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"If everything is perfect, language is useless. This is true for animals. If animals don't speak, it's because everything's perfect for them. If one day they start to speak, it will be because the world has lost a certain sort of perfection." BAUDRILLARD, Jean
By: This Kind Of Punishment
From: A Beard of Bees (1984)
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Alright.
My name is Fratley Irontail. I am a 27 year-old burmecian.
Repeat.
My name is Fratley Irontail. I am a 27 year-old burmecian.
I grew up in a kingdom by the name of Burmecia, a place where your face can be washed as soon as you raise your head to the skies above.
Good. And what else?
My name is Fratley Irontail. I am a 27 year-old burmecian.
Aquarius sign. Not that a sign is any important to me, but anyway...
I grew up in a kingdom by the name of Burmecia, and on that same place I once worked as a Dragoon Knight.
I don't have any notice of any other Irontail. I don't even know if that's my real surname. I don't know any other Fratley, besides me.
I grew up in a kingdom by the name of Burmecia, and on that same place I once loved a girl by the name of Freya.
Yes. Continue, please.
Your face may be washed by this cold water, but your mind is nowhere to be found. Only if you are being dissected. Well... My name is Fratley of House Irontail. I am a 27 year-old burmecian. Which day is my birthday? It already passed a long ago. Nobody came to give me any gifts, but I'm glad that I am alive. I am living at the kingdom of Alexandria, a place where you can wash your face as soon as you turn the wheel of a sink. You love a woman by the name of Freya, of the house Crescent. These are cold and hard facts. Cold like outside, hard like iron. The first can be melted, and bars can be bended if you are strong enough. I don't seem to share of that much of muscles. I have enough so I don't fall in the ground, and there are bones that sustain me, even after a fall. But the cost... there is a cost for anything.
Uh huh.
Followed of the rewards, of course.
Each coin shares of two sides. A dice shares of six sides
There are sides other than one, but any number is a number, unlike zero.
There is no registry of a zero in the ancient history. Numbers below zero are usually used to refer to loss. The heat is gone for today, and only the white covers these lands, besides those dots who move on in the middle of the static ocean flooding the streets outside. The skies are cloudy like my skin, and I should have stayed inside the blankets, like Freya. Was I born in a bed? Maybe not. It's a common way of giving birth, and that's what I know so far. Laying over a bed frame, I hope she felt okay back then, mother gave birth to me. Did she survived? She did, but I don't remember. There are things not meant to be remembered, but a child knows the right and the wrong after commiting some mistakes. I know that there are right things and wrong things, a left and a right side, yet what I do feel for Freya... I follow both.
Aquarius...
I must had been born between January 20th, or February 18th. 1774.
Water. Burmecia. I want to improve myself each day.
To think outside the box. To share of an artistic vein.
To cherish of freedom. Easy to get along?
Compassion. Idealization. Frustation.
Now, Freya's sign...
She was born on July 15th. 1778.
Cancer. Moon. Crescent...
To be loyal. Share of commitment. Follow of intuition.
Tradition. Nostalgia. Security.
To have a heart upon the sleeve.
To retreat to their shells in search of comfort.
For moods to change alike the moon and its phases.
To be vindictive to whoever makes them suffer.
Well... None of this makes any sense.
Do you need to be alongside her? Of course I do. She had been doing so much, not only for me. Before the dinner, Freya attended a reunion back then, something about trade routes. Since the wars, the trade between nations happened as usual. But the danger isn't only restricted to the human beings within these lands. There are dragons, vices, worms, these kind of monsters along the way, and Freya came into that room because, well, she is a Dragoon Knight. A knight skilled with spears, and javelins of any kind. She didn't had any other reason to attend that, because she just agreed to them all that the Dragoons would offer protection to the caravans heading to Burmecia. How do I remember all of this, if it ain't that interesting? You aren't even a Dragoon anymore, as you used to. Not even Freya.
Not that interesting happened, just the same that became raw within these days. Freya was so tired... not that enough to be deemed as a poor thing, but her eyes blinked far more than the usual. I knew she wanted to close them, but she only did it so when laying over that same bed, on this same room. At least, Freya had a good night of sleep, and I am the only one who woke up in this grey morning. I couldn't hold it for that long. I drank a lot back on that night. I don't feel my head aching, I guess nobody else feels the same after drinking some water. Some feel queasy, an urge to puke, and the same can be said about the water before it's boiled. This if you are in a hurry, but I don't have the need to be, though warmth comes either when you are moving, or when you stand still, covered by thick blankets. The heat gets out of your body to the ambient, but the blankets and their spaces don't let it out. In sort, they work as a second skin.
