A/N: So four years after my last Sheelos attempt, I manage to scrounge up 3000 words in which our favorite chosen boy is not suffering from any harm whatsoever, no angst in sight, just being merry on a winter's day. Aren't you proud of me, maybe I'm getting the hang of Christmas cheer. Or maybe I'm old and I need something fluffy to go down with my hot cocoa. This should dovetail nicely to Cloud-steps to the Other Side of the Moon, but could also stand alone.
I was tempted, sorely tempted, to delve into the absurdly complex Sheelos situation post-game (basically everything I didn't get into in Cloud-steps), but that would somewhat defeat the tone I went into, and so it was scrapped. That being said, I imagine this to be about a decade after Symphonia, so there is a lot of time for them to...figure out the logistics for this oneshot. Living breathing world and characters, folks! Dedicated to fowl68 and AlleyCatSunflower. The title came from another Kobayashi Issa's haiku, "mangetsu wo sokkuri oite fuyugomori".
1.
If it wasn't so damn amusing, Zelos would take a little bit of pity at the stammering young girl thinking she was in the wrong place in the wrong time. She didn't know where she should be, didn't know where to go, didn't know that she was one small pawn in a game larger than she could ever imagine.
"Well, it would take most of winter, but don't worry, I should be back with everyone in time for Celsius Day." Sheena put on her traveling gloves in one swift motion and tugged on her sash to tuck in a pouch of talisman, her travel arrangements entirely too efficient and too light for the new maid in the Wilder mansion. She wasn't sure what to make of this woman so far removed from Meltokian nobility, apparently soon-to-be lady of the house if her ears were not deceiving her, even if rumors had been floating for many, many, many years. Oh, it made her dizzy, the thought that she held the most interesting nugget of gossip. The youngest maid in the estate, mind you! It would catapult her place, maybe they wouldn't put her in the scullery no more.
"You'll be fine, right?" Sheena extended a hand to cup his face, brushing her knuckles on his stray hair strands. Concern was painted on her face, but that slight lilt at the end, the exaggerated tiptoe... She had decided to make it a spectacle, then. He better played his part well. "I think so, yeah." He planted a kiss on her forehead, gently, slowly, looking into her eyes as if she was the only person in the world. It was not the difficult part. It was a bit disorienting for Zelos to be so...exposed, so public with his affection to Sheena. He had consigned it to be something that would never see the light of day, and yet there she was taking the whole thing even better than the best mask in Tethe'alla. He was severely out of practice, not that he minded.
Unable to stand idly anymore when Zelos started to curl strands of Sheena's bangs, the maid deposited his breakfast on the table and left with a yelp. Sheena laughed. Man, thought Zelos, and people thought I was the mischievous one.
"She would get the news far out, I assume?"
"Oh, by noon everyone in town would have heard of it for sure."
She lowered her gaze. "I was being serious, though. You sure you'll be fine?"
He had been fine for a long time. He'd had enough workloads and assorted activities making use of his physical and mental acuity, companies to keep nightmares mostly at bay, and winter had been filled with warmer memories as they came by. Still, it would be Zelos' first winter without her or Seles at home for quite some time.
"Yeah. Bud sent a letter. He said he would arrive earlier this year, and there's Sebastian too," he grinned. "I'm not alone."
"Didn't think Seles would take up on the offer, but I suppose living in a mansion gets old after a while."
"I'm glad she goes out to see the world, you know. I appreciate her trying to be here every winter, but I'd like her to see winter everywhere else too. The wildflowers by the side of the road..."
"...the all-time summer by the beach..."
"...and the frozen lake in the middle of the woods...we were lucky to have been on multiple journeys around the world, huh? Most people wouldn't have the chance to see them."
"Most people would prefer staying in their warm homes with their families rather than being on the road in some far-flung land, I assume."
She kissed him goodbye and he tried to get the day going instead of standing by the doorway mooning like a dork. He had seen her coming and leaving from that door many times before. She had practically lived in the mansion many years before. They had been whatever-it-was basically forever. It was his simple happiness, and even the reality of it sinking in gradually and only fully realized recently. The difficult part was contending with the fact that he was now free to hang his feelings out and proclaim it to the world, even if everyone that mattered had already known for a long, long time.
