He was the old man that sometimes sat on the bench in the park to her. Veld had to wonder if she knew some things, the way that she would speak to him; so clever and unafraid. He was the man in the grey suits, sometimes tweed when it was colder, and always threadbare at the sleeves and hems. It had been a while since he'd bothered with buying any new civilian clothes and he wouldn't come to see her in his uniform.
No, Aeris would only know him as the old man that sometimes sat on the bench and pretended to read until she came up and told him all manner of things that were interesting to children. When they first 'met' she had told him her name without hesitation, but he had not returned the favor. Once she gave him a rock. He wasn't quite sure why. He put it in a box.
They all knew where he was, on those rare Sunday afternoons that he wasn't in the office. It was the only day he ever bothered to keep free, originally because of church and now because it was getting clearer that it was just not good enough sending Tseng to watch her. It was just not good enough convincing Shinra that persuading her to join their side was better than taking her by force.
"Mister, what you reading today?" She was really starting to look like her mother now, and much to his irritation a bit of Gast too. He knew it was impossible, though, and had to concede to that awful sort of could have been.
"It's about fighting."
She wrinkled her nose. Aeris was seven when she lost her mother, she had to have picked up a few mannerisms. Still, every time she did that he felt his fingertips go numb and his mouth go a little dry. Made him want to pull out his Shinra ID and tell her that he was not a nice man at all.
But he never did. "I don't like fighting."
She was how old now? He'd forgotten to write it down, he would have to look somewhere later. Veld guessed that now she couldn't be much older than eleven.
"It's a good thing to know, if you always keep running off to play by yourself." He used the same tone with the new recruits, just softened enough not to startle her. But he knew that Aeris didn't have her mother's type of fear.
"I'm not very strong." She didn't say it with any kind of sadness, more like a type of fact.
"You can't always rely on the Planet, you know. There are some things you need to protect yourself from."
"But you'll be here, right? There's nothing to worry about then."
"Strength is nothing if you're clever enough. Would you like to learn something?"
She nodded, hopping up from her crouched position on the ground. Aeris liked to play in the dirt when they talked. Though, he'd never thought of the crud that covered the ground in the slums as actual dirt; he'd seen enough of the world to know that. He would have tried to convince her against doing that if he didn't know that her foster mother was the stern type of working single mother that would scrub her raw the instant she came in the door.
But enough of that. He had to think of something she could use--for skinny limbs like that would never make a good hand combatant--something with some reach...
"Stay right there, I will be back."
He walked over to some greasy restaurant that smelled like squid gone bad and purchased a broken broom from them. He didn't expect charity much down here, but at least he wasn't overcharged. He came back to find that Aeris hadn't moved from her spot at all--took things a little too literally.
"This is a staff."
"It's a broken broom handle, Mister."
"When you can generate your own income I suggest you go and buy a real staff. For now this will have to do."
He only showed her the basics, nothing much of anything. She was overly aggressive and impatient. She was fierce and independent. She wasn't his daughter, but he could pretend she was. Just for a little while.
He would entrust anything further to Tseng, though. He couldn't afford to let her get to know him too well.
"What can I call you, Mister? I already gave you my name."
"It's really a shame that Shinra isn't more religious."
"Why do you say that, Iffy?" She confused him sometimes, saying things that didn't make sense. Pulling thoughts out of the air at random.
"You would fit right in as a paladeen."
"You mean 'paladin'. It's not pronounced that way."
"Don't make fun."
If she was watching, which he had the uncomfortable feeling that she was, she would get the joke.
"Mr. Paladeen. You can call me that, if we should ever meet again."
She smiled. "'Course we will."
