Voices clamour at every edge of my perception, individual, screaming for me to notice. Smells linger and collide in the air. An explosion of colour lines my vision, amber and orange and red and gold everywhere I can see, the sunslight flashing off the metal surfaces of hard cold coins.
I tighten my cloak around me. It's hardly necessary in this heat, but it offers me an illusion of safety. Really no one is safe at Rilian desert carnevales. We pretend we are. It's more fun that way. A dark-skinned man in white catches my shoulder, staring earnestly at me and mouthing words I can't hear over the hubbub. I nod for a second, grin, twist, elbow him in the nose, knock him to the ground and continue walking.
No one in red glances at me twice. There are several started glances from those in gold or white, but I ignore them. They are not worthy of any fraction of my attention. Traders and politicians. The only people I yield to are dressed in rich red fabric, drenched in the colour and the life of the sand that surrounds us.
And the greens, but they are few and far between.
My thoughts race onwards, swirling in my head like the sands kicked up by the hundreds – thousands, surely – of feet. Two lastes clash together in one of my loose pockets, and I place my hand on them, holding them together to stop them from jingling. It's safer. It's better if no one knows I have money. Red or white or gold, it doesn't matter; you always want to be careful. The only ones who are truly safe are those dressed in sea green, and most of them hide away up in the mountains, in the harsh bright cold where the wind brisks on your face and your skin is constantly full of adrenaline.
I went to the mountains once. They nearly made me a green. But I failed their tests – not the physical tasks, not the mental exams, but the emotional tests. One specifically. The one where they stare into your eyes and ask you if you're absolutely, absolutely sure you want this.
I wasn't. I didn't. The greens hide away in their mountains and they call theirselves our rulers. They lord their power over us. They force us to do everything they say, and claim it is for our sakes.
I didn't want to become like that.
All these thoughts whisper, crowd, dance through my mind as I step ever onwards. My feet are landing harder. My limbs are getting heavier, and my thoughts angrier. The greens. The lucky, lucky people born into wearing green clothes. Green clothes. Because they wear different-coloured clothing, they are respected, feared, obeyed, and we must clutch our coins in our pockets to stop them jingling. It makes me furious, ignites a flame dark and hungry in my chest. It sends me into the depths of an inferno built on my own rage and fueled by my experience with them. The fire, as I imagine it, burns red. Red. The colour they have assigned us, which by all the gods, I will take for my own and fly as my flag as I fight.
Because I will fight. The next time I see a green, and the next, and all the times after that until the day I die. They will not rule any more, because I will fight them. Even if I stand alone. They aren't true rulers unless everyone wants them to be.
Without me, that's everyone except one.
Sand stings my eyes and I blink furiously, pulling my scarf up over my nose and mouth to give as much protection as possible – while still being able to see. The sensation grounds me again. I am drawn out of my thoughts and back into the real world, the stone under the sand rough against my boots, the scratchy fabric of my cloak tight and comforting. The rage is gone, and a cold absence is left in the void where the fire was – but I am still churning, deep inside, with resentment. I will fight them until my last breath and any of them who dares to touch me, or speak to me, or – or exist near me, will soon find themselves missing an arm. Or their clothes. I mean, greens value their reputation.
