A/N: I AM SO VERY SORRY ABOUT THE LACK OF UPDATES ;_; I have a lot of things going on. I'm sorry. All I can give you guys is some crappy oneshot.

Theme number nineteen - Rain. This is kind of irrelevant to the actual portion. Oops. Hope you have fun with it anyway. It's super angsty/Ling is very out of character. Depressing.

It wasn't rare that Ling liked to run off without telling anybody. In fact, he did it all the time. So when he disappeared, Lan Fan and Fu calmly waited for him to come back. He usually did, after all.

Except this time he didn't. Hours later, he hadn't come back. thin drizzling rain had begun to fall, and the floor outside soon began to grow wet with droplets. Within moments the droplets turned into splashy blobs, and soon it was raining so hard that water began to seep through the closed windows of the room.

Fu stood up. "Granddaughter," he said. "We must look for the Young Master."

"Yes." Lan Fan pulled her mask over her face, relieved that it would be able to provide at least some protection from the rain. But it was bound to be cold out there, and she winced at the thought of Ling outside in the chilly rain. I have to hurry up and find him.

"I'll take the palace," Fu instructed. "You take the garden and town. Let's not waste anymore time." Lan Fan gave a nod, and she took off, leaving her grandfather behind.

More water splashed down, and the drops streamed into her eyes, giving her the appearance of that she was crying. She shook her head and went on. Lan Fan had to find him, before it was too late…

He wasn't in the palace garden, which meant that he was either in the palace or in town. Lan Fan hissed in annoyance. It would take almost six minutes to reach town, and she didn't have that kind of time to waste. Annoyed, she turned and decided to take a shortcut to the town through the forest.

Water droplets slid off tree leaves at rapid rates, soaking Lan Fan even more. Her skin already felt clammy, and she held back a sneeze as a massive amount of water poured down on her. She was good at not getting sick, but in this weather…

She had to hurry. There was no time to lose. Lan Fan raced faster and faster through the trees, a splotch of black between the brown trunks. She leaped over a small stream, and skidded abruptly to a halt. There, standing in a flowing stream of water without caring that he was getting wet, was her young master. Ling.

He was dressed in what might have been lemon silk but what was now a sodden, dejected yellow. His hair fell freely down his back, the strip of cloth usually binding his hair up missing. He faced the rain, barely flinching as the droplets cascaded down his face and into the river.

"Young Master!" Lan Fan screamed, terrified. "Master!"

He slowly turned around, his eyes glinting with either rain or tears—Lan Fan didn't know. Water slicked off his fingers, and his mouth moved, but she couldn't hear for the rain. She ran closer, not caring that she too stepped into the stream. Lan Fan stood in front of him. "Young Master," she whispered.

"Lan Fan." Ling's voice was quiet, almost gaunt. "Lan Fan."

He dropped down onto his knees, mud soaking into his silken trousers. "I'm useless. A failure. Nobody wants to come near me." He gave a bitter laugh, and tilted his head up again. The rain splattered onto his cheeks, before sliding off in an endless trickle. "I'm alone."

"What are you talking about?" she gasped. "Young Master, what are you thinking?"

"I failed," he whispered. "I'm supposed to become a king. But I can't get anything right. I do nothing right, Lan Fan. I can't even do a speech in front of the visiting ambassador from Creta. Now I've made the whole Yao house look bad."

Oh. That. She faintly remembered Ling saying something about a Creta ambassador two weeks ago. But Lan Fan had barely paid attention. Now, she felt regret and anger for not paying more attention to him.

A splash brought her out of her trance. Lan Fan glanced over, finding Ling mindlessly scooping up water through his hands and watching it drip back through the cracks in his fingers.

"Stop it!" she cried out. "Young Master! Please get a hold of yourself!"

"I'm not being delusional," he answered. "I know what I did wrong. I know my mistakes. But who will forgive me for them?"

Lan Fan stood there next to him, before dropping her head. She knew she was in no position to speak in such a way, but she did so anyway. "I will," she whispered. "I will forgive Young Master for anything he does."

Words: 815

Additional Notes: None

Reviews are love :]