Under The Painted Sky (O/O CLOSED)

Eden rolled her eyes, but was a bit grateful because Aidan did let out a small laugh.

“No! Penguins don’t have horns, silly,” he laughed. “And they’re not scary. They’re adorable!”

He was good with kids, Eden thought to herself begrudgingly. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked like she was contemplating her answer, frowning.

“Elephants, perhaps?” She guessed with a small shrug. “They’re big, quite scary and have horns—“ here, she pointed at her face, making a motion of tusks. “—like this.”

“Those are tusks,” Aidan laughed again. Eden shifted him in her arms. “Man, you guys are bad at this. It’s a rhino!”

“You should go next!” The young boy pointed to Sterling. “Think of something hard.”

Eden furrowed her eyebrows as her eyes, too, skimmed around the area. Furry and yellow? What could it be? A lion? Then she stopped herself. Why was she playing this game?

“Um… is it…” Aiden looked around in confusion. “Is it a duck? But those are feathery…”

“Why don’t we let Aiden try to figure it out?” Eden kept her eyes on the little boy, occasionally looking around to see if there were frantic parents. “One more chance. Then I’ll guess.”

“Is it a tiger?” Aiden tried again, furrowing his adorable features. “But they’re not very furry…”

“A lion,” Eden guessed, but it was more of a statement than a question, ignoring the look Sterling sent towards her. Where were Aiden’s parents? They were nearly at the giraffes, and there was still no sign of the adults.

Eden ignored Sterling’s statement, instead looking around again. “Do you see your parents anywhere, little one?” she questioned. Aiden, too, twisted in her arms to look around.

“Um… I don’t…”

“Is there a lost child center around here?” Eden shifted him again in her arms, feeling tired but pretending otherwise. “We should as an employee as well.”

He was here before? Eden furrowed at his statement before immediately dispelling the thought. So what if he had? What was it to her?

Then he nudged her and Eden stiffened at the too foreign touch. A kid’s, she was fine with. A grown male… that, she was never able to stand. Still, she handed Sterling the child, who immediately wrapped his tiny arms around the older male. Eden tried not to let her eyes linger at the sight. Just as she turned to find someone to ask for the lost child center, an employee approached them.

“Good morning,” she said to them hurriedly. “Have either of you seen a lost child?”

The woman broke out in a relieved sigh. “They’re near the bird section,” she said. “I can take the child.”

“No,” Eden replied curtly. “We’ll take him ourselves.” Was there a reason she was supposed to trust her, aside from the fact that she was an employee?

The woman blinked before nodding. “Let me lead you to them, then.”

The employee lead them to the bird section, where two adults were standing, a frantic look in their features. The woman was crying while her husband tried to comfort her. Eden went under as she remembered her own experience. Had her parents been worried like that when she hadn’t returned home that night? And when she did, she was a mess? How devastated had they been when their daughter changed for the worst? Eden blinked the thought away as Aiden’s cry for his parents broke out.

There was no point in thinking about the past. What happened, happened. There was nothing she could do about it.

Eden gave Sterling a look, only to feel surprised at the concern on his features. Why was he worried? Why him, of all people? She swallowed thickly before looking away.

“Yeah,” she murmured as Aiden’s parents approached them.

(Yup! I meant they approached them after they hugged Aiden and stuff.)

“Thank you so much for finding our son,” the mother breathed, eyes puffy from crying. Her husband squeezed her shoulder. “Thank you so much…”

Eden merely nodded, offering a small smile to Aiden, who grinned back through his tears.

“We’re sorry again,” the father rubbed his son’s head. “For interrupting you both. Enjoy your date.”

… What?