Library of Rain

Family Time

Rain looked into the mirror. The dark circles under her eyes were getting worse. It had been what, five days since she had been able to sleep for longer than half an hour at a time? She tried to smile to lessen the effect of her exhausted eyes. It didn’t look right. Where Sunrise's smile could light up a room, Rain’s smile just looked sad and tired. Pair that with the aura Rain could almost see made of dark shimmer around her, and she nearly gave up on her plans for the day. But no, Rain hadn’t given up before, and now wasn’t the time to start.

Walking across her room to the adjoining servant's room, Rain eased the door open. Sunrise was still sleeping, cocooned in a bundle of fine sheets too large for the small servant's bed. 

The room itself was pitch black. Rain had tried to trade rooms with Sunrise, feeling bad about her sleeping in this dingy place, but Sunrise had refused. She had also refused to paint the room a brighter color, saying she preferred the dark stone. Rain had thought she had gotten a win when Sunrise accepted the lanterns and the sheets Rain had ripped off of her own bed, but apparently, the only thing Sunrise used was the sheets.

Rain gave a wan smile at the sleeping blond girl. 

Now that she looked a little closer, she realized that Sunrise was hugging a pillow under the mound of blankets. A pillow Rain recognized. It was the couch pillow she and Lucus had hidden in this room when they couldn’t clean out all the blood. Rain had forgotten about it, but Sunrise had found it and was now snuggling with it, her face pressed into the worst stained part. Rain added another item to her to-do list for today. She wanted to get Sunrise a new pillow, so she didn’t have to sleep with that gross thing.

Taking another look at the blissful expression on Sunrise’s sleeping face, Rain decided to ask Lucus first so Sunrise could sleep a little longer. 

Lucus answered his door a few minutes after Rain knocked, his hair still disheveled from sleeping.

“What do you want this early in the morning, weirdo?”

“Um, well,” Rain kicked the floor. Now that it was time to ask, her idea seemed stupid; maybe she should just forget it all. 

“What is it?” Lucus asked with a sigh, slumping a bit as the annoyance left his body.

“I wanted to know if you would go out with me and Ise today.” Rain couldn’t stop the words from fading until she was almost whispering at the end.

Lucus’s eyes narrowed.

“This isn’t like last time when we nearly got killed, is it?”

“No! Not at all. There's a unique classer putting on a show, and I thought it would be fun to go watch!” Rain bit her tongue because of the speed of her reply, but she needed to tell him what she wanted to do and why it would be safe before he could refuse.

“Alright, I guess I'll go with you, weirdo. It's not like I have anything I wanted to do today anyway.” Rain could see that last part was a lie. “Ise is that new maid you brought yesterday, right?”

“Ya, she’s my friend! - I think.”

“Whatever, when are we leaving?”

“I’ll go wake up Ise!”

And with that, Rain bolted back to her room, head still a little dizzy with the rush of her success. 

“Ise! Ise! Lucus and I are going to go watch a unique classer. Do you want to come?”

Sunrise snapped awake. 

“You’re doing something with him? Yes, I'm coming, one second.”

Sunrise popped out of bed and began stripping off her night clothes. 

Rain left her to change and returned to her room, grabbing some furs from her dresser and having her cloak use them to create a warm green dress with fur-lined pants underneath to ward against the falling snow outside. Looking back into the mirror, Rain clenched a fist. She would make sure that the other two enjoyed the day and that they all became better friends. She would not let her aura ruin this.

***

The plan was a disaster. 

Rain had gathered Lucus and Sunrise and led them to this plaza in the Mid Ring. The entire time, Sunrise gave Lucus dirty looks. Hoping that having fun together would help those two get along, Rain led the others as they fought the thick crowd. Rain apparently wasn’t the only one excited to see the skills of a real classer. The whole square was full of people of all ages crammed together; the excitement was so thick on the air that Rain was slightly surprised it didn’t have a color. 

Rain pushed her way through the crowd, pulling Ise and Lucus along. She wanted to get a good place to watch, close to the temporary stage that had been built in the middle of the plaza. The stage had lots of boxy props and torches to provide better lighting in the early morning, as well as ward off the gently falling snow. Rain had staked her hopes on this being a fun bonding experience.

The show had started great with the unique classer, Tic the Illusionist, pulling small animals out of a hat and making things float to the oohs and applause of the crowd. Rain had basked in every successful skill used because the better the experience, the more likely Sunrise and Lucus would want to spend more time around her - and each other. 

But then everything fell apart when someone jostled the stage, and one of the props fell over to reveal a woman Tic had just made disappear, hiding underneath.

With the skill unmasked as a lie, the crowd roared with rage, and the children had to duck as things flew overhead at the fake classer.

Rain stood frozen as she watched the scene unfold. 

No, this couldn't be happening; this was supposed to be a fun day, so the three of them would want to spend more time together.

A hand gripped Rain's left hand - the one that wasn’t currently being occupied by Sunrise - and pulled the two girls away from the growing scene. Already, city guards were arriving to break up the commotion and save Tic, who was taking cover behind one of his props to avoid getting hurt by all the flying objects.

“I should have known it would turn out this way when you said you wanted to do something.”

Rain snapped out of her daze to see Lucus was the one dragging her and Sunrise away while grumbling about Rain being bad luck. 

Rain looked down the moment they stopped under a large noticeboard.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have wasted your time.” Rain felt a tear sliding down her cheek.

“You jerk! You made her cry. Come on, Rain, we don’t need this filth.”

“What did I do!”

