Chapter 11: Concrete and pigeons
The first thing she felt was coldness. Right along the length of her body. Cold, wet and hurt. Her body ached in ways she didn't know it could ache. It was like a bad flu. Except she didn't get the flu, did she? Well.. she hadn't ever since moving to Rainbow Land.
Wisp's eyes shot open at the thought of Rainbow Land, and all the memories of the last few days came flooding back to her. Memories of Tickled Pink being lost, of a Color Spectrum that was damaged, and of her giving up the Sphere of Light so she could try and follow Pink where ever she had gone. The memories felt weird and foreign.. like remembering something that happened ten years ago. She knew they were hers, but the details in the memories were all fuzzy and out of focus. Had she hit her head? Or was this a by product of choosing to give up on being Rainbow Brite and returning to little Wisp.
Wisp looked left and right, still mentally trying to reconcile what had occurred. It looked like she was in some type of alley way.. laying in some type of alley way. Actually that would explain why she was so cold, Wisp mused to herself, slowly pulling her legs up underneath her and unsteadily standing up. The hard concrete ground of this place was a long way away from the warm, lush grass of Rainbow Land. And the /smell/. The putrid smell of day old garbage and.. other stuff that made Wisp hope the wetness on the ground she had been laying in was water, assaulted her senses.
"Rainbow! You're okay!" she heard a worried voice cry. Wisp spun around to face the source, thoughts of waste and alleyways being pushed away.
"Moonglo.. no! What are you doing?!" Wisp gasped, her eyes falling on the worried face of Moonglo. The pale skin of her cheeks were smudged with dirt, and the dirt was streaked with what looked like dried tears. In fact.. the tears weren't dry for long, for upon Wisp's exclamation they began falling again, running down Moonglo's cheeks, leaving snaking, watery lines in the grime.
"Rainbow. I'm sorry.." Moonglo sobbed, the strawberry blond girl explaining as she wrung her hands in front of her. "I just couldn't let you go alone.. I just couldn't. Pink is.." the tears in Moonglo's eyes rising, drowning out her pale blue irises as the Kid of Night tried to find the words to explain. ".. she.. I.. if it wasn't for Pink.. "
The words wouldn't come.. the sobs of either worry, or guilt over disobeying the direction to stay in Rainbow Land, or both were now too frequent to allow Moonglo to make any sense.
But Wisp understood. To be alone, in a land where no one wants for anything, in some ways must be a pain that knows no words. She could kind of remember, during her history of Rainbow Land sessions with Shy Violet, that Moonglo appeared in Rainbow Land at about the same time Stormy did. This was long before Tickled Pink manifested..
Wisp could imagine the solitary life Moonglo lived.. every night performing her work with just Nite Sprite for company.. never feeling like she was part of the group that worked day light hours.
But then, one day having a pink pigtailed girl suddenly bursting into her life. Giving Moonglo something that she never knew she was yearning for. A friend and a connection.
And to have that suddenly ripped away..
"I understand Moonglo.." Wisp said, moving forward to hug her. "It's okay.." She may be little Wisp.. but she was still a mother.
"But what of the Color belt?" Wisp asked.. looking Moonglo up and down. She wasn't wearing it after all.
The sobs increased in their intensity. "I dropped it.. I'm sorry" Moonglo uttered between cries, her face looking pained. "I left it. . it rainbow land . . I saw you .. fading and dropped it.. grabbing on to you.. "
Wisped sighed. Not at all how she had planned this. But, what's done is done.
"It's okay.. really." Wisp said to Moonglo again, hugging her. "Red Butler or Buddy Blue will look after it. What's important is you're here, and I'm here. And we're together." Wisp pushed a big, confident smile onto her face, stepping back and holding Moonglo by the shoulders. "We're together and we're gonna find Tickled Pink!"
Moonglo wiped her eyes with her sleeve, not able to help herself but smile back. "How, Rainbow?"
Wisp's smile turned into a grin and she said, moving to entwine her left hand with Moonglo's right hand, "The first step is to get out of this alley. Really, I'm sure it smells worse than the Pits. Say what you want about Lurky, but at least he is potty trained."
To this the Kid of Night laughed, her sobs disappearing. It may be day, but it was a new day. And it held all the promise of one.
In the beginning there was nothing. A darkness that smothered everything around it. Life struggled to survive in the darkness, but although it survived, it never lived. But then.. then there was light. And from light came color. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Colors were born and they spread their light throughout the universe. But the universe was still unbalanced, darkness had become shadows and these shadows fought against the harmony that were the Color Kids. And so it was that the light manifested itself further, with Kids of the night and of the weather coming into being, attempting to keep order not just to the Spectrum but to the nights and to the seasons. But still the shadows fought; merging into a single being that subjugated the Colors and attempted to prevent the light from flowing across the universe.
The light again attempted to balance the universe, this time seeking out an avatar for its power, a young girl named Wisp who through all her short life had strove to bring kindness and compassion. But even then, the light sensed this wouldn't be enough.. balance was so close yet something was missing. The clockwork of the universal machine was all set in place, but one key piece was missing. One small pinion to synchronise all the ticking parts and keep them in order.
But the Colors had been formed. There were no more frequencies to manifest.
Yet at the edges of Red and Violet, there was a universe of possibilities; as beyond the frequencies of light lay wavelengths beyond the Spectrum. Before Red the frequencies of sound and infrared existed, and beyond Violet the frequencies of ultra violet flowed. It wasn't necessarily within the natural order, but the light knew a few tricks. The saying 'Trick of the light' wasn't for nothing after all.
Borrowing wavelengths outside the Spectrum, the light formed the final Kid.
It was at the beginning of a brand-new day that it begun. The arrival of the Kid first manifested itself through sound; a giggle echoing across the skies of Rainbow Land. Then the frequency of ultra violet was added; the sunrise of Rainbow Land starting to change from red, to orange, to something new. Finally a dash of infrared was added, hot excitable energy.
Through frequencies that should never technically be together, the final Kid appeared suddenly within a vast open field inside the prairies of Rainbow Land as the sunrise settled into a glorious pink hue. She looked about herself, a happy grin spreading itself across her cherub face.
"Why, I'm just Tickled Pink at this turn of events." She commented to herself and giggled.
And something within the universe clicked and there was harmony and balance.