♫Virginia Astley - Some Small Hope♫

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July 16, 1794

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I woke up on my own. I heard my own noise, same silence left after her departure. Mother used to come back, now she won't, as much as father, and Jack as well. This house, where I was born and raised to become this, remains mine. Due to mother being a Dragoon Knight, me and Jack had received a significant amount of gil for consideration. All the lives mother had saved and time wasted to prove her power was enough to suffice became money into my hands, and the food I may buy to not live in starvation. But nothing lasts, and money slips from the hands to another, tying up our hands to each other, as if love was just, or became a matter of survival. I recall father wanted to call me by Renée, yet my rebirth is provided every day I spend living on many ways. I didn't bothered about these things, I shared of my own world sustained by father and mother, until I've shared of their own world. The gray didn't just remained into my skin, or only grew over it since them, but this same fur I share isn't enough for me to bare of a cold, so I am still sleeping, I was until I found myself asleep over the night covered only by these blankets, and my own arms.

Lying on this bed, watching the ceiling, nothing there but another hollow space... You only want to sleep again because this place became so dark for the eyes, and you only got used with such thing within the time. The room is dark, so I should fall asleep, but I can't, I won't, then I cried. Before I could even talk to mother, I just yelled at her, and maybe she would come to me, mostly father. I remember this because it happened with everyone, only a few moments that I had with father to be deemed as unique still flows into my mind. Since he was gone, I spent most of my time with mother, even when she was away, but she would return. The only piece of mother that stood besides this house and her sons is that red coat, the Dragoon outfit she used to wore all the time, even when standing there at home. Before she took a bath that mother would take out same coat, and I knew why because of its scent, same who once flowed into one of my fingers after a cut. Never that I had to take a bath to make same scent to go away, because nobody scratched my back like that. A Dragoon did, or maybe it was a person... Mother sometimes used to refuse of father's hug when she came to this house sharing of same scent, and it wasn't only me who smelled the same.

Even with the rain falling outside, I knew that mother was there because of that coat's scent. The times she used to sew same piece of cloth, whose scratches used to vary between each day, yet she used to hid those from us. Jack said to me that mother is strong, that I didn't had to worry about her because she worried about us, and he was kinda right. It could had been me instead of her... It could had been my skin who had to be sewed as well. Soon I've woke, as I came to her room, empty as usually it will be for once and for now, I see many things that mother left behind, a sort of inheritance other than money, but a set of materials bought with same. To think that she was lying on this bed yesterday... and I, like now, was sitting there, the only one belonging to this room that could walk, As I open the wardrobe, I watch those many green clothes alike the one I share, or I am meant to wear besides this nightdress, green as well, like everything that is sour as a lemon. Besides that same red coat, there is also a set of white cravats inside one of the nightstand's drawers. I remember that I've used a cravat once to clean my nose, and that was the same mother wrapped around her neck...

Besides the cravats, mother sometimes wore a set of white bandages, found in the second drawer of same nightstand, same ones she used to wrap around her wounds. The thought of someone choking her until she bleeded never came into my mind as much as it came to mother's as well. I remember when a splinter had gotten into one of my fingers, it wasn't that big, unlike same pinch mother once used to take something out of her back, where marks alike a jaw were left again and again. It was an ironite's tooth, or what remained of same. Black tooth, unlike the white ones who fell out of my mouth. White alike the porcelain I've once broke... Mother also drank so many cups of chai sharing of intentions other than mine. The taste didn't mattered for mer, as much as it mattered for me, who liked of some cocoa's flavour instead of the bitter I've tried to replenish from same tea, and the dishes prepared with any watercress. Thankfully, my brother told me to eat those leaves without touching it with the tongue, which is kinda hard to do, but I needed to eat those leaves, not feel its taste.

Jack... he ain't here. Somewhere, he is taking care of Freyr, an excuse to be out of this house, not out of any responsibility. When mother was away, sometimes he would be there to take care of me, because he is the older brother. Jack wanted a boy to be called by brother, but I came instead; It was hard to play with his, since he, like his friends, denied of my presence. This ain't a thing a girl like you can do, that was mainly their excuse, and yet, they allowed me, as much as Jack did all the time, of my presence, or else, I would call for mother, but I've stopped doing it so with time, seeing how she felt throught the years after father was gone forever, and she gone on any normal monday, or each day of the week. What really killed her wasn't her ill lungs, but years of a duty she must had to accomplish, or else I would be killed instead. Someone like me, living somewhere else, everywhere.

