AN: Thank you very much to those who reviewed last chapter. I can't express how much of a confidence boost it is to even read a single line of "I like it/Can't wait for next chapter".
Nothing brought greater joy to Nils Daaé's heart than to see his daughter truly enjoying her life. It was summertime and they were in Perros on holiday with Professor and Madame Valerius.
Christine spent those precious summer days outside reading under a tree, or walking along the shore and watching ships come and go. Nils played his violin for the lavish parties that the professor would throw most evenings, and late at night he would tuck Christine into bed and tell her stories his mother had told him when he was a small child.
The stories she liked the most were the ones about angels, especially the angel of music. She would fight sleep for as long as she could to hear the ending to those stories.
"I was visited by the angel of music, you know," her father told her one cool night in July. Christine's eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
"You were?" she asked. "Is that how you can play so well?" He nodded.
"Well, that's part of it. The angel came to me when I was about your age, and left me around the time I met your mother. In that time, I practiced harder than I ever had and I made the most progress I ever had. Soon I was playing for the very wealthy.
"But I had to make a choice. I could either have continued my career as a violinist and traveled all across the world, or I could have married your mother."
"And you chose love!" Christine exclaimed. Her father nodded again. Her hands flew to her mouth. "And that's why the angel left you, isn't it?"
"Not precisely, dear one. The angel left me long before I had decided to marry your mother. I'm sure angels are quite busy and someone else needed the angel's help more than I did."
Although his explanation made sense to her sleepy mind, she couldn't help but worry that the angel had left her father's life because he'd chosen to fall in love.
"Angels show themselves in ways we can't even imagine," Nils continued as Christine yawned and sank deeper into the mattress. "I don't doubt that the angel of music will show himself again. The angel is attracted to talent and discipline, and I know a certain little lady with an abundance of both."
He kissed her forehead and dimmed the oil lamp that sat at her bedside. "Goodnight, Christine."
"Goodnight, Papa," she murmured as he stood and turned to leave the room.
That night would be the first night that she would dream about the angel of music. In her dream, she was a member of the corps du ballet of the Paris Opera House. She loved to dance, but her heart ached to sing. She would sing while she was practicing alone, or when she had nothing else to do.
She woke up as a thunderous voice echoed through her dressing room in the dream, telling her that it was the angel of music.
She sat bolt upright, eyes wide and breathing hard. The voice of the angel of music was still echoing in her mind.
It felt like she'd woken up from a nightmare, but she wasn't frightened. The dream had felt so real. Startlingly real. Her heart was pounding as she looked around the darkened room. It was quite late at night; her father had put out the lamps and she could hear him snoring softly in the bed on the other side of the room.
She slowly lay back down and tried to calm herself. Before too long, she was asleep again and the angel of music was again in her dreams.
When next she woke, sunlight was beaming through the window, filtered through the leaves of the tree that stood just outside. It gave the light a sparkling quality that Christine positively loved.
She dressed herself and readied herself for the day as quickly as possible, not wanting to waste a single minute of the beautiful, mild day that was waiting for her.
At breakfast, her father tied her hair back in a thick braid. "It's terribly breezy out, Christine. I want you to be careful not to get blown away," he told her. She giggled and rolled her eyes.
"Try to be back before lunch, Christine," Madame Valerius said as Christine excused herself from the breakfast table. "We're to have important guests, and they've a child about your age we'll want you to entertain."
"Yes ma'am," she said.
She slipped on the shoes her father had bought her for school earlier in the year and draped a long, light scarf around her neck to help shield her from sunburn. She loved the sun, but it didn't love her back. She'd spent nearly the entire first week of summer nursing horrible sunburn on her cheeks and neck.
As she slipped out the front door, she slid a sketchbook, bottle of ink, and a pen into the pockets at the front of her dress. She intended to sit on the beach and write letters to her friends from school.
The sun was warm on her face as she walked from the Valerius' home to the shore. It was midmorning and the street vendors were still setting up for the day. A few other children, most of them younger than Christine, were running up and down the street.
She went largely unnoticed as she made her way through the city and she found she liked it that way. Though she'd been away to a boarding school for almost five full semesters, she was still struggling to grasp the French language and she found it embarrassing to try and speak to passersby who'd try and compliment her.
At the beach, she found herself a shady spot near some tall rocks and immediately set to making herself comfortable for the morning. She decided that if Madame Valerius wanted her home by lunchtime that she would have to leave no later than when the sun reached its highest point. That gave her plenty of time to write to her friends.
And write she did, sprawled out on her belly in the sand. She set the bottle of ink on the corner of the page to keep it from blowing over in the wind as she wrote. The first letter she penned was basic and boring, detailing only that she had gone on holiday and that she missed her friend dearly.
The second letter was written more casually, detailing a shopping trip she'd taken with Madame Valerius and enthusing at great length about the particular way that a dress she'd picked out would swish when she spun around.
Some of her words weren't right and she knew it, but she also knew that Fautimeh wouldn't mind. She was still learning French as well.
She was halfway through her letter to Fautimeh when the wind shifted and blew her skirt up immodestly. Christine immediately rolled over and sat up to fix her skirt and when she did, the wind began to tug at her scarf. She turned her head in a vain attempt to keep the scarf from flying away as she tried to hold her skirt down, but the wind won its prize and carried the scarf along down the beach.
