(SE) thought i had nothing to lose

you know i'm gonna change, things just don't stay the same no more

If there’s one place he wants to show Kamaria now that the storms are over? It’s Rainbow Road. Because it’s colorful and beautiful despite the grey sky (a rarity given that it’s Longheat) but it isn’t too hot and it isn’t too cold – and there’s puddles everywhere. He’s carried her however long she’d let him before setting her down before the start of the Rainbow Road, reaching down to hold her hand as they walk through, Sunjata pointing to a particularly deep blue part of the road that bleeds into the rest of the rainbow that he tries to catch her attention with.

“This is called the Rainbow Road.” He informs her with a soft smile, moving to crouch beside her once they reach a spot where they can see all the different colors of the rainbow. “What’s your favorite color, Ria?” He asks softly, flashing her an easy smile, crouched beside a colorful puddle with stones of all variety within it.

you know i'm gonna break your fading heart

SuNJATA

the universe is in your bones, the stars in your soul

Kamaria perches on Sunjata's shoulders, something she had been pretty insistent on; even made a ridiculous point about how she wasn't a baby and didn't need to be carried like one. Seventeen couldn't come soon enough, apparently. However, riding along on his shoulders is actually very fun! "I can see everything up here!" She says of it, awed by the beauty of their surroundings, her eyes catching sight of the colors in the river almost as soon as it comes into view.

As Sunjata reaches up to set her down, Kamaria will make no protests and follow him on the path. They come to a stop where the view is great and her eyes reflect the rainbow as she gazes out at the water, biting the bottom of her lip.

But before she can act on any brilliant ideas, he crouches down beside her. Blonde waves swirl with the motion as she quickly faces him, answering to the sound of his voice simply, "My favorite is purple!" Then she points out across the water, where the blue blurs into a deeper, darker shade.  Relaxing her arm, she asks eagerly, "Do you like purple, too?"

it's never really the end

Kamaria

you know i'm gonna change, things just don't stay the same no more

“Of course you can. You’ve got to be at least ten feet tall.” He titters to her, playfully, because he’s sure she’s definitely not ten feet tall, but anything taller than him meant that she was getting quite the birds eye view – at least in his opinion. But then he’s lowering her to the ground and he’s crouching beside her once they reach the view of the entire Rainbow Road with all it’s vibrant colors mixing and melding together.

A playful gasp leaves him, a hand rising to up at his stubbled chin as he considers the color. “Purple, hm?” He tilts his head, considering it, before his steel gaze slips toward his daughter with a brighter smile. “Purple is very pretty, but it isn’t my favorite.” He reaches out to tug her closer to him, against his leg so his head can sit next to hers so he can direct her hand where she points, to the blue that shifts to the purple. “I like blue.”

He lets her go and braces his arms along his legs, considering his next words carefully. “Back home, where I’m from, we had Family colors.” He pauses, as if it’s a secret, something sheepish and playful that falls from his lips. “The Senzaok colors were blue.” So he supposes it’s always been his color, from the beginning.

you know i'm gonna break your fading heart

SuNJATA

the universe is in your bones, the stars in your soul

She grins in a silent laugh as he holds his chin and seems to consider whether he likes purple, too. He suddenly helps her point out the color beside it; blue, and remarks that that's his favorite. "Oh, blue is very nice," She nods her head in such a way as if to communicate that his choice is quite satisfactory. "And look, they're right next to each other! Like you and me!" She smiles over at him.

He describes something new and wholly intriguing to her then; family colors. Her eyes remain glued to him as she takes it in, and then she asks suddenly, "Do we have a family color? Can we have one?" She knows her father is from somewhere not-here, and so she's also vaguely aware that things might be different. Especially since he seems to be secretive about it, as if it's something not many people know. Of course, she's glad to keep his secrets, and keep them safe, but she doesn't quite understand why this would have to be. It seems... cool!

it's never really the end

Kamaria

you know i'm gonna change, things just don't stay the same no more

His grin widens when she mentions that blue is very nice. “They are, aren’t they?” He asks, gaze drifting out to the two colors, where they meld and push together to create one another. But his gaze doesn’t last long out there as it returns to her with the mention of family colors and he’s left considering again. “Of course we can have one, sweetheart.” He hums, bouncing on his feet a bit as he remains crouched beside her, his legs starting to feel a bit staticky with how he’s crouched.

