479Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7QmTsSrmdT
By: Enya
From: Watermark (1988)
479Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXEbkWX1yiL
479Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPsbZOdGx15
Give it back, give it back...
So her cries sounded meaningless, as tears washing a face in a land that only rains. A little girl, living in a land of tall boys. A land of Dragoon Knights, supposed to protect even those belonging to their own offspring. Sometimes, there is only us to take care of ourselves, which's not the case of that girl. Your father must be very rich to buy this doll... Oh, so they can talk too? Behind a wall, I hear it all, other than myself. Relaxed, yet shaken because of the cold traveling throught my exposed skin, and no other reaction in regards of those bastards, throwing that doll like a ball to a hand to another, while the girl raises her own, as she raises her voice too. Besides a heart, her throath is hurt too. No! Her hand's going to rip off. Please... Mom made it for me, she said, with words weeping out of a drowning mouth, with enough water that can't be only taken out by her green eyes.
Despite the sentimental value it holds on, nothing changed, and the doll is still on their hands. Only I to feel touched by those words, or to have felt something at all. How about we rip her clothes, so we can see how the real thing is alike? One of them suggested. They had nothing else to do. As for me, though... Who the hell are you? One of them asked, soon as I jumped upon that wall. Their names didn't mattered. As if those things deserved a name other than creatures... I am someone who knows how to treat a lady, so I said, with my mouth and a fist. Result is that I got an ass kicked, and a nose broken, both mine. Those boys hurted me so bad, but I was happy to see her cry without any wounds. They went on me instead. Oh look, he got its own ass kicked... I hate the kinds who try to look cool in front of girls... All because of a doll...
Well, if you want it so badly, here's your consolation prize... Even though I fell in a puddle of mud, that was the least of the dirty things lying at Burmecia. But that doesn't mean you can't find wheat growing alongside darnels. I could have lost a limb, but it would be worse had that doll lost something else. Toys... we ask for them with such petulance, and when we grow up, we forget about them. That they once had meaning, other than making us waste time. That wasn't a waste, at all. I don't even know her, or asked her name, but I know how she feels. No, it's nothing, and no matter what I say, she still looks frightened. Tears ran down her face, while blood went out of my nose. I didn't wore red, and our skins are gray. It didn't stopped, like the rain, except that it was more a bad than a good thing, if there is something good at being hurt. Only me to get, at least.
Only a coward to hit a woman. Only a gentleman to refuse being thanked by one. There are times when you must be courageous enough to fight an opponent, even when he is stronger than yours, and when you know you are going to lose. That's what I told to Faust, just like father told to us all. To think father can still tell so much, even thought he is dead... as much as a look can tell so much. She is just a child, like me. We kept staring to each other, and she couldn't take away those eyes from the red dew sliding on my face. With one of her tiny claws, the girl tore a small hole and took some stuff that filled in the rag doll out. A piece of cotton, which ended up at my nose. Besides a smile, I wondered why she stood quiet all of sudden, if she have lost her voice with all the screaming, if she would only say something had I said something first.
— Hello – I said. We haven't presented each other very well, so this is a beginning.
— Hi – she said, a bit shy. My legs were trembling, but it must had been nothing else. I could still walk, at least.
— What's your name? – I asked.
— What's yours? – she said. Like a mirror, but still, a smudged mirror.
— My name is Fratley. Fratley Irontail – soon as I said it, the girl began to look to my tail. Raised like the tip of a javelin, even in the rain. Though, you must be careful when you hold on a spear, or a knive, and you can't be shaking it around. Anyway...
— I... I am...
— You can't remember your name? – so I took a guess. The girl shaked her head.
— No. It's just that... doesn't mean much.
— What do you mean?
— I... I do not deserve it.
— Why? Is it an ugly name? – for such a pretty girl.
— The name ain't ugly – she said, looking down to a puddle and its ripples – Freya... that's how mom and dad call me.
— Freya... isn't that the name of a deity?
— I'm not that strong.
— You are lying – I said, so Freya looked at me. A distinct face.
— You are a boy.
— This means nothing. I can't just do anything because I'm a boy, or because that makes me strong since birth. It doesn't. I knew I was going to lose anyway, that I would be beaten to a pulp by those mean boys, but know what? You gave me strenght. Had not been for you, I wouldn't have a reason to be stronger. To get out of comfort only to find a way to bring it to yours – I said, as we stood on same street, at same place. We know how to get at each our homes, but to return unharmed is something hard to accomplish. There are wounds that can't be seem, but I try my best to seal them with my words.
