The Identity of An Angel

Summary: A young Cecil visits his mother's grave, struggling all the while to recall who she was.

Spoilers: Yep. Mild and subtle, but they're there in a way.

Rating: PG

Genre: General

A/N: This was written for The FFIV Writing Circle--Challenge I, and the challenge items were Mist, Twilight, and a Statue of an Angel. I believe I satisfied the conditions. )

If you'd like to vote for my story or are simply curious about the Writing Circle, see the forum "Red Wings, Troian Dancers, and FFIV Addicts" and the topic "FFIV Writing Circle" for details. Thanks!
Hope you enjoy the story.

Story:

A boy no more than seven leaned against the railing of a balcony, gazing out across what he could see of the Baron's castle, chewing his lip as he considered a plan in his mind. He'd taken care to cover as much of himself as possible in a dark cloak, even covering his hands in gloves, for his skin was so pale as to be almost luminescent at night, and his hair was even paler, being snowy white.

The nighttime autumn mist had drifted in some hours ago, and it now settled thick and heavy over the cool stones, unmoving in the stagnant air, save when a lonely wanderer or a guard on duty passed by, the sweep of his passing creating brief eddies and swirls in the cloud-stuff. The last of the crickets chirped sporadically, but as the weather had grown much cooler in recent days, most insects remained silent, huddled in their burrows, keeping warm. The temperature hovered on the edge, threatening to dip just a little lower and cause the mist to turn to frost, but as of yet such a dip had not occurred, and only dew collected on exposed surfaces, sparkling in what moonlight found its way thought the low hanging clouds and the mist.

The guards on duty brought their hands up to rub life back into numb noses and pulled the collars of their cloaks higher over their cheeks and lips, hunching in the chill air and thinking dark thoughts about the mist. It seeped into everything, right to the bone, only adding to the already uncomfortable chill. Every now and again, the muffled clink of a guard's mail or the soft stamp of nearly numb, booted feet punctuated the air. But, as far as the boy's eyes and ears could detect, the guards followed ordinary and easily avoidable paths of patrol.

Therefore, with a nod to himself, the boy turned and speedily and stealthily made his way inside, then down to the ground floor, sneaking from there across the courtyard to a hidden, secret doorway, a passage through the wall and to the currently shallow moat that surrounded the castle. The doorway was usually locked, but the boy had managed to procure a key, and he soon had the door open. From there, he carefully propelled himself over the moat, managing – barely – to leap over the sluggish flow of water without getting himself wet or making a splash. Then, he was off, hurrying away from the castle before he could have been spotted by any of the sleepy guards.

The grass swished around his legs and caused his cloak to grow a bit heavier with moisture, but he didn't care. Most of him was dry and relatively warm, and he was free from the walls and free of eyes following him, and that was all that mattered, at this juncture. Careful to make no noises louder than that swish, the boy hurried parallel to the road winding from the easily visible castle to the walled city of Baron. The gates were, of course, closed at night, just as the castle's were, but the boy wasn't headed for any place within the gates. Rather, he snaked his way around and to the side of the city, to the graveyard that sprawled nearby, watched over by lonely groves of trees and a solitary grave keeper.

At last reaching the edges of the field of gravestones and mausoleums – including the crypt of the line of kings – the boy slowed to a respectful walk and even went as far as entering through the short gate, which was neither open nor locked; its hinges weren't even squeaky as the boy opened it and slipped inside. He took a deep breath of the tranquil, clammy air and sighed. Then, he started forward slowly, eyeing row as he passed it, despairing at the sheer number of graves, wondering how he would ever find her grave. They'd told him that she – a woman they thought might have been from Mist or Mysadia, what with the way she dressed, though of course they weren't sure – had died within a day of bringing him here, unable to tell them anything save her name and his, unable to do more than utter a plea on behalf of her own gravely ill, injured son.

And now that son was looking for her grave; the healers hadn't permitted him to leave the infirmary in the castle for days after he'd at last awakened from a fevered and delirious sleep, and even a few days ago, when they'd at last permitted him to venture outside of the infirmary's rooms, they'd still refused to let him come to the graveyard, though he'd been able to see it from the top of the castle's walls, if he squinted. It was only now, at night, after having found that secret door and borrowed a key from one of the sleeping White Mages – two lived in the castle, while the other three or four lived in the city of Baron with their families – that the boy had found the opportunity to come find her grave and pay his respects, even if he didn't remember who she was.

That really bothered him, the lack of memory. It wasn't that he had no memories of his past, but more that they were elusive, foggy, barely comprehensible, even though he was still a child himself and ought to have remembered things that had happened two years, a year, six months, four weeks ago! But he didn't, and therein laid his problem. He had a vague image in his mind of his mother, a recollection of how her presence felt and how her voice sounded and how she always smelled faintly of rose petals, but he could not fit all of these things together into one solid memory of her.

He wondered if the illness had addled his brain as much as it had wrecked his body. True, the near skeletal appearance of his frame was now filling out again with boyish exercise and food and he had certainly regained a healthy pallor, and the nasty wounds had healed with only thin scars to mark them, but he doubted that his memory, if it had been damaged, would recover like his body. That didn't stop him from wishing.

Lost in the middle of the graveyard, he let out an anguished moan as he realized the enormity of his task of finding her grave. There were hundreds of graves here! How would he ever find hers among them?

"What are you doing here in the middle of the night? Who are you?" demanded a gruff voice behind the youth, and the boy spun around, eyes widening and breath catching in fright; his hood slipped off from the sudden motion, and the owner of the voice sucked in his breath in surprise of his own. "Are you a ghost?!" gasped the gruff voice, now clearly belonging to the sturdy, though somewhat hunched, gravekeeper.

