ORIGIN

The "Painter of the Palace," as he'd tried to style himself, waddled into his paint room. There, he had a few pigments he'd made himself.

He'd not hand the weird paints--the real ones--off to Mimosa, in part because Aethril kept those there for him and he didn't want to misappropriate the Valkhand's gifts. He was very, very careful about trying to keep Aethril happy, because he'd pissed some of the Masters off enough that if he ever lost her favor, he'd lose her protection, and then very possibly his life.

So, after retrieving his glittering gold metallic dye for Mimosa (the stuff he'd made himself), Imp headed out into Cepheus proper to do a little search.

First things first, he decided; he'd look for something white. He'd get black and white outta the way, then look for the colorful shit.

In his jaws he carried a basic basket. And around his neck--dangling on twine--was the little "wisp in a bottle," giving off its light. It might help him search or it might not; it did help with clarifying colors in what was normally the weird, backward void-light of this cave.

Within a few minutes' searching, the hybrid had found what he was looking for: white feathers strewn around the area of the river. That was easy enough, then; he picked these up one by one in his jaws, dumping them into his bucket.

Next, then... black. Well--that was even easier, really. Assuming his magic would come.

He waddled about until he found a patch of foliage, and here, he nosed around and picked out all the old branches and leaves that he could find. This he piled up, and, taking a breath, squatted with the 'hands' of his wings firmly atop it.

Heat began to build, smoke to rise in thin streaks, and he hissed a little as his forelimbs grew red-hot. Within a few moments the little pile was smoldering, and then charring itself black.

When it had cooled, he added this, too, to the pile in the basket--careful to keep it separate from the white feathers--with careful nudges of his snout and hind feet.

Right! Now for some fuckin' color!

Imp was really getting into it now, happily lost in his task of collecting random colors for a feathered snake-person. It was simple, it was engaging, and it made ample use of his eyes: something he enjoyed in and of itself.

Not having eyes, for a time, had taught him the value of having eyes, and he happily looked over all the bushes as he passed them. He was technically looking for berries, sure, but he took his time, savoring the way the light played over the leaves, the way the shadows gathered deep and dark beneath.

Before too long he'd found what he was looking for: berries, this time a bright pink, around the edges of the palace gardens. He plucked a few mouthfuls, as careful as he could not to pierce them just yet, and plonked these into his basket.

He wandered onward, after that, sniffing the bushes in search of further berries. Red, next, his reasoning being that red was a primary color and really common all over the caves. Easier to find--and more useful, probably, to Mimosa than something weird like magenta.

Fuck magenta, he thought, with distant, absent venom, his mind going back to a certain ugly (VERY ugly) magenta monster. Fuck that guy.

He prodded into various bits of foliage, waddling here and there, his legs already getting a little tired. It'd be much easier to fly. After I've found all the berries I need, I'll fly to look for feathers and shit instead, he reasoned--weirder colors, like green, wouldn't be found in berries. Not easily, anyway.

Red, as he'd suspected, wasn't hard to find--it was pretty much everywhere, here, and he plucked a generous jawful or so (and ate some, just because) before dumping them in his basket and moving on.

Blue was gonna be harder.

Berries weren't blue--and fuck anyone, Imp thought, who considered blueberry juice to be blue. That shit was purple. Fight him over it.

Anyway, blue was best found maybe in... feathers? Or those gemstone things he found in the walls, sometimes. But for now, he'd look for some more feathers. The Rainbow whatever-birds--those were good for it. Spinners? Whatever. He'd fly over around the edges of the cave and have a look.

Imp took flight, quick but heavy wingbeats carrying him around the inner walls of the cave. His mouthful of basket made it hard to really tilt his head to see the ground, so he stayed fairly low, studying the patches of grass and bare areas of earth as he went.

