Responsible Rain

Rain looked out at the darkening clouds and shuddered.  There had to be an answer!  But what else could she do?  This wasn't any way to start a holiday.  And when their parents found out —

She fiddled with the blinds, toying in her mind with the notion of going back out and searching for her sister.  Sunny wasn't too far gone — was she?  How was there any way to know?  The swirling purple vortex that had swallowed the poor girl wasn’t like anything Rain had seen before.  The rules could be impossible to fathom — but her sister was gone, and any moment now, her parents would emerge from the bedroom and there'd be hell to pay.

Any moment?  She laughed a silent, bitter chuckle.  Those two wouldn’t appear for hours.  She knew damn well what they were doing in there:  The same thing those two aging hippies did every time they had a spare moment together.  They could call themselves Breeze and Moonbeam all they wanted, but they were the same irresponsible Ben and Mary they’d been since the day she was born.  She and Sunny had had to grow up far too fast.

And now Sunny was gone, swallowed by something that Rain’s physics book probably wouldn’t have a good explanation for.  Rain had freaked out and run from the cave in terror, and there was no-one to even tell, no-one else with any sensibility for miles around this little cabin, no-one else even sober for miles around this stupid little —

There had to be an answer!  The blinds flew up and back down and then crashed on the floor, and Rain realized she’d been fidgeting with the cords.

The gentle giggling behind the bedroom door stopped.  “Hey, go outside, you two!” cried a male voice.

Rain shook her head.  Clueless jerks.

There was a small pad of paper near the phone.  Rain grabbed a sheet and scribbled madly:  “Sunny went out for a walk two hours ago.  I’m going to look for her. — Rain.”  It wasn’t a perfect note — actually, it was a boldfaced lie — but if their parents ever did emerge, they might want to know where their daughters were.  Or at least, Rain consoled herself that they might want to know; most likely, they’d stumble out for munchies in a few hours and not even notice for days that their girls were gone.

She grabbed her raincoat from her luggage — somebody had had to be prepared on this trip, and she had brought everything but the kitchen sink, neatly organized and labeled in little plastic bags — and darted out the door as the orange sky in the distance was further and further blotted out by the growing black clouds.  The wind was eerily calm, but it would probably be howling in a few minutes.

She raced across the small clearing beside the lake and over to the high cliffside facing it.  Steeling herself, she pressed beside the cliff through the thickening trees.  She hadn’t wanted to follow Sunny in here, but one of them had to be the responsible one, and Rain knew all too well that Sunny was perfectly molded after their parents, happy-go-lucky without a care in the world.  Rain often wondered if she’d been adopted, but the secret DNA tests had confirmed it:  Ben and Mary were her parents, and Sunny was her twin, even if she looked and acted nothing like any of them.

The small cave’s opening appeared in the cliffside, and, dodging some brambles, Rain leapt inside just as the sky opened up and hail began to pelt the ground.

“Sunny!” she cried into the depths of the cave, but there was no response.  There was no sign of the purple vortex that had taken Sunny either.

“Damn,” she swore, and started into the depths, her black hair swinging behind her like an angry pendulum.

And then it happened.  The air tingled, and the tiny hairs on her arms stood on end, and all at once there was a huge swirling whirlpool of purples and blues and reds glowing brilliantly in front of her.

A face poked out.  “Rain!”

“Sunny!  What the hell!?  What is that thing?  Get out of there now before you get hurt!”

“Actually, if ya don’t mind, I’m gonna stay,” she said, grinning.

“What?!”

A hand reached out from the blond girl’s shoulder and pointed beside her in the swirling vortex.  Near the end of her finger another face appeared, handsome, male, and rugged, with short-cropped dark brown hair.

“This is Kios,” she said.  “Isn’t he dreamy?”

“Sunny, get your butt out here this instant,” growled Rain.  “I’ve been freaking out and driving myself nuts over you for the last two hours — ”

“Is that all?” said Sunny.  She looked up at Kios.  “You said time flowed differently...  I didn’t think it’d be that different, though.”

“What are you babbling about?” cried Rain.

“I guess I’m the older one now,” said Sunny, “er, if that’s possible.  I’ve — been in Erdi for two years, Rainey.”

“What!?  Sunny, get out of that thing now and let’s go home!”

“I...  um...  no,” said Sunny, biting her lip.  She nodded to Kios, and they both stepped forward.

Rain boggled.  Her sister — her twin sister — was not only standing topless inside a purple vortex, but so was the man next to her — and gentle brown fur grew at both their waists, leading down to a pair of black hooves on him and pale gray hooves under white socks on her.

“What the — what the hell — what are — ”

“Centaur,” said Sunny.  “Half human, half horse.  And, um...”  She held up her left hand.  A small circlet of gold nestled around her finger.  “Kios is my, er, guy.”

Rain sat down on the stone floor.  “No, no, no.”  She shook her head.

“Totally!” said Sunny.  “Rainey, this is the best place I’ve ever been!  The last two years...  Our nice little house on Chapel Hill, so many friends, pink rainbows and sunsets and the bluest water you’ve ever seen...  Rainey, you gotta come too!  I’ve missed you so much!  The shaman said you’d come here, and I wasn’t sure I could believe her until you showed up, right on time.  Mom and Dad —”

“Mom and Dad are worried sick about you,” said Rain.

“Liar,” said Sunny, grinning.  “I’ll bet they never even noticed I was gone.”

Rain stared at the floor.

“Rainey, you know they don’t care about either of us.  And you don’t have to stay here,” said Sunny.  “Just try it for a day or two.”

“And be a horse!?” cried Rain, pointing at her.

“What?  No, no, of course not!  It took us six months to find the ingredients for the potion that turned me into a centaur!  You wanna marry a centaur, you can find that stuff yourself.  I just want to show you around this world.  It has magic, Rain, real magic, the kind that was supposed to be impossible.  And it has some of the hottest guys you’ve ever seen.  Isn’t it at least worth a look?”

“But...”

“What’s Earth got to offer you?  This place has everything.  Free food everywhere.  Magic.  Immortality.  Almost nothing’s been invented here yet.  You could live like a king on that brain of yours, y’know.  Er, queen.  And did I mention all the single hot guys?”

“Well...”

“Awesome!”  Sunny reached down, grabbed her sister’s hand, and yanked her upright.

“If I don’t like it after two days — ”

“Don’t worry.  You will,” grinned Sunny.  She leaned back and pulled her sister’s hand, and as the hail finally eased up, Rain began to fall.