D . Gray-man is owned by Katsura Hoshino, meaning it does not belong to me. I am in no way, shape, and/or form claiming to be the owner/creator of these concepts, though I do claim any characters not apart of the original D . Gray-man storyline (such as Gracia) mine. As such, I would appreciate fellow authors and readers to give credit where credit is due and not steal any of my characters and/or concepts. Thank you, and have a pleasant day.
She couldn't sleep.
She hadn't slept in two weeks.
She hadn't stopped crying…
What was wrong with her?
What was this painful, twisting feeling in her chest?
And why, when she tried to localize it, did she think of Komui?
It took her a week to realize that she missed him.
It took her the other week to realize missing him went far deeper than, say, missing Lenalee.
There was something about all of this she was missing, she knew, and it had something to do with that… emotion she hadn't identified that she felt for him and only for him. Though instead of annoying her, now it left her yearning.
She wanted to see him again; she needed to. If only so she could get annoyed with him for unleashing another Komlin or something…
But no… she didn't want to be annoyed with him again…
She wanted… something else…
And, again, Gracia felt tears well up in her eyes and spill over as she sat at the window seat in her room, staring through the stained glass.
Why was the world still spinning? The moment she walked through the door of her mother's house, things had gone back to as they had been before she had been married; her mother had sent her to her room to await any tasks the woman could possibly think of for her.
And that was it.
She sat around the house with nothing to do.
She flitted through the music room, but found she couldn't think of a single song to play. The weather outside was too cold for walking through the gardens. She'd read every book in the library as a child, and when she'd gone through to look at them again she found they held no interest for her. Her mother had tried to see if she needed any tutors hired to refresh her on her old subjects, but a quick review revealed that, yes, she did remember everything, they just weren't things that were on her clouded mind unless she was asked to think about them.
And so, while her mother planned out her belated thirtieth birthday party and, occasionally, called her down to reintroduce her to this person or that, Gracia did nothing but sit, dwell on what she had been forced to give up, and cry.
She wished she could sleep through it all, but again, she hadn't been able to sleep.
The day she'd given Sleep to Renault to hold for her so she didn't change her mind… she'd felt something… change…
Sleep had, initially, refused to let go. Once it had, though, and she'd taken it off… it had taken its sleepy fog with it.
Now all she was left with was a haze… an unpleasant, slightly terrifying haze; like a mist that looms in the air on a sunny day and hides everything in a thick, impenetrable miasma of white.
The sun was shining brightly in her mind; she was wide awake. But, as always, her perception was skewed, only now instead of there being a comfort waiting (the promise of a warm nap and an ever-present feel of never being alone), there was nothing to look forward to but…
…Emptiness.
And it would never clear, she realized the longer she dwelled on it. She and Sleep had not parted as they should have, and now she would feel the lingering effects in her mind the rest of her life… Serving as a constant reminder if what she had been. Serving as a constant call for her to come back and pick up where she had left off.
As a child, she would have been able to accept the bland life that sat stagnantly around her.
As an adult, as a former independent woman, as a former Exorcist…
No… She couldn't live like this.
If she had to sit in her room every day for the rest of her life, staring off into space and crying, regretting, she would go mad.
She wanted Sleep.
She wanted Komui.
She wanted things to go back to how they had been that one night… After Cross had dismissed her and sent her to Komui's room, and she had spent the night with him nearby. She wanted to go back to being annoyed with him for making her feel strange, warm things in her chest, she wanted to go back to fretting over why she felt like she wanted to kiss him like Cross had her, she wanted to go back to the way things had been…
Dear god, she wanted to sleep…
"Mistress…"
Gracia turned away from the window slowly and looked up at Renault, feeling hollow.
Renault stared down at her with a soft, worried expression on his usually blank face, frowning, "You cannot keep going like this… Change into your nightgown and lie down in bed; I am going to give you a mild sedative."
"I don't want a sedative…" Gracia muttered, looking out the window again, "I want Sleep…"
"…I know, Mistress." Renault sighed, "But you have to sleep…"
"…Let me take a walk, first." Gracia mumbled, standing and sighing, "I'm tired mentally right now, but not physically… You can sedate me after I've tired myself out a bit more."
Renault stared down at her for a moment, unmoving, then nodded slightly and bowed his head, the length of black hair in his ponytail slipping over his shoulder, "Very well, Mistress. Shall I come with you?"
"No, take a break…" She mumbled, slipping past him and heading for the door, "I can take care of myself for a bit…"
Gracia didn't bother taking in her surroundings as she walked down the hall; the house was exactly as it had been when she had moved out not long after getting married…
Dark wood in the halls, dark blues and browns and burgundies for the wallpaper, thick, heavy drapes with amber tassels, hardwood floors lined with long, thick rugs, tall ceilings and crystal chandeliers…
Where Barheim Palace, her father's house, had been slightly stark but orderly, Nalbina Estate, her mother's house, was heavy, dark…
…Oppressive…
She needed to get outside.
Gracia headed down to the kitchens, walking past the maids and cooks silently and taking the servants' door outside.
They were into the month of October, now; the trees were red and orange, the air smelled like dirt and rain, the winds were coming on and off and the air was chilly…
The servants' door led to a small staircase, the kitchen being below ground level, and a short walk up the stairs led out into the grand backyard, a large fountain (turned off for the coming winter months) off to the right, directly in front of the proper back door, gravel walkways and low hedges with rosebushes and trees trimmed into the shapes of animals…
Still, though, Gracia didn't pay attention to her surroundings, walking up the stairs slowly and along one of the many paths that ran alongside the back yard.
