Adelie's brother.

"Why are you so grumpy?" the girl asked.

"I'm not grumpy." the man said, his voice projecting nothing.

"You're clearly in a bad mood, tell me what's wrong."

"I'm fine. Everything's fine."

"You're looking away, again." she tried looking him in the eye, but he wouldn't let her.

"This is beginning to get irritating."

"Then just tell me what's wrong."

"I said nothing's wrong."

"I can see it in your face, something's wrong."

"Thinking there's a problem when there isn't one will make one. Please, I'm fine."

"Hum." She let out a little pouting noise. Adelie could try all she wanted to; her stepbrother wasn't going to make a peep. His cold and empty eyes glared at the brown, faded door to his studio, nothing more. He hadn't been in there for weeks. He could not find anything to impel his interest to open the door and enter. This was not unexpected of him, though; he occasionally went through bouts of lazing about for weeks every once in a blue moon. Of course this was the beauty of his and Adelie's lifestyle; Adelie's parents were extremely rich, and thus the two had the ability to go about their leisure without a care in the world. The manor that they lived in was large and fenced off from the rest of the world. It stood tall and authoritatively above the countryside it rested on, an immense fortress of seclusion that pulled all attention on the modest plains to it. A few thin, winding roads through the grassy fields were all that went to and from the manor, giving its residents their solitary exit out of their home. Of course, not that they could actually leave and go about the world itself, anyway. Both siblings had hindrances that kept them shackled to where they lived. Adelie could never leave the house without a caretaker; her pale, sickly body forbade it. Most assumed that she wouldn't be alive much longer, a grim outlook that she had no trouble accepting. While a perturbing mindset it was, she was quite young, and young people haven't nearly lived enough to develop regrets.

The slow weathering of her faculties meant that any sort of moving about took a great deal of effort on her part, so she simply opted against it. Adelie spent most of her time at home reading many books, as an entire portion of the extravagant manor they lived in was dedicated to being her personal library. She was only fourteen years of age but had read hundreds upon hundreds of books in her short and simple life. None of them were particularly good, though; she enjoyed reading for the knowledge they gave her, not for the world they allowed her imagination to meander about in. Over her brief life she's amassed an intellect that was almost unprecedented. Her knowledge was her weapon, and her books were her bullets. But her aim wasn't exactly steady.

"If you told me what was wrong," said she, "I would do my best to help."

"I said nothing's wrong." he adamantly said. His tacit voice couldn't be shaken. This was how it always went between them. He was twenty-three years old, but looked much older. His disheveled and uneven beard gripped his face like a tumor, marring his face with age. He had beige dress pants and a wore an unironed white dress shirt that lacked a kind of liveliness and dampened his mood. His cold, brown eyes cast dark shadows underneath them, and lacked the softness that they usually had towards Adelie. He clearly hadn't slept well for a great while. In fact, the lazy bum hadn't done much of anything in a great while. He simply woke up at noon, went to the family's arboretum in the courtyard for eight hours, and then retreated to the room for the rest of his night, only to repeat the cycle ad-nauseum until he felt ready to work again. Adelie didn't like the Arboretum and thus didn't follow him in there, nor did she know what he did to occupy himself in the place. It was a great enough distance that she had to call a carriage to make it there. And nothing but vehement agitation awaited her there, as she possessed rather severe allergies and thus would be driven to madness whenever she decided to enter the place.

"Why not come into the library and read with me every once in a while? You would probably feel invigorated after reading a good book."

"Not partial to it." he responded. He slowly ate his breakfast as he continued to look directly ahead at nothing, acknowledging nobody.

"Everybody has to read, brother." she refuted. "It might give you the knowledge you need to get out of your rut."

"I decline." his droll voice reverberated. There was no hostility or irritation in his voice. His voice was empty; simply a response to his sister. He finished eating and stood up from the foyer table. "I take your leave." was all that left his mouth, and he went to the courtyard, no doubt to rot away in the Arboretum for several hours again. She always wondered what he did in there. She enjoyed talking to her brother and she enjoyed watching him work in his studio, but she had nobody to keep her company whenever he started acting like this. The young girl never saw her parents; they were always working and what have it as aristocrats. Her personal doctor never talked to her much, either. The housekeepers were polite and listened to her, but that was simply their job. And thus with nobody's company to enjoy, she would retreat to the library to occupy herself. But her books did not occupy her. She noticed her brother's mood was colder than usual. The distance he was putting between himself and her was far more than she was accustomed to. So one day, she decided to inquiry her maid about something.

"The arboretum?" the maid said.

"Yes. I want to visit brother there." Adelie politely demanded.

"Mistress, you know the greenhouse will only serve to irritate your fickle body." the maid advised. "I would advise against it."

"I did not ask for your opinion, I was simply making an order." she haughtily stated. " I am going to visit my brother there."

"I don't think I can permit it, mistress."

