I spent the next morning stressing over what to wear.

On one hand, my best – and only remaining – suit was black. Black was the color of the dead, which could work for me.

But I only had one spell that even called the dead, right now. Green would be better, as the color of the naturalists. Blue, for the mages, would work too.

Orange, for the laborers, did kind of work, and that was what I'd planned on wearing, but I was questioning that now. Not only because of the comments Ed had made, but also because orange really wasn't my color.

I wanted to make a good impression, after all. Sure, I'd already made a first impression on Kene, but not a first date impression. That was really quite different.

It didn't help that I had no clue what Kene would be wearing, or how fancy they'd be dressing. If I showed up in a casual shirt and shorts, and they were wearing a suit, I'd look pretty stupid.

After a good while deliberating and arguing with myself, I finally settled on the black blazer – or was it a suit jacket? I wasn’t sure – from my suit, a nice enough button down green shirt, and a pair of blue denim pants. It wasn’t the fanciest, but it wasn’t entirely casual either, so I hoped that it would be good enough.

I said my goodbyes to Ed, who looked almost comical in his bright red shirt and pants, then snagged a couple of pastries from the shop downstairs. It was pretty swamped, and I was glad that I hadn’t been roped into helping, like I had every other year.

The pastries set off a second round of deliberation. They were in all of the colors, so that people could get whatever they needed for the occasion.

This was a date, but would getting a pair of red rhubarb strawberry tarts be too forwards? The lovers had supposedly fallen in love at first sight, bringing the color red into the world from nothing, but I didn’t work like that. I couldn’t just fall in love instantly. Would Kene think that was what I was suggesting?

My dad noticed me hovering and dusted his hands off to package a pair of the rhubarb hand tarts and shoved them at me, then handed a purple one to Dusk.

“Oh, just take them, it’ll be fine,” he said, smiling. “And good luck on your date.”

I accepted the pies as graciously as I could and stored them in Dusk’s realm, while she peeped out thanks for her own. I couldn't help but grin a little bit there – purple was the color of nobility.

“Thanks!” I called, then I flew off.

Each year, the parks in the city became hotspots for different carnival attractions.

The biggest and brightest of these was Hydat Park.

I did not fly to Hydat Park. That's where all the tourists would be, and I didn't want to get caught in the crazy bustle for a slightly better suite of attractions.

No, I had agreed to meet Kene at a smaller park that wasn't too far from our bakery. I hovered over the park until I saw their familiar form fly over to me, and we landed.

I took a moment to take them in. They'd cleaned up well, that was certain. He wore a pair of white denim pants and a button down green shirt that matched their hair. Their shirt was rolled up, exposing their forearms, and they had an orange knit bracelet around their left arm.

White. I should have expected that – the color was indicative of the healers.

I couldn't have gotten away with that color, of course. I didn't even know how to brew a basic healing potion yet. But, at least since we both had green, we were matching in that regard.

"You look… really good!" I said. They flashed me a flirty grin and nodded to me.

"Coming from you," they said. "You look amazing."

I blushed, and stood there in silence for a moment before pulling a box from Dusk's realm and shoving it towards him.

"Here, I got you a gift for the carnival."

They flicked their fingers and a box of their own appeared, and they held it out to me. We exchanged the boxes, and I nodded to them.

"You first."

Kene tore the rainbow wrappings off the box and opened it to reveal the pile of clothes, collection of nail polishes, and the packet of seeds.

"I had to guess at the sizes," I said. "I hope you like the colors."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"It's great," they said, a small but genuine smile flitting across their face. They picked up the pack of seeds and tilted their head.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Oh! It's a plant from southern Kijani, near where my mentor grew up. It can be fed mana to change color easily, and it can be turned into a dye or colorant to make nail polish."

"Really?" Kene asked, flipping over the packet and reading the back.

"Yep! I figured since you wanted to have more fun colors, it would be a good choice for you."

"It definitely is," they said, then looked up and pulled me into a brief hug. "Thank you! Your turn."

I tore the wrapping off and opened the box to reveal one of those boxes that people used to organize medicine for the week. Four of them, in fact, labeled as such. There was also a medium sized journal, bound in a blue faux leather.

I picked up the book first and flipped through it. It took me a second to place it, but it was a copy of the book that Kene's grandmother had given him – the one that we'd used to build the cauldron together.

"You didn't have to make me a copy," I said, shaking my head.

"I know I didn't have to, but I wanted to," they said, shrugging. "Besides, grandmother wouldn't mind."

I looked over the pill cases, then up at Kene.

