Chapter 2: Oranges and Cream Sweaters

Kody smiled gently at the painting before her. Though she usually preferred more classical works, she found an odd sense of therapeutic comfort in the abstract orange swirls of her latest assignment for her painting class. Content with her newest swipe of color, she put her brush down and distanced herself from her painting to better observe it. As she straightened in her chair, she felt the unnerving sensation of being watched. She turned to her right and met Livia's gaze. The girl was staring at Kody with her dark eyebrows furrowed slightly and lips pursed. Kody turned slowly around in her chair and found Zavid giving her a similarly confused look. Kody hesitantly turned her head between the two beings, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with their unchanging stares. "What?" She finally questioned, breaking the awkward, tense silence between the three. "Is there something in my teeth?" Kody blushed, bringing her hand up to her face to cover her mouth.

Livia and Zavid exchanged a knowing glance, and then returned their stares to Kody. It was Livia who spoke next. "What in the five rivers of Hades are you painting?" Kody blushed even more furiously, looking down at the painting that she had considered to be at least halfway decent.

"It's a..." Kody stammered, "…well I mean there's no subject matter, but…"

"So what is it?" Zavid broke in.

"It's… abstract," Kody shrugged, lifting her tone at the end of her sentence and making it sound more like a question than a statement. Livia and Zavid continued their droll stares. "You know," Kody suggested, "abstract? It's not so much a picture of an object as it is a picture of a feeling."

Livia and Zavid exchanged another glance, looking skeptical. Livia leaned in closer to Zavid and whispered. "This is considered art now?"

Kody, now feeling a need to defend her work, snapped at the duo. "Of course it's considered art. Art is about expressing yourself, not just creating a perfect reproduction of something physical."

Zavid continued to frown. "But what are you expressing? Oranges?"

Kody scoffed. "Of course not. The color orange here is supposed to represent a feeling of joy and light-heartedness."

Livia raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow. "That's what you think joy looks like?"

Kody stiffened again, still defensive of her work. "To me, yes, it is." It was now Kody's turn to frown. "Why, what do you think it should look like?"

The skepticism on Livia and Zavid's faces was now replaced with concentration. Livia opened her mouth to respond, but quickly shut it and looked to Zavid to answer for her. The Hel Hound sat silently for a few seconds before responding.

"Well, it wouldn't be orange."

Kody looked at the two beings that sat beside her. She suddenly realized that the problem wasn't that Livia and Zavid disliked her painting, but that they didn't understand the meaning it had the potential to hold. Kody smiled, now grasping the situation for what it was. "It doesn't have to be orange. It can be whatever color makes you happiest and holds the most meaning to you, personally."

Livia frowned and raked a stare over Kody and her painting. "Orange," she sneered the word, "holds the most meaning to you?"

Kody blushed. She knew that she couldn't tell Livia or Zavid why orange was special to her without making herself seem weak and an easy target to abuse. Orange was the color of the tacky Hawaiian shirt that Nick had worn the day they met. It was the color that Kody was supposed to kill him in, but it was also the color that Kody fell for him in. Kody straightened in her chair, pushing those thoughts down and giving Livia her best smile. "Yes," she responded simply. "It does. But that probably isn't the case for you or Zavid."

Livia narrowed her eyes on Kody. "What are you saying?"

Kody sighed, getting slightly frustrated with all the questions surrounding her and her work and its meaning. "All I'm saying is that orange represents joy to me personally because of the happy memories it reminds me of. You and Zavid are likely to have different colors that bring you back to different happy memories."

Livia and Zavid glanced at each other, and then back to Kody, looking lost. "Oh come on," Kody frowned. "I know you guys have had it rough, but everyone's got some happy memories somewhere. There's probably a color you can associate with it, too."

Black, Zavid thought. Black, the color of his dear sister's long hair, the hair that matched his own and reminded him to carry on for Zarelda, despite the suffering. He knew he couldn't tell Kody or Livia that, though, and risk looking weak in front of such powerful companions.

Green, Livia thought. Green, the color of only one of Xevikan's eyes. Green, the color of the eye that saw her cursed, bound state, and took her under its watchful protection. She knew she couldn't say such a thing out loud, though, and chance appearing feeble in the company of such power.

Kody smiled. The confused looks of Livia and Zavid remained in place, but Kody saw past them. Both had a memory in mind, no matter how long ago it took place or how marred by future battle scars it would become. She also saw that neither, however, would ever open up to sharing those memories, much like she would not share her thoughts of Nick. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasn't really all that different from either of the beings before her. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to pull a Nick and befriend them.

Kody put on an obviously fake pout and looked at her two acquaintances. "Well," she started in a drawn-out, sarcastic voice. "If you two really can't think of any happy memories…" Kody grabbed the open paint tube beside her and mentally berated herself for acting so much like her imbecile of a boyfriend. "…then I guess we'll just have to make some."

Kody exhaled sharply, bracing herself for the fallout of what she was about to do, and squirted orange paint all over Livia's black top. A pregnant pause followed the simultaneous gasps of Livia and the class's teacher. Kody feared for her life for a brief second in that pause, trying to gauge the exact expression on Livia's face.

Before Kody even knew what had happened, though, Livia broke out in a mad grin, grabbed a tube of green paint to her right, and squeezed its contents directly onto Kody's head. The class erupted into a series of cheers as Zavid's purple eyes sparkled. From the back of the classroom, Alex Peltier let out a loud whoop and shouted. "Paint fight!"

The classroom of normally tranquil painting students broke out into chaos in an instant. Paint was fired from all available paint tubes, onto all possible victims. The teacher screamed in a horrified voice as she ran for the door, being pelted with paint bullets as she did. Zavid seized the opportunity to split the gooey contents a black tube of paint between Livia's face and Kody's dress.

Kody, though positive that all these paint stains would never come out of her pink dress and cream sweater, grinned at her two accomplices. Her smile stretched even further when she saw that her two new friends were grinning back at her with genuine joy. She had never seen such a display of happiness from either of the two. Even if it got her expelled, she was glad that she had embraced her inner Nick Gautier and made the days of two new friends.

Livia ducked as a blast of chartreuse made its way towards her face, targeting and firing her tube of hunter green at the offender's previously white shirt. She beamed, feeling the long-forgotten sensation of sore cheeks from smiling so long. Such a feeling of soreness only made her beam all the more. Her whole life had been nothing but pain for almost as long as she could remember; it was about time that she was in pain for something that brought her joy.

Zavid felt the familiar rush of adrenaline pump through his veins as he turned on the ball of his foot to pelt a student with a burst of black. This time, however, he experienced something quite unfamiliar: the feeling of excited adrenaline. He been subject to fighting involuntarily so many times in his past that he had forgotten the feeling of fighting for something he actually wanted.

Outside in the hallway, Nick walked past the art room, heading towards his locker to retrieve a book he had forgotten for physics. He stopped two steps past the room, puzzled by what he thought he saw. Slowly, the Cajun backed up two steps, his head turned toward the window in the door of the art room. His mouth fell open in disbelief as he saw Kody, Livia, and Zavid standing back to back to back at the front of the room, mauling the other students with their globs of color. Nick chuckled to himself, wishing he had seen what had started such a riot. Hearing the sound of an angered art teacher and an even angrier principal approaching, Nick winced for his friends and sprinted down the hallway, turning the corner before allowing himself to smile. He had taught his girl in the cream sweater well.