~*~
Nadia shuddered with each clap of thunder. She hated storms—just hated them.
She had closed every curtain in the entire house so there would be no chance of seeing the rain as it poured down the window in thick, fluid sheets. But the lightning and thunder she couldn't avoid; the bright blasts had a tendency to penetrate the curtains, and the booms were strong enough to shake the house.
Jalen was oblivious to his sister's suffering. He peeked behind the huge curtains lining the kitchen wall. "Sister, wanna go play?"
"Out th-there?" She stared at him, stunned. "No way!"
The little boy's hand dropped the curtain and he gave her an inquisitive look.
"You little nut case," Nadia teased, scooping the boy up into her arms. She plopped him down on the kitchen table and sat down in front of him.
"Big sister?"
"Yeah?"
"Could ya—"
"Ahh!" Nadia screamed and clamped her eyes shut as the room was bathed in intense white light. In a split second an enormous rumble of thunder followed it. She screamed once more. "Oh my God! That must have struck right outside the house!"
"Jalen will protect you!"
She looked at the boy and couldn't help but crack a smile.
"Thank you, Jay. I feel less scared already." And it was true; she was distracted from her fear and memories, at least for the time being. "My brave little knight."
He smiled proudly.
"Wouldn't you prefer a slightly bigger knight?"
Nadia eyes grew wide. That wasn't… No, couldn't be…
"Edgar Figaro, at your service," said the young man, bowing at her side. He was rather soaked, from his mane of blond hair to his white sweater and dark jeans.
She stared down at him dumbly. "How the heck did you get in here?"
Edgar stood and began to wipe water from his clothing. "I was going to wait and knock, but I heard a scream and knew I was needed straight away."
Nadia smacked her forehead with one very frustrated palm. "You are not needed! Now, could you kindly get your knightly self out of here?"
But he was in the middle of a lot of "knightly" gestures, and Jalen was laughing madly and clapping his hands together in childish delight.
Jay… You're only encouraging him…
Edgar bowed to the five-year-old. "Ah, good sir, I am quite pleased to make your most honorable acquaintance…"
Jalen clapped his hands again. "Big sister, he's funny!"
Nadia developed a sly smile. "Hey, Edgar?"
"Yes?" He looked up immediately, his face hopeful.
"I have a deal for you."
"Yes?"
"You can stay here this afternoon for as long as you want…"
"Yes?"
"As long as you watch Jay for me."
But the man just smiled and nodded excitedly. He put his arm around the boy's shoulders. "We'll have a great time!"
"Okay, I'll go find you some dry clothes. Then we can all have lunch." And then, she thought happily and wistfully, I can finally relax.
Nadia was humming slightly as she made her way up to the bedrooms. She almost forgot about the storm until the thunder came again. Glad to be by herself in a humiliating time of discomfort, she slid against the wall, gripping hard to the stair's railing.
"Papa… Papa's not scared of anything…"
No. No more memories! No more visions of her father out in the rain, battling an invisible enemy. No more pictures of his sleeping face—eternally sleeping—as drops of water washed over it, made it cold. His pale face, ice cold and calm…
"Papa," Nadia whispered, clutching at her chest. She folded her body in two, struggled to climb the stairs, draged herself against the wall. She had always thought the pain in her heart would fade…
But it persisted to be as sharp a dagger in her chest as it had been the day her father died.
"Nadia?"
The girl froze. She turned her head slightly, horrified, and saw Edgar looking up at from the base of the stairs.
No… Don't look at me like that—like you know what I'm going through!
She started running, scrambling up the stairs, tripping and falling and biting her lip to stop herself from crying out. She ran and slammed the door shut behind her.
Then she realized where she was.
"Papa's room…"
Nadia fell against the door and slid downward.
~*~
Jalen tugged the blond man's sleeve.
The man glanced down at him with worried eyes before going back to staring up the staircase to where Nadia had just disappeared.
"Big sister…" What was wrong with her?
The man, Edgar, crouched down so he was at the boy's height. "Hey there, little guy. Your sister sure isn't fond of storms, is she?"
"Rain makes her sad."
"I can see that," sighed the man. He ran his hand through loose blond hair. Water sprinkled onto Jalen, and the boy jumped.
"You wouldn't happen to have any towels in this house, would you?"
"Yep!"
Glad to be of service, the child promptly returned with a large green towel (his favorite color).
Edgar wiped himself down and then pulled the towel through his hair. The strands fuzzed and stuck out at all sorts of strange angles. He found himself being laughed at and furiously tried to press his hair back down with both hands. Jalen kept laughing and then Edgar was chuckling softly, too.
"C'mon, let's go do something nice for your big sister. She seems to be having a rough time."
Jalen was overjoyed to be in the company of such an admirable knight.
~*~
Many long minutes passed as Nadia sat perfectly still in the dimness of her father's dusty room. It had not been entered for eight years, when Kairi had braved the crossing of the threshold in order to find something formal for the man to be buried in. Since then, though, it had been sealed like a tomb, an invisible lock barring the door.
Nadia, her mother, and even Sora passed by the room with heads bowed and eyes down—at least when they absolutely had to cross anywhere near it. The place was almost like a time capsule, the girl thought.
