Disclaimer: I wish! … Hey, wait, Christmas is coming up? Did you get me my present yet? Care to buy me a few copyrights?
Warnings: Mild language is all I can really claim. I can't even claim spoilers.
Random Notes: This is written as a prequel to The Lady and the Lion by Eddy Leonhartslover.
Author's Ramblings: Seifer made me do it! -points finger- He was whining in my head one day that every fiction I write is about Squall and not him, that he wanted a fiction all to himself. So to satisfy his godly ego, (by that I mean inhumanly large,) I wrote this little piece. It's not meant to be about anybody but him. But I had to add a few pieces of Squall in to help out. Can't have all mighty sex god Almasy –coughs-in his dreams-coughs- have all the fun. Now if you don't mind I have a gunblade to hide from. –runs away screaming like a little girl-
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Two figures stood over a wailing baby boy. They both examined the child like they had never seen one before.
"Do you think he'll be the one this time?" The male of the pair asked.
"I haven't a clue." The female answered. "Besides lover, this one is yours."
"Why does Hyne have to give us the hard part?"
"Raising and training a child is not the hard part."
"You've said that the past 100 times we've done this." His eyes burned with an internal fire. He hated when she could say 'I told you so' over and over again.
"Yes, I have. But it's never worked for thousands of years." She rubbed her hand together. "Would you just get this over with?"
"Patience, sweetheart." A large hand came down to caress the boys face before it touched the forehead of the child. A mark burned into his skin, burning like the fires of hell. "Done."
"Good now lets get out of here I can hear the mother coming."
Both figures disappeared from the bare room. Leaving the child to cry his poor little heart out.
The mark flared to life and died as his mother entered the room. She quickly scooped the boy up and began to rock him.
"Quiet my darling Seifer. You have nothing to fear, mommy is here."
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"And you are picking this sickly child?" The male voice very nearly screamed.
"He may look small, but he has a good heart and he'll face things that will temper him to what we need." The female turned and glared at her lover. "And could you please shut up? They'll hear you."
"At least you could have picked a strong child like mine." The male cut back. "This one isn't even crying." If they weren't so regal one could almost say that the man was pouting.
The female leaned over the youngster and whispered some words to him. Before she touched his forehead with a long slender finger. Her mark froze the skin and glittered in the light like diamonds.
"Good now lets get out of here before that curious girl comes back."
"She'll know something about this later on anyway. It'll be hard to keep anything from her."
"Whatever."
"Whatever," a small voice said.
"Oh look," the woman cooed, "you taught him his first word."
"Whatever," the little voice said again.
"Lets get out of here before he learns anything else." The male said as he grabbed the woman by the waist and disappeared.
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"Naomi?"
"Shh, he's sleeping." The woman named Naomi shifted in the seat, her arms going numb under the strain of holding the boy in her arms.
"Sorry sweetheart. But we are here."
A blue car pulled up in front of a small house. Smoke rose from its chimney as the sound of the rain drowned any sounds from inside.
"Do you really think they will take him? The poor dear." The woman Naomi sighed. "He has nothing left."
"They'll take him. Besides we have two on the way. We can't keep him."
"I know, but Ken, it breaks my heart to leave him here." Naomi kissed the boy on the cheek before she moved him around in her arms, her swollen belly making it hard to hold into the small form.
"I know love." Ken got out of the car and walked around to let his wife out of the car. The rain soon wetting down his raven black hair.
They took a few steps up to the door and knocked soundly. It was a moment before a woman answered the door.
"Oh dear please come in." The woman said in a kind voice. "You can put the boy on the couch. I'll just go fetch some blankets. Would you like some tea while I'm up?"
"No, thank you," Naomi and Ken both replied.
When the woman returned she helped her guest get comfortable.
"Madam," Ken started.
The woman held her hand up. "Please call me Matron."
"Matron, this boy…"
"I understand. His parents?"
"Killed by Ultimecia."
"Oh my" Matron held her hand to her face. "I'm so sorry, I had assumed you had come to me for healing. The boy's name?"
"We only know him as Seifer." Naomi whispered. "He was a local boy."
"Then what should I say is his last name?
Ken looked up. "We could give him ours."
"Honey, he has that strange necklace." Naomi twisted in her seat. "There is writing on it. Maybe that is his last name."
Matron looked at the woman sitting in her living room. "And what does it say?"
Naomi twisted her hands in her lap. And then looked to her husband.
"We can not read." He said.
"And you have not asked him?" Matron asked.
"Whenever we came near him he just started to cry, so we thought it best not to push him."
"Thank you." Matron got up and led the pair from the house. Only Naomi looked back. Matron smiled when she saw it. She knew Seifer had already drifted into the woman's heart. If only her husband would look at the boy the same way.
