Dream: Dec 20, 2019

The Colorful Girl

Once upon a time, in a world without color, a nobleman's wife died giving birth to a little girl.

She was a vibrant child, one who did not adhere to the strict greys of the world, and her father did not understand, but her elder sister, only a few years old at the time, loved her.

As the little girl grew, she learned that she could make the world around her, as long as she touched it, vividly colorful like she was.  To play, she would use her power to change the castle and make it vivid, and her sister would chase the colors.

Sadly, whenever someone or something normal touched the colors, they faded.

The two girls didn't mind, because the younger could always bring it back, though never in people, for she was forbidden to touch people, and it was so strictly enforced that she forgot how to do it and never tried.

Once, she and her sister were playing in the canals that ran through their father's castle.  The colorful girl would change the water, and her sister would dive after the colors.

And then the colors began to go away before her sister could touch the water.  Both became upset, especially when the younger discovered that the chefs were sprinkling sand into the water.

"This is the easiest way," one chef said, "Like the Lord said."

As she stood in shock and dismay, her father came up behind her and spoke to her. "This is only right." He sounded defeated, even as he fired the crossbow.

It bounced for a time until it hit her elder sister.

The colorful girl was initially giddy, unaware of her sister's fate and nervously relieved, until she saw her sister on the ground, looking so small.  She was still breathing, but the younger girl knew that, though her body looked untouched, her sister was dying, and nothing could be done.

She shouted after her father, but he didn't answer as he walked away.

She hesitated, then picked up her sister.  For the first time, she touched her sibling, and her older sister who loved her dearly became colorful as she rested in the colorful girl's arms.

The colorful girl had to leave.

She couldn't live in this place without her sister's love, and she couldn't stay in the same home as the man who had killed her.  She sought her sister's doctor, because her sister had always been sickly, and she told him the other girl's fate.

He agreed that she should leave, and he held open a high window in the hall for her.

Left behind, the elder sister listened to her father order for the colorful girl's death.  She rose from her resting place.  She was vivid, but tiny, and left behind a grey and cold body to fly on dragonfly wings after her sister.

She caught up at the window.

"Watch out!"

The colorful girl didn't hear, but she did become aware, and she looked back in time to notice the elite soldiers coming.

The doctor held them off as best he could, but ultimately fell just as he reached her, injuries too great to remain upright.

She took him by the back of his coat, unable to bring herself to touch him directly, and she shoved him into an emergency wagon, and her sister along with him (though by accident because she couldn't see her).

She set it rolling and hoped that the siren would become active and nobody would be hurt.

She got into another, riding the back where the controls were (they looked like trolleys but hovered).  She drove and turned on the siren, and people got out of her way as she sped along the loops and highways of her home nation, pursued, but none knew of her pursuers yet.

A short time later, when it was night and she was tired, the other emergency wagon caught up to her, and the doctor stumbled out, followed by a small and faint-looking and tiny elder sister.  The colorful girl was too exhausted and scared to celebrate, but she accepted both of them into her speeding wagon by unlocking it from the back when they jumped onto the front.

The doctor continued his recovery inside, and the elder sister, who helped him jump, assisted.

They reached a massive and ruin-filled labyrinthine jungle and were joined by a fourth member, a young man who climbed in and told vivid stories, which excited the elder sister, and as the younger rode inside with the wagon on mental-pilot, driven by her impulses, the stories infected the elder sister, and she began to childishly demand that they should grow stronger by challenging the master of the jungle, the Macaque.

They happened to drive by the sleeping Macaque, surrounded by green foliage, but the younger sister didn't mention it, in hopes that her elder sister would drop the silly and dangerous idea.

As they drove past and away, the Macaque monkey sat in the trunk of the wagon, grinning and waiting to be noticed.

The wagon pulled into a new noble's home, and it came to a stop.  The younger sister wondered why it stopped listening, and turned around, only to notice the little brown and grinning Macaque monkey in the back.