She rose, hugging herself tightly. She was wearing a baggy orange sweatshirt that was longer than the tight khaki shorts under it. She had on long socks striped orange and cream all the way past her knees.
Lightning ripped across the sky outside. Nadia saw it since she, of course, hadn't been in here to close the curtains before. She could see the sky, endless and dark as it brewed ominously above the choppy ocean. Without realizing it, she allowed her long legs to carry her to the window.
Nadia touched the glass. The rain covering it distorted her view of the beach below, just as tears could blur a person's vision. It was a strange parallel.
The window was wet and cold. The girl drew her hand away.
Thunder rumbled across the sea. Nadia didn't shudder this time. The world seemed unreal to her at that moment, and her sense of fear was consequently dulled.
Her hand had left an outline on the glass. Nadia was reminded of the times when she, as a child, had put her hand up against Riku's for comparison. His hand had always dwarfed hers considerably, maybe being three or four times as large. His fingers were calloused from practicing with swords and staffs and therefore much rougher than the baby soft skin of a child.
There was another bolt of lightning, explosively white. Nadia saw that there, on the desk right beside the window, was a child's painting of a bright rainbow stretching across the sky. As the thunder rumbled, she noticed that, beneath the rainbow, there were three people holding hands. It was a terribly crude and childish piece of work…
It was hers.
And then she suddenly could see herself, ten years younger, searching for just the right shade of red for her and Mommy's hair, and then trying to mix an intense enough blue for Papa's eyes. And then, when she had finally finished the painting, she ran all around the house and showed it to her parents and joyfully accepted their words of praise. The paint hadn't dried all the way yet, so some of the colors in the rainbow ran together. She was upset, but Papa had said it was more like a real rainbow that way…
Nadia touched the image of her father's face. It was little more than an oval with two bright blue dots for eyes and a curved line and dot of black for the smile and nose. His hair she had made the same fair blue as the sky. As her finger came in contact with the paper, she could feel it was buried in dust, maybe as much as half an inch.
She grabbed the painting from the table and began to shake it in the air. Dust went everywhere and she coughed uncontrollably.
More lightning and Nadia saw the cloud of dust and through it her smiling face as a little girl. She fell to her knees.
The door creaked open. Nadia threw the painting on the desk and stood up. She pretended to be busy pulling her long socks farther up her legs.
"Nobody ever goes in there," she could hear Jalen saying. She saw her brother lingering nervously in the hallway. Edgar was in the doorway, but not inside the room either.
"Nadia?" the young man asked cautiously.
She couldn't help it; she looked back at the painting. "There's no more rainbows," she said quietly. She was a little surprised to hear an ethereal element in her own voice.
"I'm sure they'll be one after this storm clears."
Nadia just shook her head. She thought about the painting sitting here in the musty old tomb of a room for years and years. She thought about her happiness being buried there along with it.
She heard the floorboards squeak. Edgar was stepping into the room, just a little.
"No!" she cried out, rushing him. She slammed into the man and they almost fell out into the hall, out of the room and down the stairs. Edgar caught her and she remained smashed up against his body, the top of her head stuck into his soaked chest—like she was a charging bull or something.
Time stopped for who knows how long, and then came back to normal very gradually. Everything felt very unreal and distant. It was a little scary.
Nadia backed away from him, her head down. "I don't want anyone in there. I don't want a stranger in there!"
"O-Okay," Edgar said, sounding a bit like he was still recovering from the shock of being pushed toward certain doom.
Nadia ran one hand through her long, tangled red hair, pulling it away from her face. She dared to look up to his, but did not meet his eyes.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled. She backed up and closed the door behind her. She was a little relieved inside as she felt the invisible lock clicking back into place. The only physical reminder of the past twenty or so minutes was the dust all over her sweatshirt. This she began to brush off.
"I'm not trying to pry," Edgar explained, a smile returning to his face. "Jalen and I made lunch, that's all. We came up to tell you."
"Yummy pancakes, big sister!" the much younger boy elaborated.
"Sounds good, Jay," Nadia said. She smiled a little herself, but more for their sake then her own.
She finally got Edgar some dry clothes (old things of Sora's, which she didn't care about using), and the trio ate a hearty meal of pancakes down in the kitchen. They talked about a lot of ridiculous things involving knights and Jalen loved it.
Toward the end of the afternoon, the storm at last cleared and the three ventured outside. Nadia watched as the boys had a mock swordfight with wet branches Edgar had freed of excess twigs and leaves.
Edgar was, quite tragically, beaten by the five-year-old when he stopped to point out a faint rainbow above the calming sea. Nadia ran down to the shore for a better view. She admired it for a long while, not saying anything, even when the young man came to her side.
"See?" Edgar asked. "I didn't lie to you."
Nadia shifted uncomfortably when he leaned closer to her. He's not going to kiss me or something ridiculous like that, she worried, already planning where she would plant her fist if such a thing were to occur.
But the boy just grinned at her, waved to Jalen with the wet wooden 'sword,' and left. Presumably he was returning to wherever it was he came from.
She looked back up at the sky. The rainbow had faded, leaving no trace of its brief yet beautiful existence.
Nadia started back up to Jalen and the house. The sand was good and wet beneath her dirtied orange and white striped socks. Cold, moist wind pressed against her bare skin. She was quite glad for a taste of reality.
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