Rainbow Veins

Chapter One - Hi, I'm at the fayre.

Flowers and glitter formed under her feet with every step she took. The clouds above her sparkled with colour in the perfectly blue sky. She wasn't sure, but it seemed she was at a fayre of some kind. Coloured bunting waved in the sky, sellers displayed their goods in the most creative ways possible to entice people in, and the delicious smells of roasting nuts and sizzling sausages filled the air. Leaf wondered around, in no particular direction, dazzled by the place. She admired the goods and the women's flowing dresses. She was entirely happy. As she walked, the long grass brushing against her ankles, she became aware of a beeping noise. It seemed to be following her and was getting steadily louder. How curious.

Leaf's vibrant orange alarm clock woke her from her sleepy dream world with a rhythmic beeping. Slowly she sat up, propping herself up with her pillow. Her purple hair was everywhere, looking like a birds nest on her head, her turquoise eyes wanted to close again and take her back to the fayre, but she forced herself to leave her dream world, knowing she needed to get up now or risk being late for school. And with teachers as strict as the ones at Leaf's school, the latter was not an option.

Her morning routine was quick, she had been doing it for so long that it was second nature to her now. As she got ready, she began to form ideas for her new artwork. Leaf never stopped doing art, even if it wasn't physical drawings or paintings, her head would always be filled with it; possible new colours to mix to make the perfect sea green or planning a full scale painting inside her head. The thing about Leaf's art style that made it so unusual was the fact that it wasn't always on paper, or in the corner of her desk at school, it was on her arms and hands. She couldn't go a day without drawing something on her pale skin, she felt bare without it there, like she had forgotten to put on trousers that day. To Leaf her art was important, she looked forward to the minutes when she could draw on her skin and she saw art in everything, especially the things that were mundane, and that was what made Leaf, Leaf.

* * *

Leaf left for her dull school, she walked alone, but she loved every minute of it. The blossoming flowers and trees, the occasional leaf spiralling to the ground, the lively, chattering wildlife, everything! However, when she reached school, her perfect, colourful world was paused. There was no wildlife, no flowers, just hundreds of boring grey bricks and stones. She set herself to school mode and quickly walked towards her tutor room.

As she walked an array of comments followed behind her. You see, Leaf wasn't particularly popular, she was ridiculed for her choice of clothing (which was incredibly bright) and the fact that her hair was purple, instead of the usual brown or blonde. She didn't want to blend in with the crowd and have her colours fade away, but it was hard to stay so unique when she was faced with terrible remarks daily. Everyone looked at Leaf in disgust,she tried not to show how much it hurt her, but her eyes shone bright with tears.

Only one person was kind to Leaf, he wasn't disgusted by her brightly coloured outfits, he didn't think her drawings were stupid like most people did, in fact he loved everything about Leaf and her small oddities. And he - Jimmy Edwards - wasn't ashamed of that.

* * *

As Leaf sat down in her tutor room, a tear ran down her face. The recipe for the tear goes as follows:

1. Take a pinch of cold wind, freshly picked from the air.

2. Add a dash of hurtful comments from some students.

3. Combine the ingredients and then you're done.

Jimmy was an expert in recognising said recipe and quickly hugged her. He couldn't do much else to help her, he couldn't exactly stop the remarks with a wave of his hand. He began to catch up on his homework, keeping an eye on Leaf as he did. No more tears were falling, but he wasn't sure that she was okay yet. As the register was taken, Leaf watched Jimmy do his maths, she had always found it relaxing watching him do his maths, it calmed her down and her tears no longer threatened to spill. His pencil would quickly slide over his book and it seemed as if he wasn't even thinking about the problems he was doing, the answers seemed to just appear out his pencil and into his book, with no effort at all. Maths was Jimmy's equivalent to Leaf's art. He saw the equations in everything and somehow, he found the structure of them beautiful - the way the x could be turned into a z and the way everything had it's place.

The second the teacher stopped reeling of names and bored replies of 'yes miss' stopped, Leaf began her art for the day. She had visualised the piece the night before, letting the images of what it would look like lull her to sleep. She began to gently draw onto her arms with a pen, the ink frayed a little but it added to the charm. The outline of a stream formed, thick tree trunks lined it, the basic shape of a fairies body peeked out from behind a tree, and the coloured bunting from her dream fluttered above the scene - there was no colour yet, that would come later. When Leaf drew she forgot about everything, she got pulled deeper and deeper into the world she was creating until it was like she was actually there. She would leave behind all her problems and the people she disliked, and replace them with magic and ink.

Leaf was far too distracted by her pens and art to notice the way Jimmy was looking at her. He was taking in the way her hair fell across her eyes as she bent forward to begin a particularly intricate design. He noted the way her eyes looked like the sea on a sunny day. When she smiled as she thought up a new idea to add to her arm, he would smile too, because her smile really was contagious.

"She really is beautiful." Jimmy thought to himself as he took all of this in. Jimmy made a deal with himself then and there that he would tell Leaf his biggest secret later that day. The question was though, how?