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Jade grasps your arm tightly with both hands the first thing she does after you pass through the gate and the iridescent surface of your planet stretches wide and gleaming before you. She gasps, taking in the sight.
“Rose, it’s beautiful!” she says, voice filled with joy, and you don’t bother resisting the small surge of pride her words evoke within you. You may not have taken any active part in creating the Land of Light and Rain, but it was made for you, shaped after your personality, your likes and dislikes. You think you can claim part of the compliment for yourself.
“I’m glad you like it,” you say. “I was quite taken when I first arrived, as well.”
“I really, really do!” Jade’s eyes travel over the soft, rolling forms of the clouds, over the vast, glittering ocean. “I think that after mine, your land is absolutely my favorite so far. John’s was pretty and all but it smelled sort of weird and I missed the sun a lot. And Dave’s was just sad.” She frowns, tearing her gaze from the multicolored panorama to look at you. “Wait. Didn’t you say you blew parts of this place up?” Letting go of your arm, she swats you lightly,”how could you!”, and then sets off down the hill, towards the shore.
You retrieve the umbrella from your sylladex before following in her footsteps. It wouldn’t be a disaster if you were to get rained on, you suppose, but you would still prefer to avoid it. You’re hardly equipped to reapply your makeup at the moment and your hair is annoyingly frizz-prone.
The sand is loose and shifting underneath the soles of your sneakers. It doesn’t make you stumble, exactly, but occasionally you’re close. It reminds you of why you would tear deep scars into the islands, clearing paths of scorched, solid earth for you to step on, the stone laid bare in your search for solutions. You don’t regret that, but you don’t reach for your needlewands anew, either.
Jade is crouching by the waterline, dipping her fingers into the sea.
“Did you ever go for a swim?” she asks once you’re close enough to hear.
You shake your head.
“I was too preoccupied.”
“Well, you’re not preoccupied now!”
“Still, I think I’d rather not. I took a solemn vow as a small girl never to immerse my body in anything even remotely resembling an oil slick.”
She sticks her tongue out and flicks some water at you, which you avoid with what you hope is an elegant sidestep.
“Suit yourself! I am going in, anyway,” she says, starting to untie her shoe laces. “It smells nice and the temperature is perfect!”
It probably is perfect and she is likely in for a lovely time. There is a definite chance you would enjoy it, too, but your mind is made up and you never go back on a decision.
Peeling off her leggings and dropping them on the sand, Jade looks at you curiously.
“So what was it you had to do here? I know what you did, but what if you hadn’t? What was your quest?”
“To play the rain,” you say, and you cringe a little at how silly is sounds. “Naturally, I never mastered this dubious skill.”
“Did you try?”
“No. I did entertain the thought, briefly, but the prompt was vague and despite being a violinist possessing what might be described as musical prowess, I wasn’t sure how to approach the task. The turtles didn’t hand me a book of etudes on precipitation.”
“It would be a cool thing to do, though,” Jade says. “Playing the rain. I bet you would be good at it.”
“Perhaps. I’d need to give the subject some more thought first.”
“Okay, you do that.” Now down to only a white cotton camisole and panties, Jade hands you her glasses. “Be back soon!”
You take a seat on a rock not too far away, watching her throw herself into the waves without hesitation. The rain drums softly on your umbrella and you listen intently for a pattern, a place to start. If you could only find one loose end the rest would surely unravel.
You’re so immersed in it you don’t notice Jade has stepped out of the water and is walking up to you until her shadow almost touches your toes. You look up, blinking against the light bathing you both in pastel brightness and something falls into place.
Yes, you think. Maybe there is a song here, in the rivulets streaming from her long, dark tresses, in the sheen of her shoulders, glistening with moisture. Maybe you would be able to catch it. Make something of it. Pick the drops from her neck and arms, scatter them over staves, collect liquid music and put it between brackets. You scrutinize the trails of water running down her body, follow them where they delve into the cleft between her breasts and you think you can see reason in it, there is logic, a system to be extracted. Her swaying hips move to the exact beat of your heart, and you know this part is crucial. You try fixating them to determine the time, but the dark shadow visible through the front of her panties has your cheeks bloom with heat and you hurriedly avert your eyes, focusing on the sand stuck to her bony ankles, each grain showing clearly on her brown skin.
Jade plops down at your feet, leaning against your legs and dropping her head back on your lap, squinting up at you. Her hair presses against your skirt. The fabric has soaked through within seconds.
“I don’t know, Rose,” she says, picking up your conversation as if it never left off. Looking at her face upside down draws your attention to her mouth: her thin, flushed lips, the glimpses of tongue between them, and the dimples framing the picture. “Sometimes with music there is no point in thinking too much. You just have to jump in and do it!”
“Hm,” is your only reply.
You put your palm against the top of her head, pushing her off you and shifting your thigh away from direct contact with the wet spot she leaves behind. With a turn of the wrist you gather up her hair, twinning it tightly to wring out the water.
The drops chime between your fingers.