Unspoken
By mihoyonagi
Chapter 24: Forgiveness
The storm didn't relent, even into the long hours of the night. Though the sky was dark with rain, the barn remained warm and brightly lit by several lamps the children left on for the few chocobos. Though the cot that Sephiroth rested upon was small, it wasn't uncomfortable. In fact, Sephiroth was highly contented, and the musty smell of wet hay and chocobo feed had, albeit slowly, become somewhat of a comfort. Sephiroth, however, couldn't get back to sleep. He had napped fitfully though the night, and while it wasn't the thunder and lightning that had initially woken him, the booming and shaking outside of the barn reminded him that he was indeed awake.
Sighing, he stood and left the stall he had been allowed to occupy. Not expecting to meet with someone in the middle of the night, Sephiroth was extremely surprised to see the older of the two children out and about, bustling to and fro and muttering something about 'the dratted rain' as well as 'silly birds' as he did so.
The boy, apparently having momentarily forgotten that he had allowed two strangers to sleep in his barn, gave a jump at the sight of the moonlight man at the end of the barn. Then, sighing, the boy smiled a little sheepishly. "I didn't wake you, did I?" Pete scratched the back of his head, laughing almost nervously. "I guess I had forgotten that you and Aerith were sleeping."
Sephiroth gave a shrug. Truly, he had not heard the boy busting about, but now that he was truly awake he saw no damage in offering the boy some help. He scribbled a simple question on his notepad, while Pete looked on curiously, and then presented it to the small chocobo keeper.
Pete shrugged like Sephiroth had only moments before. "Sure I could use your help, since you offered. I take it you can start a fire?"
Sephiroth raised an eyebrow.
Pete chuckled and shrugged once more. "Well, you never know." Pointing across the room, Pete indicated to a small forge where a stall had once stood. "If you could start a fire and get the coals going, that would really be great."
Sephiroth did as the boy indicated without hesitation. Keeping the small coals going within the forge, however, was a task Sephiroth was not accustomed to. It proved, however, worthy in the end, for after Pete had finished setting out new straw for the chocobo pen's, he informed the man with silver hair that he was fixing a shoe on a chocobo.
Sephiroth looked to the birds. Chocobos wore shoes?
Apparently sensing what Sephiroth was thinking, Pete gave a little smile as he pulled a chocobo from its stable.
Noting that the chocobo wasn't wearing sneakers on its feet, Sephiroth felt more than a tad bit sheepish. He had, after all, only ridden a chocobo once, and he hardly paid any attention to what was on its feet. Lifting a clawed foot of the bird, Pete showed Sephiroth that the chocobo had small, jointed metal attachments on the bottom of its foot.
"This is Emerald. She's our work chocobo; she helps us plow the garden and she's the one who always pulls the carts to Kalm, so we have to make sure her claws are protected from rocks and stickers and whatnot."
Nodding, Sephiroth tucked this information into the back of his mind. It wasn't useful at the moment, of course, but it might become so one day.
Pete took out a large hammer and began working with the stock metal he had in large scraps under his workbench. "Chocobo shoes aren't really that difficult in design, but they are a pain in the neck to make because every little part has to be perfect or the chocobo might be hurt."
The clanging of metal filled the barn. As Sephiroth had guessed, it wasn't long before the clanging woke Aerith. Sleepily rubbing her eyes and making somewhat of a sour face, she rose from her cot and meandered from her stall with one had rubbing a half-closed eye. "What's with the racket?"
Pete didn't look up from his work, but answered her all the same. "Sorry; we were just making a new shoe for Emerald here."
At the sound of her name, the chocobo let out an indignant "wark," informing Pete that it wasn't her fault he was making a shoe in the middle of the night.
Hushing the bird without looking up, Pete made a few more adjustments to the bird's shoe before picking it up with a set of tongs and dipping it in a bucket of water. The metal hissed and a small puff of steam erupted over the edges of the wooden container. "I've been working on this shoe for a few weeks now; it usually doesn't take that long, but we've been having some strange weather lately, so I've had a little less time to work on this kind of thing."
Picking up the bird's claw yet again, Pete slipped the shoe on Emerald's claw. Nipping his ear affectionately, Emerald cooed then flexed her toes and looked down at her foot.
"Well, that's it for the night." Pete yawned, and then scratched the back of his head. "Sorry to have woken you both." Placing Emerald back into her stall, Pete dimmed a few of the lanterns and gave the two strangers yet another farewell until morning.
Aerith, no longer seeming tired in the least, stretched her hands out above her head and stood on her toes, making a strange little sound while she did so. Then, she walked to the stall where Pete had placed Emerald only moments before and reached out a tentative hand. "Hey there, little bird; may I pet you?"
Sticking her head out of the stall, Emerald cooed as Aerith gently scratched the feathery tuff at the top of the bird's head. Reaching into her pocket, Aerith pulled a sugar cube and presented it to the chocobo.
