Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable from Ashita no Nadja.
Tears of Rain
Rain. The first since Raymond's death.
For a time, Colette had been forced to wonder at the world. She had held Nadja close to her breast, loving and clinging to the girl like a lifeline, and looked around her in terror. Why was the sun still coming out? Why were the streets still clamoring? Why were her neighbors still going about their everyday lives? Why did people stop by so frequently to offer their condolences?
Colette was an intelligent woman, and knew that this was not an uncommon reaction to the death of a loved one. She knew in her mind that of course the world went on, because she, Raymond and Nadja were but tiny little insignificant specks in the grand scheme of things.
She was of noble birth. So what? It didn't make her any less of a tiny little insignificant speck among the many people in the world. Still, she could not help but wish that the world would stop, if even for a little while, so that she could grieve her husband.
It was a lightly cloudy day the day that Raymond died.
Strange that Colette should remember rain on that day, when everyone insisted that it had been perfectly fine weather.
Strange that Colette should clutch her laughing daughter to her breast, and hear sobbing in the babe's laughter.
Strange that now, for the first time since that horrible day when the world screeched to an end, Colette should place her sleeping daughter in the cradle, walk over to the window, stare out at the rain, and realize how she had missed it—how she had needed it.
Finally, the sky was grieving Raymond as it should. Did that mean that she could too? Did that mean that she no longer had to stand strong, pretending that she was as impervious to the pain of the incident as the rest of the world?
The rain poured down from the sky in buckets, looking more like a thick, wet curtain than droplets of water. It hit the roofs and made a racket. People inside hastened to defend the thinner of their roofs, and people outside to find shelter.
Colette sat by the open window and let the wind drench her in the pouring rain as its crashing on the roof drowned out her sobs to the rest of the world.