The Sayeli Universe (oc book)

First Tattoos (💙)

This story involves: Indigo, Robyn and Arson

Time line placement: Indigo is 18, Arson is 16, Robyn is 14

TW: N/A

Date of posting: 13-2-2023

The teen jumped over a puddle as he ran, almost falling over because of lack of balance caused by his tall shoes before he kept on running. Over his arm he carried a tote bag that hit him every long step he took, sitting in a very uncomfortable position under his arm. Perhaps he should abandon the fruitless attempt to be aesthetic and switch to a backpack that would be secured against his back and would allow for more free movement as he'd been told to do several times.

That was unimportant; what mattered was other, the fact he had made a discovery, and that due to said discovery he was now running several minutes late to art club.

Turning for the next street, Indigo's shoes slipped down the wet floor, making the guy almost hit the wall, but once again, he managed to recover fast enough so that no damage was made other than a bump in the shoulder, ignored as Indigo continued running. Perhaps he should consider buying new shoes, considering the fact he'd almost got injured twice on the short run-

"I'm not late!" Indigo exclaimed as his sprint came to a stop in front of a pair of younger teens who sat on the stairs of a store. The taller one of the two turned eir head to look at Indigo, raising an eyebrow as a familiar smirk appeared in eir face.

"And we're supposed to believe that after waiting for you for ten minutes?" Arson asked. Today ey had eir hair collected up in a bun, as it was custom, wearing a sports top, light blue jeans and an open dark, ash-red hoodie.

"Look, kid, I had an appointment and did poor planning," Indigo excused, still catching his breath. He looked at the other kid, shorter than Arson, skin darker as well, pointed ears that poked out the sides of a long mane of dark, ocean blue hair that reached their waist, eyes glowing an ember gold and surrounded by freckles of a similar shade, "Robyn?"

"In the body and flesh," the shapeshifter nodded, moving some of the cascading hair out of the way. Today they looked bigger than Arson, a dark sweater worn over a white collared shirt, shell necklace hanging from their neck, dark jeans finishing up the look. They twirled a bit to show off the appearance "Thoughts?"

"Going for an ocean vibe today, I assume?"

"Nereid aesthetic," they nodded.

"Pog," Indigo smiled, "Are the others late as well?" He asked, referring to the other two members of the so called art club.

"Bro, didn't ya check the group chat?" Arson asked, "Correction, didn't ya check your phone at all? We've been trying to contact you!"

"I told you; I was busy!" Indigo whined, looking for it in his tote bag for the device, seeing that, in fact, there were several text that had been sent through the chat, a few else sent through private from Arson, "Why, anything big happened?"

"Nah, but Kai isn't feeling like going out today, cause, ya know, them, and Talia has this thing with some sort of family meeting? No idea- anyways, neither are coming, it's just us 3 for the day"

"Bummer," Indigo muttered, "I had a surprise for y'all-"

"Surprise?" Robyn asked, interest lazing in their voice, "What sort of surprise?"

Indigo grinned, Arson's curiosity present in eir face as well. The teen lifted the sleeves of his hoodie to reveal a black ink tattoo of a skull in his arm. It wasn't a hyper detailed design, quite simplistic in fact, with thick outlines and an overall cartoonish appearance. It was a side profile, and was missing the bottom part of the jaw, and could be considered kind of cute.

"Oh my God is that a tattoo?" Arson grinned, a smile from ear to ear, dark eyes shining behind half-moon shaped glasses, "Finally!"

"You've only been 18 for what, a week?" Robyn laughed, "Man, you were fast."

"Ladies, ladies, you haven't seen the best part," Indigo chuckled. The two younger teens looked at him with a puzzled expression as Indigo started to pass his finger over the tattoo. A face of recognition spread through their faces as the ink slowly started to change, morphing, twisting, the teeth of the skull separating and becoming bigger, the eye socket dividing into two, the back of the skull elongating until it became a little ghost with sunglasses. It was still a simple design, the ink hadn't moved that much in Indigo's forearm, but the change still brought cheers from the kids

"Holy shit!!" Arson exclaimed, gripping Indigo's arm for a second, eir palm hotter than average temperature before ey quickly took eir hand away, thankfully not causing any burns, "Sorry- but holy shit!"

"It actually worked!" Robyn grinned, "You were right!"

"Of course I was right!" Indigo laughed, "It's my fucking power, I know what I'm capable of!"

"Well, the time you tried to do it with acrylics didn't exactly-"

"Oh shut it, that was ages ago," Indigo pushed Arson's face away playfully, "We now know it only applies to ink. And it works with tattoo ink too!"

"So like, can you actually turn it into anything?" Robyn asked, looking at the lil ghost.

"Not anything," Indigo started to play with it again, turning it into a packman ghost, "Rules are same as always, I only have this little amount of ink to work with, but I'm so planning on changing that soon. Can you begin to imagine the sort of power this gives me?"

"And you can do colored ink too? Cause that would be so neat- You should get a pride flag one to use as a color palette or something, that way you could paint anything!"

"Ya know what? Good idea," Indigo chuckled, "Gonna write that one down, it's gonna be the next one I get."

"Fuck yea!" Arson shook eir hands around a bit, a happy or exited stim of eirs, "God, this is so much fun!"

"Tell me about it- Now, do we have plans for the day, or do we just plan to play around with my tattoo?"

"Do you even need to ask?" Robyn raised an eyebrow, "We're gonna see how much we can play with this. Can you turn it into a plant?"

"Depends; what plant?"

Robyn gestured Indigo to sit down on the stairs where they had been waiting for him as they got their sketchbook out to doodle something out, Arson following suit. Indigo just smiled fondly at the two, tapping his fingers on his arm, waiting to see who of the two finished first to try out their design.

A/N

b o o k

Peace, Love and Granola