Author's Note: If headstones could talk, they would have a lot of sad stories to tell... Just something I had to let out.
Disclaimer: Gundam Seed and all its characters belong to their respective owners.
A Valentine of Stone
He brings me flowers every Valentine's Day.
I don't deserve them, but he still comes every year… He's grown with the passing of the seasons. The wind ruffles his midnight blue hair and his solemn green eyes are focused only on me.
All my life I've stayed in the same, lonely place, among rows and rows of my kind. My heart is made of the coldest stone. I have no eyes. I cannot mourn. But even the coldest stone must yield to the constant battering of wind and rain. How it happened, I can imagine not, but something has made this heart of mine… soften is not exactly the word. Touched. I suppose I was touched. If only a little.
When I was still new, they came together, the boy and his father. The boy was trying to be brave, his back stiff, his shoulders straight. His eyes were swimming in unshed tears. He never looked at the taller man standing next to him. The older man never looked in the direction of his son either. The chill in his eyes made ice seem warm. Though they came together, they stood apart from one another, each immersed in their own thoughts as they stared at what my existence meant for them. Then they left.
I never saw the man again.
But the boy couldn't stay away. I suppose he had nowhere else to go.
That very night, he came back. It was raining hard. At first I'd thought I was imagining the sounds of soft footsteps squelching in the mud through the rush of spattering rain and unbridled wind. Though I have no trouble seeing in the dark, I heard him – panting as he ran as hard as he could – heard his haggard breathing before I could clearly make out the small shape approaching in the distance. He slipped. He fell. For a moment, I thought he would stay on the ground. He was so exhausted, I could tell that he was ready to pass out. He pushed himself to his knees, then ran on.
When he finally reached his destination, he just stood there, staring at me as if suddenly wondering what he was doing here. His pupils swayed with fatigue, but at the same time, they glittered with a myriad of emotions. Finally, he squeezed his eyes shut and let go of the sobs that had been constricting his chest ever since I first laid eyes on him that morning. He sank to his knees and let them out, painfully, unwillingly. If he had been able to keep them inside for longer, he would have. He simply could not hold the pain inside any longer.
When the sobs subsided, and the torment of letting it all out had passed, he became aware of the freezing rain. Shuddering hiccups still wracked his small body as he curled up against me, seeking the warmth of his mother – the warmth that was no longer there.
All I had to offer was a cold, hard surface that provided no real protection from wind or rain, but he pressed his slight frame to me as if I held the only comfort in the world. He no longer wept, but teardrops still clung to his long lashes as he fell asleep in my stony embrace.
Though I cannot place it, something changed in me that night. As much as a stone tablet can change. There had been the slightest of movements in my heart of stone. I wanted to soothe away his hurt, and found that I could not. I felt powerless.
He still brings me flowers every Valentine's Day.
I don't deserve them, but he comes every year… He stands tall, with the wind in his midnight blue hair and his sad green eyes focused solely on my inscription:
Lenore Zala, C.E.33 – C.E.70