By: Bark Psychosis
From: Manman EP (1990)
373Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6k18JOX1xx
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— Hoy!
— Kupo! It's nice to see you again, Stiltzkin!
— Nice to meet you too, Kupo!
— How many letters had you been delivering lately?
— It has been, like, a thousand!
— Kupo! That's a lot for you, isn't it?
— Not that much, Kupo.
— It's so sad. And you don't have any special powers, Kupo!
— Well, I have a super power... I never give up.
Two moogles talk to each other in the middle of the street. These creatures are the messengers of this world. They can be found anywhere, delivering the letters for the people who are able to read them. Letters are meant to be received, people to talk to each other, yet nobody I know asked for it. People just walk away, out of their jobs, onto the night routine, some women standing outside the pubs, where those who worked hard pretend to do the same I did, when I didn't asked for it. They pretend to forget what happened today, except the payment of gil upon their hands, so does the beers. The finest of Gaia, the worthless ones as well; it doesn't matter for them, already drunk. Their heads will hurt tomorrow, so will do their bodies, skinny ones, and a few man who work as a sort of potato chariots, given their strenght, but each one I see shares of muscles. All of them, even me. I do not want any trouble, I do not even look at them, because I saw so many of them before. I don't forget what I see each day, like this crimson sky, and this crimson coat she's wearing.
Did Freya asked for it? Was she who decided her own name? It's all part of the family, as it seems. Everyone shares of a family, some born with, and others made like vases of clay; they can be found anywhere, and to be broken easily as well. Some people are already broken, living in poverty, and they didn't asked for it. Many of them are thieves, I also would be one too, if something else more than my wealth had been stolen as well. It was... but I don't have anyone to blame. Freya does, but she refuses to put the blame on others. Maybe she does, only inside her head, whichever it may be the topics of her inner conversations. Maybe there is nothing else there, but everything is meant to be filled in by a kind of materia. There is nothing there, but the sky, and the air, the breathe... There is nobody, but since I went blind like a cyclops for a moment, anyone can say the same as I do. The moogles are gone, as many people receive of letters from faraway distances, or a neighborhood to another. I wonder if Freya ever sent me a letter, but the message wasn't received. Only now.
The sun has already been set, but a kind of light alike the one saw from above the skies now belong to each of these corners, once shadows, so do the people who live there. Inside these houses of bricks, once empty, but people begin to come back from their jobs, sharing of the thoughts of sitting near the fireplaces built within, while the others living outside burn anything, any sort of fuel that's meant to become a source of warmth. They do not have any job, althought many of them clean these streets of any junk, while the others think they are the junk meant to be taken away. As if being threw on these streets wasn't enough of a humiliation... They don't bother about the smell, because a fire is a fire, and hygiene has since been stolen from them as well. At least, these figures wear clothes, and some of us are kind enough to give them support by donating our possessions. Only donations, but these aren't enough to change it as a whole.
But who to defy fate? Well, this ain't a matter of fate, a thing that do not even exist, but many people believe in it. It's a sort of a lazy excuse to justify why things are what they are. For many, god is a thing, a servant of the man. He, she, it... just god, who doesn't exist, but people believe that he does, just like any other human around there. He exists to remind us that we were not created for the wrong reason, so why do we exist? Isn't wrong that people do not believe in people, whom they can see, look throught their faces? In this world, some people are forgotten by the sight, because if we don't look at what is spoken about, then such thing doesn't exist. Instead of homes, churchs are made to spread the world of Sire, god, but the skies, the heavens... they lie everywhere, atop us.
If god is dead, then someone shall be able to create it with its own hands and words, but the sky did fell down so many times, and our bodies only got soaked instead of our souls being cleansed. Burmecia and its people hadn't agreed to live together under the rain only because of the result saw by the growth of crops meant to rise only at certain seasons, and Alexandria didn't attempted to invade our Kingdom so many times due to a childish envy in regards to our prosperity, a matter of family and economics. To be fair, nobody is that alive to know the reason why we fought each other, only the Qu's, who would answer 'you can eat this, you can't eat this', or so that's what Quina kept talking about to herself while on the kitchen. Maybe she is right, on her own way. They do not steal any gil for us to only be holding a coin with their hands, or to drop them at the main fountain and make a wish. There is no need to make mutual wishes, only to fill in the empty spaces. The stomach, on their case.