— Thanks – said Freya.
— The same for you – I said, looking to her face. As much as Freya looked to mine – is there something wrong?
— Your nose...
— It'll be alright. Though, I would like to know why you put cotton on it. I have a handkerchief in my pocket here, just in case – and yet, I let her closer for a moment.
— I didn't knew. I don't like blood too.
— Neither I.
— I like red. Strange?
— A bit ironic. Hey, know what I like?
— What?
— I... I... – come on, say it – I like you.
— You don't know me.
— That's why I want to be your friend.
We holded hands. I counted her fingers, and I wanted they to stay. But Freya had a family, so did I. We waved same hands, on a distance. You know you are getting old when you ask for girls to become your friends. When you begin to think about them, only one girl, but still all of them, soon as you ge at home, at dinner, before you sleep... When you get older without having birthdays, or candles to put out the fire. To think we would meet each other again...
...
A quiet room, with a silence disrupted by the rain. An endless rain, that became a sign of silence.
Nobody outside, doors once closed lead open. I'm home. No sign of mom. She left this place a long ago. It would be worse if she left today. I didn't wanted her to leave, but who to complain? Dust who once filled in the air and mobiles soaked by rain. There's a hole in the ceiling... pretty huge. Even on that age, I couldn't have done something like that. Something done by an only hand, and no hands to fix it. Only a mind to put all the bricks on the wall, instead of throwing them at the window. A surface polished of any blood, unlike other houses. Alike a spider's web, shards of glass lying on the floor. A hole in the ceiling I used to stare at. Same sky outside I stared and felt glad of being alive each day. Just a hole in the ceiling, and in those who live within same houses. Those without a eye can't see, or feel any pain.
A hole in the ceiling... the burnt brought by the land of sun, to a land that only rains. The bed is soaked, but not by my own. People who became statues, running away, broken into pieces... only Basilisks turned people into stone, and onluy people to kill people. I came here to save them, but there is only me to save. Why am I crying, if I had not been into this house, or even cared that much? You begin to care when you get older. Tired as well. And when I look to the window...
— When I look to this window... I see...
— What do you see, Fratley?
— I see... I see a tiny hand. The shape of a tiny hand, disappearing. But the child... it was still there.
— Noticed something?
— It rains. Right... Rain fall me.
— How does it feel?
— Aaaa... Achoo!
— God bless you.
You too, whoever it was. Now there is only me... I didn't sneezed before. I just imitated a sneeze. Like, as if I had that conversation before, with someone else. Someone whom I cared about, other than Freya. Maybe my father, my mother, one of my brothers, sisters, someone whom I loved before Freya, I don't know. Those times... everything was so simple. Easy to understand, easy to learn, to memorize... Why should I try? Why should I care? Were these memories I brought back in an instant? Or facts that happen with everyone in life? I'm not with cold, but I had so many before. It's so easy to catch, unlike a ball before it hits your chest, or your bollocks. Bollocks... had I been so disrespectul before, I would be grounded. Only kids are, and no more I am one. Yet, I want to know the world like one wants to.
Know it with something other than my fists. Before, I felt how things were by mouth, then by standing on a potty, and later on by the tail. The front one, I mean. On a land that only rains, it's hard to play firefighter without any fire nearby. Geez, would Freya have any interested had I remembered this? Or does she wants to remember the moments I spent with her? A memory is a memory, no matter how insignificant it sounds like. There is a time a boy feels attracted to its mother, disapproving its father figure, while a girl feels attracted by its father, putting its mother aside. Later on, we do not even remember this happened, only when you realize that you married with someone alike your mother. Life is made of phases, some unnexpected, some weird, and no regrets as you grow up. You do not have a time to look at the white ceiling, laying on bed, feeling heavier than usual. A hand who used to be there, instead of your own, pulling you into the blanket...
