Shilo peeked out through the branches of the salal shrub and silently waited for his target to come nearer. The bell-shaped flowers draped off the shrub’s leathery leaves like little pale pink lanterns. The blooms appeared charming and innocent, concealing their little would-be delinquent. The colorful streamers attached to the shrubs masked his movements as they twirled about like psychotic little rainbows in the breeze. A couple of young women chatted ebulliently about the human merchant ships and what they hoped to buy. Their tails, decorated with satin ribbons woven through the crowning black tresses, swayed rhythmically with every step. One moved in closer, her body close enough to touch and her coin pouch easy to cut free from her belt. 

Shilo settled back inside the ring of salal bushes growing among the fir trees bordering the edge of the park. “Asha, you don’t have to beg today. I got food money.”

“That was dumb. You still had black showing. What if you got caught?” To emphasize her point, she gave his tail a slight tug before smearing the ash mixture over its blacken skin. They had already applied his coverup before coming anywhere near the festival, or people in general, but Shilo sat on the ledge of the park’s fountain and absentmindedly dipped his tail.

“I think by now all the Orphan Wranglers know my blackness means nothing, I'm not worth much.” Shilo curled his tail in front of him, checking for any globs of ash entangled in the hair tasseling the tail-tip. He nearly got caught once because someone thought he had some weird fungus on his tail that would contaminate everyone.

“Yeah, but I don’t know what I’d do,” Asha muttered, staring down at the leather pouch in her hands. The pouch held the mixture of ash and cooking grease that was used to camouflage Shilo’s natural hybryd coloring. It was gloppy and rancid looking, like congealed lard slithered into a fireplace and died. She couldn’t figure out how this stuff actually worked, it just coated her skin like slime and did nothing else—not that she needed it. She sniffed, it smelled like old bacon. “I’ve never been caught, and I have this weird notion that I’d like to stay that way.”

“No worries, alright?” He tapped her button nose. “I’m grey like you now, right?”

In response, she pressed his hawkish nose even more downward than it naturally was. “Yes, average, boring grey.” 

“Good, we should get going then,” he said, pinching her little chubby cheeks. Cheeks that helped accentuate her cuteness factor. A scrawny child always looked pathetic, but a skinny child with bright eyes and an adorable round face received even more pity. People were usually much more generous with their handouts with her than him.

But today, it was his day to shine. He would be the one to gather up the coins and all she had to do was play lookout while enjoying the festivities.

He gently pushed up the branches of the shrub and held out a hand, motioning for her to crawl out.

Instead, she grabbed his hand to wiggle the fingers poking through the glove. “Maybe we should use that money to buy you new gloves?”

“It’s fine. My fingers just look like they’re part of the gloves.”

He gestured again for her to leave first, and yet once again, she hesitated. She bit her bottom lip and plucked at the hem of his oversized black coat. She wore a similar one, it just hung down lower due to her younger age and thus, shorter height. 

“Aren’t you hot? I can go by myself if I have to.”

“No,” he said with a sigh, running a finger over the pink flowers of the salal. It was getting close to the end of the shrub’s flowering phase, and the blooms would start morphing into berries soon. From there, the little round berries wouldn’t fully ripen to their juicy, blue-black until late in the summer. 

He pulled off a few blossoms and tossed them into the air.

“I still have at least one more month of day-trips before the heat gets to me. I want to enjoy it while I can. Besides, it’s the Freedom Festival, and I want to be free.”

Hybryds, a hybrid race created by the Maker-mages over twelve years ago by mixing science, magic, and unicorn blood together to mutate humans into stronger soldiers for war. Hybryds appeared similar to unicorns in elven form, except they retained the bulkier build of a human. All hybryds had the same features: black hair on their head and tasseling their tails, pointed-ears, blue eyes, and grey skin. With hybryds, the darker grey their skin, the stronger the individual either physically or magically. The Maker-mages devised the hybryd skin tone as a method to identify those who’d make superior soldiers at first glance. 

After all the experiments, the over forty-five hundred hybryds were abandoned, never to be implemented as soldiers in the war the mages forcibly drafted them for. The Hybryds fled up the coastline to make a small domain for themselves in a valley protected by the coastal mountain range. Now free from human persecution, they named their little Hybryd nation, Verander, which meant reshape in their new tongue. The Freedom Festival was a three-day event that celebrated the day the hybryds broke free from the confines of the Makers’ holding caves and became their own people.

Blacken, the darkest color a hybryd could become, was the result of the hard physical effort it took to build one’s muscular strength up to that level. Shilo was charcoal black from birth, and as for long as he could remember in his twelve years of life, he’d been trying to blend in unnoticed. Two of those years he’d been doing so with the help of his little accomplice, Asha, who was three years his junior.  