"Ouch!" Aerith squealed as the bird nipped her fingers, eager for the cube of sugar that had been presented to her. "That hurt!" Aerith stuck the tip of her index finger in her mouth and shot the bird a nasty look.
Sephiroth smiled, albeit only on the inside, as he watched Aerith. Moving from the workbench to her side, he gestured for her to pull out another cube of sugar. Making somewhat of a grudging face, Aerith did as she was bade, reaching into her pocket and presenting the general with a sugar cube. "Puck gave them to me to treat the birds with after you had gone to sleep."
Sephiroth nodded, not remembering the child giving Aerith sugar cubes for the birds, but understanding all the same. Though he had never been around a chocobo more than once, he too had a similar experience involving a sugar cube and the tip of his finger bleeding profusely. Gesturing for Aerith to lay her hand flat, Sephiroth placed the sugar cube in the middle of Aerith's hand. Then, placing his hand under hers, he gently guided her hand toward the chocobo.
"No," she pleaded. "She'll bite me again!"
Ignoring her pleas, Sephiroth held Aerith's outstretched hand. The chocobo, not deterred by the dirty look Aerith had shot it only moments before, reached out and plucked the sugar from the flower girl's outstretched hand. After consuming the cube, the bird pressed its beak against Aerith's hand and carefully lapped up the few grains of sugar that had escaped with its tongue.
Aerith looked up at Sephiroth with a look of bewilderment and amusement, surprised that the bird hadn't hurt her as well as pleased that the bird had been so gentle when she had laid her fingers flat. Then, she smiled up at him; a truly bright, happy smile.
Sephiroth forced himself to look away.
A deep foreboding feeling crept into his chest and wrapped several cold claws closed around the general's lungs, constricting his airspace to an amount most uncomfortable. He watched the bird cluck and coo in thanks, or at least Sephiroth supposed they were thanks, and then settled down in the hay for a good rest.
"I forgive you, Sephiroth."
Sephiroth didn't need to see Aerith's face to know that a smile graced her visage. The claws' grasp only further constricted until an outlet formed by means of Sephiroth's notebook and pen.
'Why?'
Why is a question asking for recognition, most often followed by the function of what. What Sephiroth was asking was truly not 'why' but 'what have I ever done to earn such a thing.' The words, however, didn't form in the right procession; in fact, the words that had spilled from his pen weren't mildly close to the ones swimming around his frontal lobe, but 'why' is what cascaded from his pen tip, and so 'why' was the question Aerith was asked to answer.
The flower girl creased her brow.
"Forgiveness isn't something I just hand out, if that's what you are trying to accuse me of, Sephiroth." The way she had said his name was bitter, as if she was accusing him of something far worse than the sins he had committed, albeit he felt such a thing impossible. "I forgive you because for me to forgive you is the biggest step there is on the pathway for you to forgive yourself, and eventually for the planet to forgive you. I forgive you because I want to, and even if you don't see why I should I do it anyway."
She forced out a sigh, knowing that she sounded bitter.
"Kindness isn't found as often in this world as I would like to pretend, unfortunately. I am your greatest sin, despite what you may think; if your greatest sin can forgive you, then why can't you forgive yourself?"
A stark silence, filled only by the sound of crashing raindrops on a tin roof, resonated throughout the barn. It seemed that even the chocobos could feel the tension in the room and had resolved to keep their beaks shut until the air thinned out.
Sighing heavily, Sephiroth scratched another note on his lines paper.
'It's not about forgiveness.'
Aerith frowned when she finished reading his message. "If it's not forgiveness, Sephiroth, then what is it about?"
Moving his hand to write his next statement down, Sephiroth stopped. Just moments before he had formulated a perfect answer to the question he knew she would ask thusly following what he had written down. That's why he had written it down in the first place; he had an answer for it. But suddenly, the answers escaped him.
He didn't know what it was truly about. In fact, he hadn't the slightest idea. Again, he sighed and made a frustrated scribble mark on his notepad. After his small tantrum, he handed his newly formed not to Aerith.
'It's about you and me and the planet. I don't know how, but it just is.'
Sephiroth thought she was going to become angry with him for not giving her a straight answer. She, however, merely smiled up at him and blinked innocently. "Of course it's about all of those things. But what you have to understand is that there is so much else tied into the planet, let alone you and I. You'll see with time what I mean, but you're going to have to be patient."
Sephiroth wrote another note for her, a quirk of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
'It's not as though we don't have time.'
Aerith smiled and feigned surprise. "Why, Sephiroth- was that sarcasm?"
Keeping a straight face, he pressed his index finger to his lips in a gesture for her not to speak any more upon the subject. Then, most unexpectedly, he winked at her. Pocketing his notebook, he spun around and returned to his musty cot in the back of the barn.