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The clouds start rolling in. Not that he'd noticed, being occupied with playing down by the beach with Maschiff to notice.
When Arven finally catches a glimpse of the sky and consciously thinks about it, he realizes it's probably time to go back home. Drops of water start falling onto the picnic blanket as Arven struggles to clean up the table alone; he was young, his dexterity wasn't particularly refined.
Maschiff starts to whine. It was always scared of thunderstorms, but Arven wasn't. Because he was a big kid now. Now that he had turned six he was too old to be scared of silly things like thunderstorms. Or bugs. Or ghost type Pokémon.
Maschiff keeps whining, and eventually it goes back into its ball. It refuses to come back out. That was fine. He was almost done packing, anyways, and Maschiff always slowed him down on the way back up through the cave. And besides, he didn't want Maschiff to have to be out if it was scared.
Arven keeps packing. Eventually he gets everything packed before the rain starts really coming down. He can hear the faint sounds of thunder rumbling far away as he pushes everything neatly back into his bag.
Everything goes wrong when he's going to retrieve Maschiff's ball from the water. It had drifted around 15 feet into the water, and as much as Arven didn't like to swim, it was one of Maschiff's favorite toys. So he waded out into the water and grabbed the ball as the rain started to get heavy. He threw it back onto the shore and started to make his way back as well when a bolt of lightning crashes nearby. It wasn't close enough to be dangerous, but the noise causes him to fall into the water in addition to completely terrifying him. He felt the salt water burn his lungs as he struggled to keep his head afloat. He scrambles back to the shore, cold and drenched and trembling.
He's struggling to breathe, and he's too paralyzed by fear to move, but the thunder and rain keeps on coming down and he's scared. Eventually the fear overtakes him and he grabs all of his materials and bolts back to the lighthouse. He swings the door open and slams it closed, panting.
She's there, typing away. Her eyes divert from the screen to him for a moment, acknowledging his presence absentmindedly. Her eyes flash back to the screen for a moment but she does a double take when she realizes he's panicked, drenched with water, and trembling.
She walks to him. Arven calls out to her, tears beginning to fall from his cheeks.
She grabs a towel and dries him off. He latches onto her, softly sobbing into her shoulder. He doesn't let go even when he's dry and she's heading back to her desk. He doesn't want to be left alone again.
She seems to pick up on this, so she moves over slightly so he can sit next to her. She's typing something so complicated-looking that it makes his head hurt. Every new strike of lightning makes him flinch and hold onto her tighter. She comforts him, reassuring him that it's just a storm and that the lightning can't hurt him. It's absent-minded and almost feels shallow, but it soothes him nevertheless. Eventually the lightning peters off and he's left with just the sounds of her manicured fingers clicking away at the keyboard and the rain hitting the roof, lulling him to sleep.
.
Arven opens the curtains to peer out the window of his dorm. Storm clouds are rolling in. He can hear the faint rumble of thunder in the background.
Mabosstiff is playing with its ball. It had that thing since forever; since before it evolved. It's old and gross now, but it seems to favor that worn ball over any new toy he buys.
A bolt of lightning strikes nearby. It's loud enough to startle him. He's not scared like he used to be as a kid, but something about this combination of events causes something to click in his mind.
It's a faint, fleeting memory. Something he's tried to block out before. But the more he tries to empty his mind, the clearer the memory is.
A wave of sadness overcomes him.
He knows. All too well. It's all burned into his mind no matter how hard he tries to forget and move on. It's so easy yet so difficult to dismiss her as just terrible. To hate her for everything. It comes naturally for him to blame her. He doesn't have to think about it. But it's so hard to ignore everything else. To pretend she never cared at all. And sometimes he wishes she never cared, because he just... really misses her sometimes.
Because it was nice when she was there. When she combed his hair and told him everything was going to be alright. When she sang to him or when she hugged him. And because he knew he was never going to get any of those moments back.
And it's a pitiful feeling, to want and want but know nothing will come of it. No amount of sobbing or longing or heartache will change anything. He can beg and beg for her like he's little again all day and nothing will change. He can try to make sense of her journals and research papers and diaries all day and nothing will change. He can lie down and just... hurt all day long yet still nothing will change. But it's not like he can help it, anyways.
He climbs back into bed.
Maybe Nemona would berate him for skipping out on his history presentation. But he could deal with that later. Just not right now.