The basic need belonging to each animal... to eat. I want to eat too, but I refuse to say I'm hungry. I may be a bit skinny, but I ain't as hungry as they do. Many of them wear large clothes, and with the tightening of some belts and buckles, their bodies remain tied in with such clothes, and these people aren't mistaken with animals. A rat is given far more looks than a single person belonging there, on these streets, anwyhere that is known as Alexandria, and Gaia. That's our homeworld, but we insist to create spaces within spaces. They didn't existed, now they do, like these houses, these clothes, the size of hair, the gaiters on the feet, the muzzle... Freya and I, alike many other burmecians, do not wear any shoes. Only humans do, but some are far more deemed as humans than others.
Only a reflection; that's all I see. At least, I'm able to see, and with these ears, I'm able to hear them as well. Moans, shivers, legs trembling... a self-reflecting image insists to appear, and it won't disappear. No matter how many scars were left around my eyes, they healed within time. It needed so, or else I wouldn't be able to see, no matter how unpleasant this looks, feels, smells like. I can see them, no matter how much I blink, or look on another path... how many times I saw them before, but I didn't forget. The reason why I left Burmecia, or so others speak about, Freya as well told the same for me, was that Alexandria and the other nations were preparing anothe war, and I left my Kingdom in order to strenghten myself. In which way, I ask, but only I had the answer. Only Fratley Irontail knew what he had been pursuing, what he felt, what he deemed to be fair and unfair, what he feared... His only fear, my fear, the one of letting someone die upon these hands, the scratching done by these claws.
Geez.. why do I remember this? Why, of all things? So many names, many faces, each one of their birthday dates, gifts taken, gifts sent... I have memories, a past, that each day it passes, it only becomes data, information, nothing else, nothing that things, 'things'... Do you remember one of your birthdays? The last yuletide spent with your family? Is any of your siblings alive, or am I and always had been an only son? Was Freya the first one I've ever loved? The one whom I gave my first kiss? The spear I once holded with a hand is gone, and so I agreed to let it be. I am something far more than that spear, someone far more than a Dragoon Knight, or someone give the title of a 'Sir'... then who am I? Which kind of strenght did I've pursued outside Burmecia? I... I don't know. So many things I do not know, so many places I saw but they do not exist anymore, out of my head as well. These people, living on these conditions... they are the owners of this world; the strenght, and weakness of same.
— Alexandria sure is a nice place – I said to Freya. I hope this doesn't turn out to be another of many failed attempts, but I know this won't, since she's always avaliable for a speech. I just had to speak something out of this head; it brings a sort of relief that someone else is here to hear me.
— For the vision of many, it sure is – I heard from her. 'My dear', 'my love'... I wonder how I used to call Freya by, besides her name. It may be irrelevant, but that's one of the misconceptions you can't be looking forever with a first sight. And Alexandria isn't that much of a nice place. Not that I am a liar, but... That was the first thing I could think about. An entire city, within a Kingdom of same name – I used to despise the rain for once a while, because that's all you get from the skies of Burmecia. Now I despise the evenings.
— Why?
— Because that's when the sun is gone, the skies get dark... And the stars are cold – she said. We didn't even stopped, like the people around us. If there is something that the burmecians aren't allowed to see until today... besides a clear sky, only a few of us known or ever contemplated a sky other than the sun. And the moon as well, a sister of the night, that comes and goes to be on its brother's place, radiating of his same light. A sort of mirror, that nobody seems to bother looking at.
— But they are beautiful, on the other hand – I briefly noticed this same sky, who isn't obscured by many clouds.
— Within time, they become just tiny dots spread in the clear sky... We can't even see their true shape, no matter the heights we reach – she said. Besides the cold, it's hard to breathe when atop the mountains, or any hill if you had spent an entire life on the valleys. Freya knows, and so do I, due to my own experience. Alexandria sure is located above one of the highests of the plateaus. I had some difficult to breathe here, but now that my lungs familiarized with this same air, that's no more of a problem.
