Hola, amiga! (Or amigo.) XD

I’m participating in Misty’s really fun writing challenge, Aspiring Authors Writing Challenge, or AAWC for short. (Read about it here.) (And see my other entries here.) The word prompt for this challenge was “Bright.” I can collect two extra points for my team if I work my team mascot into the story, so I did (I’m on Team Swan)!

So for this entry I decided to make a sequel to “Blue Eyes” as Jaclynn suggested. 😀 (Click here to read the first part of “Blue Eyes.”) I also drew a picture to go along with the story.

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I began my journey alone. No child of gray could enter that colorful paradise beyond the mountains. Only my blue eyes would gain me passage. I trudged over the colorless rocky road for miles while the white sun slowly climbed the invisible hill in the sky. My thoughts were centered on one subject: what would a colorful world look like? I couldn’t even imagine. I walked faster.

After hours of walking, I arrived at the glowering mountains and crept nervously down a trail between them. I was coming closer and closer to the last corner, closer to a world of color. My heart thumped like my father’s drum in my chest. I closed my eyes and felt my way toward the corner. Even through my closed eyes I could feel the warm sun on my face, and something else – something bright and beautiful that I had never felt before.

I opened my eyes. I was blinded at first by the staggering brightness of the scene before me, but then…

“Oh my.”

A tiny whisper was all that I could manage. One thousand tints and hues of color clung to everything. The grass was brilliantly lush and the hundreds of flowers beneath my feet were an astounding array of bright and soft, light and dark, streaked and solid color. The lake in front of me reflected every nuance of color and threw it back in fantastic glinting shades. And the sky! What my grandparents had said was true – the cloudless sky was the bluest blue of all, bluer even than my sky-blue eyes. I just stood there in astonishment. There was nothing I could do but fill my color-starved self with great gulps of color.

My first thought was, I will never leave this place. I could never make that long, gray trek home through our colorless land. Now that I had seen this, I could never live without color. All I wanted was to stay here forever.

Then I heard a splash and a swan landed in the lake in front of me. It was pure white with a black beak. No color. My mind rushed back to a lake near my house where we fed the lone swan that lived there. It too was pure white with a black beak. No color.

The spell was broken. I shook myself out of my trance. The colorless swan, so like the one at home, had jerked my mind sharply back to my mission. I gritted my teeth. I must. I resolutely pushed the thought of the long gray journey out of my head and set about collecting color. I plucked flowers of every hue, grass and leaves of every brilliant shade, dull sticks and twigs, and even a richly colored butterfly. I filled my little pouch with the precious objects; then, with one last longing look, I turned and hurried down the mountain path. All throughout the long journey home, I cradled the colors gently in my hand, a treasure more valuable than a chest filled with jewels and gold.

Finally, as the white sun puffed slowly down the side of the invisible hill, I was home. My family rushed out to greet me. I stood there tired but triumphant, light streaming from the pouch in my hands. They didn’t speak a word, but I could tell from the joy on their faces just what they were thinking.

My hands trembled as I gently poured the precious contents of my pouch onto the ground. The colors lay there almost living and breathing. My family gathered around me with shining faces.

We all held our breath as the colors of the bits of flowers and leaves grew brighter and brighter. They were a blazing fire of brilliant shades, a heatless flame of tremendous beauty. At last, color was living in our land!

And then… nothing. The color suddenly drained out like the ebbing tide, and we were left staring at nothing but grays and blacks and whites.

Nothing. My whole mission had come to nothing. I wanted to fling myself on the ground and wail, or better yet, to rush back to the land beyond the mountains. But I didn’t. I just stood there heartbroken. I knew my family was too.

But then something began to happen. A faint blush of color came into the ground beneath the wilted pieces and slowly strengthened. Then, as if it was a flower that had suddenly taken root, the pool of color blossomed upward and outward in glorious swirling tendrils. The color was surging over the ground now, a churning rainbow whirlpool. It reached out with eager fingers and clung to every blade of grass and every spot of earth, every tree and every house. It flew over the ground, faster and faster, a blur of rainbow covering everything in its path. When it had spread out as far as we could see, the color flashed into intense brilliancy, so bright that it nearly blinded us. Finally the show ended in a spectacular whirling rainbow tornado. The whirlwind flung itself into the sky and disappeared.

My family and I looked around us in a daze. For the first time we could see the color of our hair and eyes; for the first time we could see the magnificent colors of the sun resting in sunset splendor from his long climb. I danced and laughed with overflowing joy. My mission was completed. Our once dull and colorless land was now dazzlingly bright with color. Our broken world was whole once more.

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My favorite part is definitely the second to last paragraph. 🙂 Thanks for reading!

***Allison***