So much happen in life that you do not have a reason to think anymore, but behave like an animal. Who would want me to forget it all? Killing me wasn't enough? The scars at my back healed with time. At times where I was a Dragoon Knight, a lover, and a prisoner. Guess still I am the last one, always been, to be fair. History doesn't repeat itself, but histories do. A culture influences another, but some do not like they did centuries ago. Alexandria still fights against Lindblum, in a subtle way. They speak same language, so do we, induced with time. A hypnosis that existed before clocks did, before gold has been retrieved from Gaia. Before smart heads like Doctor Tot began to exist. He was there, and like Freya, gone as well. He made me say those words. Say them again, sneeze again. And when I see there is no such rain outside, but a blue day...
Why be blue, if you wear green since childhood?
The torture room.
Where they tortured men until they became only flesh. That's what many wished for, after being whipped on the back, stretched by tight ropes and put into a cage full of spikes. Now it's full of dry blood, and to think someone once was here, and Lord knows wherever they disposed its body, for the sake of its soul being freed from any sins. Those who have committed them are the ones who dicted what they were, and weren't. What am I doing here? If I am to seek answers, then this is the wrong place. Everything here is so wrong. There is no such feeling into this place that can't be expressed without a scream. Only screams, which came after pain, and nothing else. The last place he remembered something, was able to, before... no, I do not even want to think about the possibility of a skull crashing against that wall, but I thought it anyway.
Sniff... Forgive me. It's innevitable. It could had been innevitable, had I been focused... had I been stronger for a reason other than finding Fratley. Find him, and tell that I loved him, when I could have told him before he left, despite taughting me to be stronger, and to not let fear pull me backwards, but instead that I should have made it propel me forward. I wanted to talk with Fratley, not with a teacher, but that's what you've got. And when you met him again, you got nothing but an empty vessel. Don't say these things, but I said them anyway. What is said on thoughts remains on thoughts, unless you want to ruin everything and speak it already. I called the Queen's mom by assassin, manslaughter, and I was right, albeit wrong. It's easy to say, with a sharp tongue in change of a spear's tip, and a mother is a mother, no matter how ugly she is.
The world would not accept to be molded on Brahne's image in no way. Or mine. Why, of all places, is this one kept to this day? It stands still, like a creature of chaos, regenerating throught the ages. While my homeland haven't recovered yet, this institution of fear, this disgrace to history, built by the dead for the dead, idiots who believed they could keep control had fear been on their eyes, alongside the edge of the sword. I don't know if its colder here, or outside; if my spit is the least disgusting thing out of this entire room. If what I do for Fratley doesn't matter, or have no meaning, to a world who already have losted its own for a long time. Maybe when rats began to walk erect, and talk and write on their own language, only for outsiders to impose their rules, and anything that's imposed is worthy a fight.
But sometimes, it isn't. Fratley haven't said something like 'you're lying to me' yet. First that I would never, from the bottom of my heart, lie to the one whom I have ammend the ribbon on the tip of my tail, and what is a lie for someone who do not know the truth? The way me met, we lived, learn to understand each other, be closer of each other... these weren't lies, but some were used to our advantage. The selfish child is still here, dividing space with the cold Dragoon outfit. Cold unlike what lied inside, unreachable even for my hands, or his owns. Only claws, that hurted and were brought by force. The pull of hands, a fall taken into a puddle of mud that saved my life, and still I was dirty when I allowed that good man to see my kind side. Like always, I wore red, and saw it as well, at the tip of claws that were brought for fun.
It's morning, time for breakfast. You must eat something, unless you want to be eated. All your energy, belonging to another body, feeding same. I never lost a fight, except when I underestimated my opponents, or when they treated me alike a child instead of someone tall as an adult. Dragons don't bother to see any difference to one and another, it's just flesh for their eyes. Some devour one another, because like I said, it's just a world of flesh, and when you are strong enough, you can do anything. When you have a brain, otherwise, you think before doing anything stupid, unless you are infuriated or unable to keep yourself in control other than shape. When I say I hold something by the fingers, it means that I do not have any intention of harming, but sometimes getting hurt is the least of the worries, when everybody near you is dead.
Could there be aberration bigger than a bird that can't even fly?