"My scarf!" she cried. She scrambled to chase after it, but tripped and landed face-first in the sand as her scarf blew out to sea. "Oh no!"
She began to weep as she realized that it was further than she could swim. She wasn't a very strong swimmer, and the scarf had landed quite far out.
"I shall retrieve it for you!"
Christine looked around wildly for the boy who'd spoken the words, but didn't see him until he ran splashing wildly into the water. Behind her somewhere she heard a woman protesting desperately, but she couldn't quite make out the words she was saying.
She watched eagerly as the boy swam out to where her scarf still lingered at the surface. When he grabbed it, he turned around and waved victoriously before swimming back to shore.
As he pulled himself to his feet and stalked back across the sand to where Christine stood, the woman who'd hollered at him when he'd gone into the water approached.
"Raoul, how am I supposed to explain this to your brother? We haven't the time to change!" she demanded of the boy, who proceeded to ignore her in favor of addressing Christine.
"I believe this is yours," he said, offering the sopping wet length of fabric to her. With trembling hands she took it. She stared at it like it was the most important thing that had ever been handed to her for a long moment before looking back up at the boy, who was looking back at her expectantly.
He stood head and shoulders taller than her, with broad muscular shoulders on a lanky teenage frame. His hair was a light brown, though she was sure it was considerably lighter when not plastered to his skull with saltwater. His skin was suntanned, making the light green of his eyes stand out.
"Thank you," she managed to stammer as she gave a low curtsey. The boy smiled and held his hand out for hers. She stared at it for a moment before offering one of her own shaky hands. He took it in his own and pressed his lips to the back of her wrist before straightening up once more.
"When I heard you cry out, I knew I had to help," he said.
"Raoul!" the woman hissed. She was right on top of them now. "We must go!"
He sighed and gave Christine a sad look before turning to go. She stared after him as they disappeared into the crowded streets as her scarf dripped down the front of her skirt.
The boy's face was ingrained in her mind as she stood there staring after him. She had no idea why she was so fixated on him, but she wished that he hadn't rushed off so quickly.
Eventually she packed her things back into her pockets and walked back home, knowing that she'd likely have to change clothes before the guests she was to help entertain arrived. Her scarf was already drying quite well, but there was a strange smell to both it and her dress now and it wasn't entirely pleasant.
When she arrived at home, she found Madame Valerius waiting for her in the sitting room.
"Ah, Christine, good of you to— what happened to your dress? You look positively frightful, child!"
"I'm sorry," Christine said quickly. "The wind blew my scarf out to sea—"
"And you dove in after it, from the state of your dress," Madame Valerius said, looking her up and down. "Go and change, and be quick about it! Our guests shall be arriving any minute now and we can't have them thinking you're a wild child!"s
"Yes ma'am, right away," the girl replied as she turned and hurried out of the room.
The room she shared with her father was empty, as she had expected it to be. Upon entering the house she'd been able to hear the faint strains of his violin as he warmed up for an afternoon of playing.
She wished he was back in the bedroom, however, as she hated trying to decide what was appropriate attire for the Valerius' parties.
She decided on a pale pink dress that brushed the floor and shimmered in the sunlight. There was something about it that made her feel like a princess. Before she left the room, she pulled her hair out of its braid and brushed it, pulling only part of it back so that it'll stay out of her face.
"Christine, quickly child," Madame Valerius called.
"I'll be right there," Christine called back as she inspected herself in the mirror. She hurried back to the sitting room, where Madame Valerius held her hand to her heart and sighed.
"Oh how lovely you look," she said. "Our guests have just arrived. My husband shall bring them in to greet us shortly. Come, sit beside me."
Christine did as she was told, smoothing her dress out as she sat beside the woman on the lounge.
"May I present my wife," Professor Valerius' voice cut through the awkward silence that had fallen between the two ladies. He entered the room followed by two men, one of whom she recognized instantly as the boy who had run into the sea to fetch her scarf. His hair was still wet.
Madame Valerius stood and curtseyed to the older of the two, who took her hand and kissed it. "Philippe, Comte de Chagny," the professor continued. He didn't bother to introduce the boy who stood behind him, hair dripping on the expensive Persian rug.
"A pleasure to meet such a lovely lady as yourself, Madame," he said. He cocked his head as he glanced down at Christine, who quickly stood up. "And who might this lovely young thing be?"
Thing? She'd never heard herself referred to as a thing before. The boy who'd gone in after her scarf looked confused by the comte's words as well.
"Ah, yes, this is Christine Daaé, the daughter of our violinist," the professor explained. Christine gave a low curtsey, and before the comte could kiss her hand, the boy stepped forward and did so, much to the surprise of all in the room.
"It seems my brother is as fond of the lovely little mademoiselle as I find myself," the comte said with a low chuckle. The boy blushed a deep crimson as his brother clapped his hand down on his shoulder. "This is my brother, Raoul."
"A pleasure," Raoul said quietly. His eyes met Christine's, and for one intense moment she felt that he could read her soul. She looked away; his gaze was too intense.
The five of them made their way to the dining room, where Nils stood in the corner playing a light, playful melody. He smiled when he saw his daughter enter the room and smiled wider when the vicomte pulled her chair out for her.