rainbowfic | Crane White #19, Fire Opal #13, Fever Red #27

Name: shadowsong26
Story: Shadows
'Verse: Feredar
Colors: Crane White #19. The infernal rattling of the rain still remains (Kellom knows he can't kill them all.), Fire Opal #13. It consumed..., Fever Red #27. crackers
Supplies and Materials: paint-by-numbers (from Kat), bichromatic, brush (encumber), oils, stain, feathers, fabric, charcoal, pastels (my current gen + romance card, N1 "war"), novelty beads ("The truth unfolds/And I am lost/And not found." - Vagabond, Beirut), beading wire, glitter (Try to make sense of something that’s confusing you right now.), glue ("Your ruling planet Mercury is working overtime today to smooth over the rough spots in your life. Unfortunately, your ability to rationalize is so natural that you could be the victim of your own cleverness. Be careful not to sidestep an unpleasant discussion now because denial can come back and make things difficult later on. Believe it or not, facing the truth isn't as tough as running from it.")
Word Count: 410
Rating: R
Characters: Kellom
Warnings: Aftermath of a riot, references to genocide, violent death of a child
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always.

Kellom climbed down from the roof of the damaged building until he hit the rubble at the base, and studied the fractured street around him.

The bodies had already been removed, of course. He wouldn't have risked coming down here, having himself recognized, if the cleanup crews were still working. Going incognito had, of course, become much more difficult since he had become King, but it was still possible, with appropriate precautions.

To be safe, he twitched his hood up, making sure his face was securely shadowed, and started picking his way through the disaster zone.

It had happened fast, this riot. Some of them took a while to get going, but this one...this one had been planned,, he was sure of it. The Movement had snuck its parasitic agents into the crowd, and at just the right moment, they had...

Frustrated, he tried to focus on just cataloguing the property damage. Buildings blasted with fire and stone--some from mages, some from cleverly-armed humans. Bloodstains, debris, dirt and ash; the occasional flash-shadow, burned into what was left of the walls.

But what bothered him most were the marks of human weapons. And how this, like other riots, had clearly involved significant numbers of his own kind.

He had planned for resistance from both collared and unregistered mages, of course. Every creature has a healthy sense of self-preservation. And he'd even suspected there would be a few young, bleeding-heart sentimentalists, like the kind that refuse to eat meat out of intense scruples.

But he'd planned this so carefully. He'd gone over the details a thousand times, both in his own head and with his generals and civilian councilors. His timeline wasn't too fast, he was redirecting appropriate resources from the war...even Andrell's defection, while souring public opinion to a certain extent, couldn't explain...this. Not just this riot--though this was the worst yet--but that there had been so many of them, with so many...

Why were so many humans turning against him?

He'd been prepared for resistance, like he'd been prepared for war. He'd been prepared for a few unpleasant arrests, for the occasional distressing collateral damage. He had seen worse than this, on the front lines, he just...

He stopped next to a painfully small flash-shadow, no larger than his little niece Nava.

"Where did I go wrong?" he whispered.

Nothing answered him but the bloodstains, the debris, the dust and the ash, and that reproachful, too-small flash-shadow.

Crane White #19, Fire Opal #13, Fever Red #27

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