Warning: contains mentions of violence.

Ueda Hanako kept her eyes on the bundled form of her son. If she looked up at the foreign soldiers, she wouldn't be able to keep the hate out of her eyes, would not, perhaps, be able to hold back the curses she wanted to hurl at them.

She wanted to hurl even more curses at her husband, Yuuji. He was a farmer, and had no business trying to fight, not even if the Imperial Army came and told them to arm themselves because the foreign devils were coming. She wanted to curse the Imperial Army for trying to make a stand here, in a simple village, and not continuing on to the fort that was just two days travel beyond. But both Yuuji and the Army officer who'd encouraged the villagers to fight were beyond hearing any curses she might utter.

The foreign devils had cut them down as though they were grass.

That had been just this morning. Now the shadows were growing long as the afternoon waned; the remaining villagers were sitting in the open space reserved for festivals and celebrations while several of the foreign devils kept watch on them. More than thirty villagers, and four foreign devils, but none of the villagers made a move towards them. Only three men of working age remained, and they were all injured. The oldest boy was ten, as so many of the older ones had fought, too: Ishida Katsuo, usually so loud and energetic, now silent and white-faced with shock. The rest were old women, wives and children. They huddled together in fearful silence.

'Foreign devils' had proven to be an all-too-accurate description for the ShinRa forces. They moved too fast, struck too hard, and their eyes glowed the same as the sacred gems she'd seen at Hamachi Shrine, like they held the powers of spirits within.

Hanako wondered if perhaps they did have the powers of spirits within.

She could see the rest of them from here. They were making a pyre in the field at the edge of the village. She noted, with a feeling of detachment, that at least they'd chosen one that had already been harvested; it usually held winter-grown roots and vegetables. It had been turned over just last week, and would need replanting in another moon's time.

She wondered if anybody would have the heart to do so.

"Thieving scum," a voice beside her hissed.

Hanako looked up sharply. "Hush, auntie." She'd lost her husband, but Ayeka-san had lost her own, as well as two sons, in the fighting today. A third had actually left to join the Imperial Army three years before; it had been a year since there had been any word from him. The old woman's eyes burned fierce with hate, and she had the uneasy feeling that if she let her continue, she might not stop at just words.

"Why? It's true." The old woman spat contemptuously. "They're stripping the bodies of any valuables. Thieves and murderers, the lot of them."

One of the foreign devils that guarded them turned to look in their direction, watched them for several long moments with those strange glowing eyes, then turned away.

Hanako breathed a sigh of relief, then looked towards the field.

Now that Ayeka-san had pointed it out, she could see that the foreign soldiers carefully searched each body, removing things, before laying them atop the pyre.

She flinched, and looked back down at her son.

He'd been quiet all day, as if he knew something was wrong, but now he let out a thin wail. Hanako stared at him blankly, then panicked. She had to quiet him.

The soldiers had searched the huts already, perhaps she could – Hanako killed that thought as she looked at one of the foreigners watching them. He stared at her with hard, glowing eyes as her baby cried. She was to scared to even ask. Feeling horribly embarrassed, she hunched, turning away slightly as she nudged the edge of her thin yukata open a little so that her son could feed.

With the steady pull of a mouth on her breast, a new panic began to grow in her. How would she raise him alone? Yuuji had been so proud of the small plot of land his family called their own, but it had taken hard work to raise a crop there, and she'd worked nearly as much as he did in the small field. Now she had a child to look after, and would have to do Yuuji's share as well. The rest of the village would be struggling, too, with so many strong men dead.

Kenichi. Yuuji had been so proud when he was born, had crowed with delight over his first-born son. The midwife had remarked on how big he was, and Yuuji practically glowed with pride. His Kenichi, the first of many sons to follow. Hanako had grumbled that next time, he could see about pushing them out, then, but she'd been smiling, too. It had been a long, hard labour, but she'd already fallen madly in love with her little boy, was wondering what it would be like to have others, a whole family of boys and girls with her eyes, and Yuuji's nose. Although perhaps the girls would be better off if they had her nose, and Yuuji's eyes.

Kenichi wouldn't have any brothers and sisters now, not unless she remarried. It was too soon to even think of such things now, though. Right now, Hanako couldn't think of anything except the big, smiling man that she'd married. A man who should never have died on a battlefield, even one such as this.