“Hmm. If my favorite color is blue… And Nate’s is red…” A playful grin is shot her way. “What color does that make, Ria?” He asks, his head tilting avian-like as he focuses on her, the soft smile blooming on his face, waiting to see if she realizes it’s her favorite color or not, too.

you know i'm gonna break your fading heart

SuNJATA

the universe is in your bones, the stars in your soul

He says they can have one and of course she wants it to be purple, but she considers for a moment that Sunjata's favorite is blue... And, upon the reveal, that Nate's is red. Her small face scrunches up and she brings her hand up to her chin thoughtfully. She's learned about colors by now, but she doesn't quite remember what mixing them creates.

However, they have all of these colors right before them. A gasp breaks her concentration. She needn't figure it out herself when she could just... go and find out!

Grabbing Sunjata's hand suddenly, she tries to tug him forward towards puddles that lay scattered along the ground closer to the river. "Come on, I have an idea!"

It just so happens that there is a blue puddle and a red puddle. Only, they're not close enough together to mix by themselves.

"Look, see?" She points to them as she leads him to the blue puddle, wondering if he's catching onto her plan yet. She giggles and looks up at him, then informs him, "You have to jump in this one!"

Letting go of him, she runs around to the red puddle and looks across at him. "And I'll jump in this one! We have to do it at the same time, so they mix, okay?" She thinks she's pretty clever for this, evident in the proud look on her face. She readies herself for the leap, bunching her small legs, pausing to peer at him with a grin, "Ready?!"

it's never really the end

Kamaria

fire in the ground between my teeth, we're dancing on the poison in their graves
at the end of the night, we'd all seen better days

He gives her time to figure it out – not wanting to rush her nor give her the answer right away. It’s a nicer way to learn than how he had been taught most things, and while Sunjata loved Kamaria dearly, he still didn’t want to coddle her and give her all the answers off the bat. Mainly, if she were to survive in Caido, he hopes she ends up smarter than he is, and giving her the ability to figure things out on her own from such a young age without the answers being given immediately or punished when the answer was wrong.

So it’s with some surprise as she perks up and has an idea, when she reaches for him and it nearly knocks him off balance from where he crouches. But he manages to only stumble a step or two as his legs start to get feeling back in them as she’s tugging him along by the hand toward two very specific colored puddles. “I see them.” He comments, playful and wistfully, as if he’s still trying to figure out what she wants to do (he knows, he just wants to see how far she’ll go in explaining it, and he absolutely isn’t disappointed).

She lets him go after making sure he stands before the blue puddle and his steel gaze is bright when it lands on her as she runs over to the red puddle, nodding at her instruction. “Alright, alright. Just… one second, sweetheart.” He says with a mischievous glint in his gaze. He steps back from the blue puddle, but before she has a chance to complain, he’s shifting into his Pegasus shift. Mainly, because he thinks that if he strikes the ground a few times between the puddles once they’ve jumped, that the colors might mix together there.

With a toss of his head, he extends a wing out to her, gesturing for her to jump and when she does, he pounces as well – his front hooves meeting the red puddle and filling it with a bit more water as they strike the earth. And then his head is craning to see if the colors have mixed, stepping out of the puzzle to the splash zone of the rest, stamping a hoof down to draw more water to the surface to connect the two.

i know you tried, i know you're cursed, i know your best was still your worst

SUNJATA

the universe is in your bones, the stars in your soul

Kamaria's ready for this. There's an excited crinkle of her eyes as she glances between him and the surface of the puddle, completely sure that this will work - and together they can find out what color blue and red makes. It could be their family color, after all, and she definitely wants one of those.

She's about to jump when Sunjata tells her to hold on a second. She teeters precariously on her tip-toes, mid-spring. Without grace, she manages to only accidentally step into the puddle rather than jump or fall in. If it weren't for what happens next, she might complain that he nearly made her fall in and what's so important that this has to wait?

Yet the small amount of frustration in her eyes gives way to amazement when she lays eyes on his shift. "Woah..." This one, like the first she'd seen, has feathers. But it's a horse, not a bird, and its wings are a multitude of vibrant colors rather than just one solid shade of blue. She takes a moment to let it sink in, not having realized he had this trick under his sleeve.

But he waves a wing at her in a rather polite gesture for her to jump first, which somehow she understands in spite of the language barrier now between them. Given the context, at least it's obvious. "Right!" She perks up, biting her lower lip as she refocuses on the task at hand. "Ready!" She announces. With a bounce in her step, she leaps wildly into the puddle of color before her. Her feet stamp with the intention of making a splash, to watch the stream of colors eventually turn into one.