He had stopped looking for a name, by then. Had stopped trying to define, by then, and if he was being entirely honest with himself even a little bit scared that the act of attempting to would cause a fundamental shift in their dynamics and eventually killed what they were. It was never the commitment that he feared. There was no doubt that he wanted to be by her side for as long as he could possibly manage in this mortal coil. No. Labels were laden with expectations, fraught with implications. They were, unfortunately, too high profile to pass in obscurity, but until they were forced to answer they had had time aplenty to grow out of twenty.
He was hesitant to even bring the topic up. That Sheena took his hand unflinching, looking into his eyes unwavering, reminding him that he would not have to face everything alone, that they would figure it out together, was a little bit surreal and almost entirely fragile. His life was not shattering. In fact, it was as if his dream was within reach, and Zelos Wilder had never been so scared.
2.
He heard Corrine's bell way before anyone reached the entrance, but there were a strange lack of rambunctious noises he expected. Sheena came back with a new scarf and mittens Zelos could immediately tell were from Colette, brightly festive and slightly uneven.
"Welcome home. That looks good on you."
"Why, thanks! Nice to be home." He craned his neck out nervously, as if someone would come out from the bush to send a snowball flying onto his face, and she giggled.
"They'll be arriving in an hour. We had lunch downtown, and I...well, I thought you might want an extra bit of time before everyone comes streaming in," she smiled.
Zelos tried his hardest not to hug her, and then his brain found absolutely zero reason for him to hold back.
When they parted, Zelos looked at her tentatively, rubbing at his nose. "Well, that's...nice of you. There's something that...I want you to see, and it's nice that you could be the first." It was only then Sheena realized that Zelos was covered in splotches of paint and smelled of pinewood.
"Where is Lloyd?" He feigned hurt, then nuzzled into her hair.
"That's the first thing you ask? He's out with Tokunaga, can you believe it? Want to do some more carpentry while we're at it...and Tokunaga's been bored out of his mind without the little miss around."
She elbowed him playfully. "What are you up to? I swear, if you do something to my favorite chair...or maybe you finally have the good taste to get rid of that hideous vanity in the guest room."
A nervous chuckle.
"I did get rid of something hideous, but..." It seemed so good in his mind, and he was extremely satisfied with the result, but he didn't think of having to present it to Sheena, didn't think of how well she would take it, and now the entire project seemed like a fool's errand.
Zelos and his antics, really. "You're acting so weird."
She shook her head, quirked an eyebrow, and trudged in... only to be met with the likeness of herself staring back from the side of the wall where Mylene Wilder used to dominate, ever-imposing. She was not alone. Sharing the wall with her was Seles, framed in the same gilded wood, vivacious glint in her eyes. On her lap she was holding Zelos' cruxis crystal.
"Oh."
The artist captured Sheena in a sort of understated elegance, and she felt her cheeks growing hot under such a gaze. In contrast to Mylene Wilder's piercing and judgmental eyes, Sheena's were protectively fierce. She wondered if that was how she looked like, how Zelos saw her. He had chosen not her formal attire as the chief for the painting, not the ornate Tethe'allan ballgown befitting of her as an ambassador, but a homely Sylvaranti dress she liked to wear in friendlier affairs. A joint birthday gift from Regal and Raine, in response to her rant about Tethe'allan society and her yearning to spend more time among the more laid-back Sylvaranti populace. She wasn't sure what to make of this. He was careful not to make her look too flattering or too shabby. It was...her, up there, unmistakably her, the way half of her bangs framed her face and curled inwardly while the other half jutted wildly despite her best efforts, Corrine's bell prominently on display, held tight. He coughed, and only then she realized he had been pacing anxiously for a while.
"Do you...do you like it? Did I...I overdid it, didn't I? Lloyd convinced me it was a good idea when I told him the plan."
Slowly, his voice unraveled, suffused with fear. "I guess it's...a little bit excessive? We can take it down if you don't like it?"