One of the soldiers who'd been building the pyre was walking towards them now, a bundle in his arms. It was the one she'd noticed before, because he looked so odd: he was tall and thin with long, white hair, like an old woman.

He stopped to speak to one of the men watching them, the big, red-haired man with the hard eyes. The man nodded, and gestured to a patch of ground. The white-haired soldier moved towards it, and carefully put the bundle down, spreading it open.

The red-haired man spoke, in rough Wutaian. "These were taken from your men. You may look for those which belong to you."

Not thieves, then. Several of the women rushed for the blanket. The man spoke again, voice harsh with warning. "Only that which belongs to you." There was a brief hesitation and they moved forward a little slower.

"What will happen to the soldiers' belongings?" Ayeka called out harshly. Some of the other villagers looked interested in the answer, too: it was the Imperial soldiers who'd cost them so much, and perhaps they'd left something of value behind them. But that idea was firmly quashed.

"Returned with their papers to the next fort we encounter." He seemed unconcerned about the prospect of walking up to an Imperial fortress and handing something over, but maybe these men didn't fear the Imperial Army. Maybe they didn't need to.

Hanako waited until most of the others had gone before she moved to look for herself. And there, on the dull blanket, she saw it. A small charm, in the shape of half a bird in flight.

Yuuji had laughed at the idea of wearing something so girlish, teased her a little for liking it so much. But he'd worn it on a sturdy cord around his neck, all the same, and never took it off. The other half hung around Hanako's neck, on a chain that he'd bought for her the first time they'd visited her family in the city. Just like he'd bought the charms themselves, back when he was courting her. He might have been a farmer, and plain to look at by most standards, but he'd been a romantic at heart.

Shifting Kenichi carefully to one arm, she bent and scooped it up.

Hanako returned to the spot where she'd been sitting, and placed her son in her lap. Moving her hair out the way, she carefully tied the charm around her neck.

The movement had Kenichi making broken crying sounds once more. He'd been fed, and probably should have his wrappings changed, but all the cloths were in the hut, and she didn't want to ask the soldiers if she could get them. Instead she cradled him in her arms, and jiggled him a little, making hushing sounds, hoping that he'd go back to sleep.

There was a sudden rushing sound. Looking up, she saw the pyre was now alight. Yellow-orange flames licked at the piled bodies as though they'd been doused in rice-wine. A wail broke the silence, then others followed as the villagers began to grieve for their dead.

Hanako concentrated on the reddened face of her son, screwed up as if he was trying to decide if he should to add to the noise or not. She didn't want to see her husband's body burning. She didn't want to smell the smoke with its sickly-sweet tinge and know he was gone.

Soon, little flashes of white light would shine amongst the orange flames, a sign of the souls returning to the planet.

Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, Hanako took a deep breath, and set about soothing her son to sleep.

She sung, quietly. Nobody would notice amongst the noise now, she was sure. The sound would be lost amidst the wails of the grieving. The strange foreign soldiers would not look at one small woman with a child.

Or so she thought.

"What are you doing?"

She looked up with a startled gasp to see the soldier with the white hair crouched before her. Her eyes widened further. His eyes didn't just shine; they were shaped strangely, the pupils long black slits against glowing green. The hair that she'd though was white gleamed like polished silver, catching the fading light and reflecting it back. And his features were eerily beautiful.

He didn't look human.

He looked like he was one of the spirits from her mother's stories.

He spoke again in flawless Wutaian, with an accent she'd only heard from those who'd lived in the Imperial City itself.

"What are you doing?" he repeated.

He didn't look angry, and his voice was even.

"Singing a lullabye."

"A what?"

"A lullabye. A song to help a child sleep."

He blinked at her, looked down at the bundle in her arms. Instinctively, she tightened them, and Kenichi stirred in protest.

"Does it work?"

Hanako's lips twitched. "Sometimes."

Now that he was closer, she realised that he was actually quite young. He looked so tall and thin because he was still growing, bones racing ahead of the rest of him the way they sometimes did in young men. The eyes that met hers, so strange and inhuman, were curiously innocent.

She'd seen him fight earlier, watched him swing a long sword through flesh with terrifying ease. It was strange to think that he might be no more than a child himself, and already able to kill so easily.