A delighted gasp parts her mouth and she leans down to peer at the color they've made. "It's purple!" She tells the pegasus, laughing up at him with cheeks that turn a little red - because now she gets what he was trying to get at all along. "You knew the whole time!" She accuses him with an air of amusement she's unable to hide. Her hands go to her hips and she glares at him with a grin. "And how come you didn't tell me you could do that?"

it's never really the end

Kamaria

you know i'm gonna change, things just don't stay the same no more

The slight temper in having to wait, the frustration he can see on her face, is both charming and amusing, given the fact that it feels very distinctly like him to see it on her face. But it’s worth the wait, he’s sure of it. Because man shifts to Pegasus and all that frustration within her bleeds away into awe and surprise, and all Sunjata can do is offer a snort from a velveteen muzzle.

He beckons for her to jump, though, and when she does he jumps too. The water collects and collides, mixing and melding into a vibrant purple that has Sunjata shifting back into himself, kneeling in the water of the puddle mixture as he peers at her, a hand rising to rub at the side of his face as if he hadn’t known what color it would make. “That definitely does look like purple.” He comments offhandedly, reaching toward her shortly after to pull her close to him, eye level with her now as he is.

“It’s new and you didn’t ask.” He pokes at her playfully, before he’s sitting back on his heels, scanning the mixture of purple he’s knelt in. “So that means purple is our color then, doesn’t it?” He scans her face for the answer, before he’s trudging on. “Should we make little flags to hang around the house with the color on it?” He gives her a considering look, wondering just how Kamaria might choose to design such a thing.

you know i'm gonna break your fading heart

SuNJATA

the universe is in your bones, the stars in your soul

She stands in the puddle, all purple-red-blue mixed together around her feet, and yet she can't help but to playfully accuse him. The notion of family color has been momentarily forgotten in the face of a pegasus, which she's never seen before, maybe been told stories of - but to see one in person? And to think he'd been able to do that this whole time!?

He makes it as if it's her own fault for not asking, and now she has to wonder what else he's hiding from her. She gives a little idignant sway and moves to say something else, when he's pulling her in and saying that purple - her favorite - will be their family's color. An eager smile replaces the frustrated grin on her face. "Yeah! That's a good idea, Daddy," she nods, and an idea of her own blossoms with it: "Can we wear purple clothes sometimes, too? Not all the time, 'cause we like other colors too," and she giggles softly at that.

Her mind zips back to the retort from moments ago, however, and she pulls back with a mischievous smirk. "Hey! You can't distract me, that's not fair! So what else can you be? No more secrets!" She crosses her arms over her chest.

it's never really the end

Kamaria

you know i'm gonna change, things just don't stay the same no more

He doesn’t know how deep she’s taking the sly comment he’s made, and for the moment he’s fully distracted by it as he kneels in the puddles and pulls her close, his calloused hands resting on her small shoulders, before they drop to take her hands. A wide grin spreads across his face, tugging at the scar to the side as his head cocks in thought. “Hm. We might have to get them made but I think that’s a wonderful idea, Ria.” He decides swiftly – uncaring if purple wasn’t so much his color. It was a beautiful combination of his and Nate’s favorites, and the fact it was Kamaria’s only added to the viability of them wearing matching purple clothes.

As if anyone would second guess what family she belonged to, with both him and Nate like wolves out for blood if anything were to happen to her.

Regardless, she’s bringing up the secret he’d kept from her originally and Sunjata can’t help the way his smile shifts to something boyish as her hands pull away from his to fold across her chest. “No more secrets?” He repeats, eyes widening as if he hadn’t realized he’d been so secretive.

A moment later and he’s sucking down a breath, puffing out his cheeks, sitting back on his heels as his head tilts this way and that. “Okay, well. I can be a bird… A panther… A whale… An antelope, a bat, a snake, a Pegasus… A dragon… And do you want the real secret?” He leans in, reaching out to pull her close to him so he can tell her in her ear. “I can be a dog, too.” Pulling away from her, his brow raises with amusement, that smile spreading across his face again, awaiting her reaction.

And whether she wants to see any of them, of course.

you know i'm gonna break your fading heart

SuNJATA

the universe is in your bones, the stars in your soul

Kamaria can only imagine what her father would look like, dressed in a color both as vibrant and dark as purple. Did it suit him? Would it suit him? And Nate, too? She knows already that it's her color, of course. "We can wear purple dresses! Really long, pretty ones." She suggests, a twinkle in her eye at the thought.