I saw penguins slide from atop hills of ice at Esto Gaza, swin on frigid waters with same. Chocobos can fly on a short range, and weight, yet they are useful for something like taking a ride throught distances. And for a kiwi, well, the wings are useless. If these animals happen to be extinct, nobody will believe that they ever existed. In a way, all birds are reptiles, with feathers instead of scales, and they can move without being dependant of the ambience's heat. I took a look at a book about birds, other than the one about memories, and got hooked on its pages. The illustrator took a hard job to draw all these pictures, which's fascinating, and also gives a better picture than words alone can do. There is also a story about how the book where the fundamental laws of physics are written into almost got overruled by a book about fish. I don't know if I laugh, or cry.
Who else, other than me, is there? When I want silence, I go to the library. Nobody speaks here, except in thoughts. It is as if I am the only one here, but then I see the time of the night, and in fact, I realize I am the only one here. Not the only one of my kind, if there is a race beyond concept that separates people like books in shelves. In theory, a human and a burmecian are the same, but practice fools everyone. The easy solutions are the ones which aren't easy to regret, and when you see, the King's corpse is being dragged away at the streets of its kingdom by same people who once loved and were its devotes. They call names, spit, kick its head, throw bricks out of windows, and if it ain't enough, the body is wrapped in a pole and stands there, like a hanged man card. That's how King Francach's reign ended, but the justice of masses still persist.
Like birds without wings, struggling to follow something, be something other than an excuse of living in a word that isn't perfect, the masses walk like lambs over the streets. I see them from a window found atop the stairway. I didn't needed the stairway, but a mere jump was enough. A fine curtain of wind is felt, but I didn't opened the window, and it has been so long since I felt air and its layers being broken by my jump. No wonder why a Dragoon's helmet is pointy, but the armor be heavy doesn't let anyone be it. Only as a dream, but they do not last long. I won't last long, but in meantime... I don't even know what to do. What I'm doing here? My body may be here, at Alexandria, but but my souls lies on Burmecia. And my heart, well, I just feel it pump, here inside my chest. Inside these clothes. Inside a pox's blanket.
A Dragoon Knight is a symbol of hope. Hope is symbolized by a bird. Some birds do no fly, and peace that's good... can't be brought by a deep breathe. The yearning can't be brought of an end by a mere kiss. Mere, you say. How long had it been since you kissed someone, felt the touch of another other than your coat's? The coat doesn't touch you, but offers heat. I don't need heat to move on, since I am not a reptile. Not always, given that I can be cold as my sight. I hide it as well, beneath a cold helmet, as much as I hide my sex months before I was born. How could someone tell that it was going to be a girl, and in my case, an only girl? Some things happen by chance, while others do not. I didn't met Fratley, learned to bare his presence by chance. It's because I needed to, since he had been always there, and a Dragoon solves problems, do not create them.
A Dragoon follows discipline, a conduct, a way of living. Same for whoever is wearing it's name. Well, I'm not saying that I was a bit reckless when it came to be a Dragoon. Still I was a young maiden, behaving like a child. Was, you say. Yes, I was, you reply. Only you. If there's a thing you've learned as a child, even if you do not consider you as one, is that nobody likes to be left alone. To not be paid enough of attention. To yell and hear someone say 'do not yell'. It's easy when all you do is think, but express feelings other than rage and behavior beyond delinquence and a bit of pepper in pants sure took enough of you. A year of my life that I pretend to forget, yet I can't. It's part of me, as much as it should be for Fratley. He is alive as much as I do, sleeping well too, which I can't exactly tell that I do.
I blink instead of sleeping. Sometimes, I hear a noise outside, and I can't do nothing since invisible hands already took me underneath blankets. I would understand if these hands were Fratley's, and if he indeed understood, he would be the one to wake up. Once I heard a woman yelling, or something screeching like, and I did nothing but cover my ears with pillows, as if they weren't already fallen, withered enough. Blood still runs on my ears, same for Fratley's hands. He holds them tight, this when I am able to feel him. To have a good night of sleep, mom always told me lullabies, while father, the Dragoon who wore this same coat, took sleeping weed. He did it so in a day, then skipped another, in case he would end up addicted. I didn't, lucky me, since once I took a whole lot of this weed. Enough poison filled in my life, including my dreams in darkness, this when the curtain doesn't open.