"How old are you?" she found herself asking, and her eyes widened at her own audacity.

"Thirteen," he replied calmly.

She blinked. Young men grew up faster here in the country than they did in the city, so that at fifteen a young man might be expected to take a wife. And fifteen was the youngest at which the Imperial Army would let a man enlist, although there were rumours that sometimes they didn't scrutinise papers very hard, especially now. Thirteen was the age that, in the city she grew up in, a boy would just be starting an apprenticeship.

Thirteen was too young to be so good at killing things.

"Did your mother not sing you lullabies?"

Those eyes went flat and cold. "No. I don't have a mother."

Hanako shivered.

"He's very small," the strange spirit-child observed.

"He's big for his age," she returned. "And he'll grow to be big and strong like his father." The one that you killed. "Maybe he'll join the Army and kill all of you foreign devils one day." She didn't know where that came from; she didn't want her child to be a soldier. But anger and discomfort and grief made her tongue sharper than she wanted it to be, sharper than was probably safe.

"No," the spirit-child said simply. "Don't let him do that."

"Why? Are you afraid of what he might do?" Her face felt warm and cold at the same time, and she realised that was because she was crying, the tears spilling hot and wet down her cheeks.

"No. He should do something better. Like grow things. All soldiers do is kill." The spirit-child looked at the fields beyond the village. "One of the soldiers I know, he came from a farming village. He said growing things is hard, but that it was satisfying to put food on the table and know that it was there because of your own two hands."

The words were strange, coming from this foreign soldier. She'd heard the words the Army spoke about the villagers, the scorn with which they'd looked at untrained men armed only with scythes and farming implements. They'd seen nothing to admire in farming. Her own sisters had looked down on her for marrying Yuuji, a simple farmer, and not one of the young men she'd grown up with: someone who had a trade and a good house and a steady income not reliant on the whims of the seasons and the bounty of the harvest. Why should a foreign soldier-child feel any different?

"And where is this soldier now? Growing vegetables or fighting?"

"Fighting somewhere further along the coast, I think. He said he left his home because he wanted to travel." He spread his hands before him - pale hands with long, thin fingers - and examined them thoughtfully. "Or he could make things. It's much harder to make things than to destroy them."

Hanako thought of the beautiful woven hanging on the wall of their hut. Her mother had insisted she take it when she married. It was her grandmother's work, and looked a little ridiculous against the thin, bare walls, but Yuuji was so proud of it. He said it was beautiful, just like her.

Perhaps Yuuji wouldn't mind if she didn't raise his son to be a farmer, after all.

"You think he should make things?" she asked, her mind on returning to the city, her family. It would be hard, as her parents were older now and her brother had taken over the family business, but she still remembered the basics of weaving. She could work to earn her own keep.

"Yes. It's much better than being a soldier. Killing is nothing for a mother to be proud of."

She looked up and met glowing eyes once more, so innocent and straightforward as they looked at her. So sad.

"Will you sing it again?"

Hanako didn't answer. Instead, she looked at Kenichi's sleepy face, and sang.

"Mori no fukuro ga iimashita
watashi wa mori no mihari yaku

Kowai okami, kitsune nado
kosasenai kara ne ne shina

Gorosuke ho ho
Gorosuke ho."

When she repeated it, she caught the barest whisper of an echo, and looked up to see the young soldier's lips moving, a look of concentration on his face, as if he wished to memorise the words and tune.

Hanako wondered who it was she was really singing for, the child in her arms, or the child who sat before her, wearing the uniform of the enemy.

And if it really mattered at all.

* * *

Author's note: The lullabye above is actually a traditional Japanese lullabye, 'The Forest Owl'. (And yes, it's public domain.)

The forest owl said
I am the guardian of the forest

fearsome wolves and kitsune and the like
won't be allowed to come near, so sleep, sleep

gorosuke (name of the owl) hoo hoo
gorosuke hoo

Interestingly, it is the only one I could find that conveyed the kind of feeling I was going for, which was one of comfort. Most of the Japanese cradle songs I came across were fairly revolutionary in their lyrics, concerning the inequities between the ruling class/conquerors and the poor/conquered people, who were often reduced to the status of servants. Appropriate, don't you think?