A/N: This is wholly based on Jodi Lynn Anderson's, Tiger Lily.
Don't Look Good in Yellow
His eyes were a shade bluer than the sky, full of youthful promises, with irises that seemed to sparkle of warmth and joy. His hair was golden as the sun with untamed strands, tousled by the wind and unkempt by the salty tide. His mouth was adorned with a boyish grin, dried by the gust but still plump enough to kiss. His shoulders were thin and bony, down to his arms and to his rough-skinned hands, worked and made.
"What's your name?" He asked, his posture relaxing but his eyes were still on alert, one ear trained on the mouth and the other ear on his surroundings.
The beating of the drum was faint but he heard it. And in a blink of an eye, he was gone.
… … …
Two feathers stood proudly on my circlet, black and white, both symbols of nobility, and both symbols of scourge. Cursed, they would say, a child of the crow. People would tattle, they would judge, but only when my back was turned for how could they when I was raised above them?
… … …
The doe was not supposed to get away.
I never missed a hit. Ever.
The leaves rustled crisp and clear. There, hidden on the bushes was a shadow of a boy, fading to silhouette until the sun shone and left nothing in its wake.
The doe got away. And so did him.
… … …
Too toned for a girl but too curvy for a boy…
Too sloppy for a girl but too organized for a boy…
"Don't you think it's time to give up the hatchet and trade it for needles?" My father would often ask me.
"Don't you think it's time to give up the dress and trade it for pants?" I would often counter him.
He would smile, kiss me on the cheek and pat me on the head. Then he would grab the wooden comb and insist that I let him comb my hair. He would knot the strands into complicated braids. No one would have guessed my father was a shaman.
… … …
He had one arm on my chest to pin me against the trunk of the willow tree. I was tracking a set of footprints he left on the wet mud, thinking that the rumors were not true and that he was not as bright as some people said he was. No trained warrior would ever leave irresponsible tracks, albeit small and unrecognizable, to let others catch up. Hunters could never be the hunted.
But it was a trap and he had been expecting me. It all happened too fast and before I knew it, I was at his mercy. With a little twisting of his arm, he could already have me killed. I was not afraid to die, not really. If I were like the girls in my village, I would have been hysterical by now. But I was nothing like them. I was trained, amidst everybody's complaints, to be like the soldiers in my tribe – cold and fearsome. My only regret was that I would die in the hands of a boy, a lost boy, around sixteen years and all because my curiosity got the best of me.
"Don't fight," he said. It was not a command, more like a request. Then he let go. He stepped back and puts his hands on his waist and stared. "I just want to be your friend."
… … …
I was a bride at sixteen.
In our tribe, I was already passed the age of marrying. Most of us are mothers by the time we reached fifteen. My marriage had been cast aside for years out of respect for my father and fear from the gods who my people believed stood by me.
"She's ran wild long enough. She must be tamed."
The gods, I thought, were not really at my side. For if they were, I would not be engaged to a man thrice my age.
My father looked at me with sad eyes. "I'm sorry, little one."
It was not his fault. In this land, people fear change. They fear time more than they fear death. They fear uncertainty. And I was a conundrum. I did not fit their ideals. I was the poster for change. I was a puzzle.
"You are not the only one," my father would sometime say. I supposed he was also a puzzle unsolved. He wore dresses better than most women in our village. His hair was long and fashioned into elaborate headdresses of hues that matched the rainbow after a rain. But nobody questioned him, nobody cared. I asked him about it one night and he just simply answered with a wink, "because I had you."
I never understood it back then. And now as I stood in front of the fire, awaiting the council's judgment, I finally realized what he meant.
The wedding was set three moons after the winter solstice, in time for one of the many festivities that we celebrate, apt for the shaman's only daughter.
… … …
I always considered myself blindly loyal. It was what Sky Eaters were raised to be. But to be loyal to a horrible man, even when he was to become my husband, was torture. So when my thoughts started to be consumed by images of someone who was not my betrothed, the guilt was snapped out of me. I was never stricken and any ounce of fear I felt was because the feeling was foreign.
… … …
He came to me one night, kneeling at the edge of my bed. I startled, unused to being spied on. I have always been a light sleeper, jerked at the sudden of movements but I never felt him enter her room at all. It was every bit of unnerving.
"You should not be here," I told him. Nobody could find out that they were seeing each other. "They are going to kill you."
He smiled. "I'm not scared."
"You should be." She hurriedly pulled down the blinds of the windows and listened for any sounds that would indicate that someone was watching them. "What do you want?"
"I want to show you something."
He opened the blinds again and hop out of the window. I followed him. We paddled carefully until we were out the boundaries of my village. He led me to a clearing, onto a lagoon that I never visited because the elders forbid it. He grabbed by hand and pulled me to hide behind the tree.
"Look."
After a few moments, the lagoon was suddenly lit up with small flickering lights that seemed to dance in the wind. My heart was caught in my throat. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. And if I listened close enough, I felt like I could hear some form of music, the sweetest melody in the world.
I could feel his breath on my neck, sweet and musky and earthy. He leaned his head on my shoulder like it was the most natural thing to do. "Beautiful," he said and my heart beat wild and it was all for him.
