Edwin

Vihal was painting a very small, very timid, very pale cloud into a corner of the room, his heart heavy, when the door appeared again in the middle of the floor.

"Yo! Failed again, did you, Vihal?"

The voice was bright, and the angel it belonged to was small in stature, with hair a shade deeper than gold, thin braids growing from above each ear and gathered together with a ponytail; the ends were loosely waved and fell to the shoulder.

His clothes were the same as Vihal's. The only difference was the color of the cabochon set in the brooch at his left breast—the brooch that declared one's trade and one's rank. Vihal's was a deep green, the color of beginners and apprentices. Edwin's was the blue of the open sky, the color of a seasoned hand.

"Edwin…!"

Vihal rose with tears welling in his eyes, and Edwin, wearing a slightly wicked grin, said,

"Couldn't help it—so I came to bail you out!"

Edwin was a year older than Vihal, a friend from earliest childhood, and a good-hearted older brother to him besides. The trade they had both aimed at was one Edwin had held for two years already.

Vihal had chased after him, and had sprouted up in height until he stood head and shoulders over him—but in the strength of his painting, and in his speed, he had still not caught up. He admired Edwin from the bottom of his heart.

"Hey now, don't cry, don't cry! Everyone fails. In your case it's just a bit of clumsiness, isn't it?"

Edwin stretched his arm as far up as it would go and ruffled Vihal's short, light-gold curls.

"But… this makes three times now…"

"You know the trial runs for a month, don't you? And it won't be changed unless something truly extraordinary happens. So just make it up before the month is out!"

*You've been managing fine right up to yesterday, haven't you*—and as he said it, Edwin touched the tip of his brush to the white paint Vihal had spilled.

"And besides—today's sky of yours came out beautifully, didn't it?"

The paint—the cloud—not yet fully dry began to change its shape with every stroke Edwin laid to it.

"Up till yesterday… I was only thinking about doing it on time and exactly as instructed…"

What had been clumped in one place began to overlap with the clouds Vihal had painted, and to shift into shapes that did not look wrong at all.

"I see! So today's sky is *your* sky, painted in earnest!"

"…Yes…"

This was work that could not be repainted, and it demanded, at times, a bold idea and a bold hand.

Edwin, who handled a brush taller than himself with a body smaller than Vihal's—he was exactly what Vihal longed to become.

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