Christine Daaé, where is your red scarf?

“Slow down, Raoul! My knees aren’t what they used to be…”

“Yes, Madame Elizabeth.” the blonde-haired teen answered obediently, stopping mid jog for his nursemaid to catch up. He couldn’t help but be impatient. He had been inside all day studying arithmetic and reading long-dead authors in Latin, and frankly, it was boring him. Granted he was the perfect student—he dedicated himself completely to his schoolwork—but he much preferred being outside at the beach on a hot, summer day such as this to being stuck indoors.

He breathed in the salty sea air and grinned. It was really the perfect day for a swim. His blue eyes skimmed over the water but froze upon seeing an auburn haired girl on the shore. His breath caught in his throat for a moment and slowly a smile began to form on his face. In that short moment dozens of words must have come to the young Vicomte’s mind in an attempt to describe the girl, but none of them seemed accurate enough. ‘Beautiful’ was too cliché, ‘pretty’ was too much of an understatement—‘angelic’? ‘Angelic’ worked.

Thus he stood there staring in a rather unbecoming way for a Vicomte for a good few seconds until he realized that the girl’s expression had changed. She threw her arms in the air as if to catch something. His eyes followed a red object soaring through the air and plummeting toward the waves—a scarf. The boy immediately started running toward the ocean.

Madame Elizabeth saw this and scowled in disapproval. “Raoul, come back here!” she called, and then grew angry when he kept running. “Raoul Christophe de Chagny!”

Raoul, however, was not listening. All he thought about was the look of distress on that girl’s face. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it!” he shouted reassuringly as he dashed past her and into the surf, swimming rather expertly toward where he had seen the scarf fall. With a great intake of breath, the boy went under. A few minutes passed and he reemerged from the sea, clutching the red scarf. Scarf and boy were both soaked, but he was grinning nonetheless.

“I’m terribly sorry that it got wet—but here it is.” he apologized, handing the scarf to her. Water was dripping off the ends of his hair, and his clothes were completely soaked through. In addition, he was cold and shivering slightly. He must have looked a sight, but at the moment he didn’t care. All the young Vicomte wanted was to see the girl smile again.

He smiled when she laughed and pushed some of his hair out of his face so he could better see. She had a lovely laugh—like music, almost. Her smile was quite charming as well—and contagious. There was something about her face that seemed to put him at ease. Usually he was very shy around other people, especially those he had not yet met—but then again, he had not really met too terribly many people, and hardly any his age. But the young nobleman was sure that she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen.

He took her hand gingerly and kissed it as he had been taught in his lessons in etiquette. “It’s nice to meet you, Mademoiselle Christine.” he stated, beaming as he let go of her hand. “I’m Raoul, Raoul Christophe de Chagny—the Vicomte de Chagny.” he added after a moment, remembering how Madame Elizabeth had told him to always state his title. “You have a very pretty name.”

“Are you from the area? I haven’t seen you out here before…” He tried to go out on the beach whenever he could. Ideally it would be every day, but lessons and whatnot often managed to keep him indoors. By far going to the beach was his favorite activity. His governess always went with him for supervision, but she never really bothered him while he was playing. Thus he was always alone. It was fun, to be sure, but it would still be nice to have another person to play with. Phillippe never played with him and he never asked because he was so—well, old, and serious. He didn’t seem like the type to enjoy playing. But this girl seemed friendly, and she was his age. Was it possible that he could finally have a friend?

Raoul was confused when the girl blushed after he kissed her hand. Wasn’t that what he was supposed to do? His governess always stressed how important it was for him to be a proper gentleman, and that was certainly being a gentleman as far as he was concerned. Or at least that was what vicomtes were supposed to do. Perhaps she had never met a vicomte before, then?

He was surprised when she laughed at him using the word ‘mademoiselle’ and insisted that he simply call her Christine. He only called his brother by his first name, and even then he couldn’t help but call him ‘sir’ every now and then. Even if he was his brother, he was a lot older than him and ‘sir’ was a term of respect. He respected his brother to be sure, but he wished that his father would have paid him more attention. It had always seemed like Phillippe was the favorite son. He knew why, though. Phillippe had not killed Mother.

