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Lal'C Mellk Mal trudged through the streets, rain pounding down around her. The storm hadn’t been in the forecast; it had practically came out of nowhere. At least she wasn’t in the field right now, she thought. She quietly laughed to herself; how was it that now, she could worry about keeping a camera and notebook dry, when she'd stared down the death of humanity?
Twelve years, she thought. Twelve years since her last battle, since the last time she saw- She bit her tongue. Nothing good would come of retracing those thoughts again. It was amazing what could change in twelve years, or even just the two since the return of #1 and #2. She'd spoken at the launch of humanity's first new interstellar vessel, right before Ms. Takaya. The very idea still felt alien to her; the Red Milky Way was an impossible barrier, before an impossible person opened it. She reached into her coat and drew out a simple, silver locket, snapping it open briefly to look at the aged, pink paper crane delicately preserved inside.
Soon enough, she was at her door. “I’m home,” she called, snapping her umbrella shut and peeling off her damp shoes.
“Oh, Lal’C? Welcome back!” her mother called back from the back of the house. The smell of something cooking wafted from the hallway. "Come in, your friend's already settled in!"
Lal'C froze. She didn't have many people who'd call her a friend; Tycho was on the other side of the solar system, and she'd made it very clear that if she so much as caught sight of Nicola again he would have all sorts of reasons to regret it afterwards. Most of her Fraternity contemporaries only knew her as "number one", and even in her studies her colleagues would still whisper behind her back about the "Mover of Planets". To anyone younger, she was more like a legend than a person at this point. That only left-
She shook her head, flinging a few small drops of water through the air. She walked briskly through the hallway, slowly breathing in and out, rounded the corner into the dining room, and froze.
Sitting at the far side of the table was the one person Lal'C would never mistake for anyone else. A head of long, straight pink hair; sparkling blue eyes, with those once-baffling star-shaped pupils; and that massive, utterly inimitable, dopey wide-mouthed grin. Lal'C's arms fell to her sides and she stared.
The only sound in the room was the rain pelting against the window.
Lal'C's face went white as the words flooded into her mind. She'd heard them over and over again in her dreams. It's raining outside the window.
"...you bring rain wherever you go..." She mouthed the words to herself, not daring to say them. The girl across the room beamed even wider and nodded enthusiastically. "You bring rain wherever you go!" she shouted, pointing at her. The girl's smile just grew wider.
"Now now," Lal'C's mother's voice said, "it can't be helped." She walked into the room carrying a large tray of sandwiches, seemingly oblivious to the hodgepodge of emotions which Lal'C could feel fighting for control of her face. "Sit down, I made paninis. Eat first; it looks like you two have a lot to talk about."
Lal'C couldn't bring herself to move from her spot. She couldn't even turn her head to watch her mother turn to leave.
"O-O-Onee-sama's mother!" an unforgettable voice shouted, "Do you have any cute pictures from when onee-sama was a kid?!"
Lal'C fell to her knees, laughing hysterically. Every response she could think of vanished in her throat, replaced with another round of laughter. She felt a pair of strong, warm hands close on her shoulder and looked up, finding herself face-to-face with the one person she'd never thought she'd see again. "Onee-sama? Are you alright?" A pause. "Are you crying?"
Lal'C blinked tears out of her eyes. "Nono?"
"Yes, onee-sama?"
"Nono."
"Yes, onee-sama?"
"Nono, you idiot."
"Yes, onee-sama."
Lal'C rubbed the last few tears from her eyes. "How is that the first thing you say to me in twelve years? I thought you were dead!"
Nono chuckled. "I had to say something, and it was the first thing I thought of!" she said, proudly pointing at her chest with her thumb. "It's important to speak from the heart, onee-sama!" Nono beamed at her. "So... are there any? Cute pictures."
"No, and if there were, why would I show you them." Nono pouted, and Lal'C turned up her nose. "That's not helping."
"Onee-sama~" Nono whined, "we just meet again and you're already being mean to me?"
"Nono-"
"Please? I'll show you all of mine!"
Lal'C pushed her index fingers against her forehead. "Nono, how could you possibly have any childhood photos?"
"Oh. Right." Nono paused. "Pleaaa~se?"
Lal'C saw a familiar black binder drop into her field of vision. She looked up to lock eyes with her smiling mother, who slowly handed the album off to Nono. She stared daggers up at her mother's feigned innocent face. Traitor.
"Can I loo-"
"Fine." Lal'C sighed. "But-" she started, but Nono was already furiously flipping through the pages, occasionally cooing and pointing at its contents. "So, onee-sama..." Lal'C resigned herself to at least half an hour of Nono's cheerful questions about random minor details of her childhood, even as her mother stood off to the side with that damn knowing smile.
After what felt like an eternity, Nono set down the last album at last, and Lal'C almost collapsed in relief. "Ah, onee-sama was so cute~" They'd moved to two of the living room's chairs now, Nono having devoured two sandwiches in the time it took Lal'C to eat half of hers. The rain had lightened slightly, but it was still lightly tapping on the window. Her cat had settled into Nono's lap, having been exhausted from Nono leading it around the room with small flashes of ether. He'd scratched her once or twice, eliciting a loud yelp, but they'd seemed to have made peace. Lal'C had swallowed down four or five conversations, not sure where to start with her questions. For now, she'd settle for just being able to see Nono laugh again.
Finally, the sounds of rain faded altogether. Lal'C knew what she had to say. "Come on, let's go see some skylarks."
There was really no limit to how much Nono's face could light up.
It felt like she and Nono had lay on the damp hill for hours, staring up at the sky as Nono cheerfully asked her everything she knew about any passing bird. At some point, she'd laced her fingers through Nono's hand, eliciting a cheerful squeak from her companion.
"Nono," she finally asked, "how did you get here?"
"Well," Nono started, "I sort of had to step outside the universe for a moment to deal with the singularity, but it's confusing out there and I sort of got lost. But I could see people everywhere, and some of them really needed help, so I helped, and that got me more lost, and then I met this older guy with a drill on a stick and a cool coat and he didn't mind being lost for a bit so he was helping me and-" Nono's voice was so fast that Lal'C could hardly follow what she was saying. It felt... familiar. More so than anything had in a long time. “-and there was this nice guy with green hair and cats and a big silver bird robot, and he tried to give me directions but we got even more lost and then he had to go find his shoes so-”
Lal'C held up a hand. "I'd love to hear all about it, but I meant... why are you here? Now? How did you-"
"Didn't I say so?" Nono smiled, stretching her arms out and rolling over completely to face Lal'C. She tapped the silver locket once. "As long as you never give up on them, wishes always eventually come true." Nono stood up, never separating her hand from Lal'C's, and pulled her to her feet. "And we've got plenty of time!"
Lal'C could feel herself mimic Nono's grin despite herself.