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Loyalty
Summary: Like heroes, villains can burn out and fade away. Fujin observes a lifetime of fealty to Seifer Almasy. (Drabble)
If there was ever a more uncommon meeting of future friends, she had not heard of it. He was fourteen and she thirteen, quiet, introverted, and pessimistic; pretty normal for a girl her age. He was cocky, arrogant, and completely self-absorbed. Funny how some things never change.
She had made the unfortunate mistake of sitting in front of him during a particularly long and boring lecture in Tactical Procedure 101. He had been doing something completely disgusting with his gum and the next thing she knew, they were in the women's bathroom trying to get it out of her long silver hair.
When Seifer Almasy did something, he did it with conviction. He must have had a whole pack of gum shoved in his mouth, making it impossible to get out. She remembers mostly how insouciant he had been standing in the women's restroom, a scowl on his face with just a trace of guilt in his eyes for picking on the weird girl in the first row.
He suggested that they just cut it and drew his basic issue Gunblade. In a startling moment of trust, she had let him. After, he commented that she looked better with short hair. From then on her hair never went past her shoulders.
The next day she sat beside him and jokingly handed him a pack of gum. He had laughed and from then on she would forever be his second in command.
He was fifteen and she fourteen and they ran along the Southern Balamb coast. Heavy combat boots sunk in the moist sand as they cut down hoards of bite bugs that in their minds resembled soldiers and blue dragons. Seifer was the fire, Raijin the lightning, and she the wind, pushing them along.
What a storm they had been.
He was seventeen and she sixteen as they parted ways on a platform. He was headed for Timber, to carve out a slice of glory for himself. She was ordered to stay, watch over Raijin and take charge of the disciplinary committee. 'Don't let the little shits get out of line.'
She remained as stoic as ever as he cockily waved goodbye, Hyperion, shiny and new, slung over his shoulder.
Two hours later she boarded her own train, straight for Timber.
He was eighteen and she seventeen when he snuck into their dorm room at night. The light of the moon overhead cast him in a wickedly angelic glow as he held out his hand and told them to take it. They did unquestioningly. They'd follow him where ever he took them - down in ruins or up in glory – so long as he was the one driving.
They were a posse after all.
He was twenty-three, she twenty-two and he had been missing for three days. When he stumbles in on the fourth, she doesn't say anything, just unlaces his boots and guides him to bed.
In stupor, he asks her 'why.'
"BECAUSE."
'I want to.'
They never needed more than one word.
Hewas twenty-nine and she is twenty-eight when they have their first child – adopted of course. Raijin is more than thrilled and carries his son on his shoulders wherever he goes. Seifer shies away from the boy's affection, but watches him carefully, an unreadable expression on his face.
She worries about him constantly and wishes for him to find someone in his life. Someone to watch over him and take care of him the way she does. Time is moving so fast and she excitedly looks forward to the change; wants to find a house with a garden and live a quiet life with her husband and son.
Guilt stabs through her. In her imaginary house, there is no bedroom for Seifer to sleep in.
Heis thirty-three and she thirty-two. He is still fire, she is still wind, but the storm has quieted. He no longer rages out of control. Merely flickers once and awhile.
All fires need tending else they die down to pathetic embers or blaze out of control, destroying everything in sight and eventually itself. Some times she wishes she did a better job of stoking the flame.
She is thirty-six when he disappears.
Time moves on and the memory of Seifer Almasy whispers away from the world. He is no-longer legendary or feared. He is trivia, a random fact only quotable by those who spent way too much time in front of books and away from the world.
She is seventy when he strolls back into her life, upright and strong, as if he were still young. Her grandchildren play on the street in front of her house and she takes him to visit her husband's grave.
He tells her that he is tired and wants to be with his family now. She understands completely.
That night he passes away in his sleep. A quiet death for a thunderous man.
Desperately she searches for any family he may have, just in case she misunderstood. Finding none, she buries him near Raijin. There is no large funeral; she alone attends with her children and grandchildren.
Afterward, when her grandchildren ask who he was, she tells them of a wild man, who, at one time, would have turned his nose up at such an ignoble death. She doesn't lie, simply stretches the truth.
If the world won't remember him kindly, then it is up to her to make sure someone does. The legend of Seifer Almasy will be known only to her family.
It is the only gift she can give.