Nightlight

[Rister Graas S6]

“Hello, Layla,” Cleo greets, her voice even as if there was nothing surprising or strange to finding a girl tucked into an impossibly tight ball underneath one of dimly-lit wall-lamps in the hallway. And to be fair, it really wasn’t. Kris and Cleo had six kids of their own – plus any number of guests and extended family, at least from the Graas side of the family – all of whom had had nightmares occasionally. Kris and Cleo themselves had had nightmares. Nor was it all that surprising to see this particular kid having a rough time sleeping either. She might not know all the details, but Cleo knew enough to have a general idea of what the girl had gone through in her life so far. But the family took plenty of things in their stride – none of his six kids, nor Cleo or Kris themselves for that matter had any issues with either keeping up a one-sided dialogue-monologue or being quiet when finding that they had a little blonde shadow – and they all liked Layla.

“Ah, did your lamp break?” Cleo asked, taking in the lack of a glow of light from underneath Layla’s door with a brief glance. It should have been easy fix for any of the house-elves, but then a terrified child waking in the middle of the night would hardly think to call one. Besides this was hardly the time to point that out, so Cleo simply carried on. “Which reminds me that I have been meaning to ask whether you’d like some of my light-crystals instead of – or as well as – the lamp?” Cleo asked with a fond smile directed at the small tear-streaked face even as she held out a hand to the girl, “I don’t like sleeping in the dark, but I prefer the crystals to a lamp. They’re less likely to burn out or break and I find the light cosier. Or maybe I’m just used to the crystals, because I used to always have one next to my pillow back when I was in Hogwarts. Kris doesn’t care either way – he was blind for years and while he can now see in grey-scale, he can sleep just as well whether the light is on or off. Do you want to come and see? And perhaps we can also have a cup of hot chocolate as I wouldn’t like some company also. I never sleep well when Kris isn’t here.” And Kris was late in returning from his meeting – which he had thought he might be -, but which had led to Cleo stalking the halls and checking in on all the kids in the first place.

True to word there was a steaming pot of hot chocolate with two mugs and a generous selection of small dainty cakes on a small end-table set between two deep armchairs, a floor-lamp already lit next to it, waiting in Cleo’s and Kris’ bedroom. “Come, have some,” Cleo invited, shrugging off the shawl she had pulled around her shoulders over her bright red satins pyjamas for her walk and pouring the hot chocolate into both of the mugs and heaping the whipped cream on top, before curling up in one of the armchairs with a contented sigh and tucking her legs underneath herself while wrapping her hands around the mug. As an after-thought she also waved a hand to have the bowl of crystals emitting a glow of light float over as well. “Feel free to have a look. I have plenty of these, if you’d like some to try out. I do try to set them out on a windowsill on most days so they catch some sun, but they’re fine even if you miss a day or two,” she explained with an easy shrug. “You’re welcome to stay here for the rest of the night,” the offer came just as freely when the hot chocolate had been drunk and the cakes eaten and sleep actually started to weigh their eyes closed. Cleo stretched lazily before heading to the large four-poster bed dominating the bedroom, wordlessly offering Layla a warm quilt to curl up in should she want to.

Nor was Kris particularly surprised or bothered by their visitor as he arrived, brushing the fine sheen of rain from his hair. Tilting his head in greeting to Layla with a tiny quirk of his lipcorner, Kris made a beeline to the bathroom door to take a quick hot shower, before returning to the bedroom dressed in a pair of long black trousers that he often slept in. “Sweet dreams,” he murmured to Layla as he slipped into bed, wrapping an arm around his wife’s waist as Cleo snuggled closer to him in her sleep with a small sigh.

