Unspoken
By mihoyonagi
Chapter 21: Festival
The sound of a happy band playing a joyful tune was what they heard first, upon entering the city. Colored streamers and confetti littered the walls of the buildings and houses, and even the cobblestone streets. People were in the streets dancing, laughing, and having a good time.
It was a very awkward sight for Sephiroth.
"It's a festival!" Aerith excitedly exclaimed, standing on her tip-toes to overlook the heads of several people in front of her. Sephiroth pondered this. Many times had he heard of festivals, but never had he seen one.
Aerith's sudden excitement caught him off-balance. She whirled around, her face bright with joy, and smiled up at him. "Can we stay?"
Sephiroth's eyebrows shot into the air. So used to following Aerith, when she asked him a sincere question he was knocked completely off kilter by her query. He wasn't prepared to answer her, for quite honestly, he didn't care.
Now, it wasn't that he didn't care completely. He didn't care in the sense that if staying would make Aerith happy, then stay they would; but if she wished to leave, he would follow her without question. Either way, he didn't mind.
Shrugging his shoulders, Sephiroth composed himself and hoped that Aerith hadn't seen his mask falter as completely as it had. He was as unaccustomed to random facial expressions as she was to perpetual cold ones, and Sephiroth felt uncomfortable with letting go of the mask he had spent his entire existence perfecting. The last thing he wanted was for someone to read his thoughts based off of his facial expressions; it made him feel weak and vulnerable.
Aerith, however, paid Sephiroth little more heed after he had shrugged, twirling around and looking about. Booths were set up all along the streets. The only time an opening surfaced within the sea of stalls was when a door to someone's house was left unblocked.
Sephiroth watched as Aerith tapped the shoulder of a citizen. "Excuse me, sir, but we're new here- what's with the hullabaloo?"
The man smiled, an almost drunken twinkle in his eye. "This, miss, is the second annual festival of the seasons!"
That made sense- no wonder Sephiroth had never heard of such a festival within Kalm. He and Aerith had been gone when the celebration had first come to; it wasn't any wonder they didn't know about it.
"The festival of the seasons?"
"Aye! You see, we people of Kalm now celebrate the changing of the seasons! Today happens to be the first day of spring. It's not a very long tradition, and it actually started as a festival to celebrate the disappearance of meteor and the new beginning many of us were given. It did, after all, happen on the first day of spring."
Suddenly, Sephiroth's blood went cold. It was enough that he was forced to live with his past, fully aware of all he had done, but to be reminded of it? He unexpectedly felt ill and extremely anti-social.
Stuffing his hand into his pocket, Sephiroth pulled out his notebook, his pen, and good-sized handful of Gil. He forced the money at Aerith, and she took it from him with several questions in her eyes.
Sephiroth was not in the mood to answer a single one of them. He scribbled on his pad, thrust it at her, waiting impatiently for her to read what he had written, then stole back his notebook and headed to the inn, leaving a very bewildered Aerith in his wake. Flustered and frustrated, the notebook's pages fluttered in his hand, his latest note on the topmost page; "It means little to me what you do today- the Gil is yours to do what you wish. I'll meet you at the inn."
Paying for a two-bed room at the inn without a voice turned to be more of a problem than Sephiroth had thought, but once he flashed a large sum of Gil past the man at the front desk, he found things to go much smoother.
Sitting at the end of his bed, Sephiroth carelessly kicked off his boots, allowing them to land where ever it pleased them. Tucking his hands behind his head, he fell backwards onto the bedspread. It smelt of generic laundry detergent. After having his bedspread hung out on a clothesline to dry, soaking up all the scents of the forest, the smell of the cleanser nearly made him sick.
Being back on the road again was nice, yes, but how he missed the simple life he had back in Mideel. He was tired of being reminded of his past, though he knew he could never escape it no matter how far he traveled, how far he ran, or how much time he spent trying not to think of it.
Staring up at the ceiling, a peculiar feeling took hold of Sephiroth's stomach. At first, he was angry at how passive Aerith seemed over the festival. Then, realizing how he had been silly to become so annoyed over something that was his own fault in the first place, he began to feel guilty for treating Aerith as he had.
He rolled over on his side, stuffing his head under a pillow. What has passed has passed, and that's the way it was.
But, sometimes, it would be easier if it weren't so.
Sephiroth marveled at the courage Aerith had, and was appalled at how blind he had been toward it.
While he, the great ex-general of the mighty Shinra army, victor of the Wutai war, and almost-God, tired to forget his past by merely not thinking of it, Aerith went day to day and looked her horrific past in the face. His own shining green eyes and silver hair were a testament to her courage; everyday she looked upon him, and everyday she smiled and told him that she forgave him, despite the fact that he had run her through in blind greed and selfish want.
Physically, he might have been able to easily overpower her, but Sephiroth felt he finally understood why he had failed in his attempt to take over the earth; she was far greater than he could ever hope to be. Though he had taken her life at the tip of a sword in a matter of seconds, she was so powerful that even in death she managed to defeat him.
Yes, it had been Cloud who had dealt the finishing blow to Sephiroth's physical body, but it was Aerith's soul that had summoned holy and finally defeated him.
Sephiroth felt as though he should hate her.
In fact, he had every right to; she had stripped him of his power, flung him from the throne he felt was rightfully his, one-upped him in power, and then brought him back to life so he could see all he had sought to destroy still living.
He should hate her. But he knew he never could.
While she had taken everything from him, she had also given him more than he ever felt he could ask for; a home. A house only meant something if there was someone to share it with, someone waiting for you, and someone who would care for you without payment.
Aerith was his someone.
