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Blue is the color of the sky and the color of the sea, a symbol of freedom, peace, stability, trust, and confidence.
Purple is a color associated with royalty, signifying wealth for the person wearing the rich color. It’s known to mean mystery, power, independence, ambition, and luxury.
Red is blood and fear and danger, but also passion. Red is a color of extremity.
-
Purpled stands in the middle of a war.
He doesn’t know what he’s fighting for- he’s long since forgotten. He doesn’t remember much beyond the roughness of the worn leather of his sword grip, the aching blisters his bowstring inflames with every arrow, and the warmth of fresh blood when it sprays across his skin.
Purpled is fighting a war, and he can’t recall which side he’s on.
(War has always had a way of erasing the singular and enhancing the many. After all, what use were personal memories of your past life on a field of death?)
Byzantium blood drips from his various wounds, though he doesn’t feel their pain. Underneath his armor, his hoodie is stained with the stuff, making dark splotches on the purple fabric. He knows not every patch is his own blood. He knows that he’s opened his fair share of wounds on his red-blooded enemies. He knows he wears the evidence. He can practically feel his own purple being reclaimed by the red of the other fighters, erasing any hint of cool blue.
He finds, as he runs through mud and blood and pain, that his mind seems to be slipping away from the battle at hand. Maybe he’s lost too much blood, maybe he’s just finally cracked, but it’s a slippery slope into past joys when you’re knee-deep in unwanted fear, and he can’t seem to find any handles to keep himself from falling.
The teachings of his instructors from his childhood, back before he ever set foot in his first Bedwars arena, his first battle, his first war, come rushing back. The color wheel, the primary colors, how mixing some colors would make others. He remembers raising his hand and telling teacher that red and blue make purple, so incredibly excited to know something about this topic. The teacher had smiled and nodded, and he had beamed right back.
He doesn’t do much beaming anymore.
Purpled knows he should be focusing on the battle, on the enemies and the explosives raining from the sky and the incessant screaming , but instead he’s thinking about colors. He sees Tommy and Tubbo yelling at Dream in the remains of what used to be their country. He sees Tecnoblade laughing, and Philza parrying a strike from Sapnap’s sword. He sees what used to be the Button Room, now a half-crumbled momento to the ruining of dreams, as well as a grave to a former dreamer.
He sees chaos, yet all he can focus on is the way the crimson blood is soaking into his hoodie. He had always considered colors a curious thing, even before that lesson. He liked the way something so simple could mean something so potent. How pink was youth and innocent love and sensitivity. How green was life and safety and freshness. How orange was warmth and determination and joy.
There was a reason he chose purple as his color, after all.
(Power, mystery, independence. All things he yearned for as child enslaved in the Bedwars arenas, all things he was told he could never have. His color, his meaning, was his own small act of rebellion. A secret exhibition of hope.)
He’s been surrounded by red his entire life- his memories are practically drenched in it. The blood of his first kill in the arenas, the sky over the burning flower field that used to be his home, the terror of every battle he’s ever fought, of every one of his deaths.
But, oh, how he longed for blue. It’s the color of his dreams, the color of peace and stability and freedom, a hope for a better future.
There was a reason he chose purple, but sometimes he wonders if it was as much of a choice as it was a sealing of destiny. He was but a smudge of purple, a product of being left in overwhelming red to yearn for just a slice more blue, and would be forever locked in the position, cursed by his adolescent choice.
So, Purpled stands in the middle of a war, and he thinks about past choices and colors instead of the ruined country around him. But war is demanding and bold and impossible to ignore, no matter how hard he tries. So, he’s shaken out of his desperate reminiscing by an arrow, fired from somewhere in the smoking destruction. He sees it flying toward him, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t even consider it. He just watches as it slams into is chesplate, laced with deadly intent, and watches as it crumples upon impact. His armor was crafted with one of the strongest known materials in the universe, after all. He’s not sure if he wishes it weren’t. If an arrow to the chest would be better than continuing on in this battle, in this world, in this life. He’s not sure what he wishes had happened, but he knows what did, so, he raises his sword and throws himself back into the red.
And, as he runs across this battlefield, this shattered place, this broken land, he can feel his last dredges of hope disappearing with the purple of his hoodie.
-
The war ends, as all wars should. Afterwards, he finds that L’Manburg was ruined in the battle, leaving them with devastated land and tormented citizens. He finds that he doesn’t care. His home is unaffected, as he lived outside of the country- close enough to be called to war, but far enough to be ignored during any celebration. This seemed to be a running theme in his life. No lasting friends, but enough people paying for his services as a mercenary to fill books.
It’s fine. It doesn’t bother him.
So, the night he gets back to his cabin, his only company is his dog. At least he’s happy to see him, immediately jumping up on Purpled’s chest without care for the sword on his waist or the blood on his hands. He wonders what would’ve happened to Dogchamp if the arrow had hit its mark, and decides he’s glad it did not.
He spends half an hour trying to wash the battle out of his hoodie before he realizes it’s a futile effort. The hoodie is as stained with red as he is. So, he tosses it in the fire, pulls out his fabrics and sewing needles, and sets to work on another one. Working is a better alternative to trying to fall asleep. He needs to keep himself busy, lest he fears his thoughts might spiral to a place he doesn’t want them to go.