… … …
He introduced me to his friends. They were young boys who were around the same age as he was. They were a funny group of people, all gangly and clumsy but I knew that they have seen way more than boys their age were supposed to see. They laugh at the most ridiculous things that you would never have guessed how much horror they saw and pain they experienced. They took me in like I was part of their small family. We would run along the meadows like little kids, swim in the river like little fishes, swing on vines as we pretended that we could fly. For the first time in my life, I belong.
… … …
"I miss you," my father said one day as we were collecting herbs for whatever concoction he was brewing. I never really paid attention to his works. "I feel like I never see you anymore."
"I am here now," I said, wanting nothing more than to get away from him. He could always see through my lies. I supposed it was part of his essence as a shaman.
He patted my head fondly. "Be careful, my child, because you can never unmeet the people you meet."
… … …
He kissed me for the first time behind the curtains of the waterfall, hidden from prying eyes of his friends and away from the judging faces of my people. It was unexpected and I did not know what to do or how to react. I sat there, bewildered with my eyes opened and my hands trembling. He pulled away shyly and his face was red then flashed this goofy grin that made my heart jumped.
… … …
I watched my father as he lovingly sew the dress I would be wearing on my wedding. My heart was breaking and that was the moment I knew that I was in love.
… … …
Both of us were lying on our backs, looking up at the stars in the skies. "What was life like before we met?" I asked, turning my head to the side so that I could see his expression.
"Lonely."
"Has it always been that way?"
His forehead creased as he thought about it. "I think so. I don't really remember."
"What was your life like before me?"
I sighed and looked up to the heavens again. "Difficult."
"And now?"
A small smile tugged on the corners of my lips. "It's bearable."
He chuckled, pleased with my answer. He leaned on one elbow as he hovered on top of me. He planted a light peck on my nose before kissing me on the lips. And as I kissed him back, I realized that life was actually easier before I met him.
… … …
We fought. We argued. We yelled. It amazed me how he could make me swoon one minute and then make my blood boil the next. When we fight, the boys would get uncomfortable; the same way children would feel when they see their parents fight. Sometimes, they rolled their eyes and ignored us as if our fights were pointless. I supposed the boys were right. After every quarrel, we would always find a way to make up. We would apologize, lower our prides, which was hard because we were both so stubborn. I wondered if that was how every relationship worked. I tried my best not to think about the other man and the fights I would likely have with him in the future.
… … …
Turned out my future husband thought differently when it came to fighting, he battered.
I forgot about my duties that day as I was too wrapped out with picking the herbs that my father asked for. I just closed the door when I felt the stinging across my cheek. He was drunk of ale. It was the season for wine-making and he was just too happy to help. I could easily fight back. I could take him apart with one blow but I chose not to. It was not because I was weak but any rebuttal from me would send the villagers up in arms. My betrothed's rank may not be as high as my father's but he was still a royal. And no matter how much I argue, he would just have to reason how I was to be his wife, and I would instantly be in the wrong.
That day, I learned an important lesson: that all women were actually born mute.
... … …
I did not go to him for a couple of days as I did not want him to see the small bruises on my arms. The villagers were stupid enough to believe me when I told them that I got it from hunting. But he could not be fooled. He would demand for the truth and I might not be able to deny him of it. Blood might be spilled and I might not be able to bear it if it were his.
He might have felt something was wrong then because he was squatting at the foot of her bed, eyes filled with worry. I reached for his hand and pulled him into bed with me. "Stay?"
He nodded and made himself comfortable beside me, wrapping his arm protectively across my waist and I did the same. It was risky but I did not care. I just wanted him right beside me.
He sobbed in his sleep.
I woke up to him turning in his sleep, sweating, and murmuring something that I could not understand. I panicked. My father might hear and discover us. I tried to calm him down, soothe his cries and held him closer. His body relaxed and the arms he had around me tightened like he was afraid to let go. I listened to his breathing until it became shallow but I could not sleep anymore. I was wide awake.
This boy was broken. Of all his tales about heroism and strength and fearlessness, he was actually lost. She wondered what happened in the past to make him like this. Then she wondered what happened in the past to make her like this, so lonely and different from anyone else. I used to blame time for their loss of memories. I understood now though that maybe they caused their own abstraction. They locked their painful memories somewhere because they were trying to protect themselves. And that was why they ended up in this land, far away from civilization because they were all running away from something.
She tried to wake him up, softly calling out his name until his opened. He was still groggy but he tried to shake the sleep away by blinking. She remembered him telling her that he was abducted as a child when ruthless pirates attacked their ship which was bound to sail from Europe to the New World. It must have been hard to experience all that, to be away from his parents, to watch them get killed, and "I love you."
I was overwhelmed, I thought, that was the reason why I said it. But he was staring at me in awe with his mouth-opened and his eyes fully awake and I felt rather vulnerable and stupid. "Are you not going to say it back?"
He chuckled quietly and sighed like he was so grateful at finally hearing it. "I love you too."
… … …
"Is it true?" were the first words he said to me when I arrived at the burrow. His anger was palpable that even the boys were gazing at us with worried expressions on their faces. "Are you getting married with somebody from your village?"
"Yes."
"Why did you not tell me about this?"
I stared at him, my face a masked of blankness. "I'm sorry."
He glared. "That's it?"
"What else do you want?"
"Tell me you're not going through it! Tell me that you are leaving him!"
I looked away from him. His face was a picture of anguish and sorrow and I was the cause of it. "I can't."
I heard a crash then his angry footsteps leaving the burrow.
… … …
Ruckus filled the land onpon the arrival of a huge ship