Yellow

Bring around the noose and drop her from the gallows. Haul around the cauldron and boil her till she’s shallow. Maul her. Thrash her. Gather all the soldiers just so they could behead her. Shove her off the palace at a hundred fucking metres. Give her every cut and every bruise. All would be preferred over serving as muse. No music. No jewellery. No luxuries can any hand her. So everyone who’s timid will praise her as a martyr.

The cracked columns behind remained her sanctuary. The dimming quiet her only companion. Every Noble, every General, every Mage and Clerk a hundred steps down her spot. None of the faces she understood. None of the faces she wished to understand.

Amber leaves were yet to be raked. Statues of old were yet to be free of bird droppings. Six-hundred miles for this. Six-hundred miles just to celebrate an imitation of her bedroom, an imitation of the servants, the food, the type of people she would have to tolerate.

“Having fun?”

Her heart jumped hearing the voice. An older girl, a fellow Elf, was leaning on the other column. She only stared at her, nothing had been uttered.

The older girl clicked her fingers. “Hani, was it? I think we met yesterday?”

Yet another of the faces Hani didn’t wish to understand. She sounded local to this island, her cadence too…undisciplinedcompared to her mainland contemporaries. A few threads were loose on her turquoise dress, with wrinkles that had not been ironed in a year. Even her hair was uneven.

She was staring too long.By the gods, say something!

“Eurhgh.”

That’s not a word!

The older girl was staring at Hani. Her expression did not change, no judgement emitted from her person. She stepped closer, swaying out a bottle of something brown. The cork was pulled off by the fingertips, the rim was pressed on her lips as the bottle briefly faced the night sky.

“The wine here is dire, you know,” she said. “I needed something stronger for myself.”

Hani’s eyes were on the bottle, then back to the girl’s relaxed face. “You’re… drunk?”

“A bit tipsy — I kind of have to be for something like this.” The girl sucked her teeth. “You do… remember me from yesterday, don’t you?”

“I met…” Hani sighed. “I’m sorry, I met a lot of people yesterday.”

“I was the one in— I wasn’t wearing this, it was like a reddish orange dress?”

It clicked for Hani. Her body warmed out of embarrassment. “Oh. Oh, I bumped into you—”

“And my hair caught on one of the torches.” The older girl scoffed, a few strands of her hair stuck off between her fingers.

Hani shut her eyes for a moment. Bring around the noose and drop her from the gallows. “I’m so sorry for that.”

“Don’t worry! It’s fine, it’s fine.”

“I burned your hair!”

“My hair gets messed up all the time — you did me a favour, if anything.”

She was certainly was not tipsy. Hani folded her arms. “What are you doing up here?”

The older girl inhaled. “I don’t see anybody else trying to hide from this party.”

Hani pointed to the half-empty bottle. “You’re certainly hiding.”

“I need a break from the noise every now and then — there’s nothing wrong with that. You, however, are the new Governor’s daughter — you’re basically a princess here.”

Hani rolled her eyes. More prisoner than princess, if anything. “Sure.”

“Come on, you know how many noble families here have tried to get this position? Some of the girls here would kill to be where you are now.”

“Maybe they should start.”

The older girl snorted. “Where did your family come from? Orelis?”

“Omano. I don’t know why my Father chose…” Hani gestured to the whole of the Square below. “…this.”

“Oh, come on, Witaenal’s notthatbad of an island.”

Rain began to patter down shortly after. Hani thought it was enough of a response.

The girl stared up, then said with full sincerity, “I’mnotgoing to have a million sovereigns dropped on me.”

She shut her eyes, awaiting…something. One eye opened, then the other one. “You know when you expect something and the complete opposite happens? Thought I got negative magic for a moment.”

The rain remained light. Some stars were still present in the sky, rainclouds were yet to conquer them.

“I don’t think I’ve seen the sun since coming here,” Hani said.

“Autumn’s just started, you should’ve been here in the summer. Whenever the sun was out, I was flatter than a pancake on the ground.”

Hani tried her best not to let out a groan. Haul around the cauldron and boil her till she’s shallow.

The older girl gazed down the hundred steps. Some of the boys — Hani assumed they were boys, she was stupidly high up — were staring their way. Hani felt a pat on the shoulder, the older girl was making her way down.

Hani pinned her back further on the column. This was the end. Surely, it was the end of it. The older girl was looking back up. It wasn’t the end of it.

“You coming?”

Hani held her breath. She could wait her out — her very own social siege.

The girl blankly stared. “It’s not going to get better the more you stand around, Hani.”

It would. It absolutely would.Please go away.

The girl pulled on Hani’s arm, dragging her down the steps. Hani should have made a fuss here. Get dragged kicking and screaming. That never happened. At some point, not even halfway down, the girl let go, and she found herself following along.

