Child of an Ancient Chapter 7
By Shigan Lee
The light grew stronger and stronger as its source made its first appearance by the distant horizon. The red sun slowly rose above the surface of the vast sea as it began its daily journey over the cloudless sky. Everything seemed to move so slowly…
Almost as if some kind of weight is holding it down…
The young woman stood by the shore and gazed upon the rising sun, she drew a deep breath of the fresh air, enjoying the first rays of light by the new day. She strode down the shoreline, feeling the soft sand under her bare feet as she slowly untied her pink ribbon and let her long chestnut-brown hair loose.
Some of the birds cried their greetings towards the sun as she watched their flight. She smiled and reached out towards them with her hand. How she wished she could join them, to grow wings and fly off, to have the freedom to see the whole world from the air.
But she was bound to the ground and she didn’t regret it a bit of it when she thought of the obvious reason. Her hands went down to her swollen belly and she caressed the warm skin, she could feel it clearly now, she could feel how it moved inside of her.
Her smile grew wider as she thought of the child. How she wished its father could be here and share her joy over its conception. But the planet had delivered its instructions clearly to her, she could never see him again. He didn’t even know that he was about to be a father, a father to a very special child. Her child.
“Miss Aeris?”
Her thoughts were interrupted by the voice of a young boy. She turned around and saw Alan, the innkeeper’s son who often kept her company despite his parents demands that he shouldn’t be bothering her more than delivering the groceries she ordered from them every day. He had been doing that for 4 months now… Even since she turned up from nowhere in the small town and moved in.
She smiled at the short boy’s admiring gaze towards her. She too remembered how it was to be in that age, first time having a crush on someone much older than yourself.
“Why, you are up early today aren’t you Alan?”
“Y…yeah, I thought that I would deliver your groceries early since you mentioned that you enjoyed morning strolls. I…I mean, people use to get pretty hungry after strolls, don’t they?”
“Yes I do, that was very kind of you to think of it, thank you.”
“You’re welcome Miss Aeris.”
She walked up to the boy whose cheeks had flushed at her comment, placing a hand on his slim shoulder.
“Have I not told you to drop this Miss stuff? It’s just Aeris. Between you and me, its just Aeris.”
“Ok Mi…um…Ok Aeris.”
“Care to join me for the rest of my stroll?”
“Yea! …I mean.. I had love to. Oh, I brought some fruits with me, wanna have some?”
“Sure, what do we have?”
“Um…an apple and a pear. The pears came in yesterday, they are fresh from Wutai! You take it!”
“Thanks.”
They continued down the beach until the forest stopped them. Aeris sank down to her knees in the grass and began to pick the white flowers. She had never seen this kind before, but then she had never been to Mideel before either. The tropical forests had a lot of species she had never known about before. When she had lived, she had been locked into the walls of Midgar which no slum girl could climb. And when she finally had gotten out with her friends, they had been all to busy with their mission to care about the surrounding ecology. Now she finally had the time she had wished, even if it was limited, she was still happy and grateful for it.
“What do you call those?”
“I don’t know, I call them Snowflowers.”
“Snowflowers?”
“Yeah, there is no snow here in Mideel, and dad told me that snow was white so I thought I could think those flowers as snow instead.”
“You never seen snow?”
“No, but I will. I am gonna be a traveler when I grow up! So I can see the whole world, the northern continent is my first goal!”
“That sounds a lot of fun, but what about the cold?”
“Cold?”
“Yeah, snow is frozen water crystals. Be sure to bring your long johns when you go there.”
“Well, haven’t really thought of that but don’t worry, I will manage to stand a little cold. And I could always take hire as a crewman on that Highwind airship! I won’t have to actually go out in the snow then. Have you seen that airship? “
“Yeah, I saw it when I was in Junon once, it was beautiful.”
“It’s awesome! So huge and all those engines! I saw it when those Avalanche guys were here. Man, I envy them, I had put up a fight against Sephiroth to, if I had to have a go in the Highwind!”
“You maybe ought to be a pilot? The flying maybe would calm that spirit of your, if you are not airsick.”
She chuckled when she thought how Yuffie had looked like when she was aboard the Highwind. Yuffie didn’t know that she had watched her of course, but she had been able to track her friends pretty easy from the lifestream after her death. The girl’s usual cockiness hadn’t showed a bit after a “go” on the Highwind.
“I am being stupid again ain’t I? I wished I was as strong as those people thou, imagine me kicking Sephiroth’s butt!”
“Oh please Alan, there are many better things to do in this world than kicking people’s lower parts. I thought that you wanted to become a traveler.”
“Guess so, I will have to get a job so I can get some gil first.”
“That’s far in the future, so why worry now? You are only ten, you have loads of time to fulfill your wishes.”
She rose from the ground and arranged her bouquet of snowflowers. Her spirit a little down because the mention of her late teammates. But she kept a straight face for Alan’s sake, how could he know that his words had torn up an old wound in her?
“Come on, let’s go back. You don’t want your parents to believe that you have been kidnapped by me do you?”
He laughed and joined her again, with his hands in his pockets.
“When will your baby be here?”
He eyed her stomach with great curiosity.
“In four months a think, its showing a lot now isn’t it?”
“Yea…No...I mean, it’s not like it looks bad or anything, but it shows.”
“No use to deny it hmm? But it’s worth it.”
“What are you gonna name her?”
“Her?”
“Yeah, I think it will be a girl!”
“What make you believe that? I don’t know, that’s for sure.”
“Dunno, only guessing. But I am sure that she will be as pr…pretty as her moma.”
“Thank you Alan, that was very sweet of you.”
“Yo…you think so?”
“Yes little gentleman, girls like to be called pretty.”
Alan turned completely red and backed away, looking totally embarrassed and staring hard at the ground.
“I…I better go home, my mom will wake up soon. Bye.”
He ran off towards his house that was situated east of the town, ears still red as tomatoes. Aeris chuckled, that boy would be irresistible in a few years if he kept his attitude towards girls. She quickened her pace the last hundred meters towards her little house that lay a little bit away from town. The house had been forsaken when she arrived so no one made a big thing of that she moved in. There were the usual rumors of course, about why she had moved here so suddenly, alone and pregnant with a child. She didn’t care; she needed a quiet and safe place. A place without many communication connections with the other continents, she would do what was needed for the child. The planet’s orders were not to be refused…