Despite being the last to bed Kris was the first to wake, slipping out of bed again on quiet feet a bit before dawn. Cleo did open an eye with a mild grumble, but then she was used to her husband’s early starts, so she just rolled over to burrow into the warm spot and tugging the blanket more firmly around her before slipping back to sleep, while Kris padded to the bathroom. Layla had woken as well when he stepped out, earning her another tilt of his head. “Coming with me?” Kris asked absently as a small blonde shadow looked set to follow him out, grabbing the shawl Cleo had used last night in passing and dropping in on Layla’s head while absently ruffling the pale tresses, “Take that with you then. The mornings can have a bite to them.” Opening the bedroom door, Kris afforded both of his malamutes a pat on the head as they rose from where they had been sleeping in the Kris’ and Cleo’s private sitting room. The dogs were certainly also pleased to lap up the attention Layla afforded them as well, the large dogs bracketing the girl from either side and not even whimpering when Kris told them to stay with Layla as he himself set out for his every morning walk around the castle to relay another circle of the protection charm as he did every morning. Even if stay obviously hadn’t meant sit Kris thought with an amused quirk of his lip-corner as he rounded the corner on the end stretch of his morning rounds to find Layla smushed between the animals giving the girl a thorough tongue-bath in between nudging her with their heads for more petting while their tails were wagging as fast as they could.

“Breakfast,” Kris said with amusement clinging to his voice, tapping on Layla on the head and clicking his tongue at the dogs to have them back off a step while a small whine, “And yes, I know you and Cleo had chocolate and cake at some ridiculous hour of the night, but it’s morning now and breakfast is compulsory in this castle. As such you have to have at least one savoury sandwich. Or a tomato. Not a cherry tomato, but a normal one. I will accept a normal tomato for the savoury requirement.” Nor was Kris particularly surprised when three pleading pairs of eyes turned his way once they reached the dining room and the buffet laid out. “Two pieces of something – and make them do a trick or at least sit for you before you give them a treat,” Kris allowed with a tiny shake of his head. Maybe he was getting soft.

[Layla Ellison]

Layla wakes in darkness, with tears already cold on her cheeks from the dream that had disturbed her sleep. She doesn’t know where she is for a long moment - this isn’t her childhood bedroom, with her parents sleeping just across the hallway, but it isn't the room Ashlyn has given her either, the one with a large bay window that Layla falls asleep in more often than not and the walls such a pale purple that they could almost be white if the light shines in just the right way - and the terror that rises in her throat is thick enough to almost choke on. She freezes in the bed - too big to be her own, legs tangled in unfamiliar sheets - and feels her breath come in fast, shallow pants as she traps her bottom lip between her teeth and bites down hard to keep from whimpering. Bad things come in the dark and noise will only attract attention but Layla has always been quick and quiet and good at hiding; a long time ago, before her siblings left for Hogwarts and came back as if they were the only two people who really mattered to each other, she had always been the best at hide and seek. She could hide so well that they would end up walking right past her, searching fruitlessly in all the wrong places, and quiet enough that she could pop up behind them and shadow their steps until she gave herself away by giggling. She misses them, sometimes. She doesn’t know why they came to Ashlyn with her and then went to another relative a few weeks later, but the twins haven’t been the siblings she remembers from her early childhood in such a long time that Layla thinks she misses the memory of them more than the reality anyway.

Her teeth dig further into her lip when wary blue eyes catch what she swears is a flicker of movement from one of the shadows in the far corner. The sharp taste of blood seeps further into her mouth as Layla's eyes flick between the shadow and the door, gauging the distance she’ll have to cover to get to safety and desperately tries to figure out if she can make it before the shadow gets her. It’s a useless exercise when she doesn’t know how fast the shadow moves, Layla realises with a muffled whine, and works her legs free of the blankets anyway because she knows what it is to be trapped in the dark and she’s never, never, never going to let that happen to her again. The shadow doesn’t move again but Layla does, footsteps clumsy and desperate but silent against the plush carpet as she almost crashes into the door, wrestling uselessly with the handle for a few seconds before it finally turns and she spills out into the hallway.

