fairytale knight
oooo
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Matron likes to read them bedtime stories. Weary and tired they'd shuffle into the bedroom and gather around her, expectant and smiling doe-eyed. Cid remarks that she is their own Snow White and Edea laughs it off, playfully remaking that with the way she looks after them makes them dwarves in their own right.
Squall pouts, Selphie sniffles, Quistis smiles and Irvine protests. Zell stays silent already asleep in his bed, and Seifer thinks.
Seifer is smart. Smarter than lonely Squall and more observant than Know-It-All Quisty. He can see how Matron watches them from the window of the Orphanage when they're outside playing War in the sand, and Matron looks old and tired and worried.
"Matron," Little Seifer asks one day, drawing pictures in the sand as she weeds flowers in the garden. "Why are we the only kids here?"
Edea looks startled at the question and pauses in her work for a second. The moment is gone and she smiles gently in the little blond boy's direction. "Maybe it's fate," she says while laughing, and Seifer likes hearing her laugh.
"Maybe it's fate," he repeats back and erases the people in the sand until there's only the seven of them left.
Big Sister Ellone likes to help Matron read the stories. "Elle," Seifer says at night, gazing into the rafters from his bed. "What's a 'Sorceress' Knight'?"
Ellone keeps her voice down as she whispers over Selphie's sleeping form. "Why? Did you like Matron's story?"
Seifer nods eagerly into the darkness and Ellone smiles. "A Knight is someone who loves his Sorceress," she lectures into the quiet night, her voice carrying through the room, in all its six-year-old glory. She sounds older than she really is. "He protects her, and fights for her, and she depends on him and he's always there. They have a special bond that makes them both happy."
"A special bond?" Seifer whispers quietly, and Ellone gives a nod in agreement. He watches her silhouette in the moonlight above her bed for a moment before grinning. "Thanks Elle."
He likes the explanation and asks Matron to read more stories on Sorceresses and their Knights, and memorizes their lines.
"You want to become a Knight someday, Seifer?" Edea asks, half-kidding half-not as they wash dishes in the kitchen. Seifer remembers how Matron looks sometimes when she watches them from this very spot by the window, gazing out past the sea with a sad expression on her face, and he wants to make her happy.
Seifer grins. "I want to be your Knight, Matron!"
Edea smiles and grips the dish in her hands tighter. Seifer wonders if he did something wrong when she doesn't say anything and refocuses on her work more intently than before, and excuses himself out of the room.
He lies in bed that night and reads his fairytales under the blankets with a flashlight. A picture of the story's Knight lies under his fingertips and he runs his eyes over it. The Knight is strong, confident, loyal and kind. He is everything Seifer wants to be for Matron, if only to hear her laugh more often. Matron is his family now, and Seifer hates to see her sad.
"Matron," he asks a few days after, gazing up at her brightly as the rest of the kids shuffle in for the night. "Will you read us another story about a Sorceress tonight?"
Edea's smile is petal-soft and her eyes are unusually bright as she replies, "Maybe another day, Seifer," and Seifer suddenly realizes that he hasn't seen Big Sister Ellone all day today.
Matron's another day turns into another, and another, until Seifer finally stops asking. He hides the fairytale book under his pillow every night and wishes to the stars that one day he'll be strong enough to become Matron's Knight.
The stars twinkle back at him through the window above Ellone's empty bed, and Seifer has hope.
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