The hoodie takes him a long time, the process quickened by his prior experience but slowed by the care he puts into each stitch and seam. It’s well into the night by the time he finishes, the moonlight painting the landscape silver ( wealth, hope, mysticism ), and he’s entirely exhausted. A day of swords and needles was a sure way to shred energy. He lays his new hoodie on top of his table, and washes up before going to sleep, praying to gods that he may or may not believe in for a dreamless rest.
He wakes up the next morning with his breath caught in his throat and bloody memories in his mind, hopelessness and fear, tight as vices across his chest. Purpled doesn’t think the server is worth it anymore. He spends the next few days trying to ignore the idea, but it stays, prevalent, at the forefront of his mind no matter what he tries. He can’t stop thinking about it. All of the pain, grief, and fear aren’t worth the small moments of happiness that seem to be becoming more and more few and far between.
So, he leaves, he runs away, and returns somewhere he had sworn to never go back to, in the hopes of distraction from his terrible vices.
-
Hypixel is the same as it was when he had left escaped. He walks through a lobby, and clicks into a Bedwars match out of his own free will for the first time.
And he becomes bathed in red.
He looses himself in the haze. He had promised himself to only play for an afternoon, but soon he realizes he’s lost track of how long he’s spent on Hypixel, entire days spent playing that godsforsaken game, and entire nights spent tossing and turning in the hopes of dreamless sleep. He makes a point not to meet the eyes of the children enslaved by Hypixel’s various owners as he slices them down, because he was once one of them, and he knows what will happen to them when they return to their master with a lost game. He doesn’t meet their eyes, because he knows that he wouldn’t be able to send them through the rugged respawn of a final kill, back to face their disappointed (or worse, angry ) owners if he saw their tired, hopeless eyes (and, oh, he used to look like that . Maybe he still does- he’s not sure. He doesn’t own a mirror anymore.).
So, he spends days and weeks grinding Bedwars, with a few games of Bridge thrown in for variety. The predictability of these matches is easier to bear than the shattered peace of the DreamSMP, so the single afternoon of distraction becomes dozens of days of deadly focus. He claws his way back up the leaderboard, until he’s once again top ten.
(He still remembers when he had first reached this level. His handler had smiled, and patted him on the back right where he was sure they knew he had been lashed just days ago for being the first one out of a match. They had ignored his flinch, told him they were proud, then pushed him into another match he no longer remembers the outcome of.
This time, there’s no hand, no wounds from outside of a game, and nobody to praise him in a falsely saccharine voice. That, at least, is a relief.)
He visits the DreamSMP a few times, though he always returns to Hypixel. He’s called upon to perform a couple jobs (an assassination was a new one for this SMP, but he’s performed plenty before. Crashing a banquet that was a trap to kill the attendants, however, was a first), and spends some time on that, but continues to focus on Bedwars, and the distraction it offers.
Purpled is once again lost inside of a red-soaked war, but this time his only true enemy is himself.
-
Five months.
He spends five months in Hypixel before he realizes how far gone he is. His chest feels hollow. His body is sore. His mind is red.
When he steps foot in the DreamSMP for the first time in half a year, he can tell things are different. There are new countries and ruined countries, new people and ruined people. Somehow, though, his UFO is still standing. He’s glad- he doesn’t know what he would do if his home, an extension of himself, was destroyed or taken. He walks into his cabin, sits Dogchamp down in the corner, and lays down in his bed. Tomorrow, he’ll settle back into his slow life on the SMP, but tonight he’ll keep his mind carefully blank and sink into the comfort of his own bed.
He’s not given the chance to settle, however, because the next day, Quackity calls him to the flower shop for his payment. So, Purpled quietly dons his suit and walks to the designated meetup place.
He walks in and they talk, Quackity trying to draw out the conversation and Purpled making sure to keep it as straightforward and quick as possible. Finally, his employer takes him to the roof and shows him the payment. He pays well, and Purpled can’t help but to be impressed by how smoothly the interaction had gone so far.
Then, Quackity tells him he has something else for him.
He nods, and Quackity, smiling oddly, makes his way down the stairs. Purpled hears a click, akin to the flipping of a lever, and has barely a second to wonder what it might be before the explosions start.
Purpled looks into the sky to see a ball of fire where his home used to reside.
And he shatters .
He jumps off the building and doesn’t care about the fall, instead focusing on what used to be his and letting curses stumble roughly out of his mouth. He’s not the only one talking, though.
“That’s it! It’s gone! Purpled, look at me! Look at me. It’s gone. It’s- Purpled, it’s gone. Your legacy- your legacy- that’s all you had in this goddamn server, was that UFO. Purpled, your legacy is gone- and I’ve taken it from you,” and oh, he’s seeing red even though he’s turned away from the burning remains. Blue is the farthest thing from his mind as he pulls out his sword and summons his armor, advancing on the man that had ruined him in barely a second. The sky opens up and it starts to pour, almost as if in sorrow over the conflict happening under its watch. Quackity goes on and on about legacies and choices and money and UFOs and every word is just another wound to an already dying boy, standing in the rain without any remaining hope. Purpled listens and ignores the tears on his face that are quickly washed away. Quackity proposes something in winding words that turn around his beliefs and twist his idea of the situation in knots. Words had never been his strong suit and that hadn’t ever been as apparent as it was in this moment, as he fell silent and let Quackity run his mind in exhausting circles. He didn’t have the energy to fight anymore. It didn’t seem worth it.
So, he turns on his heel and runs. He has experience with that, after all.
Purpled runs, and leaves his blue hopes behind in the mud, with the shattered remains of his home.