People milled about the festival, laughing, celebrating, and taking in the sights. The streets were decorated with a rainbow of bunting flags, garlands, and streamers. Kiosks and colorful tents lined the square, offering everything from the exotic to the mundane and selling anything from undyed cotton linen to minor spells encased within mage stones. Food stalls offered up a cornucopia of different festival fares, from fresh baked bread to smoked pork on a stick. The aroma was delightful. Various sweet, spicy, or savory smells blended together to whet the appetite. Merchants beckoned passersby to sample their wares. Minstrels played flutes, tambourines, and hurdy-gurdies as dancers twirled about in colorful sashes and skirts. Clergy blessed people in the streets as the choir sang. Hybryds shopped and mingled; some even socialized with the few humans allowed inside to set up stands. The atmosphere was jubilant and teeming with shoppers, partygoers, and just plain loiterers.  

“Crap,” Shilo muttered. He pulled the hood of his coat down low and inhaled a shaky breath. 

Crowds, he hated crowds. Too many people to bump into and run their mouth if his disguise failed. The ash coverup could fool people from a distance, but up close, it might only fool those with poor eyesight. He flung his knapsack on and took a deep breath. As much as it panicked him, there were just too many frivolous shoppers for him to stay cowering in the bushes. They wouldn’t hurt from the loss of a few coins. 

Asha took his hand and squeezed it. “We stay far away from the humans, yes? I don’t even want to stop near a human booth.” 

Shilo nodded and returned her reassuring squeeze. They wandered through the throng together, staying near the edge.

Shilo nicked another coin pouch in passing. Gotta love the newest trend in stupid fashion, strap pouches to a belt instead of carrying a handbag. It makes pickpocketing so much easier. It’s like these boneheads are daring me to do it. 

He adjusted the ring blade further back on his finger. A simple and very efficient design, just a metal band with a curved sharp blade coming off the top that extended over his bent knuckle. If he didn’t jerk the pouch, he could cut and grab one-handed. It worked for him, but for some reason, Asha could never get it right. She had to use both hands, one to tug the cord taut and the other to saw the pouch free. Which wasn’t very effective, she’d get caught before she could ever complete the snatch.

Asha let out a squeal and bumped into him, gawking at one of the stalls across the way. She adjusted her turquoise ribbon in a vain attempt to control her ruckus of curls. It brought a smile to his face. Buying her that was a good choice, it matched her eyes. 

Letting out a breathy giggle, she squeaked, “I’m so glad we bathed and cleaned our clothes in the creek yesterday. I’d hate for any of those beautiful ladies to see us looking like grimy beggars.”

“Why?”

“Shilo look. There’s unicorn doe maidens in that booth,” she whispered. “They’re sooo pretty. Dang it, I wish I was hurt. I always wanted to be healed by one.”

“That’s a dumb thing to wish for. Do you want to make that happen? And even if you were hurt, we couldn’t afford those snobs.”

Shilo glanced over at the unicorns. These were spiral-horns, white unicorns that resemble a cross between a deer and a horse when in their beast form. He never actually saw a unicorn in that form, only as elves, like these three. But even as elves, one of them still had a small spiral horn as long as a thumb jutting out near the hairline of her forehead. Her pearlescent horn shimmered as it caught the rays of the afternoon sun. 

The comely females were from head to tasseled tail as white as a snow fox and probably just as sly. They gracefully beckoned clients and spoke elegantly to any who came near. They were captivating with their large, cat-like eyes, and sharply pointed ears poised perfectly on their delicate features. Their ivory hair was stylishly pinned back with agate and amethyst encrusted combs to complement their rich red-violet gowns that seemed to make their milky alabaster skin glow eerily. Their complexions were the polar opposite of his, white to his black, like living representations of day and night—or to be a touch morbid, life and death. 

Gods, they’re creepy. He huffed out a breath, but stayed silent as Asha continued to gaze upon them with star-struck eyes.

The elven unicorns looked spectral, otherworldly, white as bones and as pale as death. For some reason, the unicorns turned in his direction. Their beautiful purple eyes fell on him, staring into his twilight-blue ones as if judging his soul and finding him unfit. It caused a shudder to run down his spine.

“They’d probably make more selling pony rides,” he muttered to Asha.

“And that kind of thinking is probably why they don’t show their beast form, rude boy.”

“Whatever.” He grabbed Asha’s hand and tugged her along. “Come on, if we stand too long in one place, people will take notice.”