As far as new blood colors could go, Cerulean isn’t too much of a change from Indigo, but you still feel weird walking around with a different shade under your skin. You don’t put much weight in the hemospectrum as far as self worth goes; It’s all about STRENGTH and DETERMINATION in your book, but that isn’t the case for everyone. Most trolls are firm believers in the bloodcastes, often to a violent extent.
You’re no stranger to violently expressing beliefs, you break at least one heckler at each of your matches, but the idea gives you pause now. You’re weaker than you were a day ago, and the memories of losing against Daraya and the Blizzard Terror are still on your mind. You don’t consider either of them real losses, but still. You saw firsthand how much a change in caste can impact someone’s fighting abilities. Where she went to the very top, however, you’re a midblood now. Still blue, but not blue enough.
You don’t know what the law is for this sort of thing. Do drones still view you as indigo? Do you no longer have the right to live in your hive? Does changing colors make you a mutant, even if someone else caused it?
You’re Nihkee Moolah, and Nihkee Moolah doesn’t feel ‘fear.’ She isn’t able to be afraid, concerned, anxious, or much of anything outside of anger.
She wasn’t able to lose either at one point.
You’re worried. Not enough to stop you from attending the buffet. Things like ‘danger’ and ‘common sense’ have never impacted your decisions. You want to do it, so you will. Besides, it’s a lowblood neighborhood. You’re as high as anyone else there, so it’s not like you’re going to get culled by some rowdy violet.
You’re worried anyways. It’s been a rough few perigrees and this isn’t helping. Nothing had happened when you were bronze, you know, but you spent all of that locked in your hive. You’re outside, now, jogging towards the buffet and trying not to make eye contact with anyone. That isn’t too hard since you’ve kept your ‘new’ eye closed ever since you stepped outside, but still.
You jump when you see movement out of the other, almost slipping on the icy sidewalk before your prosthetic stabs into it.
It’s just you, reflected in the tinted window of a store. You’re a mess. One eye screwed shut, the other bloodshot with a color that almost looks like it should in the purple reflection. The makeup around them is smeared. Your hair is undone, what was once a bun hanging loose around your head and resting against your jacket’s collar. There’s still dried blood on your lip, leftover from when you bashed your nose. As you reach up to wipe it away, you see that your hands are shaking, despite the thick sleeves coming up to your wrists.
You can’t look away from the purple reflection, not until a cold wind makes your face scrunch up and your body shiver. You’re still shaking when it passes, every muscle in your body shuddering as you open your eyes and look at yourself.
Not with cold, or fear, but Rage.
Fuck that. Your hands reach for the shoulder opposite them, fingers digging into the fabric with enough force that it hurts your palms. The seams tear all at once, either sleeve coming free in a single motion, torn off in such a way that they barely resemble clothing at all. You lean down, wiping one through the half melted snow beneath you and then along your face, taking your makeup with it. The water is freezing, but it feels as if your body is burning with energy, getting hotter every moment.
You look back to the glass, nine wild pupils meeting their purple reflections. You looked like a stray cat before, left in the cold by an uncaring owner. Now, you look feral, as if your reflection is about to pounce, to jump out and attack you for being the first thing its twisted eye saw. You move first, a first wrapped in what was once sleeve crashing through your glass counterpart, sprinkling purple dust all over the store beyond. Fuck. This.
There is only one Nihkee Moolah, and you aren’t her.
She is you. You aren’t some troll trying to chase an imaginary ideal, you’re the troll the ideal changes to fit. A feral animal tearing through preconceived notions to fulfill whatever it wants. If something is in the way of that, you will break it.
You spend a little while longer staring at the broken glass, heavy breathing slowly turning into quiet panting. Eventually you reach up and bundle up your hair, using the shards of glass to put it back in a bun. You think about cleaning up, the broken glass, finding a way to pay for it, but you don’t.
Fuck it. You’re late enough for the buffet already.