"I don't think you have that jurisdiction. Now get the carriage and take me there."

"......As you wish, mistress."

And that was all it took for young Adelie to get a carriage for to ride to the arboretum in the courtyard. She was in a ash-colored dress filled with volume, a sharp contrast to her petite frame with pale, colorless skin and her ice-blonde hair. She carried a parasol to shield her delicate skin from the sun, at least what little that managed to make its way through the clouds. A gray sky hung over the manor and its courtyard. The rich colors that normally seared themselves into wandering eyes were dulled and muddy from the dark overcast. It was a ten minute walk from the manor she dwelled in, too far for her frail, pale body to carry her. The ride there was not pleasant. She could do nothing but glance at her home as the carriage rolled towards the arboretum. The manor was a rustic, Victorian building awash in a bright white while a few spires climbed from the roof, checkered with blue shingles. It almost resembled a cathedral more than an actual building of residence. A long, brickwork wall surrounded it and the entirety of the courtyard grounds while the grandiose size of the manor and walls made the world around Adelie seem so small, undermining the expanse of land that the family seemed to own. The entirety of the courtyard was an empty green field that shimmered and swayed in the wind; there were a few sparse trees, but it was particularly barren aside from the stone-paved road that crept itself over the hills to an extensive garden sheltered by a glass fixture over it. It was quite large and normally would be a bright light on the horizon, but there were no rays of the sun to allow it to be so. When the carriage parked itself in front of the gate to the arboretum, Adelie told the driver to wait for her while she had a talk with her brother. As soon as she walked into the the gates, her senses were becoming immediately smothered by all the pollens and dusts that punctuated the air. Her eyes were sieged with washed-out colors that were dulled by the cloudy sky. The building looked and smelled of death to her. She couldn't stay for long. She saw her brother sitting at a table fixture near the center. His shoulders were slumped over. He did not move.

"So this is what you do every day in and day out, is it?" she said. He almost seemed startled as he peered towards the voice addressing him.

"You should not be here." was all he said. He did not look at her.

"I want to know what's wrong, though. You've been moping about far longer than before."

"I said nothing was wrong." His empty voice reverberated.

"You are a liar." she asserted, a hint of impatience in her voice. "Nothing can hurt from telling me what's wrong." There was a long silence weaving its way through the arboretum, but her brother stopped it.

"...Nothing hurts." he said. "Therefore there's no problem." Adelie sighed. She was starting to sweat and cough a bit. She was becoming lightheaded.

"You should leave before you fall ill." he said.

"...Fine, you can rot in here for all I care." her tired voice muttered, slightly defeated. She managed to make her way out of the arboretum, her equilibrium trembling and swaying.

"...Milady?" the driver asked. Adelie stumbled and sat in her chair in the carriage.

"I'll be fine," she meekly declared. "Take me back to the manor."

"Yes, milady."

She did not converse with her brother for a good while after that. She was quite upset with his sad state of affairs and simply realized how futile it was for her to try to get any answer out of him. She was not speaking to her brother when they talked; her words went into him and was swallowed by his emptiness, and nothing she said could fill that void up. And the trip to the arboretum took a toll on her health; she was simply not capable of moving about too much. She retired to her library and continued to read more and more, tearing into encyclopedic texts and attempting to decipher anything that could be wrong. Eventually though, her curiosity made a decision for her that she normally abstained from.

She was in the foyer one morning, and there was the dull brown door to her brother's studio. The door he hadn't entered in well over a month, now. Adelie opened it and stepped inside. The curtains shielded the room from any light, so she pulled them open to illuminate the dark room. What she saw were canvases everywhere. They were propped against the walls and propped against more canvases. All of them filled with colors. Bright, incinerating colors that scorched Adelie's eyes just looking upon them. Large meshes of green, checked and spotted with reds and blues and yellows and violets. All of them seemed to express a bright inanition that radiated from her brother's spirit and weaved themselves into the paintings and walls.

"What are you doing in here?" she heard. It made her jump as if she was caught doing something unfitting of a young lady. She turned around and there was her brother. His eyes were fixated on her. It wasn't like his sister was what caught his attention, but almost as if he didn't want to look upon the studio.

"I... I just wanted to look at all your works, that is all." she stuttered. While not entirely true, it was partially true; anything that might tell her what was wrong with her brother was what led her into the room, but a nostalgic twinge was what caused her to linger.