That's why we wear clothes as well. Not only because they hide our sensitive skins, but it's also something to do with the weather. On plateaus and kingdoms residing above, windows are built towards where the sun shine mostly throught the entire day, and with a single pull, curtains covers the vision I had from outside, but still I can remember it. For a while, before all I am able to rememeber is the name white, which reminds me of the same color. Who gave the color 'white' this name? Why there is an orange to be swallowed, and an orange to be saw? Which came first? Why doesn't there is a color by the name of 'quaksar'? That's a random world, but what makes such words called by 'red', 'blue', 'green' not random? Now that's interesting, also something that a child is able to ask, but nobody cares to give an answer. It's just the way it is... that's an easy way to justify how things are.
A is A.
Fraternity. Fratrias. Brother.
Flat as a worm, hard as iron, fierciful as a tail.
Suffixe -ley. Berkeley, Barney, Riley, Mccauley, Harley, Bentley, Fratley.
A Fratley is a Fratley is a Fratley is a Fratley is a Fratley is a Fratley is a Fratley is a Fratley is a Fratley... and so it goes on.
A single pull, and I am able to see what had been hidden by the curtain. White. All colors together in one by your hands, and you get a brown instead. It may be just boredom, or curiosity that guides me throught this same room, making questions meant to be silly. They are saw on this way, but if there are left and right, and a mind that changes its place from a century to another... Maybe I am bored. I can blame the cold from outside, this if I was a reptile, or someone who doesn't want to do anything. Point a finger to another, and you'll get four pointing back at you. The only fingers you can't point back are the toes belonging to your feet, but nobody points them to others. Only with kicks. I could had opened the front door a while ago and asked for Quina to prepare me a pint. It's never too late. Many drink alcohol when it's cold, and I really appreciate the sweet flavour of cider being swallowed down my throat. It has a nice touch, but to be fair, it tastes like apple.
That's what a kid would say, if they were allowed to drink any of these. Apples can't even be deemed as fruits, but if it's red like a strawberry, which again neither can be considered as a fruit too, then so be it. There are seeds, so it must be a fruit. They can't move, and so the sponges and coral reefs were deemed as plants for two centuries. So did the mushrooms, some poisonous and others eatable, like a few plants, but they aren't. Some may mistake a worm by a snake, because nobody dares to touch a snake, and some freak out after touching a worm, that squeezes with the slighest press of the fingers. Worms can be bigger than snakes, if you dig enough. Many fathers work at Burmecia as fishermem, because it's easy to catch some fish with a bait, and given how fertile is the land of that place, not only it is a bless from the skies, but something giant worms do while beneath the earth we step.
They don't even know or care to how big some may be.
They don't have the same eyes of a child.
Daddy is tall like that orange tree...
Daddy is as strong as a guard...
Daddy caught a fish this big...
I am taller than my lil' sis...
I am the oldest brother...
Mine is bigger than yours...
Yer sister is so ugly that when carnival arrives, nobody asks if she is wearing a mask... Did I ever said that? Have you witnessed someone who said all these things, or does all of them say it so? All that a childs desires the most is to grown up, only in size. At least, that's what they keep speaking to each other. Some were left to speak, many didn't even tried yet... For some, only the teeth felt, of all bones within the curtain of rain where my people had been hiding for all these times. Now the current King of Burmecia travels to each nation to gently ask for them to come back. Some may be back, and some won't, from wherever they are. Only your hands and feet to feel cold... it's better than feeling same cold on your heart, where your blood is flowing into. And it should be. There are pockets on your pants, and so you retract these claws alongside your hands inside them.
Heat is only felt when the warmth coming out of your skin gets stuck into a space. That's why houses and palaces with many rooms are built in. There are windows on a corridor to another so you can see what lies outside, instead of the people living from inside. If there are those who remember their childhood, then so there are those who want to remember how it feels to live inside someone. It's a desire everyone is able to achieve when near the fire, near someone else's skin, near any tone of red. The only red I see is the one belonging to the carpets laying under my feet, and whenever I close my eyes near a candle. A blink, and the sight of an unique color is gone. So you insist to blink once again, with the intention of washing your eyes, hydrated like inside your mouth. I don't feel any scent, and I am already salivating, constantly I do it so.
