[Jaykobell]

He jumped when some unknown animal made a noise not too far away from him. He lost his footing a little because of it, steadying himself against a large tree.

Another reminder that, perhaps, he shouldn't have come here alone.

The teenager stood still, frozen to the tree, for a moment. He looked around, and he listened. Nothing. He sighed, relaxing a little bit. He had some knowledge of this place, but he was only now realizing that knowing about it and experiencing it were two vastly different things. And if he didn't have an important goal to accomplish, he most likely would have avoided this place entirely.

So with the noise gone, and the silence back, he steeled himself to continue onward. If he continued to travel through this place, he had to find some kind of color. That's what all these scientists and military folks had said, hadn't they? That there was still color out there? And he needed that color. He had to find that color and bring it back home.

As he walked, he paid more attention to his surroundings, looking up and around — but not so much looking down. So when his feet started to sink into the mud, it took him a moment to understand that it was only getting worse. By the time he'd realized what was going on, he was already about knee-deep into the mud, and the more he tried to move or pull his feet out, the more the mud would pull and try to suck him in deeper.

"U-uh-oh... Oh no..." he mumbled to himself as he tried to spread the mud apart in an attempt to free himself, but it proved to be of little help. "Oh no." He looked up, and the fear started to fester as he only saw trees and bushes and more mud all around him, but no sign of anything else. Was anyone else even in here? Who would even be here?

"H... Hello?" Regardless, he couldn't get out of this mess all on his own. Maybe if he called out, someone would hear him... eventually. "I-is anybody here? I'm... I'm stuck!" Well, at least, he wasn't sinking in deeper, but the sooner someone found him, the better.

[Indigo]

The witches Rem knew, himself included, didn't always agree on a whole lot of things, were often not on speaking terms with each other for reasons nobody quite remembered, and could rarely all be gotten into the same room at the same time for more than a few minutes. But one thing they considered themselves to have in common was an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. When Rem awoke this morning to find the world mysteriously drained of color, it was, therefore, only natural that he should go out and do something about it.

Problem: he had no idea what to do about it.

Solving problems, especially weird magicky problems, was certainly a duty as far as he was concerned, but no one would ever go so far as to claim he was good at it. Fortunately he knew someone who was; less fortunately, she lived in a well-camouflaged swamp shack that he could never quite remember the way to, and while his feet always found the right path regardless, it was more than a little nerve-wracking to just walk in a direction and hope it kept being the right one.

So: Rem in the swamp, careful to stay away from the larger muddy patches, using his staff as a walking stick, occasionally reaching a finger of magic into the earth to ask a stray bone whether he was still going the right way. This was not especially helpful, since still-buried bones detached from their siblings had a limited amount of knowledge to offer, but he was mostly doing it to make himself feel better anyway. He had reached the point in his journey where he began to wish he'd brought an umbrella, which usually meant he was almost there.

It was under these circumstances that he heard a voice, calling for help. Rem was more than passingly familiar with this place, and was therefore aware of the sorts of strange things that could lurk in it, the kinds of trickery they could employ, but what the hell, he could probably take whatever it was if this turned out to be a trap. And if it wasn't a trap, well. Responsibility.

He turned toward the sound, wove between some trees into a significantly muckier patch than he'd been walking in before, and was confronted with what looked very much like a kid stuck in some very deep mud. What in the world was a kid doing out here? Especially now, with this whole grayscale mystery situation, but there was never really a good time for unattended minors to be wandering around Baian.

But the kid did genuinely appear to be in need of help, so Rem braced himself on the nearest solid ground and dug in his staff for good measure, and offered a hand. It briefly occurred to him that a slightly bedraggled bearded figure in a long sweater that resembled a robe at first glance, wandering out of the woods and wordlessly reaching out, might be a little alarming, so he said, "Hey—are you lost? Where are your parents?" Which might not help, but he was improvising.

[Jaykobell]

The silent moments following his call were unnerving. He certainly had plenty of time to doubt his abilities, and to wonder if, actually, he shouldn't have left home all on his own. But to think about the situation at home, he hadn't been able to stand sitting around, waiting, twiddling his thumbs.