Her question confirmed his suspicion that she had never met a vicomte. He frowned in thought as he tried to explain it to her. “Well…a vicomte is like a nobleman, basically—well, it is a nobleman. One of my ancestors was given land by the king of France and so our family is nobility. I guess it’s sort of like a prince…”

“A violinist? That sounds interesting…” Raoul commented genuinely when Christine explained that her father played the violin. He enjoyed music—he didn’t consider himself particularly good at it, but he had plenty of sheet music and had been playing the piano for a few years. When she asked him if he would like to meet her father, he glanced up at Madame Elizabeth, who was hovering a distance behind him. The British woman nodded and he smiled and nodded at Christine. “Yes, I would love to.”

“Oh no, we don’t. People didn’t take too kindly to the idea and killed Louis XVI…and then down the road Louis Philippe abdicated and…” He stopped before he could go off on a tangent. He often did that when he talked about history, and his father used to tell him how annoying he was. “No, France doesn’t have a monarch anymore. But Vicomte is a title of nobility…which is somewhat close to royalty. You could say it’s like a prince?” he explained, wondering if he was making any sense to her. But then she smiled and commented how it was a rare thing to meet a prince and he beamed.

He grinned again when she smiled wider after he accepted her invitation to meet her father. The young Vicomte nodded, but was surprised when she tapped him on the shoulder and said something about ‘tag’. “Tag? What’s that?” he asked, but she was already halfway down the beach by now. Shaking his head, Raoul ran after her, managing to keep up quite easily as he followed across the beach. He did have to admit she was a pretty fast runner though. He looked past her momentarily to see a man with a violin, who he assumed was her father.

Raoul was confused when Christine started running faster as he got closer. “Wait! Wait, don’t be afraid!” She was running from him as if he were chasing her—which, of course, he wasn’t. However she was running awfully fast, which meant that he had to run in order to keep up. He wished she would slow down. It wasn’t that he was having trouble keeping up with her—he was a fairly good runner, actually—but he didn’t want her to fall and get hurt. Eventually she did slow down , but only because she tripped and fell—which was precisely what he hadn’t wanted to happen. The Vicomte quickened his pace, intending to help her up, but slowed down when the man holding the violin did.

He watched their exchange quietly and then smiled and looked up at the man when he was introduced. “It’s nice to meet you, monsieur.” he stated politely. At Christine’s comment about him being a prince, he shuffled his feet. “Actually I’m a vicomte…” He was pretty sure there was a difference and he didn't want them to think that he was something that he really wasn't.

Raoul wanted to protest that there were significant differences between princes and vicomtes, but he refrained from doing so, feeling as if it would be a lost cause. When Christine insisted that it didn’t matter, instead of feeling insulted like most viscounts would be, he was actually in shock and relieved—and even joyful. It was so strange, being treated like a normal person after all this time—strange, but nice for a change.

Maybe he could actually have a real friend. He didn’t meet too many other children his age, and the ones he did were other nobility who were brought to the estate just because their parents knew his dad, not because they wanted to be his friend. Besides, they had relatively little in common. None of them had ever liked the beach, or reading, or any of the other things he was interested in.

Raoul smiled and shook the man’s hand firmly. He ran a hand through his hair a bit sheepishly when Christine’s father stated that he had made quite the impression on her. After she explained that he had rescued her scarf, the man commented on how wet he was. For the first time in the last few minutes he became self-conscious of his appearance, realizing that he was indeed soaked.

Then the girl wrapped her scarf around his neck and he laughed. “Thank you.” he told her with a grin. “I really should go in and dry off before Madame Elizabeth gets after me for it—she’s my governess…” A thought occurred to him and he added, “Christine, would you like to come over for dinner? I’m sure Phillippe wouldn’t mind me having a guest…”

“Thank you sir.” Raoul replied with a smile as the man shook his hand. He had no idea he had a good handshake—nor did he know that it was a sign that he’d one day be a fine young man. His eyes caught Christine’s again and he smiled bashfully, unsure of the reason why he felt so nervous around her. He looked away reluctantly, as she had very pretty eyes and he was sure that, if given the chance he’d be able to stare into them all day…

He felt his cheeks heating up, and he rubbed the back of his neck embarrassedly. What was going on? He had just met her, she was just a girl—a friend, maybe? And here he was acting like he’d never been around a girl before…at least, he hadn’t been around a girl like her before. She was so different from the nobles’ children—like a breath of fresh air. “Is six a good time, mad-Christine?”