Sisters in the dark [Onyx + Gaby]

Dark.

Suddenly, everything was dark.

The storm folded into a black mass almost instantly; one moment nothing more than a thin crust of clouds, the next becoming that ball of angry wind and rain, rolling with a sound like a hundred stampeding horses. Ave wasn't scared, she was rarely ever scared when nothing was there that could hurt her, but she was certainly startled. Moreso, when the lights that she had turned on in her empty house went out with a pop, and she was left in the dark, and alone.

The last time there had been a storm like this, all the Claytons had been there to help each other through it. Though the youngest siblings cried, Ave and the other elders, and her parents, spent hours finding games, songs, and other forms of entertainments to keep peace. Those games weren't made for just one person, and though Ave was older now, she still wished someone else was there to seek her if she hid.

Placing a bucket under a dripping corner of her bedroom, Ave's mind was on nothing other than her little mechanical creatures. They sat as far away from the leak as she could get them, in a delicately constructed pile by her bed. Most recently, Ave had been trying to master the intricate beauty of the golden midges that floated through the seventy-third arena. Unlike her other projects, where she tried to be innovative, create prototypes for creatures that didn't yet exist, to submit to the Capitol in hopes of recognition, perhaps even fame, Ave had become enamoured by the glimmering mites, desperate to recreate them, in case she ever needed their comfort. Now was the time.

Her thin fingers went to work sparking the tiny soldered creatures from a battery she kept in a box on her desk, her heart fluttering every time the gold glow inside one of them seemed to be coming to life. It was fairly easy to make the robots fly, suspending them using magnets taken from a hovercraft scrapyard and attached to a portable mat. One day, she hoped to be able to mechanise their stationary wings, allowing them to buzz around her head for real.

The bang of the front door made Ave jump, but hearing her own name called in her sister Onyx's voice settled her somewhat. Leaving the glowing creatures to float unguarded, knowing that there was no chance of them getting far, she hurried down the stairs, two at a time, to rescue her sister from the storm. Even so, the younger girl is dripping wet as she stumbles into the house, muttering out a thanks from between chattering teeth. "You're missing a shoe," Ave stated, mutely, although the smile on her face showed the humour in the observation. With Onyx's laughter behind her, Ave turned and hurried into a bathroom, retrieving a towel for her sister.

When the girl had dried herself off, with Ave waiting patiently nearby, the latter continued, "there's a power cut, but I've managed to make the best of it. Come and see?" With that, she turned to the staircase, already able to see the warm but somehow ghostly glow emerging from her open doorway. Turning back to Onyx, she smiled again, empathising with the poor girl's clearly unpleasant journey home. "It's even warmer upstairs, I promise." Although the two sisters weren't the closest of friends, they had their family ties to keep them together, and Ave, always proud to show off her creations, was delighted to have the chance to distract Onyx from the storm, and the cold, and the dark.