Title: the fears of the left-behind
Fandom: Saint Seiya Original Series
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Relationships: none
Characters: Seika
Word Count: 451
Summary: A Seika character study.
The only thing she knows is her name. Seika. The old man who takes her in after she was caught in the landslide encourages her memory exercises. Luka is kind and gentle, and understands when she gets frustrated. He's sad, a time-worn sort of grief, and when she asks he says that his little brother died, and asks her gently not to ask again. That sends her into an extreme kind of quiet panic that she can't understand, and she ends up staying at his girlfriend Antonina’s house for a couple of nights.
She's looking, searching, but she's doesn't know what for. She finds herself often on the hills outside Rodorio, looking up at Sanctuary with anxious, nebulous longing. When Luka finds her there the pain in his eyes increases, but he gently shepherds her back to his bar and gives her a warm meal.
His brother had been a Saint, and his death had come at the eve of strange changes to Sanctuary. Rodorio Village, once considered practically a part of Sanctuary, is now off-limits. They've heard the rumors, that recruits and trainees are no longer allowed outside of Sanctuary, not even with an escort. No one who isn't a recruit or a potential trainee is allowed inside. She considers applying, but ends up shivering and afraid. She doesn't know why becoming a trainee sounds so terrifying and wrong.
Like a door slamming, a car driving away, a death sentence.
It takes her a long time to be able to understand these things, to understand the language. They say she must be from Japan, because it is Japanese she speaks, and Japanese she looks, with dark brown eyes, brown hair, and light brown skin. Luka tells her she's a beautiful girl, with the blessing of Demeter in her brownness, the blessing of the earth. She speaks only rudimentary Greek, and they speculate that she must have been trying to learn it.
They have no idea how she got here, to Rodorio Village. Luka’s friend Orfeo thinks she might have stowed away on a ship, or maybe a series of ships, because she doesn't have a passport or any kind of identification. She barely has any money, some useless yen. All she has is a little backpack full of a small girl's clothes, a comb, some deodorant, and a little plastic-backed mirror.
They think she might be ten, at the oldest. Luka worries about her nearly constantly, but his other friend Elisa, and Antonina both assure her she's good for him. She pulls him out of his head, out of his grief, and gets him in the present.
The first time she tentatively calls him papa, she thinks he might cry.