The world was a complicated place, and the oddball kept out of sight and out of mind. She stayed away from lessers and greaters alike, forging food and staying away from where anyone could look at her. She had even learned magic that let her eat when she couldn't find food on her own-- at the great cost of becoming somehow more gaudy looking.
It was highly unfortunate, then, that she had walked into a tunnel half-awake, trodding down the wooden path without looking up. She wouldn't say she had been depressed, because she still found reason to rise to her feet and tromp through the caves. She was... certainly, aimless, but she didn't mind. As long as no one saw her, she felt safe.
When she finally did raise her head, her ears flattened against her skull as she winced at the vibrant, thousand shades of neon pink that reflected in every single direction. She felt her stomach lurch, her fuschia eyes squinting shut. It was so bright.
She eventually dared to open her eyes once more, to try and make sense of the endless pink. It hit her immediately as she shifted, and recognized the distorted shapes as fur, as her own body reflected at her like some terrible dream. "Oh, that's me. Oh, dear." This was a horrible place she had ended up, but there was nothing to do for it. Resigned, the beast huffed, and began to trod onward again.
As long as no one found her here, among the sea of nauseating pink. At least the tunnel seemed quiet-- that was why she had wandered here, avoiding the distant sounds of gembounds horsing about in another cave. She wanted nothing to do with any of that. Hopefully anyone that stepped foot in here would see the pink and recoil, rather than try to find its source.
That was Mosaic's first thought as she advanced further into the tunnel, and was practically assaulted by a thousand shifting images. All reflected the same thing: a searing, offensively saturated shade of pink. The painted dog snarled under her breath as she narrowed her eyes and focused on the planks that lined the tunnel floor. Jagged edges of pink flashed from the corners of her eyes, and Mosaic's scowl deepened.
Why was the world so weird? First Cave Deer who murdered their own kin and wore their body parts as trophies, then a whole bunch of idiots who couldn't seem to figure out why that was bad, and now... pinkness. Had this tunnel been here before? Mosaic felt sure that she would have remembered such abhorrent vibrance.
"You!" she snapped when a large animal came into view. It was clear that this was the source of it all, and it was this furry thing's fault that a throbbing pain was working its way from behind her eyeballs to the rest of her skull. The pinkness could no longer be avoided, now that they were so close, nor could Mosaic exactly run back into Polaris where the deer demon-worshippers had been. "Why are you so pink? Stop it!"
A voice broke out immediately, as though her demons had come to life just to spite her. The strange, hot pink bear alien turns toward the source, eyes wide. She stumbles back, her rump smacking into the crystalline walls that reflect her terrible brightness.
Stop being pink? She wouldn't know how, even if she wanted to (and part of her, truly, did wish to). Could a tiger change its stripes? No. Heat filled her face, embarrassment burning at her ears, and her vision blurred. She swallowed tears, feeling only shame as she struggled to think of what to say.
"... I can't," she answered in a quiet, soft voice. Would the stranger attack her, for being such an eye sore? She had been attacked before.
What else could she do? Could she say? She didn't want to fight. She didn't want anyone to look at her, and hate her. She wanted to be left alone, but she had no where to run to. Quietly, she added, pitiful: "I'm sorry."
The bear seemed to regret her pinkness, at least. Mosaic's anger was deflated, if only partially, at pink-bear's meek apology. "Of course you can," Mosaic insisted, with as much confident authority as she could instill into her voice. "We're magic! Everyone's magic! We can do whatever the heck we want." Mosaic did not actually know if that was true, but it made sense so why wouldn't it be? Magic could do anything, if you concentrated really hard and told it what to do.
As if her forced confidence had managed to leak its way into her gem and magic, Mosaic felt a slight tickling in her chest that slowly spread its way across her entire body. Patches of black fur remained the same, but white darkened and orange faded away into pale grey, then became black as well. She hadn't known she could do that! But magic could do anything, of course. Mosaic had never doubted that.
"Look!" she declared, when the tickling sensation faded and all her fur was some degree of black or dark grey. She herself kept her eyes on the wooden planks on the tunnel floor, the one thing, apart from Mosaic herself, that wasn't pink. "Magic!"
Satisfied now that she had taught the bear how to be less obnoxious, Mosaic trotted past toward the next cave. The other one could figure it out on their own time; she certainly didn't want to be around any longer.