hell yeah!" Sorine calls back, pulling Kas into a hug before they go. "I'll see you at lunch, loser. Have fun on your...walk...thing."

"See you too." Kas smiles, patting Sorine on the back before breaking the hug. They stick their hands in their pockets, debating which of the four archways to the citadel is best to leave through. They figure they'll take the west one--it's easier to get to untouched, natural land from there, and they don't want to walk through the north forest again. Their only association with it is the Fall Brawl, and they don't want to relive that night.

They've ridden this path on horseback in their navigation class before--they know how to get around Tenacitas fairly well at this point. They know where the shops are, where the tall government buildings stand, where the little clinic where some of the green mages with less than stellar training records ended up working after they graduated. It's a longer journey by foot, but they like to take in the sights. They pause on the bridge to peer into the water, lovers holding hands in rowboats, children playing on the shores of the lake. Even this far south, it's too chilly to swim in the lake this late into November, but the beaches are lively all year.

In town, they stop in at a fabric shop, taking a good twenty minutes just to touch all the fabrics. They wonder how hard it would be to sew their own clothes--they have some rudimentary sewing skills, enough to mend their clothes, but Tallin never got around to teaching them how to make full garments. Fabric was expensive--it was best to just patch things up and wear hand-me-downs from the older kids in Callocast. Isri once compared their favorite pair of trousers to a legend they had heard from a traveling merchant about a ship that had been replaced part by part until nothing was left of its original self. Are they even the same trousers? they said once. They're all patches now.

Kas's favorite is a flowery black fabric that is very, very expensive--more gold for a single roll than Kas has ever had in their life. It's soft, the flowers carefully stitched by hand--whoever made it absolutely deserves every coin they've made off of it. Kas has never worn a dress before, really, and their robes certainly don't count. But they imagine themself just for a moment in a ruffled gown cut from this fabric, spinning around with the skirt ruffling every which way. Do mages ever get to wear dresses? Real street clothes? They've never seen any of the Arch-Mages or the workers in the Magescourt in anything but their robes. It all seems far too ceremonial for them, really. Hadling seems to think they have the potential to be the next Green Mage, but they aren't sure they'd want to be.