What were the others doing, she wondered…
Well, Komui would definitely be shirking his duties… again… And probably napping in a remote corner of the mansion…
Allen and Kanda would be at one another's throats, with Lavi egging them on passively, amusedly while Lenalee tried to break the fight up…
Tiedoll would be lurking around the corner, waiting for his 'sons' to need him…
Socalo would be disgruntled at the loss of his punching back (Judge-Sal)…
Reever would be doing his best to help Brigitte hunt Komui down… The poor woman was still so inexperienced with the fine art of Komui Hunting…
Johnny would be hanging out with that new woman, Cash, who looked so much like her late brother…
The Science Division would either be working themselves to death, or trying to hide Komui's more dangerous experiments from him…
…She wanted that back.
As Gracia walked along the cold, empty path, a brief burst of wind coming up behind her and catching her hair and skirts and making her wish she'd remembered to grab a coat, she realized she had never really… appreciated what she had had with the Order…
She'd been so lost in Sleep's haze, so worried about losing it, so worried about remembering what she wanted to forget, that she hadn't realized what they had let her have without even needing to…
That warm feeling she had gotten whenever she was around them…
…That was what being part of a family was supposed to feel like.
But… she'd given that up for a reason. She'd given it up to keep her mother from taking her anger out on Komui and doing something that would break that family apart.
Besides, they didn't need her, and she… she didn't need them. She had survived well enough on her own for the four years after running away and before joining the Order… She was used to being alone.
It was something… she'd just have to learn to deal with.
She was a bit ashamed that, two weeks later, she was still crying about it… But her perception of time was still off, and the white haze in her mind was persistent.
Eventually, the pain would fade. It always had before.
Gracia sighed and pushed the thoughts from her mind with some difficult, blinking and looking around to see where her feet had led her while her mind had drifted…
The house was far behind her by now, and she had walked into a small grove of trees, still following a path that seemed to lead to the—
Ah, the stables… She'd never really visited them when she was younger; she hadn't been allowed outside much.
Still, she knew they were well-used; her mother had been fond of riding in her younger years, and even now she could hear the loud nickers and neighs of the several horses inside.
Movement in the pen just outside of the stable caught Gracia's attention, and she blinked and walked over. Surely her mother wasn't riding…
Out in the corral, a young woman in tight, tan pants, a navy jacket, high black boots and a riding helmet rode astride a large, gray Andalusian, her shoulders rolled back and her head held high as she guided the horse with the slightest movements of the reigns and her knees.
Gracia blinked and watched as she trotted the horse down one side of the paddock, then turned him and urged him with a few clicks of her tongue, the horse surging forward with powerful, muscular strides. Gracia felt her breath hitch slightly as the horse took the first of several vaults aligned down the middle of the corral.
The horse, though, cleared the obstacle with ease, and Gracia slowly relaxed and watched silently as the duo jumped the rest of the vaults, each one slightly taller than the last.
The rider walked her horse in a few circles once they had reached the end of the line before directing it down the line to start over, but when she realized she was being watched, the girl blinked and balked slightly, pulling her horse to a quick stop that had it shaking its head and lying its ears back.
Gracia flinched slightly and took a few steps back to leave, feeling out of place even though this was her mother's property and she had no idea who the rider was.
She didn't make it far, though; that horse was damned fast, not to mention intimidating as it charged straight towards her, its rider leaning forward and pressed against its neck.
Gracia was just about to duck, knowing that any attempt to run on her part would just be laughable, but the girl was even faster than the horse; she pulled up alongside the fence and leapt straight off of her horse's back, making Gracia freeze.
"GRACIA!"
…Well, what else was she supposed to do?
Gracia went limp and let a hundred or so pounds of excitable blonde slam into her and take her down.
Gracia groaned softly as she blinked her eyes open slowly, blinking at the slightly cloudy sky peeking through from between the red-leaved branches of the tree overhead. Why was she on the ground again…?
Suddenly, a youthful, female face with a dark eyes and a head covered in an equestrian riding helmet leaned into her periphery, grinning widely.
Oh, right… that was why…
"Gracia!" The young woman exclaimed, bracing her hands against Gracia's shoulders and leaning in slightly as she straddle the older woman's waist, "Gracia, is that really you? !"
"…Yes?" Gracia questioned unsurely after a moment, managing a weak smile/grimace, "Sorry… I don't… remember you?"
"Considering we've never met, I hope you don't." The girl giggled. She then got slightly teary, her wide smile wavering slightly, "Oh, Gracia… I'm so happy I finally get to meet you!"
Gracia grunted softly as the young woman pulled her up into a tight hug, awkwardly hugging back, "It's… nice to meet you, too… Should I… have been looking forward to it…?"
"You probably didn't even know to…" The younger female murmured, pulling back and holding Gracia out at arm's length to get a good look at her, "You're prettier than I had imagined…"
"…" Gracia sighed softly. She wasn't going to be able to be polite for much longer if she didn't get a better grip on what was going on, "I'm sorry… but who are you?"
A sad look cross the young woman's face, "She really didn't tell you anything… Well, I'm not surprised; she wasn't planning on telling me, either." The young woman then perked, brightening, "I'm your younger sister, Lorelei!"