— Nobody can draw a star. That's one of the reason why they are far more beautiful than anything living on this land – I couldn't even run, now I don't have any reason to do it, besides increasing my mass. I do it mainly in the morning, the grey dawn, but now that everything turned orange like the fire, and the sky dark as any piece of coal, and with Freya on my side, I don't need to run, though I want to scream, like this city and these flames lit by the oil within these lamps does. No, you don't have the need to scream so you can be heard – I mean, there is something rather fascinating about the unreachable, and how the same affects us.
— It sure does.
I know as well that Fratley wanted a world, yet I do not know if he despised the old one, this same world I am still living into. He pictured another world within his mind, a world within the mind of many. Nobody can forget it, or even execute of same plan. Anyone wants to build a world deemed to be their own, to realise their own ideas, their own kind of justice. A world completely free of any crime, free of any suffering, free of frailty... free of choice by result. Do we have any choice, after all? We agreed to live together so long ago, and still we do, for some reason. A child grows into its own little world, so do we, the adults who taught same to live as it should be, until we grown up. That's the fear of many children, yet many of them want to become Knights, here in Alexandria, there at Burmecia. It's fun, many of them say, you can fly, fight against some dragons, touch the clouds... do ever Freya thought the same as these kids still do? Maybe. We were children too, all of us were one, some still do act like them, but it ain't the same thing. The way we look to each other, the way scent is brought to our noses, our ears listening to the surroundings... no, it ain't the same thing.
— So, why did you decided to become a Knight, Freya? – I asked. Do I ever asked this before? I only have the questions, and I can't answer them, even if I wanted to. I want someone to answer besides me, because that's how conversations are made. A man yells to another, and then I heard the sound of a glass and its shards falling, not from a distance, but on my back. So nearby of danger, who passed unnoticed for us, and Freya as well. She used to be a Knight of Burmecia, so I did.
— I can't say for sure why I became part of the Dragoons, Fratley. Guess I just wanted to do something, instead of only being a witness of time.
— And what you would like to do if you didn't became a Knight?
— I wanted to follow of this duty in any way. I have no idea what I would do if I gave up so easily – so she said. I can't picture Freya doing something else other than the job of a Dragoon Knight. No, I'm unable to do it, though it would be interesting to see her working as a, well, a fisherman maybe. Fisherwoman... Does this word ever exist? If not, then I might have created it. I'm sure that not only the men fishes, and smells like fish. Do we ever had the need to become Knights, anyway? I would ask. That seemed to be a thing the Fratley of before would never say. I have many things inside me that I don't have the need to, or the courage to speak about. Freya isn't only doing it for me because she's a Knight. I trained her, I told her many things, I hid many secrets, some I don't even acknowledge the why.
— Freya... What if I forgot almost everything I was because, well... because it was the right thing to do? – I said. Did I really said it? Of the many things meant to be brought, and all I am able to do is to worry myself if they aren't left out of me, or to worry others like Freya. It's hard to be honest, with so many lies told, some deemed to be the truth. How many times I lied to myself? That would be the same as to ask how many times I blinked.
— What do you mean, Fratley? – I expected another question, so I could make another question, which works alike an answer. That's how conversations are made, and people do not even notice such thing. Why water extinguishes fire? Someone is always here to explain the why.
— Don't get me wrong, but... what if... if I had to forget even the good moments because I didn't knew which ones were bad enough to be done? I know that life isn't made of only good moments, but if I was unable to mistake the good with the bad, the right and the wrong, what would the people think about me? W-What if something so horryfying happened to me, that all I could do was to forget, instead of letting same to seek me for the entire life? – I wonder how I was able to speak these out of me. Instead of giving a clear answer, all I brought were questions. Freya is unable to answer them as I do, yet she seems to relate with them, as much as she is related to me.
We are holding our both hands, thought we share of these claws, which aren't brought to any harm, left to the words spoken instead. Each one of them, no matter how small or insignificatn they are. Things never said by Fratley, felt by his instead, and all I can do is wonder whether or not I should lead them out. Freya remained in silence, unlike our footsteps.
...