He jumped and turned around when he heard movement nearby. He'd been terrified to find some sort of hungry predator, so he couldn't even describe the relief he felt when he saw another human being. It meant someone had heard him! "Oh, thank God! You heard me!" he said, relieved, as he stretched out his arm towards the bearded stranger to catch his hand — this stranger not being all that intimidating or weird, as far as he was concerned. It kind of fit the theme of this place. And he looked like a wizard! The teen could be on board with that.

"Um..." he mumbled, mostly to himself, as the savior asked about his parents. That alone was... a situation. "Um, they're not here," he admitted. "I'm here alone." He wasn't going to lie, but going on about his family structure didn't seem like something pertinent — or all that simply to explain, in his case. "But, um, y-yeah, I'm a little lost."

[Indigo]

He hadn't expected the kid to take his hand so readily—he had not actually been around anyone under the age of eighteen since he'd been a child himself, but he was under the impression that most of them learned not to talk to strangers pretty early on—but it saved him having to argue about it. Though Rem was not especially strong, between the staff and his position on solid ground and the fact that teenagers, in general, were lighter than adults, he had enough leverage to pull the kid free as long as he didn't resist.

"Ah. Hm." In retrospect it had probably been a stupid question, since nearby parents worth their salt would have responded to the call for help long before a random passerby had the chance, but wishful thinking was a powerful thing. That the kid was out here alone presented a new problem, which was that Rem couldn't just escort him back to his parents and have done with it.

Maybe now that he'd solved the immediate issue he could just...leave him here? No. He definitely couldn't do that. Unless he could find enough loose bones in the area to put together some kind of guardian, maybe? He reached into the earth again, but while there were some bits he could use to defend himself in a pinch, it was nothing he'd trust with this sort of task. Not that he trusted himself with it any further.

He realized he was just standing there silently again. "I'm probably not the only thing that heard you," he said. Was that too blunt? He had a vague impression that kids were easily scared, but maybe with a teenager it was different. But, then again, he was really just guessing in terms of age. Well. Too late now anyway. "Uh—where was it you were going? I know this area pretty well." With any luck it would be somewhere close, and safe. Safe-ish.

[Jaykobell]

For a moment, he thought that, even with the help of the stranger, he would remain stuck in the mud, the wet ground pulling at him. But finally, with enough force, the mud finally let go. It was such relief when his feet found solid ground again. "Th... thank you!" he gasped, looking back at the mud that had trapped him. He would be watching his step more closely, that's for sure!

He got up, and as he stared, the stranger's reaction was a little concerting. He wasn't sure what he had expected, but certainly not... standing still silently. He wasn't sure what to do or what to say, so he started fiddling with his hands timidly.

He tensed when the man spoke again, half-expecting him to leave the teenager behind now that he'd been freed from the mud. "Oh, uh..." he mumbled quietly, his eyes turning down to the ground. "Y-yeah, I was a little scared of that," he admitted. He felt even more uncomfortable hearing this; some kind of predator probably could have found him first.

"I'm..." When he was asked for a destination, his face went from shyness to sadness. "I'm not really going anywhere. I-I'm just looking for... for color." And he wasn't going to find any by getting stuck in mud, was he? "H-have you seen any?" he asked, a little hopeful, lifting his head up to look at the stranger with a little bit of naive hope in his eyes. If he knew the area pretty well, maybe he had seen something?

[Indigo]

"Yeah. This is probably not a great place to be wandering around by yourself," Rem said, which was almost certainly not reassuring at all. He was at least smart enough to refrain from saying that he didn't feel great about being out here alone now that he'd strayed from Lassiter's path; his feet itched to get back on track, back to relative safety. Or maybe that was just a rock in his shoe. Or both. Probably both.

Looking for color, now, that caught his attention. Well, his attention was already caught, but even more so. Rem lived in a very small house on the edge of a forest without any kind of television or internet access—the dead, he'd often found, were leery of wireless signals, at least the kind of dead that he tended to rely on—and had therefore missed out on most of the information circulating about the current situation. The possibility of looking for a source of color had occurred to him in an abstract sort of way, but not as something he could do anything about. That was the kind of thing Lassiter would have a strategy for.