This spiral staircase leads to the top of a tower. I reach there in time, and I don't even know which time it is, only that it's still morning. A cold morning. The skies are brighter than they should had, but then I remember this is Alexandria, the kingdom of Sun, and no more I am living at Burmecia, the kingdom where the streets are washed by the rain, yet we are still saw as the dirt of this world. So many wars for nothing else but another war, followed of a brief state of peace. They should stop calling those who rule a land by the name of same land. The Burmecia from 500 years ago is already dead, and there are other people living there, and they had nothing to do with this. Nothing but being born on same land... again, that would be an only change, to something that took other factors to happen.
There is a plant, by the name of Mimosa pudica; know as touch-me-not, it's able to bend its leaves at an astonishing speed due to turgor pressure. It's not that you touch one of their leaves and they bend because you had to touch them. It's not something new, only the date of its discovery. Many things left on this world since its beginning, awaiting to be discovered, and rediscovered. And things meant to change, to evolve, yet snow always falls, no matter the place. Only a kid to make a bunch of snow to be compressed and threw as a ball, only a catapult to aim stones to walls made of same, and only the green leaves to change into colorful and attractive petals. Sniff. Many plants and its flowers were given the opportunity to flourish outside, on this winter. Some share of spikes, like roses and orange tree trunks, but nobody gives an orange nor its flower to the ladies. They are too small, pretty to be honest. White like the snow before it falls on the ceiling, these littles by the name of Azahar used to be wore and prepared with a tea by the cleyrans.
That's the only way an entire ethnic can feel the warmth once brought by a desert.
Their home.
So cold... It's so cold outside.
This entire kingdom fell asleep, but it ain't night.
Sniff... and then, your nose got clogged.
It was already clogged, but you didn't ate anything yet. The scent you felt before was already felt by you before. The footprints left on the snow are gone, as soon as you blinked. White flakes began to cover you, but you took them all as soon as you let your body melt them. Your hands are cold, so do your feet, and your muzzle... Sniff. It's still warm, like your breathe. I should had stood on bed, but I ain't tired. I'm not falling asleep. Your head is getting cold, now your forehead gets hot. Fever? No, this cold I got isn't a disease. It's a way for my nose to protect my body from any infection. The body works better and more when on elevate temperatures. Sniff. Sometimes, I feel I am drowning, until I breath with my mouth. It's awful when both holes of your nose get stuck, and all you have to do is either release it all out of you, or suck the phlegm into your throat, hoping that you were able to swallow it. It gets worse when your ears get stuck, and when you keep swallowing it down your throat, as if you were gulping all the time.
Gulp... Gulp... Gulp... That's how it sounds like. It doesn't have a sound loud enough to be listened, but if a door makes knocks, then so my throat makes gulps. And my nose sniffs. So many noises, and only us to give them names. Only a child to tell someone that a dog barks. They are crossing throught the thick layers of snow, just like the wolves and bandersnatches, their ancestors. A blue haired child walks over same snow. Sniff. She is chasing that dog, both running away from each. Besides a ribbon on top of her bown, the girl has a horn upon her forehead. That was the first thing I noticed. Little, but sharp, unlike those belonging to the narwhals swimming in the icy depths. The dog bites her, but it doesn't want any harm. I watch both from this window. We look to each other, and then the girl waves towards me, and so I waved back to her. Be gentle... be vigilant.
— Good morning, Eiko – soon as I came outside the palace, I headed towards Eiko. Yes, that's her name. She is from Lindblum, as far as I know, and that dog is presumably her own.
— Good morning, uh... who are you, Mister? – she asked. I guess we never had been properly introduced to each other. Not that we didn't had time, or any interest. Freya knows her, but I don't. Only that she is a kid with a horn shoved on her forehead. I know she shares of other quantifiers, qualities hidden like the grass under this snow – wait... Sir Fratley, isn't it? – and there are some who still call me by that.
— Sorry, but I'm not a Sir anymore.
— Why not? I thought you were that important... – Eiko looked at me, kinda dissapointed. Sniff. Many knew me because of what was once a title deserved to be put before my name. Do I deserve to be called by that again, if I can't even remember how I have used of same title? I may not be able to remember, but other people do. Only a few of them.
— I used to. What are you doing here?
— I ask the same for you, Mister. Mom and dad, they brought me here. Attending another one of those boring meetings, speaking about taxes, liquids, the end of steam engines patent... they take it all too seriously that it gets boring, after a while.