Her heels were first on the unswept, cobblestone floor. A few adults gave her a certain look, some were plotting their own political manoeuvres. She almost lost the older girl in the overgrown masses of jewels and silk, clawing through the tiny branches of Elven nobility until she squeezed into this little area where there were… more tiny branches of nobility. Only the older girl was there, and a few boys her age.

They were arguing over something stupid. Hani didn’t even know what it was about, it was the tone they had in their island accents.

“What do you mean ‘is oak a type of wood?!’” One of the boys shouted.

“So…” The other, shorter boy went. “…it is?”

“If you jumped off a ship in the middle of the Dark Sea, you wouldn’t even hit the water.”

“Talyc,” the older girl said to the first boy, “You’re not any different.”

“She’s not wrong,” short boy said.

Talyc raised an eyebrow at the older girl. “How so, Frinis?”

“When I came round yours, you were making tea. Moment the kettle boiled, you poured the thing into the sugar pot!”

The short boy snorted, then let out an ugly laugh. “Top of the class at the Mage Academy.”

Should Hani have said “hello” here, or was she invisible enough to stay as an audience member? The rain slowed down, the older girl Frinis, looked at her.

“By the way, look who I found,” she said to the boys, before pointing at them for Hani. “Sugar-boy’s Talyc, Dwarf-boy’s Hydet.”

“Don’t call me a Dwarf, you narna,” Hydet said.

“Sorry, Hani, thiswaste-of-skinis Hydet.” Frinis smiled at the short boy.

Hydet pointed at Hani. “I’m the same height as her.”

Talyc, meanwhile, had been staring at her for quite a bit. There was this analytical look upon him, as if he was being forced to study a text. “Sorry, who’s this?”

“The new Governor’s daughter, keep up!” Frinis told him.

Hani hadn’t said a single word the entire time. She didn’t want to, she didn’t plan to. Her hand did a little wave and… by the Hundred Gods she just realised she was basically a princess.

“You’re from the Imperial City?” Talyc asked.

Hydet interrupted before Hani could answer. “No, they’re paler. Can I take a guess?”

“Here’s a hint for you, she’s fromthis planet.”

Short boy shut his eyes, going, “mmmmmmmmmm,” the entire time. His fingers clicked like a rush of blood hit his brain. “Orelis!”

Hani shook her head. “Omano.”

Hydet frowned. “Where’s Omano on the mainland?”

“It’s…” she sighed. “…next to Orelis.”

“Close enough, I still have it!”

“So,” Talyc said, “it’s like an Inner Cardai/Outer Cardai thing we have here? Like everybody in Outer Cardai pretends they’re not part of us.”

Hani clicked her tongue. “Except we got rid of the round-ears years ago.”

“They’re still around on mainland Iera,” Frinis said.

“I was going to say,” Talyc remarked, “who does all the jobs you don’t want done?”

Hydet changed the conversation. “Frinis, do you have the bottle on you?”

“I’m not sharing it,” she scolded.

Hydet picked up a cup of wine off the table. “All the drinks here taste like moss!”

“That’s your problem — why do you know what moss tastes like?”

“Why do you think he’s so short?” Talyc laughed.

“Drink water,” Hani said. Her shoulders weren’t so tense anymore. Oh Gods, she was getting involved.

Hydet cracked his voice saying, “Water doesn’t even taste like anything!”

“Water doesn’t— it’s water!”

Hani felt something thin and long jab into the side of her back. Something wet dampened all over her emerald dress. Her eyes shut, her mouth was open in horror. She twisted around, knitting her eyebrows. Someone, a girl, shorter than her, slightly ragged clothes, had spilt a tray of wine over her.

Her gaze was down to her waist, the red had already dampened. She looked back up to the girl, only staring. Her ears. Round. Maul her. Thrash her. Gather all the soldiers just so they could behead her.

“Did someone gouge your eyes out or do you have the awareness of a mayfly?!”

“Erm… I— sh— s…” The girl was stammering, not one bit of it sounded like an apology.

“Sorry!” One of the other Human servants, a bearded man, ran over. He masked a smile once he arrived. “I am so sorry, your… grace. Sh— she’s just under a lot of pressure.”

“That’s not an excuse, it’s my Father’s ascension ceremony! Either we have people who can handle it or we don’t!”

“I will deal with her, your hon— lor— grace! Do you want me to get your anything? A towel?”

She lowered her voice. “Leave it. Just take the brat away.”

“Of course, at once.” He grabbed the girl by the shoulders, and began to push her elsewhere.

“Now,” Frinis said smiling,proudlysmiling, “Where did all this confidence come from?”

Hani was calm now. Everything played back like a chronicle in her mind, and her skin warmed in the worst possible ways. “I embarrassed myself, didn’t I?”