"N-no, no, I'm not!" The boy's voice trembled a little as he hastened to assure the gravekeeper that he was no specter. "My name's Cecil, sir, and I'm not a ghost!"

The gravekeeper frowned, narrowing his eyes a bit at the boy, but after some deliberation, accepted the boy's words and again asked, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm… I'm looking for my m-mother's grave," admitted the boy, after some hesitation. "Sir," he added, hastily.

"Your mother, eh?" The gravekeeper, though still a bit suspicious, relaxed a little more. "When did she die?"

"A couple weeks ago, sir," answered Cecil.

"Oh, her," said the gravekeeper, his brow furrowing at the boy, fixing upon the bright white hair and the ears, which he noted were slightly pointed. If this boy was her son… then what had she been? The keeper had, of course, heard the rumors, that she was one of the strange and eccentric Mist-folk, or that she was a Mysadian, as well as other more wild and unlikely tales, but seeing this boy, the keeper couldn't help but wonder if some of those fanciful stories were closer to the truth. However, the gravekeeper finally seemed to decide that it was none of his business. He nodded.

"This way, kid," he said, turning and threading his way along the paths to the far edge of the graves, taking Cecil down the row to newer, less weather-beaten stones with mounds of earth barely covered in sparse weeds and dead leaves. "It's that one." The man extended his hand, pointing with a long, pale finger at the newest grave in the row.

Cecil's tongue darted out, moistening his dry lips, as he stared at the grave. Then, nodding and swallowing, he stepped forward slowly, approaching the grey granite stone – a small thing that would, in a year or two, be nearly covered over by weeds and grass. For a few moments, the boy simply stood over the stone and the mound, looking down at them with a confused, forlorn expression. Then, slowly, he bent down, kneeling in the damp grass. He, after removing a glove, reached out and traced the brief engraving:

AMALTHEA HARVEY

May She Rest in Peace

A fair enough engraving, but something about it struck Cecil as wrong. Simply wrong. It wasn't the epitaph, though, but the name. Amalthea… yes, he supposed his mother had been named Amalthea. It rang a bell, but Harvey…? His father's family name surely had not been Harvey… had it? Cecil didn't think so. But, then again, when he thought of his father, the only image that emerged was a faint impression of strength, otherworldliness and of light – pure, white light. No name. No actual appearance… nothing definite.

An irritated sigh escaped his lips. Again, he was halted by the confines of a foggy memory! Weren't the young supposed to be able to remember well and the old be the ones struggling to recall even the strongest details?

"What did she look like?" he asked, turning towards the grave keeper only… only to find that he was gone, and Cecil was alone, again.

A second sigh escaped the boy's lips, as, downcast, he returned his attentions to the gravestone. He allowed his thin fingers to trail absently over the stone for a few more minutes before he at last stood up and brushed the dirt and leaves from his clothing. Lingering a little while longer, Cecil memorized her name and her location within the graveyard, determining to visit her again and keep on visiting her until he remembered. Maybe… maybe this tenuous connection with his past would someday spark the memories? Or maybe not. It didn't hurt to at least leave that possibility open.

Finally, Cecil turned and left. At the entrance, however, he paused and looked back over the graveyard. As he did so, the moon briefly shone through a partition in the clouds and the mist, and a shaft of light illuminated an angelic statue adorning one of the nearby gravestones. Cecil found himself staring at it, even after the mist had swirled, again, hiding the moon and almost obscuring it from view, as well.

An angel.

It struck him: his mother was now an angel… wasn't she? Maybe… maybe it was better to think of what she was now, rather than what she had been. It was certainly more comforting. The boy nodded to himself. Yes, an angel. His mother was an angel. It didn't matter what the nurses and mages whispered about her or what the rumors mongers hissed – Cecil had his firm and definite answer: his mother was an angel.

Satisfied, the boy turned and left the graveyard, slipping back to the castle and making it as far as the hallway outside of the infirmary before one of the caretakers demanded in a shrill voice to know just where he'd been sneaking off to. But that was all right, because after a while, he was no longer a boy, and though he still had to account for himself, no one minded his occasional excursions to the graveyard. And, since only Rosa and Kain had ever asked him about his mother, he'd never had to endure any scoffing at the thought of his mother being an angel.

It was only much later, over ten years later, however, that he learned that he'd been wrong: His mother was not the angel. No, the angel was his father.

But that only brought up a whole new line of questions, and these, Cecil felt, were not so easily solved by moonlit walks in earthly graveyards.

the end.

A/N:

There really ought to be a genre labled "rambling", in my opinon.

Anyway, to address a few things concerning this story:

Cecil's Memories: I've always found it odd that he doesn't remember having a brother or anything like that, and I know that sometimes when you're really ill, your memories get messed up, or you can have amnesia of a sort. Hence my reasoning of his being ill and not remembering well.

Cecil's Mother: Um... pure speculation, really, the details about her. )

Pointy ears: Way back when, a friend of mine at school and I were having a discussion on moon people - not Lunarians specifically, but just people living on the moon - and we decided that, for no reason whatsoever, they would have bunny ears. However, we eventually decided that bunny ears would be very cumbersome for going through doorways and instead settled on really pointy ears a la anime elf ears. And the idea of moon people with really long pointy ears has never exactly left my head, so... yeah. Deal with it. XD

If I've forgotten anything or if you've any questions, comments, concerns, rantings, flames, whatever, please feel free to leave a review. Thank you ever so much for reading.

Ciao!

Love, Snarky