PGY: East of the Sun Fic, "Rain Dream"
Title: Rain Dream
Author: Meli aka Dreamiflame
Rating: G
Pairing: none
Notes: Thanks as always to Molly-lark, 
magickalmolly for the beta, and Miss Mary, monkeycrackmary, for letting me play. I promised Miss Mary a long, long time ago I'd try to write an East of the Sun fic. I finally managed it when it was raining the other day. Hope it's near what you wanted, Miss Mary.
Baby Lil, who had not been a baby for many years, sat at a window and pouted. "I hate it when it rains," she declared sulkily.
Her aunt Daisy shook her head. "Silly lass," she said fondly, laying aside the paring knife and apron she had been using. Beckoning to Lil, she left the kitchen, moving swiftly to the foyer. "Grab your cloak. I want to show you something."
Not quite sure why, Lil obeyed, and huddled into her hood as Daisy led her out into the dreadful weather. They were the only two about, but that seemed to matter little to Daisy, who walked with a purpose, her hood falling away from her face. Lil watched her aunt's bright curls darken with moisture, and shivered, longing for the fire she'd left behind.
At the top of the highest hill over looking Hobbiton, Daisy paused, and turned back the way they had come. "Look," she said, and Lil did, forgetting at once all her complaints of being cold and wet.
Hobbiton lay below them, shrouded and transformed by the veil of rain. Above it all, the gray clouds stretched like wooly fleece from horizon to horizon, and Lil caught her breath at the sight. It looked almost like a dream, soft and hazy and unreal, and Lil realised that it would never look this way in the sunlight.
Beside her, Daisy sighed, and turned her face to the sky. "When I was little, I had a dream once of standing here in the rain. I was holding hands with a boy I knew was my brother, but he didn't look like any of your uncles. He looked like what Da always said Mr Frodo looked, black hair, pale skin, and blue eyes like sky and water and lilacs. He was smiling, and I was smiling, and the two girls with us were smiling, and holding hands too. They looked alike, but different, brown hair and green-brown eyes, dressed in red and green." She sighed again, and Lil looked at her, but Daisy was still staring into the clouds. "I woke up crying, and Mum held me while we listened to the rain. She told me dreams could show us different lives, things that might have been, 'if only.'"
Lil touched her hand, and Daisy looked down and smiled. "They had bird names. I always used to think that when it rained, they were flying, those three might-have-beens." She wrapped her arms around Lil and kissed her hair. "And that, my dear, is why I love the rain."
"It's like magic, right?" Lil's voice was muffled, but her eyes were bright as she regarded Daisy.
Daisy nodded. "It's very much like magic."
"I like it."
"I hoped you would." Lil pulled back and stretched out her arms, turning her face up to the rain. She closed her eyes and thought of dreams and visions, and people who might have been.
When they made their way back, soaked now to the skin, Rose-lass, Lil's mother, scolded them soundly. She hurried them out of their wet clothes and made them sit in front of the parlor fire, drinking hot tea and eating soup. Lil, made drowsy by the heat, slept and dreamt of birds with Hobbit face and voices, laughing as they flew and played among the rainclouds. She woke up in her bed to hear water tapping against the glass, and smiled.
~
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