Rain felt Sunrise tugging on her hand, trying to pull her away from Lucus. Rain had wanted them all to be friends, but now everyone was arguing. How had Rain not realized that Tic was a fake? She had seen his lies when he talked about his class skills, but she had just thought he didn’t want to say what his class really did. If Rain had been paying attention, she would have realized that he gave off no shimmer, unlike every other classer Rain knew. And now the others were arguing and and…

“Stop it, you two!” Rain said, looking up, her fists clenched as frustration overcame her disappointment. “Let's all get along!”

Rain looked around for something to replace the failed outing. Nothing in the square caught her eye. The noticeboard didn’t have anything good - though there was a warning about the Merchant Killer, and for some reason, the city had put a five ver bounty on all uffters. 

Starting to panic, Rain looked for something, anything that might work. Nothing. Wait, the Merchant Killer! Mr. Markson's new shop was nearby. 

“Mr. Markson’s shop is close by; we can ask him for an idea of what we can do since Tic’s show was a failure.”

There was a moment of silence before Lucus broke it.

“Who is Mr. Markson?”

“He's the old guy who helped me with the adoption papers.”

“Oh.”

With that settled, Rain grabbed Lucus and Sunrise's hands and pulled them towards Mr. Markson’s shop.

The new shop was different from the old warehouse where Rain had met Mr. Markson. Instead of a large empty loading bay, this shop had shelves stocked with all kinds of goods. Rain recognized some of the goods from her talks with Mr. Markson about things they were planning to trade. To Rain’s delight, she saw that a small corner of the shop held colorful paint - like she had wanted - though it didn’t seem to be very popular. In another part of the shop were some of the fluffiest-looking stuffed animals Rain had ever seen. They looked so soft.

“Sunrise, Rain, it's good to see you two!”

Rain ripped her eyes away from the stuffed animals to look at the owner of the boisterous voice: Mr. Markson. 

“Morning, Mr. Markson! Do you know of something the three of us could do for fun? We were at the classer show over in the plaza, but that turned bad when everyone realized he was a fake.”

Mr. Markson seemed amused when Rain told him the story of what happened and took a minute to stare at the three of them while he thought.

“I’m not sure what there is to do this early in the morning. It's a bit of a shock that this Tic fellow chose to do his performance this early. I’ll have to think about it.”

“We can just go home,” Lucus muttered.

“You should go home! Me and Rain will play.” 

Mr. Markson chuckled. “If I didn’t know better, I would say you two were the siblings. You definitely look and act similar enough.”

“I am not related to that filth!” Sunrise huffed.

All Rain could do was stare in shock; because Sunrise had just lied.

“Wait, you are related?”

“I just said we aren’t.”

Rain stomped over to stand in front of Sunrise, staring down the slightly shorter girl.

“Sunrise, don't you dare lie to me.”

Sunrise wilted at Rain's tone of voice.

“Lord Estom is my father. But he never wanted me. Not like he wanted him. He got everything, and now that filth is trying to take you from me too!”

Those last two sentences were said as Sunrise jabbed a finger at Lucus, who looked dumbstruck. 

“I have two sisters.”

Rain caught a glimpse of a smile as Lucus turned away before turning her own attention back to a gloomy Sunrise.

“This is wonderful, Ise!”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Yes, it is! If you’re Lucus’s sister and I'm Lucus’s sister, then that means that we're sisters!”

Sunrise's face looked like she was simultaneously eating something extraordinarily bitter and sweet. 

Rain patted Sunrise on the head. She wanted to hug her, but an irrational part of Rain warned that if she did, Sunrise wouldn’t want to stay with her, so she kept to headpats. 

Sunrise seemed fine with the arrangement, and Rain also had to admit that stroking Sunrise's soft hair felt nice.

“Now, sis, you need to go find Lucus and apologize for glaring at him and calling him filth today.” 

Rain couldn't restrain the smile that her own words brought. She had a brother and a sister now. She didn’t deserve to be this lucky.

“Fine, but one more pat?” 

Rain obliged, and Sunrise left to find where Lucus had gone off to, leaving Rain alone - Mr. Markson had long since slipped away to deal with a customer. So, with nothing better to do, Rain wandered the shop, examining all the things gathered there.

One item, in particular, caught her attention: a leather tube with glass lenses on both ends. When Rain looked through the lenses, it made everything huge. Reading the label, Rain found it was called a telescope. She could think of all kinds of fun things to do with this. She was definitely taking one.

While Rain examined the telescope, Lucus and a sullen-looking Sunrise returned. They both had their arms full, Sunrise with the creepiest looking doll Rain had ever seen - the cloth abomination had button eyes of different sizes and a mouth made of uneven stitches, ragged hair made of uneven strips of dark cloth rounded out the look. Rain couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to hold it. Lucus was holding one of the stuffed animals, a large wolf with white fur. 

“Here,” Lucus said, shoving the wolf towards Rain.

“Is this for me?” Rain asked, trying not to get her hopes up.

“I got this and the doll for free when I Bought a knife. I don’t want them, so you two can have them.” Lucus’s ears were turning red while gouts of inky lies spewed from his lips.

Rain took the wolf and hugged it to her chest. It was almost as big as she was, and so, so soft. It even smelt nice. The only thing that made this moment better was that Rain could see Sunrise was enjoying her present as much as Rain. The two of them must have made up.

“Thank you, brother.”

Rain only caught a glimpse of his embarrassed smile as he turned away. 

“Whatever. Let's just go home.”