bringing the wind home [preview]
[denna lockehart]
I;
The wind was birthed in the tropical heat of Balamb, air fleeing the hot island summer for places to the south. It swirled among the houses, set dangling ornaments chiming, and brought a breath of much-needed air to the sweating inhabitants. It swirled over the broad plains, gathering speed, and paid a visit to the new SeeD Garden that was being reworked form the Centra shelter that it had once been. Stronger now, it rattled the walls of the makeshift shelters built to house the SeeDs working on the Garden. Swiftly it sped across the ocean, gathering and losing speed and strength. Passing a small boat, it dipped within briefly to touch the silvered hair of the child sleeping in another's arms. At last, it swept across an expanse of sand, ruffling the blond hair of the child sitting on a rock before dashing against the cliff above.
Seifer Almasy looked up, feeling for a moment as if something had looked him over. The blond-headed boy was seated on a rock—on his rock—on the beach, soaking in the sun. He liked sun. Sunlight made him feel good, and he didn't mind if he got sunburnt, which was rare anyways. It let him forget things like Katrina, the irritating SeeD cadet who wouldn't let him play in the lighthouse, even when explained to that Matron had placed a barrier around the long-since glassless windows. SeeDs weren't particularly inclined to trust in magic, and considering that Guardian Forces supposedly erased memory and Sorceresses blew up this half of the world in the Centra war, it wasn't surprising.
The sound of childish yells and delighted laughter floated down to his ears from the orphanage above. Deliberately ignoring them, Seifer stared resolutely out to sea. He'd been dumped on the orphanage after his parents died (no choice of his), and so had everybody else, but he didn't fit in with them. He was better than them. Better than bossy Quistis, always telling everybody what to do, or Irvine, who kept following her around, or Zell and Selphie, the babies. Squall was better, but he was always crying for his Sis. The way Raijin kept following Seifer around was pathetic, too, but there was something different about him, something that hinted at lightning-crackle and the smell of ozone in his periodic dark moods and his gently innocent façade.
The noise behind him made him jump, and Seifer whirled, eyes adjusting to the shadows at the base of the cliff as he made out the little girl picking her way carefully between the rocks down to the beach. She was muttering to herself: this was what had startled him. The child was about Seifer's age, and frail--too frail from her appearance to be clambering down rocks. Bruises mottled the pale skin exposed by a white child's dress too large for her—an old one of Quistis', Seifer recognized—that, coupled with pale silvery-white hair, made her look like a ghost. A bandage barely a shade or two paler than her skin occupied a large part of her forehead, obscuring one eye.
Oh, ick, was Seifer's thought. Another crybaby.
The girl didn't seem to notice him, just kept climbing down, continuing to mutter to herself in some language Seifer couldn't catch, which seemed to feature heavy use of the word kaze, or something that sounded like it. When she reached the beach, she raised her hands and lifted her head to the wind; the look of relief that lit up the single pale red eye was obvious.
"Hello?" Seifer ventured. This girl evoked the same feelings in him that Raijin did sometimes, that otherworldly feeling of barely-leashed power checked by a frayed thread of sanity; Raijin displayed that dark snap whenever there was a storm; this girl displayed it now, face tilted into the wind, soaking it up like Seifer soaked up sunlight, bringing to mind both the gentle grasstipped breeze of the plains and the screaming stormwinds at the same time.
"Helloooo?" Seifer repeated, standing up. He found himself forcibly evicted from that position in a matter of seconds, transferred to a position lying on his back against the rock with the surprisingly strong little girl pinning his wrists to said rock. "Hey!" he protested, pushing up; the girl let go of him as if burnt, and jumped back a few steps before looking back, chin abruptly tilted up to pin him with a proud gaze. The more he watched her, the more he realized she was like, and yet unlike him.
"I'm not gonna hurt you," Seifer said, raising both hands. "It's all right."
The girl stepped back another few steps, then stopped, looking at him quizzically. "He'lesh'ya?" she asked, or maybe it sounded like she asked; he had no idea what she was saying.
"Umm…" Seifer blinked at her. "Seifer," he said, pointing to himself. It was comical, and he felt like a fool doing it, but he did it anyway. "Seifer," he repeated, pointing again. The little girl blinked, then she pointed at him.
"Seifer," she said.
"Yeah, Seifer. You?" He pointed at her, and tried to convey the question on his face. A silvered head cocked questioningly, and then she pointed at herself, still looking questioning.
"Fujin," she said in a light musical voice roughened with a strange timbre. Point, again. "Fujin."
"Fujin," Seifer repeated.
And he met the girl's eyes squarely, and he knew he'd found an equal.
A/N: Set partially in the Elemental Cycle, this fic borrows bits from it while ignoring others, because said cycle in my opinion now sucks. Basically this happens after Wind Spirit—Fujin wounded by her dear daddy, her mother dead, Edea saves them et yadda, with the exception that she does not name Fujin on the way back but instead uses her common name in the village, Eleanor. Fujin was named Fujin by her mother, not her father. It's her… secret name. (ahem as for why she gave her name to seifer… well, I was a saifuu author, after all, and still am, except there's only so many saifuu fics you can write so I've moved on to lisawk and koren-worship) This is just preview, there's more coming.