The Colorless Land

Chapter 26: Power and Resistance

"Fay!" Maithea and Nellary exclaimed in unison.

"It doesn't matter who any of us are," Fayabel went on in that same eerie tone. "We are tools. Either we are useful, or we are discarded."

Maithea grabbed her shoulders. "Fay, stop it. You're starting to sound like them!"

Fayabel did not respond at all. Maithea's eyes flitted to Nellary in desperation.

With a short nod Nellary took aim and slapped Fayabel hard in the face.

"Snap out of it," she said. "You're not one of the Colorless. You're Fay. Don't let the monsters win!"

Fayabel blinked. The strange apathy disappeared. For a moment she almost looked like her old self again.

"I won't," she said gently, and suddenly it was the old Fayabel speaking. "But...I don't believe it's possible. Unless we're released soon..."

The despair returned to her face, wrestling with the apathy. "We won't be released," she said. "Not soon. Not ever. The king has abandoned us."

"Should I slap her again?" Nellary whispered. Maithea shook her head. Fayabel seemed in a state where no slaps could truly bring her back to reason.

"And for what?" she continued, raising her voice. "A little boy that doesn't belong to our people? The king doesn't care. This is how little we matter to him!"

Maithea's head snapped up, annoyance flaring. "Fay!"

"What? Isn't it true? All of us are worth less than this one child!" All around them people began to gather, listening to Fayabel's rant. "Say whatever you want about the Colorless, at least they value their people!"

Maithea narrowed her eyes. "If they value them that much, why did he run away?"

"Who knows! Children are brats."

"He was frightened!"

"How is that our problem? All of us would be safe if we hadn't messed with business that wasn't ours!" Fayabel's voice rang through the hall. "We should have handed him over and been done with it!"

"Shut up already!"

Everyone stared. This time it wasn't Nellary who had exploded and raised her voice. It was Maithea, glaring and shaking with barely-controlled anger.

"Would you have turned him away, then?" she asked. "Left him to freeze and starve in the wild, with winter coming? Could you have done that to a child?"

Fayabel returned her eyes with a cold fury. "It doesn't seem so bad now."

"Look at you." Maithea grabbed her face between both hands. "You talk like the Colorless. Any more of this, and you'll turn straight into one of them!"

Fayabel's face turned dangerously blank.

"I already have," she said in a voice that wasn't hers. "We all have. It's too late to fight back."

With that she turned away and disappeared into the crowd with oddly mechanical movements.

Maithea was left behind, instinctively reaching up a hand to brush over her face. It had been an eternity since she had last looked into the mirror. She wondered if she looked as bad as Fayabel. She wondered if they all did.

Looking up, she let her eyes roam around the crowd assembled around them. All of them looked tired and thin and pale. Many had lost hair, or their hair had begun to whiten in a way that did not look like normal aging. Many eyes looked dulled. Not quite as faded as Fayabel's, not yet, but Maithea felt like it was only a matter of time.