Scrawling Your Name On My Skin
The Colossal Gray Sunshine by Faultline, ft The Flaming Lips
Prologue: The Colossal Gray Sunshine
In which Nori is not okay and Ori will never fall in love. Not ever.
It was Ori who’d found her, but he wished it had been someone else.
Nori was supposed to be the brightest one in the family. Amad was iron and stone covering diamond and Dori was better, amethyst and alexandrite set in mithril and silver, but Nori was the colorful one. Nori was gems in all the colors of the hearth fire when she was laughing and she was steel and iron and mithril when she wouldn’t give in. She was green when she cried and blue when she couldn’t decide and she was yellow when she back-sassed Amad. She was even purple sometimes, when she was in a mood to sit and let Ori read to her while Dori braided her hair. Nori was color, though, so many shades and kinds that sometimes she was even colors that Ori didn’t have words for yet.
When Ori found her that day, though, her colors weren’t right.
Nori was sitting on the ground next to the door with her forehead pressed into her knees. She wasn’t crying or screaming or doing anything, really. If her colors had been okay, Ori would’ve just left her alone, but she was pale - so very pale. Ori had never seen her so pale before and, when he realized that she was losing even more color with each moment that passed, he panicked.
He ran to Dori first. Dori was strong and smart and Dori would know how to stop Nori from losing all her colors.
But Dori didn’t know how.
Nori didn’t react to anything that Dori said and whenever Dori tried to move her, she just did as Dori asked or went along with how Dori moved her. She didn’t even resist when Dori bundled her into a cuddle-hug that kept her all trapped exactly how she hated most.
Ori had known what Dori was going to say the moment the eldest Loriskin turned that horrible sickly shade of purple that meant that Dori was afraid.
So he didn’t wait for Dori to say it.
Ori ran the whole way to the market. He didn’t remember what path he took or if he ran into anyone or knocked anything over. He did remember that his face was wet when he finally found the stall Amad worked in, though. He remembered that his legs shook and his lungs burned like fire. He remembered the way Amad’s colors shattered like shale when the only word he could manage was Nori’s name.
By the time he got Amad home, Nori was nearly white and Ori thought he might throw up.
Bringing Amad home worked, though.
The moment Amad walked in the door, Nori burst into tears. She flung herself into Amad’s arms and sobbed and wailed and nearly made herself sick with how hard she cried, but Ori didn’t care. He was nearly crying himself because Nori was greens and yellows now and he’d rather have Nori colored like a fading bruise than that horrible non-color she’d been turning before.
All three of them fussed over Nori for the rest of the day. She wouldn’t eat anything they put in front of her, but she drank the tea that Dori made and let Amad bundle her in blankets. Ori didn’t know what to do. He was too young to know how to braid hair properly and his voice wasn’t meant for singing, so he sat next to Nori and held her hand while everyone else tried to work out what was wrong.
It wasn’t until after supper that she finally explained what happened.
Nori had found her One.
She called him Khagholel, he was one of the guard who patrolled the market. She had picked him out a year ago and had been trying to court him on her own. She was too young to be courting anyone, according to Dori, but others had done it younger.
Nori had found her One and today he’d rejected her.
Nori wouldn’t tell what the dwarrow had said or what his name was or even what he looked like.
Amad made soothing nonsense sounds into Nori’s hair and promised that her heart would heal. Dori yelled and snarled and said rude things about the guard, but Ori stayed quiet. His stomach felt funny.
Later, after all the lamps were put out and everyone was supposed to have gone to sleep, Ori crept as quiet as he could to his sister’s room.
Ori was a very good listener, Nori had told him before, and he knew that she was telling the truth because sometimes, when she didn’t want to tell Amad and Dori something, she would creep into his room and tell Ori the thing. When ages had passed and Nori didn’t come sneaking, Ori thought to go to her, instead.
He knew he had made a good decision when she reached for his hand the moment he peaked in the door.
Nori started speaking the moment he sat on her bedside, her voice wet and scratchy. She told Ori about the sound of her One’s voice and the color and styling of his hair. She went on and on about all the shades of blue his eyes were and the way sweat made his body gleam when he sparred on the practice field. She spoke of the tattoos that decorated his body and the runes that decorated his axes. She described his walk and the way he held himself so well that Ori thought that he might be able to sketch his portrait without ever having seen the dwarf himself.
Nori told about how she had tried courting the older dwarf and how careful she had been in choosing her gifts and what lengths she had gone through to find out the things her One might like. She explained how she had managed her way around chores and slipped away from her lessons and the weaving master to do what had needed done. She even shared with Ori the way she had tricked her One’s friends into helping her set up situations where he would have to talk to her.
But none of that really mattered, because Nori’s One had rejected her.
He had told her she was too young and that she was hurting the other market goers in taking his attention away from his duties. That he didn’t have time to entertain a child.
“Then make it his job to pay attention to you.”
Nori went quiet for a long moment. “What?”
“He said you were too young, but you can’t fix that right now.” Ori shifted on the bed, speaking his thoughts out loud for the first time since their listening ritual began. “But if you do something against the law, he’d have to pay attention to you. It would be his job.”
Nori made a strangled sound and sat up on the bed. Her mouth hung open and her eyes were wide, but Ori could see flecks of steel among the yellow-green she was still stained. “But if I’m caught - even if all they do is just get a good look at me - I’d bring shame on the house, on Amad and on Dori and you.”
Ori frowned and nodded. “Not if you looked different, though. If you change how you look a little bit, then they’ll never know. He’ll have to pay attention to you and no one will know you’re Nori.”
Nori spent another moment gaping like a fish before she surged forward and cracked her forehead against Ori’s so hard that he thought she might wake up the whole house.
“You’re brilliant, Ori!”
Nori smiled and laughed under her breath. She hugged Ori close and pulled him down so that he was snuggled up tight to her in the bed and the whole time his head was near to spinning with how colorful she was again - firelight flickering over metal like he was in a forge.
It was in that moment that Ori decided - he was never falling in love. Not ever.