It jumped forward and suddenly, it was a turn-based combat against a very large monkey.  It went first, and it flung soft, exploding balls of stink at them one by one that left them mostly naked and with a 'stinky' status.

The elder sister laughed and pushed out a fart, and the monkey waved its hand in front of its face and acted dizzy.

The younger thought it was silly, but the elder insisted, and it wasn't long before all four runaways were laughing as they waited their turn and then farted, at least until they noticed that the noble woman of the house was standing beside the wagon as she held an infant in her arms.

"Noble mother ceremony to put baby into bed," the Macaque said, and the younger sister looked and saw they were blocking the door.

She tried to mentally move the wagon, and was surprised when it worked, but then she noticed the concentration on the Macaque's face, and she realized it wasn't an enemy at all.

As she realized this, it smiled at her. "Your situation is dire but you must grasp your joy still and laugh sometimes."

Then, it suddenly flung the group out of the wagon and to a high window of the citadel, just as some familiar and some unfamiliar elite soldiers burst in.

"FOR TARPARIN!" one of the unfamiliar ones cried, and the nobles of the home fled and hid.

The elder jumped onto the younger's back, still very small and light, and the younger didn't question it as she hurried out at the doctor's urging.

The escaping group didn't notice right away, but they were back down to the doctor and the two girls, and so they fled, and discovered they gained the Macaque's agility and some if its speed.  They were able to mostly stay away from the Tarparin's elitest of soldiers—a woman in tight pants who rode on an agile creature with leathery skin and wings.

It was in a deep and massive cavern that the jungle grew into that they finally stopped when they realized they had landed on the backs of two turtles.  The doctor shouted to hold on, and the girls did, and the turtles, in a panic, charged at a decorative part of the wall that that looked like a turtle shell.  The wall opened.

They went in, and the door closed quickly behind them, leaving the soldiers blocked off.

The trio woke in Tarparin, in a ruined old fort where the girls' father's soldiers were resting after having failed their pursuit.  It was weeks later, and they stumbled over themselves to flee, leaving behind only the master of the fort: an old dwarf.

He explained where they were, and then told them the way to get to the king's citadel, which wasn't too far away.

They arrived peacefully, and by the time they reached it, the elder sister was her previous size and appearance, though colorful now, with a white night dress, blue eyes, and pale yellow hair.

They arrived at the citadel during a feast of celebration, where the king of Tarparin was attending along with several nobles and a great many common folk.  They were able to enter undetected, and joined the feast because they were hungry.

[I don't remember some of the details here, but I think the doctor bumped into someone very fat, got the stink eye and earned silence throughout the feast before he apologized, and the feast resumed.]

The girls' father showed up and acted like he ignored them, and they kept their heads down to try to avoid being spotted.

Someone mentioned that the one the doctor bumped into was a noble lord.  and the person beside that someone commented that he smelled like meat.

The doctor, eating a game hen, followed up with "He has meat!?" loudly, and the word spread, followed by another, from the fat king himself.

"Is this a revolt!?"

That started the revolution of Tarparin, and the younger sister scolded the doctor for getting excited about meat when he had some he was already eating.  He apologized, ashamed, and his cheeks reddened.

Regardless though, the common folk were fleeing, and the trio hurried after, with the elder sister riding her younger sister's back.

They came to a ledge, and heard the cry of "ARREST THEM ALL!" from the king behind them, and they rode the zip line to an old gallows, where they dropped the line in time for the lady knight behind to fall.  They assumed themselves safe, but the lady knight was on the gallows not far from the trio.

[And then I woke up from back pain.

For a while, I reflected on the dream to avoid losing it, and I realized that throughout the story, the Colorful Girl was losing her color, but the people around her, both her allies and enemies, were growing colorful all on their own.  She also stopped being able to spread color.  Perhaps she had instead gained the power to inspire people to become colorful?]