— Give up, Crescent. You are made of flesh and bones, just like the others – legs tremblings... skull shattering... an aching chest... is this pain any real? Some are. One more won't hurt as it did on the first times. A Crescent isn't only restricted to a body... and a mind. They may give up, unlike the spirit that moves me forward. Yet, another side of me makes me go backwards. To retreat, run throught a wall, another jump, a landing, and another of my bones hurt. I am at her back, but I can't finish it yet. The edge of the sword, I hold it with both hands... I get cut, but that was better to be found in a half. Why the struggle to hold it? Why doesn't she take my fingers out?
— I have the suspicion that not only you won't kill me, but you are unable to. That's why you didn't finished me back then, Beatrix.
— I don't finish with my opponents when they are down – she said. With the tip of her sword, gray touching metallic gray, she is able to say something. You said that you only fight against those who are standing. You need both legs to stand erect, and a mind to decide wheter you should be in shock, or just run away. With the many shouts belonging to the enemies instead, the agony of my people in change of respect... You wanted some respect, Beatrix? You got it. And what about this gallantry aspect coming out of your face? Why do you insist to show it? This ain't courage. A flea who sucks the blood of its host can't be deemed as courageos. In the end, they are all but cowards. And only us to call them by something else, other than insects. Only us to be this wrong, and to define what is wrong to be done. I won't pull this sword out... but still, I do have these feet to brought a kick to her chin.
— I lost far more than my home. I lost years seeking for someone, who believed that this world could be any better than what we saw briefly on our dreams. It takes a short amount of time for us to forget, but only the dreams last this short. Fratley lived on this world, and then he became it. Burmecia and Cleyra were left in ruins, and so did I.
— And you believe pursuing me like this, despite your condition, will result in any other justice than your own?
— It ain't only me who seeks you, Beatrix – pathetic. You are beginning to lose your touch. It's all becoming too easy. The guilt is beginning to overcoming you... – you want me, the only burmecian you sparred a life, to win this battle, and so be it. No, Beatrix. This ain't a battle. There will be no victor, since we both are losers... Anyway, only the losers fight until death! – I let it out of me. Something that came from the other side. The shadow I step, who steps over me. My armor is shining, and the blood once hid by the coat of same color smudges same armor. I can't hide anymore, not even in the dark.
— There is a blurred line in regards to what the news show to people, and what a soldier feels in the middle of the field – blades colliding against another, poles apart belonging to a magnet stone. One became the nail, and the another becomes the skin – it doesn't matter what I did, or what I had been ordered to do. We live for a code, and that still matters – I am far stronger than her, but this won't last enough, unless I finish it at once. Enough of awaiting for this coming later at the night, sooner than the sun arriving at the horizon, whenever it's the time your will soon shed of your true colors. You are weak, so does your will. You only stood quiet, in shock, while your other half contemplated, clapped to what Odin brought to Cleyra, what Beatrix brought to you... defeat. Failure. Despair – I didn't invaded Burmecia due to choice. A choice that's still left for yours to make, Freya – and that's all she had to say.
Whatever happened to those Stock Breathers and Climhazzards spells once uttered out of your throath, Beatrix? Are you tired? I can feel the scent of your sweat. The scent of your flesh as well, tainted inside and outside this metallic outfit of yours. Empires and their resources do not last for too long. When another comes to rise, it succedes, only to fall in decay afterwards. So does the people like you, but not without taking as many lifes with his. While normal crimes are usually commited with some kind of logic behind, there are many ways to kill someone with the arms, the legs, with a shoot... with two idiots like us, anything would be possible, if we weren't restricted by these walls, and what the law and the ethnics means to us. Abduced or not, laughing or in grimace, a victim or a victor; only the survivor to decide. The curtain is coming down to you, Beatrix. I am your curtain, and your blood may be my carpet.
— You said that I live for a code, that there are barriers meant to not be crossed. My people, however, they taught me another lesson, by dying without any reason... This world only sees a kind of sense if you force your sight to. What do I ever accomplished back in Burmecia? Besides putting out a few fires the rain couldn't wash away? Yes... that's all I said lately. That's all you are able to say too, Beatrix. Yes to the flag, yes to your country, to your crest, to your queen, to your code, to manslaughter... You gave them power, instead of taking it over with your own, just like your predecessor. While it truly pains me to say this as a Dragoon Knight, I, Freya Crescent, will kill you for revenge!