"If these are all for me to use to advance, there's way, way too much," I said, shaking my head. "I can't take this. That's got to be…"

"Not as much as you think," they said. "None of them are really strong, like a Verdant Pasture pill or powerful extract. They're mainly just crushed up herbs and flowers that should help your spatial and temporal mana's spellcraft. Small but steady progress."

"It's still way too much," I said.

"It's not. Because…" they trailed off, then averted their gaze downward. "It's also somewhat an apology gift."

I blinked.

"Apology?" I asked. "You haven't done anything."

"Shortly after you left, my grandmother appeared. She'd been alerted by… Whatever Dusk did. She wants to use the opportunity to totally reset and restructure my tattoos. Since I'm stronger now, I can help, and my solar mana can be channeled into the new design to eliminate the need for a full-gate spell. The whole thing is going to take a full moon cycle – twenty nine days. Sorry."

"Sorry?" I asked. "That's amazing news! I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm definitely sad that I won't get the chance to see you for a month, but being able to help your condition is a definite win in my book."

They were quiet for a second, then pulled me into a second hug. This one was tighter, almost uncomfortably so, and I could feel a drop of wetness hitting my shoulder from where Kene's face was.

A moment later, they pulled back, wiped their face, and smiled.

"Thanks," they said.

"Of course," I said, smiling back at them. Dusk hopped off my shoulder and onto theirs, and then patted their cheek before hopping back.

We stored our gifts away, and then headed into the carnival set up.

The festival lasted three days, and the first day was usually all about gifts and food. We tried a bunch of different things – most of which were fried in some regard – until the oil made my stomach hurt.

Kene then affectionately bullied me for tapping out first, but I honestly didn't mind.

Around noon, we stopped to watch the demonstration of the myth that had started the Carnival of Color as a celebration. There probably wasn't any truth behind it, but I always enjoyed the illusions that were set up to tell the story.

To my surprise, I recognized the illusionist on stage – it was Diana, seemingly the only level headed member of Mallory's team.

I debated waving to her, but I didn't want to distract her before the performance.

Another woman took the stage to serve as the announcer, tempest magic swirling around us to project her voice out.

As she began to speak, Diana shaped the illusions over our heads into the familiar story.

The world began with no color, only shades of gray cast by the force of healing which was white, and the dead in black.

The first color to bloom into the world was red, born of a vibrant passion between two lovers. As they worked and populated the world, the orange of laborers came into being.

Of course, population drove conflict, and so yellow was born from the hearts of valient warriors.

From the endless wars, two factions emerged.

Purple was brought by the nobles, who brought peace, rules, and order, while green was brought by those who struck out on their own to explore the natural world.

I always found that part of the story a bit funny. I was no history buff, but I was pretty sure that nobles had been the cause of far more wars than peace.

Blue was born last, born from the souls of all the people in the world. Mana, and the first mages who learned to control it.

I applauded the performers as the display came to an end, and then Kene and I moved on. We ate a bit more, and then Kene had the idea for us to try and make the nail polish.

He wasn't at his own garden, so we used Dusk's realm to grow the rainbow sugarbush from the seeds, and we could transplant it later.

Pushing a plant to grow that fast was hard, of course, but between the two of us we had enough mana to push into Enhance Plant Life to make it work.

The plant was really pretty, with sharp green leaves, and vibrant white flowers. It took a bit of fiddling with ungated mana to get it to turn a neon green color that satisfied Kene.

Turning it into a potion was simple from there. We enhanced the color arrays in the flowers, and then mixed it with olive and jojoba oil, alongside a bit of beeswax, then strained.

Painting my nails with Kene was an odd experience. I hadn't painted them in a long time – conciously, I knew that it was a thing that guys could and did do, but that didn't stop me from feeling a bit strange whenever I had. It brought up too many memories of doing it when I was younger.

The odd part was that having Kene doing it with me helped. It didn't banish the feelings entirely, but they certainly weren't as strong.

After our nails dried, I took Kene out to dinner. It was small, since we'd eaten so much throughout the day, but it seemed the right thing to do.

The next morning, we met for the second day of the carnival, which was all about games. We played a few rounds of different carnival games, from the time tested throwing a ball at a stack of bottles to more complex games that involved using a stream of ungated mana to try and guide a ball through a series of tubes.

"How are you so good at that?!" I asked Kene as they completed the tube game for a fourth time in a row, seemingly effortlessly.

"Medical magic takes a lot of mana manipulation skill," Kene said with a grin, tossing me the candy bar they'd just won.

The third and final day of the carnival was always the most exciting, though.

It was dedicated to a treasure hunt.