"You shouldn't be in here." he said. She timidly nodded and shuffled out of the studio. He stood with the door open and hesitated a bit before he closed it. The next day, Adelie requested again to be taken to the arboretum. Both the housekeeper and carriage driver declined. Her health was delicate, far more than usual after the initial trip. She was upset, as would be expected. She went to bed that night in a hiss, unable to see her brother since he did not return home until long after she retired. When she awoke the following day, she got dressed in her usual wardrobe; her black ashy and bouncy dress, and her parasol. She wore slightly more resilient boots and she managed to leave the house that morning before her brother awoke. Against her better judgment, she decided to walk to the arboretum on her own. It was a ten-minute walk for a normal person of good health. It took forty for young Adelie, who frequently had to stop and breathe heavily and rest before continuing again another short distance. Her weak body was creaking and sputtering the entire way there, bringing her closer to death than most people would ever know in their lives. Yet she did not care for death. Her iron will was all that dragged that corse behind her to the arboretum. When she made her way in there, she was winded, exhausted, and her heart was racing. She was paler than usual and sweating a great deal as she trembled and rested on one of the benches in the lush garden. The air was both taxing to breathe yet refreshing all the same. After her body calmed down and managed to pull itself back from death, she managed to look about her surroundings.

"He really must've painted every inch of this place..." she said to herself. "He's probably run out of things to paint."

"I have." The voice made her jump again. There her brother was. "You should not be here." he said. "You could've killed yourself coming here." That coldness in his voice seemed to be slightly heated by anger this time. Not tremendous, spiteful anger, but almost a tiresome impatience and displeasure that projected more emotion than usual.

"I don't care if I die." she pouted, still clearly nauseated by her reckless behavior. "You shouldn't stop painting just because you've painted everything in here. Find something else to paint."

"That's not it."

"Then what is?" she asked, her condition being agitated by her temper.

"There's nothing going on."

"There clearly is, are you unhappy?" she asked. He paused for a second.

"No joy." was all that left his mouth.

"Why? Where has it gone?"

"I've painted it all out." he said.

"I told you, find something else to paint, then." she adamantly stated.

"You don't understand." he said. She paused for a bit. She didn't say anything. Despite her attempts to ask what was wrong and to search for a problem, perhaps she COULDN'T understand. But she still wanted to.

"I don't care what you paint, though. Just paint something. It's something you need to do." she said. She was starting to cry a bit. Her brother walked to her and picked her up.

"Let's head back." He said. There was a slight warmness to his voice. A familiar warmness. But Adelie couldn't stay conscious much longer. Her body gave up on her and almost gave up her ghost, but that iron will again weighed it down.

She awoke in her bed. The sun was rising. Her body still felt terrible, but the light coming in through her window warmed her body to life. She shook her sleepiness off and crawled out of bed. She made her way to the foyer, and there her brother was. She blinked and rubbed her eyes and almost couldn't believe what she saw. He was clean-shaven and his eyes had no shadows. He looked remarkably young again, almost like a child's face on a large frame. His clothes were still ragged, but he seemed to exude life again.

"Good morning, brother." she managed to choke out, still slightly lost for words.

"Good morning." was all he said as he finished dinner. His voice no longer had that hollowness that echoed throughout the room. He stood up and was walking towards his studio door. Adelie's face lit up.

"Can I come in and watch?" she eagerly asked.

"No." he said. She was surprised and a bit upset.

"Why?"

"This is something special. I'll show you it when I'm done." He said as he closed the door. While initially angry, it made her excited. She was looking forward to what he could've been painting. She shuffled off to the library and continued to read more to occupy herself while her brother worked. But her brother never left the studio, and he was usually in there long before she awoke. This went on for a week. Eventually she woke up, and heard yelling. She pulled herself out of bed to see what the problem was. The housekeepers were arguing, some were crying, and some simply didn't say anything while they stared at the studio doors that were open.

"What is the meaning of this?" Adelie demanded as she awoke.

"It was your stepbrother's appointment with some of the aristocrats from the neighboring city today." one of the housekeepers frantically explained. "He was supposed to start doing some leasing and insurance work today for your father's institution."

"I heard nothing of this." the young girl said.

"Well he wasn't working, so your father was going to force him into the family business or kick him out of the house for doing nothing day after day." the maid explained.

"So why all the commotion?" A few of the housekeepers grew silent. One of them was weeping a bit. "...No... don't tell me..." she immediately stumbled forward and raced into the studio.

"MILADY, NO!" But when she went in there, there her brother was, on the ground, the sigh of God that left his breath lingering in the room. Adelie didn't know what to say. She knelt towards his cold body, but there was a vague smile on his face as he lay there on the floor. She looked up and saw an enormous canvas propped against the wall. It was two canvases mounted next to each other to create a painting of gloom that covered the wall. It was a picture of a girl in a garden, sitting lifelessly next to a man with a gray overcast while it rained upon them. The entire color scheme of the painting was dark and muted. It was dark, depressing blotch of gray out of all the colorful paintings that adorned the room.

"What a tragic and horrific painting..." one of the housekeepers said. Adelie just stared at it, almost in awe.

"I think it's the most beautiful thing he's painted in this room." she said. As she looked at it. It was the only thing that existed to her that came from her brother. And it was the last. Time simply ran out, as precious as it was. She started to cry.