Yellow - Walking on Sunshine

“Right, right!” Letter said quickly. Reaching for the light, he found the hole he’d been looking for. Jamming the entirety of both hands into the hole (*ladies*), Letter managed to enlarge it until it opened like a zipper down the back of Warrior’s head. Pushing further down, he opened the seam all the way down Warrior’s back, basking him in light from the stand beneath. As the skin peeled away, Yellow felt The Other shrink away, slackening its grip as it retreated to a safe distance. Letter had been right- if something could possibly hurt The Other, it was this. For all that she was expecting from the stand, she still found her mouth agape when she first saw it.

The stand was beautiful, as if the wonder of nature had funneled itself into a single being. It looked like an enormous wooden puppet, barrel-chested with ball-joints and a slotted mouthpiece, if the puppet had been allowed to lay in a forest for centuries and slowly be reclaimed by nature. Pieces of the wood from top to bottom had eroded or rotted off, replaced with thick layers of moss and fronds of fern leaves and lake grass. A colony of mushrooms had bloomed in bright reds and oranges over its left shoulder, and atop its head bloomed a cheerful patch of daisies. One hand had fully eroded away, replaced with yet more thick shrubbery, and the other was missing several fingers, the majority of the hand reclaimed by thin saplings that would soon bloom into a full-fledged bouquet. On its back was a trio of round sunflowers, and though its face was blank and unemotive, its eyes shone with the glimmering golden warmth of natural sunlight. It was calm as a placid lake, gentle as a springtime breeze, and Yellow understood it and exactly what it could do as innately as if it was one of her own hands.

“It’s beautiful,” Yellow said in open awe.

“What, uh,” Letter asked, a bit less hurried now that The Other had backed off. “What does it do?”

“Brings peace,” she said gently, “Wherever it goes. If it touches you, right here,” she pointed at the fledgling flowers and palm fronds of its two hands, “You’ll be content, no matter what’s going on.”

“Wow,” Letter said appreciatively. “What’s its name?”

“Walking On Sunshine,” Yellow replied.

***

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