He said, "No, I haven't. But I know someone who might have, and I'm on my way to see her anyway, if you want to come along." Internally he sort of grimaced at saying this, but it wasn't like he had a lot of options, here, since he wasn't about to throw this kid to the wolves, or, well, substitute your favorite swamp monsters, whatever. Choices were: take kid with him to Lassiter's house, or take kid home, wherever that might be. He was choosing the one most likely to further both of their goals and not result in harm to anyone.

It did not occur to him to ask why a lone teenager was looking for color all by himself, or at least, it didn't seem pressing enough to get out of the way ahead of time. Besides, the kid had dodged the parents question pretty thoroughly, which could mean a lot of things he absolutely was not prepared to deal with, and he had enough of those just now.

[Jaykobell]

The initial answer left the teenager crestfallen, but the followup gave him a little bit of hope again. "You do?" he asked, staring with wide eyes. His heart quickened at the thought of someone who might be able to show him where the colors were hiding.

"I-I'd like to come along!" he confirmed, and he clutched his hoodie as he spoke. Stress, excitement, fear; it was a few things that made him jumpy now. "I-I'll stay close, and I'll behave," he promised. He needed this stranger to believe him, that the teenager wouldn't be a nuisance. "I... I really need to find colors. Any colors! S-so if they can help..." his voice trailed away as he looked down, and as he fiddled with his hoodie, fists still clutching onto it.

[Indigo]

The staff had sunk a little deeper into the mud than would be ideal, but with a little wiggling he managed to wrench it free. "Okay, that's, um, good," he said. "I don't expect trouble if we move at a decent pace, but if I tell you to stand in a specific spot, do that." If some swamp creature picked a fight with them he needed to be able to set up a defense for the kid in a single place so he didn't have to waste too much energy maintaining it. With a gesture for the teenager to follow him, he led the way back through the trees, until he felt that he was on the right track again.

"I'm Rem, by the way." He was too distracted to make eye contact, since it seemed more important now to touch base with every skeleton he could find, make sure nothing was sneaking up on his newfound charge, but it felt weird to walk in silence with another person. Apart from the inevitable squelching. "What do you need colors so much for, anyway? You look a little young to be saving the world." Hopefully this kid wasn't some kind of powerful ancient being in disguise. Probably a powerful ancient being could get itself out of the mud with no trouble, but you had to be careful about things like that.

[Jaykobell]

He nodded enthusiastically when Rem gave him instructions. "I will!" he promised, and he made good on those words by following Rem when he started moving away. The teenager really had no clue where he was going, so having a guide would save him a lot of time. Not listening would be counter-productive: he could tell that much.

Hearing the name, he figured he might as well give his own. "I'm Simcha," he said as he kept an eye on the ground underfoot, and on the man guiding him. If he fell into another marshy trap so soon after having been rescued, Rem just might leave him behind this time.

He started to fidget again when Rem asked why Simcha needed to find colors. "Um..." He wasn't sure what to answer; the sound had been spoken just so Rem was aware Simcha had heard him and wasn't ignoring him. "W-well, someone I care about really, really needs them..." His voice trailed off as he struggled to find the right words. He knew exactly why he was here, but he didn't know how much he could tell strangers. The adults around him usually did the talking, but there were no adults here to filter for him, this time.

"I-I'm not trying to save the world," he put on record. "I just wanna save that one person."

[Indigo]

It sounded to Rem as though Simcha was trying to dodge the question, but, well, he couldn't exactly blame him for not wanting to give a bunch of personal information to a swamp stranger. Assuming that was the reason. But there was no use going around being suspicious about it now, he'd already offered to bring the kid with him and he had a feeling that if he tried to change his mind there'd be A Scene.

"That might still be a little much for someone your age," he said, "but it's...an admirable goal." And what did he know about reasonable goals, anyway? He was a witch, he had no business telling anyone else that they shouldn't be wandering into danger they weren't ready for. Probably he shouldn't be encouraging it either, but it was hard to judge where the line was. Maybe he should just...give up on the whole conversation thing for a bit.

