Title: White
Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama
Rating: PG14
Main Characters: Kish and Mim
Summary: Kish and Mim are members of a world run by Order. Where the only color one has is one's own flesh. Perhaps it is poetic then that this world is soon to be destroyed by its own star.

--

White.

That was the color of their City.

White was the color of their People.

White was the color of their whole World.

--

People walked side by side, blending endlessly, pleasant expressions plastered on their faces.

The People were of all shapes and sizes. Fur mingling with scales and bare skin, some even had cold metal or soil in place of flesh. Some were walking infernos that burned no one, others were barely even there—thin strips of fabric passing as a Person.

Well perhaps 'Person' is not the best word to use, after all, every world had a different name for them.

…Because behind the maze of anatomy and make up, every Person on that World was of the same species.

A race of beings that Earthlings might remember being referred to as 'Angels', the Tienorens claimed were 'Chaos', the Altarergi had named the 'White People', the Makaxians thought were 'Fracking Peace-Keepers', and most of the universe knew simply as 'Travelers'.

The People were a strange species by many standards.

Probably the strangest was that the only physical mark that the People held the same was that they all wore the color white.

--

"What do you think you're doing?" The startled squawk and hiss of familiar words made the two children turn. "Kishilkaju, Mimityria, I have told you before and yet you still choose to disobey!"

At their names, the girl and boy bow their heads—the boy's currently covered in silvery blue scales, the girl's in matted red hair. "We apologize, Mother." They chorused meekly.

The mother, an avian-like creature with reptilian traits glanced around the neighborhood, her honey yellow feathers ruffling in the slight breeze.

After a moment, her thin body relaxed and she lowered bright green eyes to her children, "Come inside before someone sees." She spoke softly, a warm tint to her voice now as if to make up for the outburst before.

The two children scurry inside, the girl on two legs, the boy on six. Once inside though, both shifted to two legs with a pair of upright limbs on thin torsos.

Their mother watched them lovingly. "It's almost time for lastfeast. The two of you should go cleanse your feelers."

The girl, called Mim for short, tilted what could pass as her head to the side, her many-lensed eyes glinting in the dim light of their setting Star. She lifted her loose upper limbs and wiggled them, the soft red flesh quickly becoming blood red scales. "No feelers today, just fingers," She hummed with amusement.

"Well those too then, dear. You'd better hurry or I think Kish will want to eat it all." Green reptilian eyes blinked sideways at her daughter.

Mim yet out a bark of humored challenge as she raced on four limbs to catch up with her brother, who had slipped into the cleaning room already.

The mother made a gesture that could pass for a smile, "Oh to be young and Shapeless again." She sighed, turning to set the meal onto the feasting table.

--

"What is it…?"

"It's… Green."

Kish did not question his sister's use of the color, as he poked at the foreign object with a reluctant blue claw.

"Do you think someone's… lost a part?" He twisted his muzzle into a frown as he drew back from the supposed body part.

"I don't think so…" Mim sat back on the heels of her current paws as she shifted her fingers into something more like antenna for the moment, brushing them over the strange object. "It's more like… cloth."

"Green… cloth?" Kish's blue eyes widened, hair suddenly erupted from his scalp. "That's…" He glanced down at his own stark white garment, then at the green bit of fabric that lay on the ground. It was innocent in the way it went against all that he knew.

Mim ignored him; sliming her feelers back to jointed fingers, she picked up the small piece of green. Kish stared at her with horror as she flipped the fabric around her neck as a scarf. "I like it." She purred.

"Mim…" Blue teeth clashed and were ground in the midst of tension. If anyone saw…

"Oh shush your inane buzzing. It's only a bit of wool, same as we wear for the Cold Time." Red hair shifted to form into snake-like lengths, crawling and wrapping themselves around the scarf possessively.

Kish clamped his silvery blue hooves on the ground in agitation and fear, "This is Bad, Mim." He whispered, too fearful to raise his voice over the sound of his lungs, "Green… it goes against the Order." Words spilled from his mouth, pleading, "Please Mim, take it off."

Her expression slammed shut like a door—the effect made Kish stumble backwards slightly. "No." She said simply, tossing the end of the olive green scarf more tightly around her neck and left.

Kish frowned at his sister's back as her tail marked her retreat.

--

Thinking back, he should have seen it coming.

But with their Star consuming their World and all the Chaos that spread in the wake of the near-death of an entire race, he hadn't thought to find his sister and demand her help rebuilding their World.

Instead he stumbles across her by accident years later—months past her Shape-Taking Day—to find her as wild and Shapeless as ever.

"Mim," He said simply, watching the surprise roll through her chaotic state. Red fur shifted to scales, then back as she turned wide indigo reptilian eyes on him.

"Kissssh," She hissed, the name slipping out in her shock. Her eyes danced from one edge of his silver-blue skin to the next, finally settling on his still matching steel blue eyes—a mark that he was still a child in their customs. "You haven't changed." She said simply, a slow smile easing onto her lips, between her sharp fangs.

"Neither have you." He replied curtly, a level of anger in his tone. Didn't she know what happened to those who remained Shapeless past their Day?

Madness had already caught in her eyes though, and they glinted dangerously. "I've changed more than you have, dearest brother." She crossed the empty market to stand before him.

His eyes purposefully flicked down to her colored garb, "I noticed." Kish's words slithered through his mouth and off his tongue, sharp and cruel, but also hurt and pleading to understand.

She didn't respond for a moment, her too-bright eyes studying him. Then she moved like a blade cutting through water, swiftly untying the all too familiar olive green scarf from what could pass as her wrist. Snapping the fabric at him, Kish reacted before he could think and caught the end of the cloth before it struck his face.

Grinning, she let the bit of green go. "See you again or never, Kish." She said simply as she walked away.

Kish watched her leave, chaos trailing behind until he finally shifted his eyes to the cloth gripped tightly in his hand.

"Fine," He growled, wrapping the green around his middle, tainting the otherwise orderly white of his garments. "If that's what I must do to save you, from even yourself."

Knotting it at the end as a sort of makeshift belt, he turned his steel eyes back on the warm orange sky of this world.

"We'll turn our backs on the World together." He whispered to the empty market, before slipping away into darkness.

--

A/N: This is from far before Kish's eyes turned orange and he went insane, before he chose the form of a half-dragon, before he met Emma and remade his life around her... Of course, no one but my old group will remember this at all...

This is really just a oneshot, or rather a snippet from a much longer story, which I might one day make into a novel.

Also, this is part of the Kaedia Universe, the history of such, I should put up here.