Lionheart
It was a
sorry excuse for a lion, it's mane threadbare, it's original tawny yellow faded
to a shade closer to the color of dried dandelion petals. One eye was loose,
the other had clearly already fallen off once and been sewn back on by a clumsy
child's hands. The soft pink felt that had once covered it's nose had long
since been rubbed off, and the black thread stitched on it's paws that had
delineated it's toes was missing in several places. It was tiny, too, barely
the size of an adult hand. About all that could be said for it was the fact
that it's stuffing was still as good as new; being filled with flax seeds
rather than cotton fluff, it's filling wasn't capable of compressing and
shrinking.
Squall
turned the little toy over and over in his hands, sitting on the carpet of the
orphanage playroom with his back to a wall. Just outside, he could hear the
others playing in the yard…or fighting, more correctly.
"Owww,
Seifer, get off!"
"Comm'on,
you wuss, just eat the bug like I told you!"
"Seifer,
leave Zell alone!"
"Mind your
own business, Quisty!"
Squall ignored
the ruckus, simply dismissed it from his mind. He concentrated instead on the
little stuffed lion in his hands.
"Squall,
inside? When it's such a beautiful day?"
Squall
glanced up. Standing in the doorway across from him, clad in her customary
black dress, was Matron. He stared at her for a moment, and then looked back
down at the lion.
"Why aren't
you outside?" she asked.
Squall
shrugged.
Matron
walked across the playroom, carefully to avoid stepping on one of a myriad of
discarded blocks and toys laying about the floor. She cleared away the remains
of a little wooden brick house that Selphie and Irvy had been using to play
Castle Siege that morning, and sat down beside the little boy. "You haven't
been outside in days." Matron remarked.
"Nobody to
play with." Squall said by way of an excuse.
"There are
the other children, Quisty, Zell, and the others. They would play with you."
They tried to, quite often, Matron thought. Especially Quisty and
Selphie…Selphie sometimes actually got him to join in her and Irvy's games,
mainly because she was so cheerful and gleefully persistent that Squall would
eventually just give up and humor her. Quisty was less successful, probably due
to the fact that she tended to come across as bossy.
Squall just
stared up at her. "They aren't Sis." He stated flatly.
Matron was
silent for a long moment, thinking. "No," she said at last, "They're not. But
you can't spend the rest of your life wasting away in here because Ellone is
gone."
The
determined look on Squall's face, and the rebellious glint in those blue eyes,
stated clearer than words that he intended to try. "Should've let me go with
her." He said. Squall was very bitter about that. Children left the orphanage
all the time, when families came to adopt them, but Sis had always promised
that nobody would split them up. Then, in the space of a night and with no
warning, she was gone, and Matron wouldn't save where except that she had gone
somewhere 'safer' for her. Matron's husband, Cid, had left too…Squall was old enough
to intuit that where ever that 'somewhere safer' was, it was Cid who'd taken
her there. He also knew that Matron intended to join them when she could; he'd
heard Matron talking about it with the older children sometimes.
Squall saw
no reason that if Cid could go with Sis to that safer place, and if Matron was
going to go too eventually, why he shouldn't be allowed to go too.
Matron knew
a losing argument when she heard one starting. She decided to try a different
tactic, and looked down at the little lion Squall held in his hands. "Ellone
gave that you, didn't she?"
Squall
nodded. "Just before she left." He replied. "She said she wanted me to have him
now, that it was my turn to have a lion to watch over me until she could come
back for me." That was the night that she left. Sis had woken him up to give it
to him, and told him that she'd 'see him later'. Squall had thought she meant
that morning…it wasn't until he woke up and went looking for her that he
realized she meant much later.
Matron was
touched by the sad symbolism of the gesture. She remembered Ellone telling her
how she had come to posses that little stuffed lion, when she'd asked about it
just after Ellone and Squall's arrival in her orphanage.
"Just
before Uncle Laguna sent me back to Aunt Raine…he took me to a store in that
big city and bought it for me. Said I had the courage of a lion for being a
brave girl when I was caught…but he wanted me to have a real lion to take care
of me until he could come back."
Ellone had
kept it close ever since.
Until she
parted with it to Laguna's son.
"That's a
very special gift." Matron said. "Ellone loves you very much."