Suppressing her smile as he became increasingly garbled, she put a hand on the small of his back, signaling that she wasn't mad. Tension deflated visibly at once. He eyed her for reassurance, but she was unable to answer, still too overwhelmed for words herself.
She turned back, averting the two paintings, and immediately she registered how the room had been transformed since her departure some mere weeks ago. In place of a line of successive Chosens in the illustrious name of Wilder, the walls were adorned with faces much more familiar, much happier in nature. Genis furrowing his brow while tasting a pot of stew. Raine reading to a flock of children in a schoolroom. Lloyd fishing with a goofy grin on his face. Presea carving a wooden bear. Regal with a stack of reports. Was that Kratos sharpening his sword? Sebastian tending to the garden, oddly blurry. And again, herself, in many different places and angles.
And that was not all.
Gone were the old leather knick-knacks. Knitted throw rugs draped the couches, small figurines on the coffee table, colorful trinkets filled the space between the photographs. She recognized some of them, various odds and ends she thought had been lost in time. The cheap baubles they bought in Triet, partially under influence. Tropical souvenirs from Altamira, given by an overenthusiastic Lezareno employee. The toy weapon from Luin. And then it got more and more personal. A stack of handmade items from Colette for Celsius Days past, housed in custom cabinets of Lloyd's design. Presea's amulets. Raine and Genis' travel notes, letters from all their friends (she could recognize Regal's shaky scrawls on top, from back when he was still struggling to do detail works with his hands)...
"I don't know Colette gave you her early attempts at quilting."
"Careful, hun. Lucky Seles isn't around to hear you."
"Oh."
"She picked it up several months ago. Can't say she's been too successful, but I'm a supportive brother."
"How long have you been... how?"
"I had always wanted to do this. The room's always so...so stuffy, you know? It's no fun coming home to a house like this," he gestured. "Obviously I can't have everything painted, it would take too much time. But you remember that prototype camera they developed in Sybak a couple years ago? They sent one to me and I'd been collecting stuff since."
She vaguely remembered. It was a fun novelty while it lasted. They would take turns, made some silly pictures. Lloyd and Genis were especially delighted watching the images form on blank strips. She didn't know Zelos kept them. "But why now? Celsius got into you to start redecorating?"
He ran her hands through his hair and gestured awkwardly. "Well. Now that everything's got a new beginning, I thought it's time the place gets a coat of paint. After all, it's the family room, why can't I fill it with all my favorite people in the world and make it feel more like home?"
Smiling shyly, he laid his heart bare.
"And it would be a statement, Sheen. I know who I want on these walls, and I can't very well do that when..." A statement he couldn't make while they were still dancing around each other. It was so like him to hedge his bets. He took a sharp breath. "I mean I could try to start with just Seles, but that would be..." he mulled. "Wrong."
"I mean," he tried again. "The King's advisor and the most eligible bachelor in the united world got his sister's painting for all the world to see. No big deal, what a family man. Oh, he also got one for the Emissary of Peace, he must be so committed to the job!"
"Seles knows you were commissioning these paintings?"
It was a testament to how much time had passed. Once upon a time, Seles would be seething at the idea. But they got along well enough these days, though the girl insisted it was because Sheena quite clearly wasn't going anywhere. Sheena had to concede on that, even if she had to get herself used to the pointed questions. Seles wasn't the only one, though perhaps the most insistent, in demanding her to clarify her place.
He beamed. "She doesn't know the size I ordered them in, so I guess she would be in for a surprise."
"Glad I'm not the only one."
"I... there's not a single picture of Seles in the house and I have tens of grandfathers I'd never met. That's a crime. I'd wanted to do this for a while, but do it right or don't do it at all, no?"
"What did she say?"
"Honestly? By Martel, finally! I thought I'd sooner be fifty!"
"Her hair looks very good if I say so myself. You've got a good artist."
"Right? I was actually thinking... maybe I could get him come again, you know? Paint the rest of us... this is just the beginning. If you want to, when Seles returns, we can do the other rooms. Make seven whole generations of Wilders crawl in their graves."
She rolled her eyes, but the idea did sound nice.