— I can agree with that.
— They let Makoto go with me, at least – she said, holding that Dachsund puppy on her arms. It looks like a weenie, covered in caramel – so, what or who brought you here, Fratley?
— A condition – I said. The white of the snow... It kept accumulating over the ground, our shoulders. Eiko's dog shakes itself, and jumps out of her lap, but snow still keeps pouring above his fur. It's better not to keep standing, so I move on. My feet are freezing, but they won't be taken apart. I don't have anything else to be taken from me.
— Which condition? – Eiko said, following the same path of mine. As usual, the snow covers the trace of our feet, a mark once sank, now there isn't anything left. The white covers it all. My naked feet, Eiko's leather boots, her puppy's pawns... the dog walks randomly, running sometimes, when I only walk slowly. Sniff It's hard to breathe when your nose is stuck.
— I have forgotten who I am. Who I was, what I did, whom I missed, whom I loved. Because of that, I disappointed many people, excluding me. In sort, I don't know who I am, Eiko.
— But you are Fratley, right?
— Well, that's my name. One of the few things I'll always remember – until the grave. For some reason, Eiko still decides to follow me, even to this place. It looks far more dead than it does on sunny days. The white from before turns into gray. Same gray belong to the names engraved on these stones.
— Why are you pining to remember something that much? It's pretty easy to forget.
— Not on the way I did. It wasn't only something that slipped out of my mind, and it ain't only me that wants to remember. This also includes Freya. At least, she is one of the few who are willing to help me in any way. I'm sure that you know her, Eiko.
— I do. She is a nice person. You love Freya, don't you? – I don't recall ever hearding someone asking this for me. It happen to be common sense that Freya is an acquaintance of mine. My sweetheart, the love of my life. I never declared what she is on any of these ways. These just sound so silly, yet I feel something. Is there a way to express it? Maybe, but with so many substitutes that degrade the meaning of Love...
— Guess I do.
— You guess? How silly of hearing this out of you! – it's so easy to speak, isn't it? Same for mildy offending others, with speach that don't even share of an intent to offend. Or to make them upset alike Eiko does – no wonder why you gave up of being a Sir...
— I didn't gave up. It was a personal decision.
— You didn't became a Sir only for yourself, did you? – only a few share of the title of Sir. Why would I deny being associated by it? I mean, to be a Fratley is something far more than a title, or a name. Any of my actions, and their consequences are somehow related to me. Did I only became a Knight to save people so they would remember it was me who did the hard work? As usual, I don't know the answer. But I won't let Eiko be wrapped on vaccum.
— I... I don't remember. Honest.
— And how you came to forget everything?
— I didn't forget everything, Eiko. I know that I am alive. Besides, I know how to walk, learn, speak...
— Anyone who's alive can do these, Mister.
— I know. These are facts. Not memories...
— You have forgotten memories? Geez... some of these are gone with time.
— You're right – had I ever holded a piece of carrot with these hands, for sure I did. But to feel of its scent for the first time... this I will surely not remember on first person. Would it be something meaningless to remember? To have a meaning as it stands upon the limbo? To remember that I once had promises – ...but I had promises to keep, Eiko. And I couldn't keep them.
— That's sad, but truth be fair, promises are also a waste of time. Nobody accomplishes all of them within time. Nobody knows how much time is left. And there is a plenty of time until midnight arrives. Wait... is that your name there? – Eiko looked on the same direction I had been looking for a while. I heard her with my ears. All of her words. Then, I hear none of them. A grave, and a familiar name engraved on it. It says Fratley, but this is where my spear had been buried instead. From what I heard after the hyponis session I was submited into, the last place I was before they blackened me out... was Alexandria. I was tortured, but that wasn't enough. These scars left on skin weren't enough. Not even my cries.
— The Knight may be dead. But the dream isn't.
— Do you remember how you came to forget, Fratley?
— Only in theories. That's all my mind is allowed to share.
— Were any of them proved yet?
— Even if one stood out, my goal isn't to keep reminding how I came to forget. It's what happened before that matters.
— But not everything that happened before must had been that pleasant. I mean, Bad things happen all the time, and these we don't want to remember because they happen anyway. And that's why they keep happening...
— You have parents to take care of you. Kind enough of Cid and Hilda Fabool's part, don't you think?
