I swear today just crept up on me like a fucking ninja. Who knew two days could pass by so quickly?
Anyway, I literally just finished this chapter and did a speed proof-reading so if their are any faults, would someone please kindly point them out?
Um. A lot of people are interested to see if Bella will be in the fic. Honestly, I have no idea. I haven't planned all that far myself. I'm literally just bullshitting my way through this whole fic XD
This fic currently takes place before Canon events start, so like, in October and Bella arrives in Jan...if she comes, I have no idea what I'd do with her, since I'm not a fan of Love Triangles. She'll probably just sit there and stare longingly at Edward or something. Who knows? Meh.
Sorry about the long Author's note by the way...it just flew away with me.
I hope you enjoy the chapter :)
Review?
Chapter VII - Yellow
Edgar Beauregard, for all her talents in the art department, wasn't very much of a cook. Of course, she knew the basics, being taught a few dishes by her mother, however, her main problem was that she had an odd habit of adding food colouring into almost everything except vegetables. She claimed that food should also look good because there was no reason as to why it shouldn't, and so if she thought that yellow chicken and green rice looked went well to enhance the colour of the orange carrots and purple beetroot, then that's exactly what they'd be eating for dinner that night.
Charles found it amusing really (that is, after the novelty of eating pink pasta wore off), especially whenever they had guests over. It didn't happen very often after the incident, but he had invited a couple of business partners over to close a deal a few times, and their reactions to his daughter's cooking never failed to make him chortle with laughter. But really, all Charles cared about was whether the food tasted good or not, and since the food colouring did nothing to upset the flavour of whatever they were eating that night, then he just took it in stride.
Sometimes though, when he had the time and was in the mood for a little semblance of normality, he would do the cooking. Edgar would pout at him whenever she saw how 'boring' the main dish was, but he made sure to liven things up by including lots of bright coloured vegetables. She had always been like that as far as he could remember; ever since she was a baby she wanted to eat 'bright foods', and Elizabeth would simply shake her head in fond amusement and add plenty veggies. Charles remembered when they had baked green chocolate chip cookies and his daughter had offered them to him with such an air of accomplishment that he couldn't help but pull her into a big hug as a sign of his heartfelt appreciation. His wife of course, had immediately snapped as many photos as she could of the occasion, always eager to 'capture memories'.
Oh, how he missed Elizabeth.
And so, as Charles stared down at his plate of navy blue mashed potatoes, relatively normal looking minced-meat and sauce, mixed vegetables sitting prettily on the side, all he could do was sigh in fond exasperation before spearing a green-bean and resigning himself to yet another unique meal.
He looked at his daughter who was sitting across the round dinner table, fork held mid-air, plate pushed aside and frowning over her European History textbook. He managed to make out the heading on the page she was reading, "Elizabeth II – The Golden Age of Britain" and smiled in satisfaction.
"I'm glad to see you're finally putting in some effort into your studies." He declared happily. Edgar barely lifted her head to acknowledge his words, simply giving him a dry look from the corner of her eyes that clearly said exactly what she thought of his enthusiasm.
It had been a struggle for him to get her to even touch any of her textbooks, despite Principal Johnson's clear threat of 'grave consequences'. Knowing Edgar, she was probably aiming to get expelled, because that way she wouldn't have to bother with the much hate schoolwork. Personally, Charles could relate, even he as a teenager despised any semblance of homework. What young person didn't? In fact, he still hated it, although now that he was an adult, it had been bumped up to 'paper work'. And really, he didn't blame her for not wanting to bother with any of the homework or assignments. It wasn't as if she was stupid or anything. Actually, she was brilliant, and soaked up all the information like a sponge –she just didn't see how any of said information was relevant to her or her daily life.
To be honest, Charles didn't see how either.