Dragoon Knights only exist within Burmecia's boundaries, and that's a fact. Beatrix fell down, on my knees. A seemingly bottomless pit stands on both right and left directions. A single kick would break her as a vase, but no, it ain't the time. There is still something left... I can't resist, but to grab her neck and choke it. With one of these claws, I could tear open hear aorta with the slighest of the cuts. Never that I did such a thing with someone without scales. No, something... Why? Why is it taking so long? No, I... I never killed anyone. There are a plently of ways to... to immobilize someone. Stop it already. I give up. At the last moment. I had the opportunity to finish our lives here, but Beatrix wasn't the only one who cared for it. That wasn't me, I do not use my fangs to bite anyone. I betrayed myself, for the sake of myself, in regard to the people I couldn't afford any help. A kingdom already built over ruins. Beatrix, you may have become a political threat, and I... I became a joke. Did we ever asked to choose any of these?
— To where are you going, Freya? – she asked. With one of my feet limping, after I broke my spear in a half... These stand like tombstones within the burmecian armory, a graveyard built in homage to the race who destroyed others and themselves with pride, and arrogance. I almost destroyed myself, as an entirety, within these walls, but eyes can be spotted everywhere. I don't look to Beatrix's question with the eyes, but I'm all ears. I can hear her voice, instead of my own screams. They will come back in my nightmares. My own, at least.
— Beatrix... Have you ever wondered where our wishes go, after wer are able to fullfill them? To where dreams are gone as soon as we wake up? I... I'm going nowhere.
...
The sounds of the dishes, each one of them being taken, received into this same table. Forks and knives tingling like bells, the noise coming out of their open mouths... won't they stop doing that? Well, why do am I the only one who seems to care, or bother about them? It's these ears... they work well. Far more than I can deduce. No matter how much I eat, I am still this skinny, but that shouldn't bother me. Do I ever felt the need of getting any fat? Perhaps, due to how I trained each day, and seeing how these hands used to be wrapped in bandages, that now have no other use other than being stuck with me, in order for me to remember even the slightest of the details. Wearing these clothes makes me feel larger, tougher than anybody, but I don't hold of a spear anymore. Only my jaws, and these sharp claws. I use the fork instead of eating the rice when holding it like a ball, but they do not share of any shape other than any rice alone does. They only got stuck with each other due to moisture, and because that's how rice is meant to be eaten.
Pieces of mushrooms covered in oil, marbles of salt that are alike crystals, a light above us all, and the metallic spoons who shine like the edge belonging to the swords, but these don't shine alone. Nothing glows a kind of light, except those who have learned to do it so. Fireflies, scorpions, and Dragoon Knights that only glow in the dark when casting Regen to heal their wounds. On the table, all I need to be cleaned up is a napkin, white alike that cravat tied on her neck, and then it's no more white. Someone scratches the porcelain dish with a fork, then eats a piece of meal, doing those awful sounds. Nobody here wants to enjoy of some silence, only when it's time to go to bed. And now my ears pay attention to his... Forget it. That's one of the things that I wish I was able to in this kind of situation. I left the vegetables to be eaten last, since they are cold anyway, unlike the soup prepared by Quina.
Chicken legs... these are smaller than chocobo's ones. Far tasteful as well. This could had been the moment where I remembered that I once had eaten a chocobo's leg, but we all use them sometimes in a way to travel along this continent, so I don't know whether I should or shouldn't remember something right away. Would be there any meaning if I recalled how I used to eat? Left-handed or right-handed... Which hand do I used mostly? I certainly do not have used my feet for something other than walk on the many floors I stepped, and the many you have kicked right at the face? I don't want to remember these times I fought against someone. So does Freya, as I see she is still quiet, on her own. Freya is taller than me, taller than the rest of the women of Alexandria. It's something others do not care to notice, neither do I, until I have lost even the meaning of what is saw as unmeaningful.
I mean, Freya was one of those who saved the world, and people threat it as if it was nothing else. So many battles fought, and I wasn't even there. Only within her mind, but was it really me, this same me? So far, only I had been given of his same name. But unlike the Fratley of before, I was able to live a bit longer.
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