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Laura was a pretty cloud, pink and forever on the edge of misting away into rain when the sun shone too bright because she loved flying higher than anyone else. She also loved her family, which included her much darker and heavier kid brother, who brooded so much that he would fly low to the ground, obscuring the sun rays and making the little humans in the ground think of imminent rain. He would be always full of water, lightening flashing through in brilliant jagged arches and the hum of thunder in his each movement.
He would rain aplenty for the water parched land and the lone tree by the road and on the small house of the very small human child who loved rain. So Laura loved her brother, and actually had to take in more water via precipitation just so she could be in talking distance with him. The humans thought that clouds only talked through thunder and lightning, but they knew how to convey meaning with wind and water and sun too. Laura liked talking with Derek, for that was what her brother was named.
Liked most of the times at least, and she certainly found no endless joy in Derek humming and harrumphing and thundering the same thing again and again – how great Stiles was, how bright his flash of lightening was, how far his thunder went, how much rain he could hold and not be deterred by the high mountains, how plainly mischievous he was, sometimes scooping up poor fishes right out of the sea and sometimes cats and dogs to rain them down later all wet and shrivelled onto their human’s homes.
Laura liked how Derek would start shinning, lightening flashing through him in happy little jigs while he talked about Stiles, the only cloud that managed to be swifter than Laura and took dares with his best friend Scotty to cross whole oceans in one swoop, which was ridiculous really and not to mention dangerous. Clouds after all were pretty much at the mercy of the winds and the sun as well as the lunar cycle. But Stiles somehow always managed to just will himself to be that quicker than the wind, that teensy bit heavier than the sun to burn through and that demented perhaps that the moon was just a friend now.
The rest of the cloud tufts were in love with Stiles too, while the rest were somewhat jealous of him. And Laura would maybe had despaired for Derek, for the obvious want he felt towards Stiles if, miracles of miracles, Stiles too did not seem to have a certain obvious fondness for Derek. He is the one Stiles will call out to when he sees something new. He is the one Stiles will relay in full throated rumbles and claps of sharp noise all about his races with Scotty and Isaac and Boyd. Certainly, he is the only one that brings Derek, with shy fluffs of misting water towards him, moonlight caught in perfect snowflakes.
So far as Laura knew, there was never any outright declaration of intent or otherwise, common for the other cloudshires like the one Isaac had come from, or even been gifted a moonbeam wrapped in rainbow clouds with trapped sun crystals to wear as a courting symbol, it was generally accepted that Derek who so rarely talked was quite taken by Stiles and Stiles who refused to be still at any given moment found his station in Derek’s heart. Sometimes, Laura would think of what else they could end up being, while she was being submerged by her girlfriends Lydia and Allison, but just came to worry less and less as she saw just how much the two idiots loved each other.
Laura certainly remembers this one time when their whole fleet ended up on the top of a dessert, the sun relentless in breaking through their folds, and as hungry to guzzle them whole, and they had lost so many layers of their cloudshade that Laura had been in mortal fear for her family. Sweet little Derek, dark and heavy with water which he ended up sharing with another cloud every now and then, actually kept raining on oasis’, with the humans coming out of their sand covered tents to rejoice.
Laura had wanted to tell Derek to stop, to tell him to wait, to not waste away thus completely, at such a perilous place, where if he lost enough water, he would just dry out of existence because of the harsh sun rays. But before she could say something, Stiles, who had just recently started talking with Derek, or rather rumbling at Derek while Derek just thundered back at him with annoyed huffs that blew fine mist out of his body, had swooped in and stuck to him even when Derek grew much lighter, siphoning water from himself into Derek every time he got too light.
Laura had actually though that they would not cross the dessert ever, but the winds changed one day and then took them over some low mountains to the sea beyond and everyone had gulped in the wet air there like it was never going to be enough. Stiles and Derek had done the same, and yet kept siphoning water from themselves into the other so that the other may get refreshed earlier. Derek obviously drank a lot and sank almost down to the sea, so heavy he became. Stiles was starting to fidget, being so near the ground but holding on for Derek’s sake.
Then Derek and suddenly rained in a gush, getting lighter so rapidly that he shot by Stiles, who actually had to take a moment to appreciate the fact that Derek was racing him. They raced for three days and more, each feeding the other water they would catch from the atmosphere when they got very light and a disjointed but happy rumble issuing from them all the time. They kept lightening up every now and then too, their happiness in being alive and back and with each other making them stupidly romantic.
So Laura loves her brother, very much so and is happy that he is in love, but seriously, there’s only so much sappy rumbles and flashes one small cute pink little cloud could take.