Cold Day In the Sun
She sat in the middle of the field upon a soft white blanket that lay over the crisp green grass and smaller flowers. The wind came up and blew random strands of her light brown hair from its loose braid.
Distracted by a corner of the blanket that blew over an outstretched leg, Ellone reached out to swat away the wooly fabric finding it quite difficult with her round belly in the way. Grunting slightly she took hold of the corner pressed it back into the grass with her naked palm hoping that the blanket would finally stay.
Supporting herself on her elbows, she lent back to watch as the ivory clouds slowly drifted across the light blue sky. The breeze took up again forcing the blanket to blow back over her leg, this time she just gave up and ignored it while a hand over the lilac fabric of her sundress where her pregnant belly lay underneath.
It did hurt at first, the thoughts of him, but she had come to a realization that he was better off gone, he had other things to deal with. The shock from her news brought fourth pain, bitterness, anger but only fleetingly. She wasn't angry anymore, nor would she ever really be. It was what it was for a reason.
She could still remember the ferocity of his emerald eyes.
--
It was a cold day in December when it had happened. He had taken to hiding in the Krammer's orphanage around the same time that she decided to visit. The orphanage itself was still going under repairs so nobody, let alone children, could house there but Cid and Edea were able to build a cottage for them, maybe even one or two guests, to live in for the time being.
She and Edea spoke while drinking warm cups of hot cocoa and watching the silvery fell over the cold gray-blue sky. Seifer thumbed through some old books on a shelf looking rather bored. He still wore his blond hair the same short way and his green eyes were still bright and mischievous and when they locked on to hers it startled her a bit to have such an enigmatic person be looking at her.
She wasn't afraid of him, she was just worried for him. He had so much anger pressed up inside of his body, always had since he was a child, that he could explode at any time in an unpredictable, scary manner. It wasn't fear that consumed her, no it was something far worse than that. Something that Seifer would have never wanted anybody to harbor about him.
Pity. Cold and saddening pity. Like the burning of cheap vodka it consumed her very thoughts regarding him. In his angry eyes she could see that he already knew how Ellone was feeling about him.
She just wanted to help him.
It was a wonder, she thought, that Cid was able to keep him out of prison. She knew it took some many months and even more gil to do so, and she knew that Balamb Garden would be feeling the dent from it for the next few years. Regardless, Cid did it and did it without request from anybody and without asking for anything more than the boy to re-think his road in life.
The boy did have a lot to think about and nobody knew it more that he.
She remembered him looking back at her again, this time less antagonistically. It wasn't hard for her to smile back, trying to make him feel comfortable with her there. He did nothing, his face blank and empty, eyes narrowed. When he turned away she felt a little ashamed knowing that he wasn't the same crying little boy who wanted to bask in her presence. A lot had changed since their wee years of running around and making up games.
The sun went down coldly into the frozen sea bringing forth the frigid, frigid night making everyone to huddle closer to the fire. Sitting on the floor before the fireplace, Ellone held on to her umpteenth cup of cocoa between her crossed legs allowing it to warm her inner thighs. Edea snuggled close to her husband on the sofa under a blanket made of some harsh, red fabric. Seifer just laid across the wood floor with his jacket still on resting his head in his cupped hand. The fire danced over his features giving his face a light orange tint.
She wanted to see him smile. She wanted him to be happy again.
They all talked until ten or so when the Krammers decided to go to bed leaving Ellone and Seifer to each others company.
It was quiet between them. Seifer unmoving his gaze from the hypnotic fires, Ellone afraid to say something and offend the boy.
"I never wanted to hurt you," his eyes were still focused on the fire having no interest in her what so ever. "It wasn't like that was my goal or anything."
Ellone nodded. "I know you didn't. It was a weird time. A lot of things happened all at once and you got caught up in the wrong end of it."
The boy snorted.
They were quiet. Ellone took a sip of her cooling cocoa and licked her lips cleansing them of the rich chocolate. The wind forcefully blue at the small cabin making the wood creak and shake a little. Through a crack in the window a small draft found it's way down Ellone's spine giving her gooseflesh and making her muscles tense.
"I remember it always like this in the winter," she began as she rubbed the back of her cold neck. "I hated it because we couldn't go and play and Squall would always cry because the wind would scare him."
He remained silent.
"I think that I remember one time even you were frightened and started to cry," she giggled a little cupping her smiling face in her hand. "I had to try and get you both to stop crying but you kept talking about Wendigos coming in to steal your soul. I could kill Zell for showing off that monster book of his."
She remained chuckling, lost in her memories and completely oblivious to the fact that He was looking at her with a curious expression.
"Elle, what is it that you want?"
She slowed her laughing slightly and looked back at him. "What?"
He sat up holding his knees to his chest. "What do you want. Really."
"What do you mean?"
"Life wise. You've helped save the world, you have access to many powerful people and you have a gift that others can only envy. You've seen the future, the past, heaven and hell." Pausing he pointed a black, gloved finger at her. "What-do-you-WANT."
What a bold question, she thought. What should one want in their life? Money, Lovers a big house and a dog? Such a question had many answers she thought, and none of them really seemed all that important now that she had found her long lost Laguna and the orphanage gang to boot. What did she want? What could she possibly want?
She thought for a time and then answered, "I don't know, what do you want?"
Shrugging he replied, "I should want redemption."
She chuckled, never had he, in the entirety of his young life done anything that he should. Not really being able to catch herself she started to giggle.
