Safe Green

Prologue: Green

Green moved along the Azeal River, the only water source available to her city. Trash foamed its waters and here and there dead river life floated on the surface, empty eyes gouging into passerby.

"Why would anyone do this?" Green asked herself, fingers clasped tightly around each other. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair.

Siha, she could see, was where she promised, balancing on the huge flat rocks close to the edge of the river still visible above the sludge. Her legs were crossed in that Siha-strange way, grey and purple clothing blending with oil slicks on the paved banks. The way Siha was, her dark thoughts and disclosed personality, fit in with that miserable setting. 

The brown depths of her eyes revealed themselves when Green approached.

"Here you are," Siha sighed, standing on her flat boulder and brushing off her lavender jacket. Hopping heavily, she maneuvered towards where Green stood, thumping onto the pavement and buckling her bad knee before straightening and glancing at her foot. Siha bared her fingers like claws in frustration at seeing her boot soaked in foamy river spittle. 

Her submissive anger was usual, so Green allowed a snort of laughter. 

Siha grabbed her friend's hand and dug her nails in the skin, brandishing a scowl. "Don't laugh," she muttered, released Green, then held her arms across her stomach. 

"Siha, ow." Green rubbed her injury mock-unhappily, her smile betraying all grumpiness. 

Siha rolled her eyes, shoving her hands in her pockets. "You deserved it. Wholeheartedly." She raised an eyebrow pointedly at Green and began to walk.

This was the way to the willow, a huge overhanging twist of aged wood that, despite it's lack of feathery leaves, obscured an area used to trap secrets and things better left unheard of. If Siha had steered them towards it, that meant there was something private on her mind and that Mana was there already.

The duo crossed intersections of city, each building, road, and civilian a monotonous grey hue that paled to Green's dyed viridian tresses. 

As they passed the apartment where Siha lived with her two brothers, two blandly-clothed children examined the hill it was built upon, taking clumps of dry soil in their shovels to try and reach the rubbish beneath. Green stuck her tongue out at their foolishness. 

It was impossible to be anything but foolish these days, she mused sourly. By the way her eyes were boring holes in the boys' backs, it was evident Siha thought the same.

Passerby marveled at both girls as they marched on, gradually approaching the slums of the city.

"Reason?" asked Green, initiating a routine the two often used when something secret was afoot.

"Dream," came the reply. "Bad."

They trudged on through wrappers blanketing the now dirty roads, winding their way to the Wall.