"Shit, this ain't a lot," he was muttering a few moments later, nosing around on the ground in a 'patch' of maybe three feathers. They looked battered, like a bird had gotten eaten here, and he had to revise his estimate to "two and a half feathers" after actually having collected them.

Still... pigment was pigment; and while not a lot, he could make use of these. Assuming they didn't turn out to be those shitbag "structurally colored" feathers that just turned damned GRAY when you grinded them. (That shit was so unfair.)

He probably should've looked for yellow next, but his reasoning now was that he didn't really have enough blue to waste half of it on making green. So he'd look for green, then yellow.

But what was green?

"Probably more feathers," he said to himself aloud, musing. Then he couldn't really speak anymore, because he was picking the basket back up in his teeth and taking flight.

It took quite a lot more searching--almost an hour of circling, landing, resting, repeat--to find something green. It was, as he'd predicted, more feathers, and this time only two of them; barely enough to make even a small bottle of dye.

I might have to use some paint to stretch this, he thought, but eh, fuck it. A cape and/or hat and/or scarf would probably be worth it, right?

He rested for a few moments, studying the nice pile of stuff he'd managed to accrue, before picking the basket back up to search for his next item on the list: yellow.

Yellow seemed more likely to wind up being berries, or maybe yellow-petalled flowers, so Imp went back to searching along the bushes and trees around the gardens, now. He flew low and slow, taking his time, eyes scouring the green for any flash of yellow.

The void-light made this a pain in the ass, especially around the palace, but he'd learned to train his eye for it while living here, at least. To correct, that was, for the weird color inversions here and there.

He found said "yellow" easily enough: clusters of berries along one portion of garden plants. Probably that gardener, Pollen, had grown them here; Imp didn't plan on stealing all that much, just enough to make a dye.

A jawful or two, and then he was sitting back, studying his collection, trying to decide what more he'd need.

Just purple, I think, he reasoned--because really, he hadn't gotten enough blue to go around, as with green. He'd need to find purple, then he could head back to the palace and mix all this shit up!

So, about those aforementioned "blue"berries. Imp'd look for those; much easier than trying to find more stray feathers lying about and anyway, any "blue" berries would inevitably be purple once they were juiced.

This was the last thing he needed, and he took his time, coasting and soaring back around the gardens.

There--there was the purple-blue telltale glint of berries on the bush! Well-... vine. These were, by all appearances, grapes. It made sense, actually; the palace had wine. Wine needed grapes. Ergo: the palace grew grapes.

"Fuck yeah," he murmured, but since his teeth were around the handle of the basket, it came out more like 'uck ah.' He landed carefully, and plucked one bunch of grapes--he wouldn't need any more than that--dumping them into the basket. It might need a little blue, he judged, to tip it more toward indigo than magenta, but he'd manage.

He'd spent a couple hours whittling away at the various ingredient needs, and at last he made his way--first flying, then waddling with the basket in his jaws--back to his painter's room.

Here, he had plenty of the rest of the stuff he needed: spare bottles, water, and a mortar to grind up pigment. It was part of his job description, after all; he'd just be making spare for Mimosa to now use.

I'll have to get more bottles, later, though. He'd be using most of his spares in doing this.

It took Imp some time to grind and mix each color into dye; he had to grind the stuff, mix with a bit of water, then carefully use his talons to tip the liquid into a fresh bottle. That bottle would then be corked; he'd wash out the mortar, and repeat for the next.

First, the white feathers were ground up into white dye. The charcoal he'd burned was made into black. The pink, red, yellow and purple berries were all made into their respective dyes, and the blue and green feathers, too, were all ground up. He'd gotten enough red and yellow to make orange, and that was the last of it; with this, he had a full on rainbow.

In the end, he had a nice, basic set of colors in dye form. He picked up one of his spare cloths, tucking it into the basket, and carefully arranged the bottles in the cloth so they wouldn't all shatter the moment he took flight.

Then, it'd be back to Mimosa to hand them over.

He hoped they gave him something cool.