Layla sinks to the floor with a silent sob, breath ragged as she curls into herself under the faint light of a lamp high up above her on the wall. Her left elbow throbs from where she had smacked it against something in her thoughtless, desperate flight from the bedroom so she cradles it close and curls herself up tighter. The tears don’t stop no matter how hard she tries but Layla has learnt how to be quiet so she muffles the cries against her knees, pressing her face roughly against the soft fabric of her pyjamas until she almost can’t breathe and has to retreat for a few seconds to inhale in ragged, hiccuping gasps. Ashlyn is to one side of her but she can’t remember which door is hers and she doesn’t want to wake anyone anyway. She doesn’t know Ashlyn very well; the older blonde is kind, soft in a way that Layla later knows her cousin doesn’t think herself capable of, but she’s a stranger still. Gabriel and Damon are behind two of the other closed doors in the hallway but they’re kind strangers too, and that just makes Layla cry harder, pressing both hands against her mouth to keep herself quiet. She’s barely eleven and she wants her mum and dad but they’re gone and there’s no one left to want her except a guardian who isn’t even sixteen yet and who hadn’t known she existed a few weeks ago.

The tears have mostly subsided and Layla is almost asleep when Cleo's voice rouses her. She hadn’t been able to force herself back into the dark room but she didn’t want anyone to see her looking so pitiful either so she’s kept herself mostly awake with hard pinches and sheer willpower, intending to return to the bedroom when the sun rose enough to illuminate the shadows, but she hadn’t heard Cleo coming. She doesn’t think she could have gone back into the bedroom even if she had. Layla hadn’t considered a plan of action for the possibility that someone would stumble across her in the middle of the night. She’d thought only of being back in her room before anyone woke to start the day. Shortsighted, she scolds herself as she blinks up at Cleo blearily.

“I woke up and the light was gone,” Layla confirms in a murmur, voice rough from what feels like hours of crying. Her limbs feel heavy and her mind doesn’t seem to be working properly, her thoughts coming slow and sluggish, so it takes a moment or two before Layla figures out how to uncurl herself enough to take Cleo's offered hand and stagger to her feet. It shouldn’t remind her of her mum but somehow it does. The two women are so different that Layla quietly doubts they would ever have had anything in common if they crossed paths, but the solid warmth of Cleo's long fingers around her hand and the soothing words make her think of her mum with such longing that Layla ducks her head to mask the way she has to blink back a fresh bout of tears.

Layla doesn’t know where she is for a dizzying second when she wakes for the third time but there is some weak sunlight streaming in to light even dark corners and the crystal clenched tightly in her right hand grounds her enough that she can breathe without fear. She knows where she is and why she’s here by the time Kris enters the room again - she remembers the fear and the tears, remembers Cleo finding her, remembers hot chocolate and small bites of cakes that had settled uneasily in her stomach, remembers waking with a start when Kris returned and falling back asleep to the soft glow of the crystal she had hesitantly chosen from Cleo's selection.

The humiliated flush hasn’t quite faded from her skin but Layla slips out of the chair anyway, folding the quilt as neatly as she can before she falls into step beside Kris. She doesn’t say anything but she doesn’t think he expects her to, which is possibly the thing that Layla likes best about Kris, even more than his dogs. No one here tries to prod her into talking no matter how quiet she is, and Ashlyn always has a fierce snarl ready for anyone who might even try, but sometimes she thinks there’s a small gap left in conversations where her voice is supposed to fit in and Layla always feels small and useless when she can’t make the words actually leave her mouth. She doesn’t feel the weight of that expectation from Kris, who sometimes asks questions that he already knows the answer to and seamlessly fills in the gaps himself, who is either already good at reading her or just so familiar with strays that he can piece together her thoughts and intentions before Layla has to fight to say them aloud. The dogs, however, are a very close second and Layla sinks onto the ground alongside them with childish glee to pass the time until Kris returns from wherever his long strides take him.