She moved around, running her fingers on these new surfaces. She did not hate the painting, she decided. It was just weird to have her own face looking back at her. "Okay, so you commissioned paintings for Seles and I. And you toyed with the camera more than I thought. But this," she jabbed at a picture of Lloyd and Genis running away from a Renegade trap, "How on earth do you have this?"
And there was Raine cackling mad in the control room. "And this?"
Zelos weighed his options for a while, unsure whether to deliver it as a joke. "Fun fact. So back in the day, I used to volunteer to sort footages in the Renegade Base when I couldn't sleep." He made another vague gesture with his hand. "Y'know, the whole wing business?"
Sheena nodded, her breath hitched.
"They have archives extending back decades! So I'd been in touch with Yuan, see if I can get some fun ones..." he quieted down. "And some not fun ones. I remember looking at some images from the Angelus project. It might not be her in her prime, but I thought Lloyd would like some pictures of his mother. He did. And guess what? Mr. Ka-fai was actually in a nice enough mood to include some extras from his own personal collection for Lloyd. Who knows Celsius Day spirit works on a 4000 y.o miser too?"
"Extras?"
"Images of Kratos among them, letters, things he preserved over the centuries. A whole melange of melancholia."
She thumbed an image of Noishe and Colette, humming as she walked from wall to wall, glad that the story didn't take turn for the worse. It would be nice to sit here with everyone, savoring memories that for once didn't make her suffocate.
"They're... they're nice, aren't they? Lloyd and Dirk made the frames. They'd last forever."
"And Colette heard of this, so as you can see, she sent the Celsius Day gifts early," he gestured to the throw rugs. Sheena examined the patterns. Corrine. Lily of the valley. Unicorn. They were all lovelier than the ostentatious silk pillows adorning other noble homes, she thought.
He had calmed down, and now a hint of pride seeped in. Sheena ventured to the corner cupboard, formerly home to a stack of scriptures and church missives, and she thought her heart stopped. "Is this...?" her heart barely a whisper, her fingers brushing on thin volumes bound in cloth and reed. Delicate inkwork swirled from top to bottom on pearl-smooth paper pages.
"Mizuhoan? Yes. If Yuan was in such a charitable mood... I thought it would be nice if... that you might like it if... so I looked into the archives and pulled out some interesting ones. Yuan had tons of cultural observations written down. I suppose they need something like that so Cruxis could always control the narratives."
Sheena felt tears welled on her eyes. Mizuho had lost so much in the last century, the long passages of their cultures reduced to half-remembered rituals and partial practices. It had never occurred to her that Cruxis and the Renegades might have something like this in their archives.
"Before you get too happy, remember that I don't read ancient Mizuhoan. They might be collections of cool ninja techniques, or they might be an old man's rant."
Sheena wiped her tears. It didn't matter. It was the thought that counted, and now that she knew it was an option, she could always go pester Yuan herself.
"So...what do you think?"
Sheena threw one last glance at her painting.
"I'll admit it's a little embarrassing, but I guess I can live with that." She pulled him in for a hug. "But you put up your pictures up there too, Zelos. After all, this is the family room."
Before he could answer, a flurry of footsteps flooded in. They were caught in half-embrace and Genis wouldn't let him hear the end of this until the next decade, but he wasn't about to trade it with anything.
(a little cottage at the end of the world was not theirs to be, but here in the world of their own making, surrounded by everyone he had ever wanted to be with, was perfect)
"Do you know how hard it was for me to get a picture of Sebastian? Forget your talent scouting program, he'd fit right in Mizuho."
"Or maybe he was the best graduate of the program."
"Wait. What? Sheeeeeeena, you trained my butler in secret ninja techniques?"
"Hmm, I wonder. Did I? Didn't I? I'm afraid that's a s-e-c-r-e-t. I'm sorry you're not invited."
"Under my own roof? Scandalous! You haven't even told me your true name, and now you're telling me Sebastian is now Saburo or something."
"Well, I suppose you are part of the family... Mr. Landlord."
"See? Can you believe it? He had the gall to tell me it wouldn't be right for him to appear with the family. He is family!"