The world was color before it was sound.
Shapes and light swirled together, each person a hue that bled into him — not just sight, but feeling. The colors didn't stay still. They swayed, pulsed, swirled, brightened, and dimmed depending on the heart behind them. Pink and purple in the morning. Orange, brown, and grey drifting through the day. Black and crimson at night.
The pink and purple was the first he saw every morning — Nyxari.
Her colors were warm and slow-moving, the pink like the flush of a hearth, the purple like twilight just before rest. She fed him warm Umbrawild beast milk, her heartbeat a steady drum beneath his cheek. The milk was his greatest enemy; delicious, yes, but it dragged him into sleep before he could resist. Yet every time he woke, she was there. Her glow never flickered — a constant, soft light wrapping him in safety. Her song wound around his chest like silk ribbon, the strange words carrying love even without meaning. Sometimes she smiled mid-song, and the colors surged brighter until they filled everything. He hoped her pink and purple never faded away.
A lighter, quicker pink-and-purple darted through hers — Noctari.
Her colors danced, flaring bright, then vanishing, then flashing again, like fireflies that refused to stay still. She poked, tugged, and pinched until he reacted. Her laughter was sharp light scattering on water, impossible to catch, and though her play could be rough, it had no malice. She studied him like a puzzle piece she wanted to force into place. And like him, she was not immune to the Umbrawild milk's pull — a tiny victory he savored.
Sometimes, pink and purple slipped away into something profound and still — Tseraka's dark purple.
Hers was a color of shadowed depths, not empty but endless, the kind of stillness that could swallow anything placed in it. Her touch did not soothe; it traced, sketching invisible shapes upon him as though he were parchment. Every moon's turn, she would meet his gaze, her voice rumbling like drums beneath the earth, and his black-and-gold eyes would shift to a dim red. He noticed the others were pleased by this, and that afterward, he was more likely to be carried outside. Before that, the outside had been nothing more than light glimpsed from windows. For that alone, he let her work without fuss.
Sometimes, that deep purple broke apart in a burst of bright orange — Jackal.
His color hit like sudden laughter in a silent room, full of challenge before he even spoke. He leaned close, locking eyes, and they would battle without knowing the rules. Jackal always broke first, lips twitching into laughter, conceding defeat. Spectra didn't know what they were playing for, but winning felt good.
Orange would fade to the steady weight of deep brown — Lobo.
His color was heavy, slow, and warm, like earth still holding the day's heat after sunset. His gaze settled over Spectra like a protective blanket, and when he smiled — a rare event — the brown deepened to something rich and grounding.
Grey drifted in like clouds — Crow.
His smile was never the same twice. Sometimes it was a slight, private curve, like a secret Spectra was trusted to keep. Sometimes it flashed wide with mischief, often in league with the smaller purple. And sometimes it was hollow, hiding storms behind it. Grey never stayed long, but it lingered afterward in the corners of rooms, patient and waiting.
And then, black and crimson.
Nocte.
His presence did not simply appear — it claimed. Colors dimmed or vanished when he entered, as though the world yielded space to him. The black was vast, not empty but brimming with gravity, and the crimson burned in steady tongues of flame. Around the others, the fire was restrained; around Spectra, it blazed hotter, consuming more space, until there was nothing else.
Nocte's aura dwarfed all others — even Tseraka's depth could not match it. It wasn't size of body; it was weight of being. His voice was low and steady, never playful, each word heavy enough to shape the air. Sometimes they walked together under the open sky, Nocte speaking to him like an equal. Other times, they napped together, Spectra curled on his chest, lulled by the slow, thunderous rhythm beneath him.
The black and crimson burned with hunger, passion, and something far-reaching he couldn't name. Yet when it wrapped around him, there was only warmth.
This man had taken him from the cold arms of the one whose purple had faded. The desire in him was the same kind that had taken colors away before — but here, it did not harm. It carried him through the unknown to a place where colors were vibrant and alive, a place where he was safe.
Nocte.
The only name that mattered. He looked for him when it was spoken, cried when it wasn't him. Though he could not yet name the feeling, he knew he owed Nocte something. And though he couldn't understand the words, he understood the weight they carried.
Spectra would meet them.
The world was still color before it was sound… but color could be exhausting.
Some days, the colors pressed in too much. The shapes were too sharp, the light too vivid, every hue humming at him like a thousand little voices. He didn't know why it happened—only that when it did, he grew tired faster, and no amount of sleep made it stop. He could not tell them this; words were still far away things.
Instead, he tried to hide from it.
First, he would rub at his eyes until Nyxari gently pulled his hands away. Then by closing them for long stretches, even when awake. But the colors were stubborn. They bled through the dark, refusing to leave him alone.
And then… the tears came.
Thick, warm trails ran down his cheeks, black as ink, dripping slowly and heavily. Nyxari gasped, clutching him tighter. Noctari froze mid-laugh. Nocte's shadow fell over them all, his aura sharpening to something that made every other color retreat.
They went to Tseraka.
The older woman's deep purple swelled as she studied him, her fingers light but unyielding against his face. She murmured to herself, eyes narrowing as if peering past skin and bone into something deeper. Finally, she leaned back, her voice a slow rumble.
"Taxation of the eyes. Overuse of a technique." She said it like it should explain everything, though her gaze flicked between them with a quiet question she did not speak aloud. "He is Dusknari. Such things… are not impossible."
Then, after rummaging through her various trinkets and oddities, she produced a delicate blindfold. It was black, soft, and lined with threads of gold that shimmered faintly; in the center was a small, carefully woven was a single golden sun.
"This," she said, placing it gently over Spectra's eyes, "will ease the burden until he learns control. A shield for a gift not yet mastered."
They accepted it because there was nothing else to do.
Spectra felt the world grow softer behind the blindfold, colors dimming to gentle whispers instead of harsh cries. It was not a cure, but a promise—a bridge to the day he would see with steady eyes.
Even now, though his understanding was still a flicker in the dark, he sensed the difference.
He was not like the others.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
But three years from this moment, the boy with eyes of the night and irises of the sun would know why.