Follow of your dreams... mother only dreamt on her own, never that she demanded me of following her more in her footsteps. How big they were, how small they became; unlike these claws, that had gotten bigger with the time they don't get any polishment. Not that they were meant to stab anyone in front of you, only those who share of the intent to harm someone other than yourself. Mother, instead of the claws, not that she ever used same, mainly that spear was her choice. She was a Dragoon Knight, everyone wants to become one, or most of the kids when asked by their fathers. They thought it was cool to be flying around the city, to keep stabbing each ironite or any other beast as easy as it is to stab a fork in a meat over the dish... I don't even know what I wanted to become, so I just said I wanted to be any bigger, mainly because of Jack. Now I am taller, but even I can agree that between 73'' and 74'' is enough of a height, even for men. It's those legs, my dear, that's what mother would say, looking at the mirror I am.

And there it is, a box of needles found in the last drawer, meant to sew more than any of mother's clothes, but mine as Jack as well. When she took the long needle to sew a severed limb belonging to one of the dolls she made to me, it was like she was sewing her own arm, not only the few major open wounds hid inside that thick fur, who fell like her hair as well, as mine just grew with gravity pulling it to the ground, and so it did pulled mother into that bed. When I was tired, it was hard for me to be, I was guided towards my sleep, only so I could sleep to restore of my energies, while I wasted of mother's one, so I did with the one who remained into father. Jack wasn't that much tired either, because he kinda of shared of an age near mine, we were children anyway. Still we do are, only a bit grown up, while I only became this tall within the time, like mother.

Down the staircase out of these empty bedrooms, lies the living room and the kitchen. Nothing else to talk about it, only the same 'hey, father used to sleep here' or maybe he tried it so, because besides him, there was me. With the time, I've learned to not wake up his, until he never woke up and from that day and onwards, father finally found some rest, pretty much alike mother. They weren't lazy, not even I am, as I keep moving to somewhere outside this house. The window shares of a view to the street, and so my eyes, but my feet are still touching the surface belonging to this house, as they did fourteen years ago as well. Agaves... those were mother's favorite kind of plants. Nobody could hold them with the hands, only the ground, same for the many seeds lying into the soil of the kailyard. Besides plants, mother and I used to spar in the garden outside, behind this clothes line. It rains outside, but the wind is what makes those clothes clean, on a land without a sun on its plenty...

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Of course, mother wasn't silly enough to spar with me, or Jack, with her own spear. She took off the blades and so we sparred with only the wooden tips, belonging to spears, broomsticks, or with the trunks of trees. I've always won her on these matches, so I did when against Jack, but within time, I've began to lost these rounds, not only for Jack, but mother as well. That wasn't merely an act of piety, seeing how much tired she was to do it so, but because I have been training with someone far more experienced than me. Besides, we never had hitten each other so hard with those tips, I did it once with Jack, but then I felt sorry for his. It could had been a blade stuck on his chest instead, mine as well. There are a plenty of points in the body that Dragoon Knights are taught to protect, like the neck, where a single cut is enough to make you bleed to death. The more you know... That may be the reason why mother whore the white cravats, as much as she shared of a long white hair not wrapped in a ponytail, like this same one belonging to me, and any other girl who shared of that same age.

So does this ribbon, orange alike the wrapping behind my hair. They are part of my identity, because the blood shares of the same color like any other, it just varies the tone, between clear and dark, so there is the red, the crimson, the amarant... only variants, not fakes. Never that I was fond of raisins, no matter how much they were dry or enough to fit inside my mouth. Mother always wanted that I've eated those, same whose complains revolved about that all fruits shared of seeds, and so do I spitted them. Now I swallow them, so did the earth to mother and many who met the end like her. Some felt pain. others felt nothing but a need to 'stop'; I won't ever know what mother felt, seeing how she just smiled at me. Now I may know why she kept smiling at me before she came to be laying under far more the blankets belonging to her bed... It's the faith. Meant to be felt, not understood.

With the cemetery empty today, I can finally see her, or the grave that was once surrounded by a circle of people, composed of many parents and unknown people, whom only mother knew as a Dragoon Knight on duty. Only Jack to be there to tell me it so, since I felt it wasn't right for me to be there, with that same noise... I couldn't even sleep, not because of the noise, but because of the silence left after mother was taken away. Her body, before the soul was already gone... I didn't even cried, had no time to do it so. That wasn't mother... just her body. I talked to her when alive, now she wasn't. Anymore. Yet, they all kept crying for her body... as they did before, when sitting on the living room, besides laughing to any joke. When I say cry, I don't mean that tears where shattered, but grimaces instead, sobbing as well. I am the only one who shed a tear, because I yawned... and then I slept, because I remembered that I had a life to be spent tomorrow, like I did with those yesterdays that came before. Mother would do the same, so she did after father was gone.

