Fic: 'At First Sight' (Power Rangers Dino Thunder, Kira, PG, 1/1) Title: At First Sight Fandom: Power Rangers Dino Thunder Characters: Kira Rating: PG Disclaimer: No one mentioned belongs to me. Summary:"Don't press your nose against the glass, Kira. It leaves smudges."
At First Sight
She had been nine when he'd left. Kylee had been eleven, full of worldly wisdom about how Kira would never see him again. Kira was old enough to know better, smart enough, but she refused to think that, and for a long time, had enthusiastically and optimistically believed that he would return.
He didn't.
She could remember walking along the streets with him one afternoon, passing the music store on Palm Street. The display had been set up in the large window, originally intended for models when the store had been a clothing boutique. But it was featuring a band set up, drum kit, keyboard, bass, and front and center, a beautiful guitar. A melted-butter yellow, with sleek curves that caught not only the spotlight featured on it, but every other fractured beam of light in the establishment.
"Don't press your nose against the glass, Kira. It leaves smudges."
Kira backed away obediently, but she didn't take her eyes off of it. "It's so pretty, Daddy."
"It's a Les Paul," he informed her. Any other six-year-old might have stumbled over the name, but she repeated it perfectly, reverently. That afternoon, he had hoisted his acoustic guitar out of the hall closet, sat her down, and showed her the chords. She was too clumsy to play very well, but her enthusiasm was enough to keep him pleased.
Off and on, she'd taught herself how in the years that followed. Too often he'd be busy to teach her, so she checked books out of the library, and studied the people on TV, and pretty soon she was surprisingly efficient.
Kira was especially bitter today because she had just turned fifteen that morning, it was her birthday, and her father had forgotten. She hadn't expected a present from him in some time, that would imply he was in some way reliable. But he usually had the presence of mind to send a card--or rather, his secretary did. But the mail had come, and the mail had gone, and there was nothing for Kira. Kylee and Kira had eaten cake with Mrs. Ford before retiring to the garage. Kylee was seventeen, jaded against the opposite sex for completely different reasons than Kira that day, and they penned a song about love walking out the door and screwing things up royally.
The door from the kitchen swung open. "Mom, don't interrupt practice," Kira said whiningly. She was usually very kind to her mother, they were all each other had, but Kira took her music very seriously.
"I thought you should come see this," Mrs. Ford said, her tone oddly faraway, mystic almost. Kira immediately set down her guitar and followed Mrs. Ford up into the kitchen, Kylee at her heels.
"It just came," Mrs. Ford said, but Kira only barely heard the statement, her hands already on the neck of it, picking it up, balancing the weight in her arms. The color exactly matched the yellow t-shirt she'd thrown on that morning, matched the late afternoon sun streaming in through the windows.
"Do you know how to play electric?" asked Kylee, her voice sounding as though she was still in the garage. Somewhere else.
Kira thought vaguely of the bank in her room, crayon-shaped, stuffed with scraps of her allowance, loose change she'd picked up off the street, wadded together and pressed down to make more room, waiting for the day when she could go into the store that she passed every day on the way to school and finally collect it for her own. And now here it was, hefty in her hands, real, solid weight, but at the same time, lighter than air, as light as her own heart, the same sunshine as in her smile.