Chapter 25: Half-Blood (1)
Eriksson’s POV
“The hardship isn’t in belonging to one side and being shunned by the other, but in belonging to both and being accepted by neither.”
—Eriksson Lennard
Why are my hands slick with hues of green and orange? I stare at my fingers, puzzled, as I lie on the ground, boredom seeping into my bones. The sky above is a deep navy, and my eyes catch the iron raindrops descending. I don’t blink. I merely sigh when a scream pierces the air.
"Two o’clock!" Merry, a fellow Green, veers left, dodging a right hook from a Blue striker. A rare sight, Blues at the frontlines. I smirk, watching her wet, dark-blonde hair trail behind her as she evades the thrown blades. The Blue, clad in a black and blue coat, slices his palm, letting the rain mingle with the wound. Water coalesces, forming a stream as thick as a carriage wheel, shooting towards Merry, missing her hair by a breath. I whistle at the dent it leaves in the stone wall of a ruin, yet I remain lying down, my cap cushioning the back of my head, watching the theater unfold before me.
"Duck!" Tiger shouts again, but this time, Merry is struck on the arm. I yawn as her wound, deep to the bone, heals within moments. I push myself up with my right hand, feeling each drop of the gods’ piss on me. But my eyes widen, a grin spreading across my broad jaw. I lick my green tongue over my teeth.
"An Orange!" one of my kin shouts, standing opposite Tiger. His spine twists like a wrung cloth, his body flung swiftly against a crumbling wall of the ruin—a city we’re reclaiming as our territory. For a heartbeat, my smile fades; his head bursts like an egg. He’s dead.
I rise, my legs stiff from watching. Merry stands a bit ahead, Ben retreats, and my other comrades have long fled. Blues. Inferior. Only we Greens fight in significant situations. I yawn at the thought of how easily a Blue could be crushed. Just slightly sturdier than Reds. I chuckle, my green gums bared towards the Orange.