Some believe that only humans cry due for being sad, whereas animals only cry because of the pain they feel. Then, I've learned to cry for both reasons. Unlike other Burmecian children, I wasn't born out of an offspring, so did Jack who came before me. How long it took for me to be here, I don't know. So does the way they hanged on that corpse... this I don't want to know. My mind may be on a blank state each day, like the holes in the sky, yet the painful moments remain. Good moments happen again and again, no matter how much I forget about them, and when bad moments seem to be near, I am prepared to take them as soon as they come far better than I did when younger. Sometimes, rarely as it seems, the sky opens up, and we are able to see a bit of blue, as if someone up there is tired of making us look to these clouds, gray as we, so does death, but we are know to do our best to preserve of the past and its colors, not only restricted to the green grass, or the brown soil beneath it.

When you die, the tapeworm that lives inside you die as well, but in the end, we all end up becoming blind without our eyes being torn out, as the vermins keep eating us instead of what we used to believe we ate. Remember when you used to spit those seeds, Freya ? Yes, I do. I didn't wanted to eat anything, because no matter how much I ate, still I was skinny, unlike the days that came prior, when I shared of a weight belonging to any healthy child. Mother was strong enough to hold me with both arms as much as she did holded of that spear with an only hand. She never left me fall... only a few times mother would force me to eat something, putting a spoon inside my mouth instead of covering the meals with salt. Same person who ended the life of many dragons by stabbing them in the heart is also the one who made the life of anothers progress, including my own as well. Only a few pumpkin seeds were enough for me to acquire the taste for anything, because it was truly me who had been eating that same food. And to think my first meal was served at the tip of her spear...

A Dragoon's customary... so old-fashioned of your part, mom. In regards to your passing, they say the Dragoon Knights are buried inside the Palace's walls, yet they buried you there, near father. That was one of your lasts wishes whom they fulfilled. Dan is also here, but there is nobody for whom he's looking at, only people whom he failed to protect somehow. I wanted to talk with his, but then I had nothing to share with his at the moment. We may have spotted each other, but we didn't wanted to talk to each other. I did it so when father was gone, just pretending he didn't by acting as a kid befriending another, a way I found to fled from the truth, besides the boundaries made by those people who always seems to attend any kind of ceremony, burial as well. If Dan wantes to see his father, then he will need to travel far more miles than the distance between his house and this cemetery, but that would be useless. Not a waste of time, for someone who had lived a plenty of years, and an only father, lost.

Not only his, but his siblings as well. Jared and Ranaldo... I didn't knew them that much, but they both left this place to live in another country, by the name of Lindblum. Only his sister, Aoife, is stepping on this same land. She is as young as Learie does; neither of them are here, but certainly Dan will do his best to make their time with each other endure the most. You did the same for me and Jack as well, mom. This ain't the end of the day, just the morning. I have a plenty of time to be spent, just as you have spent all of them on the way you could. While others had a life, you had the duty to preserve life, a life that seemed to sparse each day your words began to slur, to turn into coughs. The rain from outside never kept us dry, but each day it paased, you began to feel cold. Sometimes a fever coming from the forehead, but it was hard to distinguish if you felt better, or not. You lied, but for a good cause, while most of us lie without ever saying a word.

What should I do to go onwards like Chocobos over the hills instead of letting the days pass away, you may ask... so do I. As far as this brand new day is still on its beginning, I'll be following the path to dawn, until I've accept to be the twilight instead of watching it. Before, you wore of same dusk... you've became the dusk for the dragons and any kind of creature found found through and across these streets. They may seem invisible for the majority, just like father and many other's legacies. Not only I am the daughter of Crescent, but also I am the last remnant of someone left unknown by the general history, as each one of us may become someday, just like how the sky and the sight becomes dark at the end of the days. Instead of bringing any flowers, I've watered those you left at home. No, I'm not referring to the plants growing at the garden, mom. You wish you could live longer, don't you? You are already living inside me, as much as I used to live inside you. I'm not read to let someone else sow of its seeds, but rather I would prefer to see the ones you've made sprout.

Winged are the sides still belonging to your helm, metallic blue wings that reminds me of when they turned purple... I've already accepted the risks by seeing you coming home each day of the week, so I'll be able to endure any refusal, anything on my way that your spear alone won't be of any use. Just for you to know that I mean it, no holding back, I'll be taking out this ponytail out of hair. I am as freed as you had been when locked on that pattern, efforts unrecognizable for the people who wear of this same green clothes as they pray each day for a god that doesn't even have an only shape. Mother... this ain't only a childhood dream taken out of the collective I've lived, something I've felt growing when we began to spar with each other, or a matter of your family's blood running throught my veins and that coat meant to be wore once again; neither an attack nor a declaration of war against who I am, but I, Freya Crescent... I do want to become a Dragoon Knight.