— Yep. Mom and dad may be occupíed from a time and another. I don't even consider myself a princess. Too many forks to remember, etiquettes to follow... I am still getting it. I do not wear any crown upon my head. Someday I'll do, and then Zidane would be mine, he he. But his heart belongs to Garnet, I know. They are meant to each other. And you, Fratley... do you have a mom and a dad?
— Maybe I did. How come would we had been brought to this world, without any of them?
— I see.
— Excuse me, Eiko... but why the horn? – I had been awaiting to ask it for the kid. That unicorn horn, no... More like a narwhal's canine within the snow, growing upon her forehead. Now I wonder if that thing is a horn, or a tooth. Not that I know very much about anatomy. Geez... why this bothers me the most? Is this a bad hour? A silly question? Well, there is time for everything, and nothing as silly as a rat that can talk... and think.
— You mean this horn here? – I cannot stop staring at it – it gives me power.
— Which kind of power?
— The power of summoning Eidolons. Magic spirits, I mean.
— Really? Interesting...
— Just 'interesting' ain't a word enough to describe the kind of all Eidolons. Some are small like ants, others are bigger than castles, enough to cover entire lands on shadows. Phoenix can bring life back from ashes, while Fenrir can scatter trees out of the grounds with its withering winds! Eidolons... They all do the unbeliavable!
— 'Unbeliavable' is a word that doesn't belong to my dictionary – off all the words left in blank, that is.
— Whew... You see, as unfamiliar and distant this name may sound, Madain Sari used to be my home. The home of all summoners, in fact. Mom and dad were also summoners, but then came disaster, and only I and Garnet were left. She became part of the royalty before I did.
— So you had been living on your own before Cid and Hilda adopted you?
— Yes, and no. Not that the moogles who took care of me weren't my family, but they were only moogles. All tiny, all white and fluffy. None of them were as inconsiderate as Zidane was with me, or worried alike Garnet, or... I don't even know what to say about Quina. To think I was the only kid left to rule Madain Sari, and with the Eidolons summoned... only me to be aware of the power.
— To have of such power doesn't make you less human, or beyond a human. Right... Eiko? – she stands near another grave, with a familiar name.
— Vivi – that doll is also here. His grave and body, at least. But the soul – ...his memories became part of the sky. He was a funny guy. How much he wanted to live, but couldn't. A short life spent by what was once deemed as an object. Vivi was once a thing, like stone. Easy to manuever, to be threw onto a direction. On someone's face.
— Does a stone knows it's being holded by someone's hands? Aware of any harm it caused onto someone?
— I guess they don't, Fratley. I don't like bath, but stones get wet anyway, without complains – same happens if anyone lives at Burmecia for enough time.
So what made Vivi other than a tool of trade? Nonetheless, he wanted to live, and so he did. Eiko told me that Vivi left many things to this world, including his sons. Descendants made of same material as Vivi was once made of. Unlike their father, these kids weren't stripped of any childhood. They do not know how to manipulate Magic. If they do, it's up for them to decide which way to use of same Magic. Abilities, skills... this world can't take any of them. How much it can? We don't know. Unknown as our fears. To where a fear end, so do the being who carried it on. The alexandrian graveyard... to where those who have met their demises on this beautiful Kingdom are gone into. Epitaphs to sum up a life spent by an old man in a few words, other than his own name. Vivi's sons, alike many children, do not come here too often. Only when followed of adults.
Makoto barks from a distance. Eiko holds it with her hands. The dog licks her mouth, as it had done before with its mother. Unaware of where that mouth had been in meantime, Eiko spits. But a gift must be well maintained, she remembers. Eiko's relatives from Lindblum are attending a reunion with Garnet. Adult talk, they told her. A kind of small talk, but way more polite, so Puck once told me. He once struck onto Vivi's way, when wandering at Alexandria's streets. For Vivi, the burmecian was his first friend. I was one of Puck's first friends, one whom he made on his own, instead of having one arranged for his. Most of Puck's life had been spent under an 'I get what I want' lifestyle. But what he really wanted... he couldn't. To be feeded of a milk other than his mother's own and to share of a hideous appearance and not be refused of each wish due to a royalty title; Puck and I had something in common.
A job only achieved with enough money, and a title deserved only to a few who detached from the crowd...
I used to be a Dragoon, as much as I used to be a Sir.
Still, I have something more important to carry on.
I am Fratley Irontail.
And I love Freya Crescent.
That's all you need to know.
Don't forget.
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