Chapter 9 list: Silverdawn2010, Koollolly, IHeartSonAmy, and GodsSonicGirl!
Chapter 10 list: Koollolly, IHeartSonAmy, Sonamy Lover, Zeldaskeeper, and GodsSonicGirl!
Whoo, I'm finally back! I got some great ideas on my trip, so I'm pretty excited about writing them. Thank you so much for the reviews for the past two chapters, everyone! Anyway, onwards, march! (Ah…by the way, I'm using a different writing style for this chapter. Don't know why, it just sort of happened. Just FYI.)
Chapter eleven
Photographs of Love
The sounds of their arguing freak her out enough that it isn't surprising when Violet hesitantly knocks on her older sister's door, and asks if she can come in. A murmur later, the door opens, and a light blue hedgehog smiles gently down at her sister as she allows the girl in her room, closing the door behind her softly.
"What's up, Vi?" the thirteen year old asks, as she walks back to her bed. Plopping down on it, the blue hedgehog shifts through a pile of pictures lying on her green sheets. Violet crawls up onto her sister's bed, looking nervous and antsy as a sudden loud explanation from downstairs forces the child to wince.
"Kyler?" the girl starts slowly, looking down at her sister's bed sheet, "how come when Mom and Dad fight they have to be so loud?"
A laugh escapes the older child, and she continues glancing at the pictures in front of her, moving some to the left side of her bed, the others to the right.
"'Cause they're Mom and Dad," the young teenager replies, as if she were an expert. "It's how they work through their problems."
"By scaring the heck out of me?" Violet asks quietly. She looks up at her sister, tears shimmering in her eyes. "Kyler, I've been thinking. What if something happens…? What if Dad or Mom fall out of love or-"
"Stop." Kyler's voice is stern, and Violet shrinks back, her ears down. "Just stop," Kyler continues, unfazed by her sister's reaction. "That won't happen in a million years, and you know it. Mom and Dad have been together through thick and thin."
"But so have a lot of other couples," Violet insists, looking back up at Kyler. "Some couples go through death itself for twenty years, and then they break it off!" Kyler sighs.
"But Mom and Dad aren't like that," Kyler answers impatiently. "They'll always be together. They've been through more than one death, Vi, and they've known each other since they were our age. Why would they break it off now?"
A shout from downstairs practically shakes the small room, and Kyler suddenly grins and reaches for her camera by her foot. Leaping off her bed, Kyler races out into the hall, a dumbfounded Violet close behind her.
"Where're you going?" Violet asks, and the blue hedgehog shushes her sister before looking down the stairs railings, where she quickly sees a pacing blue hedgehog and a crying pink hedgehog on the other side of the room. Her grin widens, and Violet, utterly confused, stares at her sister open mouthed. Who in their right mind would be fascinated by a parent's argument?
A second later changes the whole scene, and Violet blinks, lost, while Kyler pumps her fist in the air, silently cheering as she lifts up her camera, takes a quick snapshot, and zooms out of the room before the flash on the camera has time to make its way downstairs. Violet follows dumbly after her sister, back into Kyler's room, where Kyler's cheers suddenly become vocal.
"Ha, did you see that?" she yells in an excited whisper. "That was an epic picture! Just epic! One of their better arguments in a long time."
"Better arguments?" Violet breathes, feeling faint. Her sister has lost her mind.
Kyler turns to her sister, her grin wide as she giggles. Slowly, Kyler's laughter turns quiet, and she motions to the pictures on her bed.
"See those, Vi?" she questions. "Those are photos of Mom and Dad's good moments." Violet blinks, still lost, and Kyler rolls her eyes impatiently. "You know… the times Dad walks in and hugs Mom from behind at the stove. Or when Mom makes Dad blush. Or-" she waggles her eyebrows, her cheeky grin on the camera in her hands, "after they've had a fight."
Realization hits Violet slowly.
"So you like their arguments because of the photos you can take of them afterward?" she questions. "Do they always randomly make-out in the middle of their fights?" Kyler shrugs and turns to her bed, where a lot of photos of their parents, Violet suddenly realizes, lay.
"A third of the time, yes," the blue one replies as she sits down on her mattress, seeming to be looking for something specific. "Sometimes they make-out like that, yes. That's when Dad's had enough of some random fight, and then, as you saw, he'll just rush up to her, and bam, the whole argument is forgotten, just like that." Kyler grins again and holds up a worn photo. "See this?" she continues. "This is one of the better making-out sessions they've had after a fight. Tonight's was pretty epic too."
Violet's eyes are wide as she takes the photo from her sister's hands, and she sinks down on the bed.
"What happens the other two thirds of the time?" she breathes.
"One of them walks out," Kyler replies nonchalantly. "If Dad walks out, he comes back thirty minutes later with a bouquet of flowers. If Mom walks off, she comes back with red eyes and a hug." She holds up two more pictures, both showing the aftermath of the scenes she just explained to Violet. "I like there fights, in a way, 'cause that's when you see the most love pour out of them," she explains gently to her sister, who's still taking all the information in. "And, you know how much I love photography, especially within the family."
Violet nods. She does know this. When their father gave Kyler a camera on her sister's tenth birthday, the girl just about went nuts she was so ecstatic.
"So, you take pictures of Mom and Dad after fights?" she ponders.
"Uh-huh. Or whenever I sense a moment coming between them," Kyler answers. "And their fights are just the easiest to capture, 'cause I know I'll get something good at the end of them. But you have to guess with their other, random moments. Their random moments are usually better, sure, but harder to capture. Do you understand?" Violet nods again, a smile of her own slowly appearing on her muzzle. Kyler hands her a picture.
"This is Mom and Dad's best picture yet," she says slyly, and Violet's smile becomes genuine.
A silver necklace hangs perfectly on their mother's neck, their father clasping the necklace around the pink hedgehog's neck, a look of love and wonder shimmering in his eyes, which seem glazed as he whispers something in her ear. Their mother's eyes are closed, a hand wrapped around the silver heart, the other sitting lightly on the nearby dresser. A blush is on her cheeks as a single tear falls from her eye, her mouth slightly agape as she seems to be sighing happily. The room is dim, and their mother wears a light blue party dress which would sway in the wind down by her heels. Their father wears nothing, perusal, but a look of astonishment at his wife's beauty, and Violet has a feeling she knows what her father is whispering into her mother's ear.
Violet blinks, remembering.
"You took this before the 15th Anniversary Party of Uncle Tails' repair shop, didn't you?" She looks back up at her sister, who smiles smugly.
"I couldn't resist," Kyler replies, grinning broadly. "The picture was right there, and it was perfect. Absolutely perfect." Violet nods her agreement.
"You ever gonna show these to Mom and Dad?"
"Mm, probably someday, maybe," the light blue hedgehog replies, looking back down at her pile of pictures. "I'm thinking maybe their 25th Anniversary."
"That's years from now," Violet points out.
"Yeah, I know," Kyler replies, and she smiles mischievously. "But I need all the time I can get. I need more pictures to complete the perfect album."
Violet smiles. Suddenly, her parents fight doesn't seem so bad anymore.