Fortunately it wasn't much longer before Lassiter's house came into view. It was a structure that largely resembled a huge dead tree, because it was in fact mostly a huge dead tree, reshaped by magic and careful construction so it had a door and raggedy windows and, on the inside, a strong resemblance to a well-appointed cottage Lassiter had seen in a furniture catalog once, although everything in it was significantly more worn. Rem was not entirely sure how this worked—he preferred to furnish his living space in a more conventional way—and he might have been unsettled by it had he not known Lassiter much longer than she'd been living in this place.

He knocked at the door.

Lassiter opened it before he had a chance to hit it more than once. Her eyes were slightly wild, and there was a mug in her hand which appeared to be full of hot water; underneath a haphazardly applied robe she wore clothes she must have slept in, judging by their crumpled state, and her ponytail wasn't in much better shape. She looked Rem over in her usual dissatisfied way, and then her eyes fell on Simcha.

"Rem," she said. "Why do you have a child?"

"He was lost in the swamp," he said, somewhat defensively. "I wasn't going to just leave him there to get eaten by gods know what."

"So you brought him to my house? My house. My house which is—" She glanced at Simcha again and dropped her voice to a whisper. "—which is full of volatile magic."

He whispered back, "Don't you keep most of that stuff locked up anyway?"

"Kids," she hissed, "get into things. I think. Maybe that's cats, actually? Rem, I don't know anything about kids. You don't know anything about kids. Why did you bring a kid to my house?"

"I think he's a teenager, actually, they're a little more—"

"Rem."

"He's trying to find colors. I thought maybe we could help him out, instead of, and I cannot emphasize this enough, turning him loose to get eaten by something unspeakable."

Lassiter was obviously not a huge fan of this idea, but she also clearly didn't have a counterargument. She sighed and said, now at full volume, "Very well. Come inside," and led them into a reasonably cozy living room. "And explain to me what you know about finding colors! I heard a little bit on the news, but none of my electronics have been working since ten this morning."

[Jaykobell]

Simcha had been thinking that, too: the fact it might be a bit too much for a teenager like him to handle all on his own. But his embarrassment and rising shame were quick to dissipate when Rem added that it was still an admirable goal. He didn't really know what to say, for a stranger to say something so nice to him. "Th-they're important..." he mumbled hesitantly, his voice quieting down, but his face smiling from ear to ear.

Fortunately, they didn't have to tackle this conversation for very long.

He looked up at Lassiter with wide eyes. "Oh, uh," he mumbled, quiet as a mouse, when Lassiter started asking Rem questions. He figured he might try to help. "I'm Si—" He thought introducing himself would save Rem some time, but soon enough, the two of them were talking, whispering. So he smiled sheepishly, nervous, as they talked. Right, right — he remembered how, sometimes, the "adults" had to talk.

All he could do was keep his hands clutched together as they discussed, his eyes shifting between them as the speaker changed.

And then, as quickly as they had arrived, they were inside. It was all rather overwhelming for Simcha: from being all alone in here, from getting stuck in that mud, from being rescued, and now from being in this environment.

He wasn't used to all this, and he tugged at his shirt — even as Lassiter asked for more information, he didn't really know where to begin, nor what to say. "U-um... W-well..." he stuttered, looking at the ground and avoiding eye contacting the entire time. "I-I don't really know anything either, some scientist just said there's... there's colors somewhere," he admitted, a little scared he might get reprimanded if he lied, or if he didn't explain himself properly. "I just... I-I just need... to find colors... U-um..."

The fidgeting got worse, and it almost looked like he was trying to curl back into himself. "R-Rem said... Y-You might know," he explained, and he timidly, hesitantly, looked up at Lassiter. "M-my one parent is d-dying without colors. Th-that's why I need them."

[Indigo]

Rem felt a little bad bulldozing over Simcha's introduction of himself like that, but by the time he realized what had happened it was far too late to do anything about it, so he just accepted it when Lassiter took charge, though when she immediately darted into the kitchen—"I'm still listening, I swear!"—he did take the trouble to wave the kid over to a comfortable chair.

