Author's note: this was written for the Character A Character B Flas event: Lagunage of Blooms, with this prompt: Lily of the Valley: Purity, motherhood, happiness, unity, and peace.
Mothers are almost completely absent in FFVIII, so I thought I'd use the prompt to tell their stories. I hope you like it!
LILY
Raine I
It happens when she's done putting away her cousin's clothes, and the child, down in the garden, is still playing amidst the lilies, in the kind of deep-in-thought, serious way that a four-year-old shouldn't have to experience. Raine wonders if little Elly realizes what happened, why her mummy and daddy are not around anymore; and she can only hope she doesn't notice the way villagers are looking at her, and the way Galbadian soldiers watch her every move with unwarranted caution, and her heart squeezes for her. Such a young child, and so much suffering already.
"Raine!" calls the voice of the flower lady from downstairs. Raine sighs, because she knows this means there will be another fight, and she's so tired. The child doesn't deserve this, and she already feels like she's failing a little girl who looks up to her. Ellone has no one left, now; and Raine feels like she needs to protect her, and yet, even though she has always been the fun aunt, she doesn't know how to fill the enormous hole left in a child's world by the death of her parents. Cora's pestering about what to do with Ellone, now, amplifies her doubts, and simultaneously her insistence on the fact that Ellone is a threat and Esthar will attack the village again to get a hold of her fuels her rage.
It is all so unfair, and she takes a few minutes to sit on the bed and cry out of rage, out of pain, out of frustration, out of exhaustion.
And then it happens, and she knows what she has to do. She dries her tears, takes a deep breath, and goes downstairs as a woman forever changed.
"Raine, we thought-" starts the flower lady as soon as Raine appears in the small living room of Ellone's former home.
"I don't care what you thought," interrupts Raine, dismissing the entire discussion with her hand. "She is four years old, for Hyne's sake. Have some shame!"
The old lady seems stung by her words, and she tries to look away, but her eyes land on the dozen bullet holes in the wall.
"You are always welcome in my house, Cora," continues Raine, keeping her gaze firm on the old woman. "But it will be Ellone's house too, from now on, and if you can't respect the fact that I'm going to take care of an orphan, then you won't be as welcome anymore."
The old lady says nothing. A few minutes in thick, tense silence pass; and then Cora moves her eyes away from the bullet holes. "Are you sure?"
Raine rolls her shoulders and stands even straighter. "I'm a kind of mother, now."
Cora nods, and without a word, she leaves. Raine suddenly feels like crumpling, but Elly enters the room in a flur of blue and launches herself against her legs, sniffling, and she bends down to take her in her arms. "You're safe, now," she whispers. "I promise I will keep you safe."
Edea
It happens on her wedding day, a cold, rainy October day in Deling City. The clouds are laden and heavy over the city, and when they exit the registry office as husband and wife, the rain feels icy on her face, like little stalagmites hitting her as they walk back to their little apartment in the suburbs.
Cid is a little oblivious, sometimes, but she feels so humbled by his love. So grateful he chose to be with her, even knowing she has been a sorceress since she was a child, and even knowing the power she received at such a young age has made her barren. Yet, something is missing in her life, and she knows these are not thoughts very becoming of a wedding day, but the weather doesn't help, and the news around the world doesn't, either. Threats are coming in from Esthar; soldiers get dispatched every day to crush the resistance in Timber, and sometimes they never return, just names to be forgotten in a long list of fighters who succumbed to war.
She thinks, sometimes, about the lives of these soldiers; she has heard that the hotel pianist is mourning a loss, and the rumor mill is pretty sure there was something between the wanna-be singer and a soldier who was dispatched with a small squad a couple of months ago. She shivers, whether from the cold or from the sudden idea of losing her love, she can't say; things are endlessly circling around her head, to the point that her new husband has to gently take her by the elbow to guide her towards home.
Yes, a bride shouldn't feel like this.
As the rain intensifies, they sit in a small cafè, with a celebratory hot chocolate. The television is running in the background, and a statistic blares on the screen. The way that the effects of war ripple on everything else is always so chilling; and seeing the astonishing number of parentless children stated so bluntly, almost so cruelly, in cold numbers, hits something deep inside of her.
She has so much love to give, and maybe, just maybe…
She mulls over it for hours, for days, and one night she feels something setting inside of her. She knows this is it; she knows she can't ignore it anymore. She has so much love to give, and her husband, as understanding and accepting as he is, won't be able to fulfill this desire she has.
She wakes him up in the middle of the night, and when he grumbles something about waiting to talk at breakfast, she says no, it needs to be now, please let me tell you now.