Before I take the plant, and before it takes me to another world, I talk to Fratley. It ain't something like 'you'll take it again, Freya?' or 'you should stop' or 'I'm tired of seeing you like this'. It is as if my own presence deny these words from coming out, or anything out of the dry vessel. To be fair, Fratley and I talked openly to each other about this issue, but I talked about it with Doctor Tot. I opened myself to many people, except Fratley. This Fratley, so a side of me says, but then I say that he's still the same. The Sir is gone, the Dragoon too, but the man is here. The rat as well. Wearing a fine and almost translucid piece of nightdress, I sit at the bed's tip watching him sleeping. How many times I took sight of Fratley this close... he never said me good night because he didn't left from same bed we layed together. Or as we began to, in a secret and guilty thrill.
Before he touches me without knowing, I do the same. Couldn't resist to just stare at its face. It ain't a portrait made of oil, but a face in flesh, fat, dead skin, fur, the real thing. The real Fratley, and still you feel this way. After all you had been throught, and you are unable to share of your feelings, or letting him do the same. Is it because he forgot it all? The way he behave in front of you, saying that he didn't knew you as if you were someone else? Is this my revenge, the way you retribute, compensate years lost? Why hate, if love is stronger, and always will be? That hair... sandy strands are found between my fingers, which slowly fall when raised. I do it again and again, just like he did to me, on my sleep. Comb the hair with its claws, a soft hold, unlike when he had a spear in hands, and a smile on the face.
You could, at least, smile.
Live a bit.
Open the mouth.
Be mine. Mine.
Mine. Mine.
MMMMMMMM...MMMMMM...
mmmoo-om-m-mmm...
mmmm...mmmmmm...
mmmmmmMMMMMmmmmm...
MMMMMMMmmmmmmMMMMM...
mmmmMMMMMMMMMMmmmm...
— ...Your legs are shaking.
— Uh? No, they aren't. This... this just feels strange.
— To hear this coming out of a fearless knight... Come on, Sir Fratley. It is nothing else.
— Oh my... Freya, please... I have things to do.
— For example?
— Well... I... I can't. ]
— Why not?
— Freya... We aren't playful children at kindergarten.
— You probably would prefer the kindergarten. This way, you would be sucking your finger all day instead of my tongue.
— No, Freya... that's not what I...
— I don't want to hear explanations. Just... just grind your hands for love...
— Gosh. I... I feel sick.
— Your chin is hot. At least, something in you isn't cold at all.
— Freya... Know what? Come here...
— Hey!... Oh... Ohmmmn...
mmmMMMM... mmmmm...
mmmmmm...mmmm
MMM...MMMmmmmmmmm...
I could kiss him right now, like before. But then, how would be its reaction to me? How would I react to my forced attempt of reconciliation, to feel something in your own instead of sharing it with someone. To read a book on your own... same book. Why insist on the same? Why can't Fratley be something, or someone else? The old one, the one you insist to appear right now, to sprout at your hands like bean growing out of soaked cotton... he had flaws too, as much as you did. Yet, some flaws never disappear with time. You changed, Freya, but was it because it needed to happen, or because someone told you to change? There are unseen and sneaky forces that whispers what you should do, like an angel and a devil at the side of both shoulders. A devil who fell on earth was once an angel, so it doesn't make any difference, and also, I don't believe in angels. Not that you are beautiful as one, Reis. Far more beautiful than anything who fell on this earth.
Whenever I jump into heavenly skies, I fall on same dirt. Your domains aren't mine, but Fratley... he lives its own live, on same earth I walk. Can't be mine all time, and I can't be myself without him. Instead of abandoning their eggs, birds take care of future generations. They made nests on trees, but some made them on earth, so their wings were only meant to flee from predators. When humans arrived, the wings became useless. We were the ones who wrote that they are useless just by arriving and being a bigger menace. We were the ones who put ourselves at the end of the food chain. We gave ourselves names, meanings, making things complicated for the sake of being selfish and privileged by such capacity of thinking. Yet, I can't stop thinking about Fratley Irontail. He was part of my life, this can't be denied. What else can't is that Fratley is still part of my life.
Yet, when I look to him, I don't see a Fratley. My Fratley. He only seems to exist because he was there before, always there, looking, teaching, touching ,feeling me. When he wasn't, stood in my thoughts. Five years of thoughts, and it ain't even an year since he came back. Neverthless, you can't grow bold because of him. Neither he liked you because of your hair, or any tools you had in hands, or in your body. When Fratley looked at you, he looked in your soul; and when I looked back, I saw myself. Now what do I see... I see a cloud, but not the sky.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
