II;
Fujin—or Eleanor as Matron had introduced her (what a dumb name!)—fit into orphanage life pretty well, inasmuch as she blended well into the background. The little girl often took to joining Squall in the shadows, watching the rest of them play. Seifer, too, found his little private space frequently invaded by her, not that he minded it. Fujin was so unassuming that often one did not even notice she was there. Raijin, like Seifer, had seen Fujin for what she was immediately, stared at her (she stared back, of course) over ten feet of dusty yard and gone away satisfied. The silent child had ignored just about everyone else, even Edea (who, Seifer overheard, was equally stumped as to what language she spoke, and was trying vainly to teach her English). Seifer, too, had tried his best to get Fujin addicted to knight movies, to no avail. She was not a romantic girl.
"Seifer, too much of that will rot your brain." Matron sounded uncommonly nettled, possibly because she had just finished trying to communicate with the recalcitrant silver-haired newcomer. Said boy looked up from the television screen where two knights in shining (but slightly rusty) armor were busily challenging each other.
"But Matron," he whined. Honor was one thing, but Seifer wasn't above whining when it suited his purposes.
"No buts." Edea put her foot down firmly. "Go play in the lighthouse or something; I need to talk with your Uncle Cid." Oh, so that's it. She wants us all out so she can talk about grown—up—things with Uncle Cid. As Seifer switched off the television and watched the player spit the little tape back out into his hand, Edea moved through the small house, chasing all little prying eyes and ears out into the sunshine. Stowing the tape safely in its little drawer, Seifer heard Edea calling him from the door.
"Seifer, have you seen Eleanor?"
"Eleanor who?" Seifer had decided long ago not to acknowledge the use of this patently silly name for Fujin, who had a perfectly good one already. Raijin had been ignoring it too, anyway.
"You know who Eleanor is."
"I dunno."
Matron raised an eyebrow. "All right, go and find her, then. Play with her or something." The dark-haired woman bent and kissed Seifer gently on his cheek, then gave him a boot on the arse. "Now run along, dear."
Seifer scowled—he hated it when Matron treated him like a child—but he ran along.
Fujin was in the lighthouse; that much Squall would say before he clammed up again. The others were talking about playing tag down on the beach, so he'd have had to go to the lighthouse anyway just to escape the incoming gaggle of screaming kids. Taking the steps two at a time (telling himself all the way that he wasn't exactly obeying Matron, he just wanted to do it), Seifer ran out of breath halfway u, and had to walk slowly the rest of the way, hanging on to the railing.
At the top, the gold-headed boy shoved upwards on the little hatch that obligingly gave way so that he could clamber out into the tower room a little dizzy from the dash up the spiral staircase. He didn't notice what Fujin was doing at first, but when he did, he yelled in surprise and yanked the girl away from the window. She'd been pushing against the barrier spell, prying it apart with pale fingers. It was a lesser-known weakness of shield or protect spells that they could be broken by steady pressure from a dull object when any amount of hitting or slashing with the heaviest of swords wouldn't work. Matron had warned them about it; but how could Fujin have known?
Only then did he realize what Fujin had been trying to reach. Outside, around the lighthouse, something swirled, circling the confines of the protect spell like a wild beast circling its cage. It was trying to get in, Seifer knew as surely as he knew sunlight was good. Wind battered against the spell, one-two-three times in quick succession. Fujin tore away from his grasp, reaching a hand out towards the spell-wall and slowly digging her fingers through. Seifer could only watch, sick with fear and the certainty that the little girl would poke her hand all the way through and shatter the spell and they would all be blown down and dashed to bits on the rocks below in front of Squally and the others' eyes.
Silvery light coalesced around the little girl's fingers, taking the form of fingers curling around her small ones. The rest of the being drew itself together in a shimmer of particles—a woman, indistinct and ghostly, with long hair and a pair of silvery-wings arching out from her shoulderblades. Fujin wasn't smiling—she never smiled—but there was an odd twitch to her lips as her small fingers curled around otherworldly ones.