Then he went to stand by the window, to look out at the gray landscape, because he didn't want to interrupt whatever Simcha was going to say. He wasn't hugely surprised to learn that the kid wasn't hugely knowledgeable about the colors situation—actually he was more concerned that Lassiter didn't seem to have more information, but probably saying that right now would not be helpful.

At the mention of the dying parent, though, Lassiter returned in the blink of an eye. She pressed a mug into Simcha's hands—tea—and said, "Here, this blend is supposed to be...comforting. You sound like you need that right now. That's, um. That seems like...a lot to deal with." Over his head she made a gesture to Rem to indicate his incompetence at not having mentioned this vital information; Rem shrugged helplessly to indicate he hadn't known either.

"Hmm." Lassiter began to pace, raking her fingers through her hair, which explained the condition of the ponytail. She didn't seem to have any non-tea-based ideas about being comforting, which Rem couldn't really criticize, since that was more than he'd had. "I might be able to rig up some kind of...it would be easier with a sample, but if I needed that kind of rigor I wouldn't be a...right. Rem, give me that stupid thing."

"I don't know wh—"

"Your staff. Give it to me."

He would have liked to defend the honor of the staff, which had served him pretty well just today, but now was probably not the time. He handed it over.

Lassiter said, "I'll be right back," and went outside.

Rem leaned over to Simcha. "I, ah...didn't expect her to be so agitated."

[Jaykobell]

Sitting down made Simcha feel a little better. His mind was still reeling with all of this, having never been in this sort of situation. Rem had been a rather calm presence, but right from the get-go, Lassiter had been... something.

Even as she reappeared from the kitchen and pushed a mug into his hands — her demeanor was so abrupt. "Um... th-thank you," he said timidly, looking down at the drink in his hands. He did appreciate it — even if he wasn't familiar with tea. And for the thought, the fact she seemed to sympathize with his situation. "I-it's a lot," he repeated, confirming the words as fact.

He took a shy, careful sip of the tea as Lassiter got bossy with Rem. Funny how their opposite personalities did remind him of his own family situation. As he started thinking about it, he held the mug in his hands, sitting on his lap, and he stared at the ground blankly.

Completely lost in thought, it took him a second to realize Lassiter had left, and that Rem had spoken to him. He looked up, his eyes wide for a second, but then he looked back to the ground again, a thumb rubbing against the mug. "Y-yeah, um, she's... she sure is..." He struggled to find the right word. He didn't want to be mean. "A busy bee."

[Indigo]

Rem chuckled. "That's...one way of putting it. She means well." Which he knew meant almost nothing, but it was true, damn it. "We're all under a lot of stress right now. I, uh. I'm sorry about your parent. We'll do what we can to help." Was that reassuring? He had no idea. Probably not, on the basis that it was coming out of his mouth, but like everything else he'd done today it was too late to go back.

After maybe fifteen minutes Lassiter returned and thrust the staff back into his hands, slightly muddier than it had been and with algae creeping up the sides. He grumbled under his breath and tried to clean it off with a corner of his sweater.

"You were carrying it through the swamp, it was bound to happen eventually," Lassiter said. "But good news, I managed to get a trace on some kind of...mass of color out there in the swamp. I don't really understand how it works, but I know where it is, and it's not too bad of a walk. Not incredibly safe, but nothing ever is." She looked at Simcha sympathetically. "You should probably stay here, but I know you won't want to."

[Jaykobell]

In such a strange place and while going through such a hardship, Simcha appreciated any kind of support. Whether it came from friends or strangers, he was grateful. "Thank you," he said timidly, so softly, barely above a whisper, as he kept his eyes focused on the mug and the tea.

He tensed and looked up suddenly when Lassiter returned. At first from the sudden reappearance, but then from her words. "Y-you did?" he gasped, hope welling in his chest. What luck that he'd gotten stuck, and that Rem had been the one to find him. Would he have found colors had he been on his own?

But there was no time for him to wonder. "I-I can't stay here!" he insisted, his grip on the mug tightening. He held eye contact now, knowing in his heart that he needed to go to find the color, too. "I have to go get the color. I need it!" He paused. If anything, his voice was desperate more so than argumentative or defiant. "Please."

[Omnisearch's &Indigo's Color Harvested]