Blush

Blush had grown up in a leafy grove, where her family were the feeling-wearers.

When she was small, her feelings confused her. When a big grey sadness came, or a fizzy anxious orange, her cousins would say "cheer up" or "don't be like that," as if some feelings were the right ones to have and others were mistakes. So Blush learned to squash her greys and oranges down and paint on a fake bright color, and underneath she felt tangled and alone, sure that some of her feelings were simply wrong to have.

One soft evening her oldest auntie curled up beside her, her own skin an honest, tired blue. "You keep hiding the colors you think you're not allowed," she said gently. "But there are no wrong feelings, little one. Grey isn't bad. Fizzy-orange isn't bad. They're just how you feel right now, and now always changes." She let her blue drift slowly toward a warmer shade. "You don't have to fix a feeling or hide it. You just have to let it have its color, and let it move."

So Blush stopped painting on fake colors. She let her real feeling — a heavy grey that evening — simply be grey, without shame. And as she let it be, it slowly, on its own, drifted toward a softer shade. Something in her chest went loose and honest. Her greys and oranges hadn't been mistakes. They'd only been feelings, waiting to be allowed. She never again believed a feeling could be the wrong one to have.

When Blush was twelve, she climbed down from the grove and walked all the way to SynaForge.

Chroma, the old mentor, was waiting at the gate. "A feeling becomes a color," she said. "Tell me which feelings get a color, and which are wrong to have."

Blush thought of her allowed-at-last greys. "Every feeling gets a color," she said, "and none of them are wrong to have. Glad, sad, fizzy, tired, all of them — each has its own color, different for every person, and each is true. You help people let their real feeling have its color, instead of hiding it."

Chroma's kind eyes crinkled. "Then come in," she said. "So many children arrive here having been told their feelings are too big, or too much, or the wrong ones. You'll show them every feeling is welcome, and every color true." It was, Blush always felt after, the biggest moment of her young life.

Her workshop was soft and dim and cozy, with a color-cloth to hold. When a guarded boy named Tam sat down, arms crossed, Blush went a gentle, unpressured gold.

"No need to be happy here," she said, unhurried. "Just — what color is how you feel right now? Any color."

Tam looked away. "It's a bad one. A grey one. I'm not supposed to feel it."

"There are no bad ones here," Blush said softly, and let her own skin turn a matching, companionable grey, so he wasn't alone in it. "Grey is welcome. Draw your grey." He did, small and careful. "Beautiful. That's a true feeling, and a true color. Some people's sad is blue, or brown, or a heavy green. Your grey belongs right beside them all." As he let the grey just be, Tam's shoulders came down a little.

Then the grey seemed to swell up big, tears close, and Tam tensed, scared of the size of it.

"A big feeling is allowed to be big," Blush said at once, gently, "and you don't have to sit alone in it. Let's find a color to rest with — a calm one, whatever feels soft to you — and hold it while the big one moves through. It always moves. I'll stay right here." Tam picked a quiet deep blue to rest in, and Blush stayed beside him, grey then blue, until the big wave passed.