The widening of his eyes makes her hesitate in her confidence, uncertain of her argument now. Had she been too harsh? Did she hurt his feelings? Her arms slowly lower and she looks at him with a smile that grows meeker. But then he dives in to everything he can become, and her own eyes widen with wonder.

The real secret? Of course she wants the real secret! So she inches in closer to him and lends him an ear to whisper it into, taking great care to take this very seriously. At the reveal, she can't help but to laugh. "A dog!?" She repeats incredulously, brows furrowing with confusion, "Why's that the secret one?" She asks, tilting her head.

Afterwards, once he's answered that, she predictably does want to see these shifts. She ponders over which one she wants to see most. But she actually can't quite choose. "Show me your favorite one," she requests, or demands really, "or if I already saw it, show me... your second favorite!" So on and so forth. She wants to see something she hasn't, of course.

it's never really the end

Kamaria

SUNJATA

Internally, Sunjata freezes with the suggestion of wearing a dress. He’s never worn anything of the sort, content to wear his sleeveless shirts, tight pants, leather jackets whenever he gets a chance. He’s not sure what he’d do with the idea of trying to force himself into such a garment, recalling just how much Saartjie hated them back home in Korofi. (Granted the only kind of dresses Sunjata’s familiar with are the ones that sport corsets and leave nothing but bruises behind with how tight the ribbons are tied in the back). Externally, though, the Flood offers his daughter a bright pale smile. “Long flowy ones, too.” Maybe she’ll forget. He hopes she does.

But then he’s launching into what shifts he has – how it almost sounds like too much when each one falls from his lips. But it’s the secret one that has him grinning when he pulls away from whispering it in her ear, a glimmer to his gaze as he remains kneeling in the water, watching the confusion take root on Kamaria’s face. “It’s secret so that way I can go places without people knowing I’m me.” He informs her, before his face takes on a serious look, as if it’s the biggest secret he has. “You have to promise me you won’t tell anyone about it, aside from Nate, okay?” His brows raise as if he’s trying to urge the point that it was secret and it needed to remain secret.

For spying, of course, but he doesn’t think she’s old enough for the truth of that, yet.

He leans back on his heels when she questions what his favorite one is, his hand rising to rub at the stubble along his cheek, scratching along the edge of the scar that spans it as he hums and haws his thoughts. “I like them all… But if I had to choose one?” He considers her carefully, head tilting slightly before he’s shuffling back from her to shift into his panther shift – the form taking on quite the fuzzy black and spotted hue in the place he had been kneeling before.

There’s a low rumble of what could only be considered a purr that slips from the panther’s throat as he steps forward, pressing his blocky, fuzzy head into Kamaria’s side in a soft and gentle nuzzle.

every whisper of every waking hour, i'm choosing my confessions

the universe is in your bones, the stars in your soul

There's no way she's forgetting about the dresses, by the way, but that can wait for a more opportune time...

Her eyes widen with sudden understanding at the revelation. While she may not understand why it's important that Sunjata can go places without being recognized, she has a childlike understanding of wanting to be sneaky - and that does come from a mischievous place. Either way, she approves. So she leans in toward him as she earnestly nods her head and whispers, "Okay. I won't tell anybody." Then she makes a silent motion of 'zipping' her lips and throwing away the zip.

When Sunjata leans back, so does she, as she awaits his favorite shift out of his rather big list of them. It must be a tough decision. While she's excitedly shifting her weight and staring up at him expectantly, she doesn't say anything in the mean time.

She's expecting him to say what it is first, not just dive into the shift. But maybe she should know better of him. As the panther comes to fruition and replaces the giant of a man Sunjata is, Kamaria's eyes light up and her brows raise in surprise. "Woah..."

The big cat steps toward her and Kamaria's heart beats heavily against her chest. It's big, much bigger than she might've expected, and it takes a moment for her to swallow down the initial fear of it. Because he's her dad, and he'd never hurt her. She doesn't flinch from the touch. In fact, it warms her heart and she reaches out to hold his big, boxy head in her hands. "You're so soft!" She says with admiration, giggling as he nuzzles against her. Her hands move to try and push him back, though there's no real force behind it, "Hey! That tickles!"

it's never really the end

Kamaria