The shimmering woman-shape pulsed once, fingers seeming to squeeze her small hand once, and then it dissolved, swirling away on the wind in a shower of sparks to leave the two children behind.
III;
"One year," Edea said worriedly, shaking her head as she looked out the window at the children playing in the yard. Fujin and Squall were standing opposite each other, both hidden in the shadows. Squall was part of the shadow itself, dark blending back into dark, while Fujin seemed to draw the shadows around her to hide her pale skin. The little girl had taken a liking to the color blue, and now insisted on blue clothing with gestures and flat refusals to wear anything not in her chosen color. Right now, the scrawny child was attired in an old shirt of Edea's in a very dark shade of black-blue, long enough to serve as skirt and camouflage. Her ruined eye was covered by a makeshift bandage or eyepatch of black cloth. As Edea watched, the small figure doubled over in a coughing fit before straightening and wiping her hand off on her gifted shirt.
"I'm sure she'll be fine, Edea." With a sigh Cid moved behind her, fingers seeking out the knots of tension in her shoulders and kneading them out. Edea sighed as well, leaning back trustingly.
"I'm sorry to dump this on you, dear, but it is worrying. I thought the malnutrition and other things would clear up, but she has been getting thinner although she eats as much as any of the other children, and she has been sick twice as much as any of them. If this keeps on going, I really don't know what will happen." Edea's voice had been getting increasingly shrill, and Cid gave up on the massage and simply enveloped his wife in a hug.
"Don't worry, 'Dea, it'll be all right." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Perhaps her body is just weak—"
"Don't you think I've checked? There is nothing weak about her but… I have been thinking, that maybe it is an outside force. The villagers mentioned her being bad luck and her mother being a witch—perhaps the poor woman was a minor sorceress or a sorceress in potentia, and summoned something or other by mistake… I think I should go back and ask them. Do you think you could watch this place for me, Cid?" The Garden headmaster frowned.
"Well, the GF-integration process needs watching, but---" he saw his wife's harried look and amended swiftly "—but one of the senior SeeDs can do it. I needed a vacation anyway."
Edea laughed. "I would not exactly term this a vacation."
"Oh, I relish it. At least they're not trying to ambush you in the halls with training weapons."
"Seifer might do that."
"Speaking of Seifer, isn't he the one who spends the most time with Fujin?" (Seifer had, upon the hundreth or so time of Matron's calling Fujin 'Eleanor', finally exploded and yelled that "Stupid Eleanor isn't her stupid name, stupid!" upon which he was promptly made to sit facing the corner for two hours for yelling at Matron and calling her names.)
"Yes…"
"Then perhaps he knows something. I'll ask."
IV;
Selphie was happy. She and Zell and Raijin spun gaily, linked hands joining them together until the links broke under the constant spinning and their hands sprang apart, sending the three of them sprawling to the dusty soft wonderful ground of the yard.
Selphie giggled, letting herself sprawl out full, length, getting dusty all over but not caring one whit, ignoring the small rocks and stuff that dug into her side. Raijin was equally giggly, but he scrambled to his feet almost immediately, straightening the baggy pants he'd taken a liking to. Zell, unsurprisingly, had probably hit something hard on the ground, because he pushed himself up into a sitting position and promptly started to bawl loudly, clutching the battered moogle doll he carried everywhere to him. Raijin ran over immediately, solicitously trying to help, but Zell seemed to only howl louder.
The little brunette child shook her head sadly. Zell was always like that. Why couldn't he be happy? The little girl scrambled up and started to walk toward the two boys, but stopped and blinked in surprise as she saw Uncle Cid talking with Seifer in the shadow of the doorway. Uncle Cid never talked with Seifer. Seifer didn't like Uncle Cid very much. Seifer seemed to get more and more agitated with each word Uncle Cid said until he finally shot something at Uncle Cid and ran off towards the rocky passage down to the beach. Uncle Cid sighed, and then spotted Selphie watching and waved to her.
Selphie waved back gaily. Life was good.
A/N 21/8/2002: Yes, Lockehart's been a lazy girl. Sue her. Perhaps thou should not expect too much from her; that ways thou wilt not be disappointed so.