Not that he would ever admit it, since he was supposed to be the 'responsible' adult, and so, desperate measures had to be taken to insure she at least put in a little effort, resulting in him threatening to cut down her monthly supply budget by half. To a normal person, this wouldn't sound like much of a punishment, especially since her normal budget ranged in the thousands, however, had one actually seen her reaction to such a declaration, they would have thought he had threatened to shut her up in tower for the rest of her life with no chance of ever seeing daylight again.
Needless to say, after much begging and pleading, his daughter had finally caved, thus resulting in her reluctantly doing her assigned homework.
It was a novel sight to see his daughter hunched over thick hardback textbooks like a normal teenager, and even after a whole week, he would still do a double-take whenever he entered the kitchen and found her slaving away at her Algebra homework instead of some fancy portrait or another.
Charles wasn't much of a conversationalist, but his curiosity was getting the best of him, especially with the mind-boggling sight in front of him, and so he chose to inquire about how she was doing at school now that she was actually starting to participate. "How was school today?" He asked, watching her carefully. Edgar shrugged.
"It was alright." She answered simply, and Charles inwardly rolled his eyes, because with Edgar you had to ask specific questions, lest one was satisfied with short, to the point answers with no details included whatsoever.
"Did anything interesting happen today? Something different from normal?" He tried again, and she blinked slowly at her textbook, before shutting it with a small huff and levelling him with the full attention of her large grey eyes.
"A strange male followed me into the forest behind school in order to warn me of the dangers of woodland creatures during the late autumn season." She said evenly. Charles paused in the middle of bringing a carrot to his mouth and frowned. It took a moment of what she said to sink in, especially since she had said it in such an uncaring and utterly nonchalant tone that the full gravity of it was not expressed.
Finally, when his brain processed that yes indeed, someone had followed his little girl into the forest, he threatened to have an aneurysm right then and there.
"Edgar," He started in a strained voice, "Please explain what the hell you are talking about. In excessive detail." He ordered, gripping the fork in his hand so hard that it might as well be embedded into his palm, and the absolute worst part was that she seemed perfectly calm, clearly not grasping the seriousness of the situation.
But of course she wouldn't, and he really shouldn't have been so surprised. This was the girl who randomly stopped in the middle of busy roads just to capture 'the perfect angle of that lampshade', and then was confused when people bodily tackled her out of the way of a speeding car.
So really, there was no reason for him to be shocked.
Edgar, for her part, was still cool, calm and collected, unlike her secretly panicking father. "Well, it was during Lunch Break, and like I frequently do, I decided to spend my free time in the forest behind the school." She started. Charles heaved a heavy sigh and rubbed his temples wearily, feeling like he was seventy-seven instead of thirty-seven. His daughter had a tendency to age people prematurely.
"How many times have I told you not to go into the forest?" He asked in a tight voice. She stared at him a long moment, before opening her mouth to reply.
"You told me not to go too deep into the forest. I didn't." She answered. Charles put down his fork and took a long sip of his glass of water to calm himself down.
Honestly, he was starting to contemplate placing a tracker on his daughter.
"Continue then." He sighed and she nodded.
"I sat against a log, and there was a rabbit that was also taking its lunch break, and so while it had its meal, I decided to do a sketch of it. About five minutes after I arrived, Adonis stepped out from behind a tree, scaring the poor rabbit away-"Charles held up a hand to stop her and gave her an incredulous look.
"Adonis?" He asked wondering if his daughter had somehow had a brush with a Mythological God. It would certainly make sense, in a weird way. 'Strange man in the forest' she had said. Of course, Charles didn't believe in such things, but it certainly made him feel better as opposed to the prospect that his daughter had had an encounter with a crazy stalker/rapist.
"It's not his real name –well, I don't think so-, I refer to him as such since he is what I assume Adonis would look like if he existed. If you saw him, you'd think the same." She answered with a casual shrug.
Okay¸ scratch that. A crazy, yet oddly good-looking stalker/rapist.
It was always those ones you had to watch out for.