The dogs are large and warm and fluffy. Layla is dwarfed by them but she grins as she buries her fingers in their soft fur and breathes them in. She’s been enchanted with these dogs since she first saw them; her parents didn’t have any pets and Layla can’t quite imagine Ashlyn ever abiding animals of any kind in her house. She’s not convinced that even a spider would dare enter the house without written permission from her sharp-tongued cousin. The dogs are warm and attentive as they each demand more than their fair share of affection but they back off at the sound of the whistle as quickly as Layla straightens obediently at the tap on her head. The thought of food has Layla wrinkling her nose; her stomach is still unsettled after a night of poor sleep and she already fought through nausea to nibble at some of the cakes Cleo had placed in front of her a few hours ago. She knows the rules of the castle, however, so she peruses the table with a grimace before picking out one of the smaller green apples and turning to Kris for confirmation that this will meet his approval. She doesn’t much fancy the prospect of choking down the apple only for Kris to tell her that it's not substantial enough and place something else in front of her. An apple is much the same as a tomato, she thinks, but less mushy and with a core in the middle. If a tomato would be acceptable then an apple ought to be too but she’s taking no chances.

[Rister Graas S6]

Kris glances over from where he’s pouring himself a cup of coffee – black with a half-cube of sugar and nowhere near as strong as Damon’s preferences – as Layla turns to him. “Yes, that’s fine,” he agrees easily, as Layla seems to looking for approval of her breakfast choice. Stirring the sugar into his coffee, he takes a small sip before taking the cup over to his chair on the table and returning to fill his own plate from the breakfast buffet laid out. He was sued to having breakfast and, not having had food in the middle of the night, was hungry. Although he had a better appetite than Layla anyway, which wasn’t all that surprising either. Even if even the apple seemed a bit much for Layla’s tastes today Kris observed Layla attempts to stealthily feed half of the fruit to the dogs. But she had removed the core properly and eaten half of the apple, so Kris was content enough to leave her to it. Besides it was rather entertaining to watch as while one of the dogs accepted two slices without much, being rather indifferent to the fruit, the other turned its nose up at the offered treat and it took a bit of cajoling before he deigned to grudgingly take it. And a bit of cheese wrapped around the other piece before that was eaten. In fact it was entertaining enough to keep Kris lingering over his cup of coffee as he watched Layla’s attempts, for all that his bemusement probably didn’t show through the blackness of the curse covering his eyes when Layla finally turned his way again.

“I have some things to check on the grounds that they can come along for, so they’ll probably be caked in mud and needing a bath in the afternoon, if you want to join me for that,” was all he said out loud though, taking the last sip of his coffee and then putting the cup back on the table. “Not that it’s a particularly easy job, so wear something old. Or possibly a swimsuit.” Rising to his feet Kris headed off to start his day again – he had correspondence to catch up on in his office before he’d set out on horseback to check the grounds – the dogs darting after him after a last lick or two to Layla and a begging look at treats. Nor did Kris have any hesitation in drenching Layla right along the mud-caked dogs – because he had let them loose during the ride – from the hose that afternoon, before tossing the girl one of the dog-shampoo bottles. Not that it saved Kris himself from being soaked before the dogs the were shampooed and rinsed and patted dry. It would take hours until the thick bottom layer of their fur would be dry, so after casting a drying charm on himself – which did its job, for all that it left him wonderously windswept as if he’d just stepped through a tiny tornado and lifting his wand and an eye-brow to Layla in a quiet query – Kris headed off to the library with the dogs. The library would be large enough to have the dogs drying before the fireplace at one end, while Kris could easily catch up with his reading in the other. Which was where the butler found them about an hour later.

Kris glanced absently at the box the butler presented, before waving it off towards Layla to whom the butler handed the box with another small bow before taking his leave again. After all, Kris knew well enough what was in the box – it was his castle and he had detoured through his bedroom to browse Cleo’s crystals, seeing that Layla had kept hold of hers quite tightly, in the morning before settling down to work. Inside the box Layla would find one of Cleo’s glowing crystal attached a long chain so that it could be worn as a pendant. And two days later, a second half of the delivery would provide matching earrings and a small ring – tiny shards of the crystal polished to avoid shark corners and interlaid with bits of silver into a facsimile of a flower bouquet – should the girl wish to wear them. There was no point in gifting an incomplete jewellery set after all.