She drifted over to the boy on the couch and gently twisted the metal she found around his neck.
"Almasy, how cute, the son of the Knight."
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"Why are you crying?
"Go away!"
"No!"
"Go away!"
"Are you scared of the dark?"
The blonde boy visibly flinched and turned away. "NO!" Seifer nearly screamed. "Zell's the one who is a scaredy cat!" He lowered his voice some more when he realized that everybody was asleep and he could wake somebody else up.
"Sis told me one it's ok to cry. And it's ok to be scared."
"Well sis is wrong, besides she is a girl. Big boys don't cry."
"Can I tell you a story?"
"Nothing is stopping you from talking."
"Whatever." A small brunette boy sat down beside Seifer. "Sis used to tell me a story at night so that I wasn't scared."
"And I care because?"
The brunette boy just shrugged off the words. "She told me about a long long long long long long …"
"I get the point."
"Whatever. A really long time ago, there were these men. They hated each other, more then anything ever. They always fought each other. And one was the other's equal in everything. And because of this they fought harder.
"But they both fell in love with the same princess.
"At first that's all they fought over. And she gave them both her favour."
"What's a favour?"
"I'm not sure. I think it's a kiss."
"Eww! Do I have to listen to this?"
"There isn't much kissing."
"Really?"
"Yep."
"Ok, go on."
"Anyway, it turns out their sweet princess was really an ugly witch. And she turned the two against each other. She even made them so mad that a war started."
Seifer leaned and his hand tilting his whole body to the side. He kind of liked this story. He didn't like the kissing part much, but he knew there wasn't any kissing in war. War killed people.
"A war that was so terrible it was pulling everything apart.
"A gentle fairy tried to stop the war. She hated how her land was being destroyed. So she showed one knight exactly what the princess was doing to him. This made him very mad.
"He was so mad he stopped the war and started a new one. He was going to kill the princess for what she did.
"Well the other knight didn't like that so he protected the princess with his life.
"But the fairy didn't want the knight to die, because she knew he was only fighting because he believed he was right. So she showed him how the princess wasn't what he thought she was.
"And he turned himself over to his life long enemy.
"Because the first knight was an honourable knight he let the second knight live. And the second knight even joined him in battle.
"And now that she had both knights fighting against her she attacked them both with their own armies.
"They fought real hard. But they were killed in the fight. But not before they had hurt the old witch so much that she was dieing." The young boy leaned back and looked up through the window. He paused in his story to let everything sink in.
"The kind fairy was really sad that the knights has to die. She cried over their bodies for three weeks. Not eating or sleeping.
"Hyne heard her crying and looked down at the knights. They were both pure of heart and strong.
"So he lifted them in his hand and put them with the stars."
"Really?" Seifer sat up straight, his eyes full of hope and wonder.
"Yep, sis always pointed them out to me."
"I've never seen knight's in the stars."
"They are there." The brunette pointed up into the sky.
"I still don't see them."
"See those two really bright stars?"
"Ya?"
"Those are the jewels on the pommels of their swords."
"Really?"
"Ya."
"Squall?"
"Ya?"
"Can you tell that story to me again tomorrow night?"
"Yep."
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"Do you ever think about them?" A small brunette boy asked.
Seifer curled up into a ball and hugged his legs close. "I don't even remember them."
"You don't make up stories about them in your head?"
"Ya."
"Tell me about them?"
"No, if I do you'll make them go away."
"Will not!"
"Will too!"
"You will! Even sis didn't stay!"
The words were harsh and probably meant to be that way. They sent the younger boy running back toward the orphanage where they were living, tears threatening to spill from the young boys eyes.
Seifer sat on the beach overlooking the water. His dreams where his, and he knew that he couldn't get to them if he stayed there. And he knew his leaving would hurt his best friend so much more then his best friends 'sis' leaving. So he knew with a heavy heart that he was going to have to make the small boy hate him just so that the break would be cleaner. He didn't want Squall crying night and day like when sis left.
He was going to be a knight in shining armour.
Knights saved beautiful woman in distress and then traveled on to the next. And he did so until he found his princess and settled down for the rest of his life.
He was going to go to a garden and become a SEED and be a hero. He was going to be strong, stronger then his parents. They had died in the war, too weak to fight back.
He was going to save himself a princess and win her heart. And he was going to have 20 kids so that he could play with them all in a big back yard.
And he would keep them all safe.
Unknown to him the mark on his forehead began to glow red with fire as he thought about becoming a knight. Growing stronger as his will to make the dream come true grew.
And somewhere else another young boy had a matching mark burn blue with ice as he too thought about righting all the wrongs in the world.