Grumpily, Seifer grunted in response.
She ran an index finger over the rim of her mug spreading the moisture all over the ceramic. "I want to make everything right."
He didn't move but only looked back into the fire, the flames dancing in his bright green gaze.
Taking a sip she groaned and clicked her nails against the blue porcelain.
"What are you going to do," she asked.
There was a long pause before her answered. "I don't know."
--
When the fire died that had both gone to their sleeping places, hers upon the couch and his before the fireplace, both clutched their eyes tightly trying to force out the sound of the hard cold wind outside.
There wasn't anymore conversation that night. Ellone chose to cut her losses and remained silent.
She wondered, though, about him. What was he thinking, what was on his mind.
His voice cut through the cold dark quietly climbing over the winds and torment outside. "Do you think that I could go back?"
"Is that what you want?"
A pause followed by, "I don't want to feel like this anymore."
There was rustling of movement through fabric in the distance. When he stood she saw that he was naked, the moonlight glowing off of the snow gave his body a silvery, ethereal glow. She felt cold, nervous and excited all at once and her insides began to twist.
He climbed on top of her, pressing his lips onto hers, his hand cupping her hot cheek invisibly flushed due to the darkness.
"Take me back," he whispered into her ear making her flesh twist and prickle all over her body. His voice calm and velvet, "Take me back." It was a plea, not a demand.
While he reached his hand up her night shirt she tried to grasp his consciousness. His mind was slick and hard to gain hold of, his heart hard and too strong against her prodding skill.
He took off her pants then, dropping them on the floor. Feeling his hot hand caress the even hotter and more secret places of her she began to shiver and took hold of the back of his head and forcing it to her lips.
That's when he put his hardness in her. She winced from it pinching her but she held onto him as if he could make the pain lessen; he didn't. Rhythmically he moved inside of her the rocking of their bodies sending ripples of pleasure through her, making her head spin.
Finally able to grasp his mind, she took hold of his memories but for only quick, brief, white flashes of them. A school desk covered in hate graffiti, a pair of bright red sneakers, a sobbing girl with red eyes, a young man wearing black glaring and finally a blonde woman whose plush lips smiled intoxicatingly as her gold locks whipped about her porcelain face. These were all scenes and faces familiar to her yet also distant and strange.
When Ellone came back the boy laid on top of her shuddering, droplets of tears fell from his face and onto her shirt.
Then he fell asleep and shortly after so did she. When she would wake he would be gone. It didn't surprise her, it didn't even bother her. He was going to fix his life now.
She stayed for only one more day before she decided to go back to Esthar where upon a particular February morning she came to realize of the child inside of her. She didn't make any means to contact him and when Squall invited her to move in with him and his new wife in a house out in the middle of nowhere, she took it not wanting to be around many people, especially Laguna.
Several months passed and now it was a cool August day whipping wind at her her and causing her blanket to become unruly as she contemplated a certain decision.
--
"Elle!" Rinoa called from the house. Ellone turned watching the young woman wade through the tall grasses to get to her.
"You should be careful, there are still monsters out here, y'know," Rinoa chastised as she sat down next to her on the blanket pressing the temper-mental corner to the ground with her knee.
Ellone laughed, "So, you're my protecter now?"
"Yup, sworn and dutified!"
"Don't I feel honored," Ellone quipped back absently stroking her swollen abdomen.
Looking into the sky Rinoa asked, "Whatcha doin' out here anyways?"
"Nothing, just thinking," Ellone sighed.
"'Bout?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Ellone said, turning her face away from the girl.
Taking her gaze from the sky, Rinoa lent forward grabbing her knees. "Oh."
"Look, it's nothing. Just living in the past."
Rinoa giggled. "It's what you're good at."
Ellone groaned.
"Have you tried contacting him?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Ellone now looked at the girl and gave her a faint smile that came out almost like a smirk."Why should I? He's where he needs to be and that's good enough for me."
Rinoa turned to face her friend, her sister. She smiled and pressed her hand on her rotundas stomach. "Have you thought of any names?"
Ellone giggled, "You ask a lot of questions."
Rinoa began to giggle too, "I'm just curious, y'know. Sorceress' can't have babies."
It was true. Sorceress' weren't able to have children but to the frustration of Squall and Rinoa's efforts, they still tried. They wanted a baby so badly and due to the orphanages having been destroyed by the sorceress and the Gardens claiming themselves as the legal guardians to the orphans, the two remained child-less.
"I think Gage is a good name for a boy, and I've always been partial to Eva for a girl. I dunno, i don't really like long names." Rinoa giggled, "No offense."
"None taken," said Ellone placing her hand on top of Rinoa's.
There was a thought, a suggestion that Ellone wanted to deliver to her brother and her newest sister. Something, that she knew would truly make them happy.
"I want to offer you something," Ellone began.
After all the child came to exist only in an effort to save a boy from his pain, to help him become something better. This child, mingled together with both pieces of her and Seifer in an action of love, romantic or not, between two people. Above anything else, Ellone wanted this very same child growing inside of her to life out it's life nurtured by an equal love to which it was made. She wanted this child to have a mother and father who yearned for it more than anything else in the known world.
Rinoa looked at Ellone, her eyes wide and teary from the woman's suggestion. The girl began to shake and a single tear fell down her cheek soon to be followed by many. They embraced each other, one crying the other hugging her dear friend remarking about what a good mother Gage would soon have.