"Of course
she does. She's my sis." Squall replied with simple logic. "That's why I should
be with her where she is." He stared stubbornly at her, daring her to
contradict that statement.
Matron
sighed inwardly. For Squall, it was very simple. Ellone was his 'Sis', he loved
her, she loved him, so they should be together. But Squall had no idea of the
realities of the situation, and at six, he was still much too young to
understand. Ellone had been about that age when Estharian soldiers had
kidnapped her, wanting her for a potential successor to the Sorceress Adel of
Esthar, wanting her for her own special gift of letting people see the past.
Squall's father, Laguna, had gone looking for her—Laguna had loved Ellone like
a daughter.
It was
heartbreaking that Laguna's love of Ellone had caused him to never know of his
own son…and that it had probably killed him. Matron had never been able to find
any traces of Laguna Loire, and she and Cid had looked for years. Ellone was
still convinced he was alive…and at eleven, she was starting to understand that
she was inadvertently the reason that Laguna had never known his son…and
probably never would.
"Aunt
Raine was crying for him when she died…I wish I could fix it…"
"Lions are
very noble creatures." Matron said, neatly changing the subject to one less
painful. "There aren't many of them around anymore."
"What are
they like?" Squall asked. "Are they monsters?"
Matron
shook her head. "They're not monsters, they're animals. Big cats."
"Not like
Tabby." Squall didn't like that idea. Tabby was the orphanage cat. In theory,
he was supposed to be a mouser, but Tabby rarely did anything but sleep in the
children's pillows and warm laps. Squall saw nothing noble about a fat orange
cat with the disposition of a throw rug, and he doubted a larger version of
Tabby would be very noble either.
"No, no,
not like Tabby." Matron laughed. "Lions are more…active…for one. They're big
golden cats."
"Big like a
dog?"
"Bigger
than any dog." Matron held a hand up to indicate a height that would come about
up to her ribs if she was standing. "Big like that. And very, very strong.
Ferocious!"
That
sounded more encouraging to Squall. Still… "So're behemoths. I've never heard a
behemoth be called noble."
"Well,
behemoths are ugly. Lions are beautiful animals. Besides, behemoths attack
things for no reason, not just for food or to protect themselves. Lions never
just attack things. Lions are social animals; they have a social order, they
live in groups…"
"Like the
orphanage?"
"Kind of.
They might be dangerous and strong, but they're also smart. They hunt in
groups, like wolves, they sneak up on their prey and work together to bring it
down."
Togetherness
didn't sound all that great to Squall. He was a loner by nature.
It must
have shown on his face, too, because Matron added, "Lions choose to work
together most of the time…but lions can be loners too. Roaming warriors. And
all lions have strong, brave hearts to protect what they hold dear. That's why
Ellone wanted to leave you her lion; so it would protect you now that she
can't."
"Strong,
brave hearts…" Squall repeated, looking back down at the lion. "I like that…"
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Squall
pulled on his cadet uniform jacket, and hastily stuffed a few extra rounds of
ammo for his gunblade in it's pockets. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. Late,
late, I'm going to be late… What a way to start his field exam, first that
training mishap with Seifer, and now this. Taking his gunblade out of it's case
at the foot of his bed, he started out the door…
Shoot, I
forgot. He cursed under his breath, went back into his room, and took his
necklace off his desk and slipped it back on. He paused, then went into a
drawer and pulled out a little box, which he opened.
Inside sat
a little seed stuffed lion, battered, tattered…and much loved. Squall had
always had it…his very first lion, though he couldn't recall where he'd gotten
it, he'd had it as long as he could remember.
"Wish me
luck, okay?" he asked, feeling silly for asking for help from a stuffed animal…but
doing so anyway. "Keep an eye on me when I'm out there. I can use all the help
I can get."
Without
knowning why, he suddenly felt…choked up. Sad?
The voice
of a very young girl whispered through his memory.
"I want
you to have him. He's a brave lion, he'll watch over you and protect you until
I can again…"
Squall
stood there holding the lion for a long moment, puzzeled, before he shook the
feeling off. He was going to be late; he'd wasted enough time. Placing the lion
carefully on his desktop, he picked his gunblade back up and headed out to meet
Instructor Trepe in the main hall.
And the
little stuffed lion watched, it's lopsided eyes somehow sorrowful and more
emotional than any stuffed toy's had a right to be.
FIN