“No! No, you did really— look at your dress, you think acting soft would’ve made a mark on her? Humans need to be put in their place every so often, you know.”

Her mother suddenly darted behind her. “Oh, what happened to you, duckling?”

“It’s nothing, Mother,” Hani said. Of course, she wasn’t going to listen.

“Do you know how much I paid for this dress?”

Hani rolled her eyes sighing. “It’s fine.”

She snatched a wet cloth from one of the tables and began to rub into her dress. “You can’t stand around drenched like this!”

“It isn’t staining, you can barely see it! J-just stop making a scene, please!”

Give her every cut and every bruise. All would be preferred over serving as muse.

“Your father only gets one of these ceremonies. He won’t want his only daughter to look like she just crawled out of the sea.” She continued to mutter to herself. “Go inside and get yourself changed. That blue dress you have should do.”

Hani slouched. “You know how much I hate that thing!”

And there was no room for protest. She was already making her way back through the staring masses, and into the palace high back up the hundred stairs. Hani bunched her dress up below. giving her legs some more space.

There was a view of the whole Square from her marble room. Purple curtains acted as their own banners over the tall windows. The event danced on without her. Frinis was moving away from the crowd, downing the bottle as Hydet slowly chased her.

Her old, blue dress rubbed in all the wrong ways, itched in all the wrong places. One evening. It was just one evening she would endure. Otherwise, just throw her off the palace at a hundred fucking metres.

Music blared. One of the servants shouted from the corridor, “It’s starting, Mistress!”

Her Father, in his silk, white gown, was already making his way up on stage. That old Regent, Tarrenorf, was walking off. He was the only person well-dressed that was removing himself from the ceremony.

Back down the marble stairs of the Governor’s palace, and out onto the cracked cobblestone. Her mother was already waiting outside, then dragged her by the arm. “Come on!”

“You don’t need to pull me!”

Back through the masses, up the wooden stairs. A hundred pairs of bright green and blue eyes stared up, freezing her in place. There was a rumbling sound, she couldn’t tell if it was either her heart or the sound of distant thunder. Frinis was waving up at her from below, Talyc and Hydet were whispering another stupid argument.

The guards were moving a bit more, some were leaving, some were agitated as their heads turned side to side. A few of the High Priests and Mages stood aside her Father. Her hands clasped together, she squared her shoulders but her garments did not agree with her posture.

“By the Emperor’s will,” the high sorcerer said, “We have gathered for a new age in this realm. Of course, we will miss the governance of Leris Frell, he served us gracefully since the island’s reclamation. Standing here is his successor, Amrez Roulennsia of Omano. He is without a doubt well-versed in the intricacies of our imperial civilisation. Though he may be a bit more used to the sun in the sky.”

There was some laughter, not a lot.

The sorcerer turned to her father after a round of applause, opening the book to a certain page, telling him to read.

He stood on top of the podium, book in hand, and his words began to slur. “I, Amrez Roulennsia of Omano, do state, by accordance of our honourable majesty, Emperor Tyvis II of the Ieran Empire, to take up the mantle of governance in the colony of Witaenal. To act in accordance of the will of the empire, and in the benefit of all Elfkind. I—”

Something was thrown onto the stage.

The speech stopped.

Everything stopped.

There was a flash, accompanied with a loud bang. Hani was on the ground, bits of wood littered her hair. Her ears were ringing. Why were they ringing?

Hani’s limbs and joints cramped pulling herself up. There was some blood on her, leaking down from her head. Her eyes were in a blur.

Someone grabbed her shoulder, she couldn’t tell who it was. The next moment, they were already on the ground beside her.

Completely still.

The ringing wasn’t stopping. The bangs continued on and on. More people were on the ground now. More blood was spilled onto her. She couldn’t think of anything else to do but crawl under one of the covered tables.

Hani huddled her legs to her pounding chest. She felt like she was suffocating. Walls were closing in on her and she couldn’t even see them. The ringing lessened somewhat. There were more bangs, and now she was hearing short-lived screams.

She put her hand to her head, jerking it away as it stung on the wound. Every cut and every bruise, and it still made her someone’s… the poem didn’t matter anymore.

Should she have cried here? Was she allowed to cry?

The table was ripped away from above her head. A figure towered over her, holding something of wood and steel in his arm. They pulled something on the side before getting tackled.

“Get off her you bastard!” Hani heard. Was that her mother’s voice?

Whatever the figure was holding was pointed away from her face, and she took the opportunity to run for it.

She didn’t stop and stare at the bodies on the ground, even as she slightly tripped on some.

One of the doors to the palace was up ahead, a few were running inside, she intended to be one of them.

Something stung her in the back.

She stopped running.

Hani was on the ground again.

Nobody would praise her as martyr.