Sephiroth readied himself to put his boots back on, ready to go find Aerith and, if not apologize, at least feel meek when she got the general message that he was sorry for being so terse, but before he could do anything of the sort the knob to the room rattled. Lying completely still, head still under his pillow, Sephiroth listened as Aerith cautiously crept across the room. He took pride in the fact that he could recognize her footsteps, despite how noisy it might have been outside.
When he felt a slight pressure upon the foot of his bed, he pulled his head from under his pillow and looked up. Gasping, Aerith took a step back, completely dropping what she had been carefully placing at the end of the general's bed.
First, he looked at her, puzzled that she had come after him. Then, he looked at the end of his bed. Upon it sat a black, wooden box. Again, he looked at Aerith, puzzled.
Aerith smiled sheepishly. "It's, um, dinner." She shrugged. "It's not much, but it's warm, and I bet it tastes better than sandwiches."
Carefully, Sephiroth sat up, moving toward the end of his bed. He picked up the box, and then placed it in his lap. He looked up and noticed that Aerith had a box in her hands, hers pink. Slowly, he reached over and patted the empty space of the bed next to him with the flat of his palm. He felt sheepish, offering Aerith a place to sit when not long ago he had been so brusque with her.
She, however, sat next to him, warm smile set upon her lips. Sephiroth looked at her out of the corner of his vision, and she merely watched him for a few moments.
He reached for his notebook, which he had placed upon his bedside table before he had laid down, but before he could even place a hand on it he heard Aerith sigh. "You don't have to say anything; I understand that you were upset."
Sephiroth suddenly found the pattern of the wood floor very interesting. He tired not to look at Aerith, though he knew she had her eye fixated upon him. He sighed, sheepishly.
He didn't, however, expect Aerith to start laughing. He looked up at her, puzzled and a little embarrassed.
She covered her mouth with her hand, but didn't stop laughing. Sephiroth didn't want her to stop; even if she was laughing at him, he loved the sound of her laugh.
"I'm sorry," she wheezed. "It's just that I've never seen you mope and sulk before, and I couldn't contain myself."
Sephiroth let the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth go free, this one feeling more natural than the others before it. He even rolled his eyes in mock-sarcasm to get across the point that he wasn't angry with her, just, as she had so loquaciously put it, sulky.
"Open your lunch," she went on to persist. "I don't know what's in them, so if it's something awful that you can't stand eating, we can trade. I'm not a picky eater."
Pleased that when he opened his lunch box nothing vile jumped out at him (the food didn't even growl, though that's how many of the rumors regarding street-meat went), Sephiroth grew even happier to discover that the food inside wasn't half bad. It wasn't nearly as good as what Aerith could cook up, but it was far better than sandwiches.
He pulled apart his set of chopsticks and rubbed them together a bit, following Aerith's example, then speculated over what to eat first. Pleased that everything looked as good as it tasted, he sampled one of everything in his box before eating larger amounts of what remained in the container. Sephiroth found his favorite to be a spicy little sea creature-shaped thing.
"Oh!" Aerith chirped, curling her toes for emphasis. "You have to try this!" Delicately, she pulled a small white lump from her box, expertly holding it between her chopsticks. Holding one hand under her pair of chopsticks, she eased her body over and leaned up, offering the general her treat.
Sephiroth took it without hesitation.
It was delicious. Whatever it was, it was sweet, flakey, and dripping with sugar. Sephiroth felt the need to curl his toes as Aerith had, but he resisted the urge.
Aerith smiled up at him, then turned back to her box and reached for another.
He watched her eat. Consuming food was a mundane task which Sephiroth found annoying, but eating with Aerith was, to say the least, enjoyable. She ate smaller bites than he did, chewed longer than he did as well, and when she found something she liked, her face would light up. If it were truly delicious, her toes would curl in the most delightful way.
Sephiroth found endless amusement in her.
He discovered, however, as he sat with her, that the thing he most admired about her wasn't her courage, her strength, or her will.
It was her smile.
Without knowing why, Sephiroth realized as he watched her eat that there was nothing that made him as close to happy as he had ever been than watching her smile. He felt, of course, very silly over it, but couldn't help it.
Finishing off the last of his rice, he pondered what could be done to make her smile.
She loved flowers, that much he was certain of, but flowers were no good on a long trip. She could, of course, use another hair ribbon- or at least he thought she could; women weren't exactly his area of expertise. He was hesitant after his first ordeal with ribbon shopping, and he felt he'd rather not attempt such a feat any time soon.
Then, he scowled. Seeing Cloud had made her happy; happier than he had ever seen her. Did friendship truly mean that much to her?
Did Cloud's friendship mean that much to her?
Feeling uneasy, Sephiroth shifted his weight on the bed, finishing what food was left in the box. What, then, did she think of him? She had been, after all, upset enough to cry when she thought he had left her. She had also left the prospect of being reunited with Cloud just to travel with him.
What, then, was he to her?
Aerith stood and faced the general. "Come to the festival with me; you'll like it, I promise."
Sephiroth shifted his weight again. He was, by and large, unsure of what to do. He wanted to please Aerith, but quite honestly he didn't want to go back outside. So many people in such a small area; hardly enough room to breath, let alone walk; children screaming; animals making noises; the smells of animals making noises; vendors yelling out types of wares; in all honesty, it didn't sound interesting to Sephiroth in the slightest, given the fact that he had time to think about all that was going on downstairs and out the door.
He looked up at Aerith. Her rosy lips were curled into a pleading smile; simple, slightly worried, and, above all, cute. She pulled the look off masterfully, and Sephiroth wondered how many years she had devoted to obtaining such a look.
Rolling his eyes, he put his boots back on and followed the flower girl out the door.