Charles didn't even want her to carry on with her explanation anymore. "I don't want to hear anything more, otherwise I fear I'll start hyperventilating." He wasn't even exaggerating, he could feel his heart beat start to race. "Just avoid him from now on." He ordered seriously. Edgar nodded once in easy acceptance.
"I didn't much like him anyway." She replied, much to his relief.
Honestly, it was times like these that he wished Elizabeth were still alive.
Edgar stood in front of a large oak door, on the porch of a quaint yellow painted house, complete with a white picket fence and everything. She looked down at the address on the paper one last time to confirm that she was at the right place before ringing the doorbell once and stepping back to wait.
After a few seconds, she heard footsteps approaching the door, before it was opened by a vaguely familiar woman. She had a kind face, with her grey hair tied up in a bun and wearing a red cooking apron. She smiled brightly when she saw Edgar.
"Hello young lady," She greeted pleasantly, "And how may I help you today?" She asked, tilting her head slightly.
Edgar held out a hand, "Hello. I'm Edgar Beauregard and Mr Smith requested I come do a formal portrait of his wife. That would be you, I assume?" Asked Edgar, though she was fairly sure this was the woman. Said woman's brown eyes lit up with recognition.
"Oh yes!" She exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "I remember you from the beach. A wonderful drawing you did of me dearie. Come in then!" She declared, stepping aside for Edgar to enter. It was a nice simple house, the type one would raise a family in. In fact, she could see numerous photos hung across the walls of who she assumed to be the Smith's children.
"My name is Julia Smith by the way, thank you so much for coming." Mrs Smith gushed, leading Edgar into the kitchen where they found a blond with shaggy hair sitting at the counter, hunched over some notebooks. He looked up when they entered, eyes resting on Edgar curiously for a moment before going back to his work. Their kitchen was quite large and open, with plenty light streaming in. She got the feeling that it was used very often too. Mrs Smith just seemed to come off as that type of woman.
"Please take a seat," The old woman declared, heading over to a pot on the stove. "And that boy over there –the impolite one who didn't even bother to introduce himself-" this caused the male in question to roll his eyes, "Is our youngest son, Daniel." She introduced as Edgar took a seat on the furthest counter stool away from "Daniel", placing the basket of paint bottles down on the floor next to her and the large canvas pad she had been keeping under her arm on the counter.
"Hello Daniel." She greeted just for politeness sake than anything. Daniel nodded to her but otherwise didn't say anything. His mother tsked in displeasure but didn't push him, instead removing the boiling pot from the stove.
"You'll have to forgive me Edgar Dear, I was in the middle of preparing dinner when you arrived. If you could just wait a few minutes and I'll be with you." Mrs Smith explained, draining the pasta in the sink. "You're welcome to help yourself to anything in the fridge." She declared.
Edgar's eyes drifted to the right, where the large silver object was seated in a specially made nook, but she didn't particularly feel like anything at that moment so she remained seated.
"How old are you dear?" Mrs Smith asked curiously, placing the pot in the dishwasher after rinsing it. Edgar blinked at her.
"I'm seventeen." She answered and Mrs Smith's eyes widened in surprise.
"You're very talented for your age!" She exclaimed, moving to cupboard and pulling out the spice rack, "Daniel here is a classical musician. He's been playing the violin since he was just four years old." She declared, and Edgar noticed how he stiffened in her peripheral vision. He didn't seem to like attention very much.
His mother continued, heedless of his discomfort. "I think being artists, you two should get along swimmingly."
The two 'artists' in question exchanged a brief, wordless glance.
Honestly, Edgar really had nothing to say to that, considering the fact she didn't 'play well' with others, and so she figured not saying anything would be the best course of action. She guessed Daniel didn't have anything to say either, judging by his silence.
Mrs Smith paused in the middle of shaking a bottle of black pepper over a red pot on the stove and gave the two of them a confused look, obviously not understanding why none of them had said anything.
She sighed softly, before shaking her head slightly.
"Young people." Mrs Smith muttered softly.
Daniel snorted softly.