She notices he is concerned, but when she tells him her plan, her projects for the future, and her idea to spread love back to the world, he is alert, and she can almost hear the gears grinding in his mind.
A few months later, she stands on the flower field of their orphanage, in Centra, and as the sun shines on the lilies tenaciously growing near her stonepath, she knows she's somehow going to change the world, and smiles.
Raine II
Little Ellone crawls onto the bed carefully, because Cora has told her to be gentle with her auntie Raine, because she just had a baby, and she is tired and needs resting.
Raine holds her little Squall to her chest, and smiles warmly when Elly settles next to her, her face against her shoulder, watching the little bundle in her arms. Raine knows there is something wrong; she is still bleeding, and Cora has gone to call for help, but there is nothing that could be done, now. She is ahealer, and she knows what is happening to her. She feels her life slipping away along with the blood flowing between her legs; and she is grateful because she can still hold her Elly, she is grateful because she can see her little Squall, and she is pained because Laguna is not here with them, and even though her hopes of him returning in time to see the birth of their child has dwindled, there was still something holding out on the idea that he could be there, hold his child, probably be a messy partner during childbirth. The crushing of her hopes is not as painful as the idea that she's going to leave her children alone; but she tries to stay strong, as Ellone curiously examines her little brother.
Raine watches as Ellone reaches out with her hand and touches the small nose of the baby. Squall is already sleeping, and he just scrunches his nose, raising his hand to his face and then settling down again. Such a quiet child, they managed to create. She wonders so many things, as she lays in bed knowing she won't see her child grow up. Will Laguna come back in time for goodbye, at least? Will he be able to take care of the children? She hopes the pain won't be too crippling, for him, and that he'll be able to love the kids as much as she would have loved them.
She swallows back tears.
"Ellone," she whispers, trying to keep her voice firm. "When Uncle Laguna comes back, I need you to help him, ok?"
"Why?" asks the child, and Raine rests her head against the pillows.
"I will need to take care of the baby," she says, her eyes on the ceiling. She wouldn't be able to lie to Ellone while looking into her eyes. Then, as the lump in her throat hurts so much it feels like being cut by a knife, she adds, "Can you go down and bring me some lilies? Those white ones that look like little bells. I want them in the room with little Squall."
Ellone gives a little shriek and scurries out of the room to bring back the flowers, and Raine hopes the child will think she's just sleeping, when she comes back, because she can't fight anymore. It takes all her strength to smile until the door of the room closes, and all the strength she has ever had to manage to stand up and place her baby safely in his bassinet. Then her legs give, and she crashes to the ground, and as oblivion slowly wraps around her, all she can do is pray that she has been a good mother to her children, even though she has to leave them behind.
Julia
Julia turns in her hospital bed, unable to sleep. Her afterpains add to her fatigue, and her long labor has left her physically and emotionally exhausted; and yet, sleep eludes her, and the white blanket of snow outside of her window probably doesn't help. It makes everything so luminous she may think it's already morning; but it's ok, she thinks, with a little tired smile, because her baby has already proven to be astubborn one, and she doesn't think she'll be able to sleep much in the next few months.
On her bedside table, a luscious bouquet of multicolored flowers shows, once again, that sometimes Fury splurges on her to compensate for his absence. He doesn't understand it is ok; he doesn't really believe she loves him, and he is not a second choice as the slanderers often call him. He doesn't think he is enough, and whenever his job takes him away from their home, he comes back with extravagant gifts that she often doesn't use. This bouquet, full of lilies of the valley to celebrate her new motherhood, is no exception; and she closes her eyes, inhaling their soft scent, mixing with the scent of her baby sleeping in the bassinet near her bed.
She pushes herself up, grimacing a little for the soreness of her muscles, and takes the little girl in her arms once again.
Two years ago, when Laguna Loire was finally declared MIA, she thought her life had ended. She had loved that timid soldier; she had loved his eyes, his voice, the way he always looked gently at her, the promise hidden in the blooms of their story, delicate as the little bells of her lilies. And now, two years later, as she holds her Rinoa, she thinks everything happens for a reason, and she is grateful for this second chance; and this baby they created out of a strange convergence of art with reason will bring forth a whole rainbow that will change someone's life, and Julia can't wait to see it.
Her rainbow love, shining with memory and hope.
Rinoa
Crying as she holds her Lily to her chest, feeling Squall's tears of joy wet her shoulder as he slowly raises a hand to caress his baby's head, Rinoa listens to the love exploding in her heart, and she knows, looking in the eyes of her daughter, that there will finally be happiness and peace for them all.
Author's note: as usual, since English is my second language, I used Grammarly to correct mistakes. Feel free to point them out if there are still some left!