♫R.E.M. - Perfect Circle♫

June 25th, 1778

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Combien de temps...

It's been a day that felt like a week since they left us. Beneath the sea of mist, deep within the clouds of Bahamut, on the land of invisible sun, rain falls down and I feel cold. Cold as this shivering skin; like the tears when I said goodbye, I feel the weight of my world in my shoulders high, collapsing on a landslide. The amethyst in my eyes never shone like before since that day, alike a withered bloom dried away. To think I, daughter of Crescent, were once an outstanding member of the Dragoon Knights. But now I've been disbanded from them, because of my current condition. It's the weather, they said. From June to July, like my hair, frail as the autumn leaves; pale, as winter snowflakes in the ground.

I felt unsafe at first, like a clam without a shell. A vagrant child, who had lost its own name and adress. At least, It's good to spend some time at home. My routine has changed since them. To reorganize the furnitures, to learn some masonry, to fix the front door, polish the windows, clean the fireplace, to prune the tree branches... I actually do the same things my husband had done before, but on my own. Even my wardrobe changed. From that unique crimson uniform to this lime housewife costume; the white cravat that used to be below my chin dissapeared, exposing my naked neck; my once freed hair is now wrapped into a ponytail, that reminded me of those days I weared green.

I walk upstairs. For some reason, those steps seems to take a lifetime. Maybe I'm too careful and I got a bit of onus since I grew up. When I was a kid, I used to ran over the spiral staircase at my house. It was a fun entertainment – besides playing with dolls made of cloth, or taking care of one little brother of mine, it's the same thing – until this arm broke. And by this, I mean I'm left-handed. I broke the right arm before mom taught me how to write, so I got used to this devil arm. And the curse has already spreaded. People of neighborhood, friends of mine, brothers of same blood, stared at me, that child of the left arm. Now, imagine a left-handed Dragoon Knight novice, female as well, living on a place where a few woman are able to withstand the almightly society of few good men, training with a standard javelin meant to be used by your right arm. Tough, isn't it? I did my best, to train using my right arm instead of the left one, and to prove the women of Crescent clan are able to achieve new positions. But it didn't suffice. It wasn't enough for changes to happen. Until a passing stranger gave his best to made one javelin, specially to be used by left-handed people like me. And this stranger is now my husband. This arm may be broke again, and my prudence says that I do not want it.

There's a grandfather's clock near me. The pendulum swings from left to right, right to left. A pattern, to be followed. The days I walked across the staircase – in spite of a related incident of mine – I used to watch the pendulum of the clock, almost the same as this. To lay down on the carpet, watching the seconds, minutes, even hours, pass. To stand in there, awaiting for the day until I grew up. Now, as I watch these painful hours slowly pass by, my body tries to cry. Tears aren't enough to describe this awe, those expectations of leading an uncertain future, without him. To live throught every ounce of desperation in these days, a single heartbeat of mine is enough to drive me mad.

Now I feel tired. The energy I once had when little vanished from this big body. Should I got to my bedroom and take a nap yet? Maybe not. It's still afternoon. When I'm tired, I used to smack some coca leaves to calm my nerves and keep me awake. Instead, today I go outside, to smell the sweet fennels growing on a corner. When my nose finally gets queasy – which doesn't take long to happen – I check if my kailyaird has the ingredients to prepare some chai. There is an only ginger growing in there. Besides that, I cultivate some lettuce, cabbages, carrots, onions, shallots, cherry tomatoes and worms. There's also some enokitake growing on that tree's trunk, and maybe I could find some truffle for a later dessert, but today I'll prepared a soup for Jack, like it or not.

I brought that only ginger along with me. That is enough for a cup. At the kitchen, I found a cinamon roll and some dry carnations inside the cabinet where our set for breakfast meal – cereals of oats and rye, and a piece of wheat bread – and lunch meal – pounds of lizard tails preserved in salt – lies together, although they are different sets of food. Like my personal garden, but nothing there's alive. This milk inside the brass container is about to expire in a week, but it's already in shortage, anyway. Now what is left for the last ingredient – and essential one: Black tea. After a couple of minutes in preparation, the national drink of Burmecia is ready to be served. When I taste it, my throat slightly burns, but it feels so nice. The taste is the perfect balance between spicy and sweet. A touch of cinamon and carnation never failed to impress my tongue.

I'm lost for words, but I just keep talking to myself. My husband ain't here to appreciate and share of this same silence. His lips may be dry of words, but, like a quiet street washed by the rain, his inner thoughts flow as a river, onto disparate slopes he never known which way they'll lead into. Bart's livid as a scarecrow when he spends time thinking and reflecting. It's the only thing that allows him to travel from this world to another; After all, if he can't change this world, then he might think about one that changes with a train of thought. A dreamworld, within his mind. He could instead hibernate throught an entire season if he wanted, but there's no time for relax when you're a man wearing an uniform. We are like two distant poles apart – Me, a Dragoon, who used to fly atop this cities; and Bart, a reserve soldier, now crossing the plains –, yet, we share of the same something in common. This something... Is to guarantee the safety of the new Burmecians. ''Javelins'' do not kill people. ''People'' do kill people. My daddy said something akin to that once, and I still remember those wise words. As my ancestors, A Dragoon's task is to protect the kingdom of Burmecia and its people. That's why I believe those who have been forgotten had a fate worse than death itself. I'll never forget you, my parents, my siblings, the people that helped me become who I am.

From the window, I saw my son, Jack, playing with his friends. 10 silhouettes and Jack, from a distance, at the fields. They all wear verdant green, like an infantry of little soldiers. I see them kicking a ball figure from left to right, later into all directions, like pieces from a board game. It's their current diversion, as it seems. Of all the things I've done, to spend more time with Jack was the best, certainly. The last time I did it so was when he was born. Mine and Bart's doubts turned into certainty on that stormy night. I stood in bed, my lower members numb of the pain I felt. A worth pain, of course. It lasted one month or less, until I could get up and get back to my duty as a Dragoon. Only sometimes I had the moment to take care of Jack, because of my job, unlike his father, who always seemed to be there to take care of him when I wasn't. The joy he had when that little fragile arm wrapped around his finger for the first time was the same flowing throught his tears. When he wasn't either, my sister would be there to take care of my son.

Like this cup of chai, our relationship is kinda of a bittersweet one. Sometimes savoury; other times pleasant. He's sometimes another quiet boy, sharing of the same fertile imagination as father, but sometimes he's a mischievous troublemaker, an angel with the wings of the devil. But Jack's just a kid, not an adult. Only kids can comprehend kids, and only adults comprehend adults. This is what I call by perfect circle. One day, you spent your life buried in the sand, but when you get older, you try to walk throught a path of thin ice, afraid to fall under the lake. As a kid, he sees me as another friend of his, like an aunt, at the point he mentions me by ''Lennie'' instead of ''mom''. It's not his fault. It's mine, for not seeing him grow as a boy for a long time. But still he knew I'm his mom. From the door, I hear timid knock-knocks. When I open the door, there's a child in the outside, covered by mud. It's Jack. I know it, because of its familiar, yet unfathomed reminiscense. A mother knowns who's her son, from a distance, or from a centimeter.

— Hi Lennie, he said.

— Get in, I said. I looked down at him. Almost 18 hours, and still he hadn't come home. But now he was there.

He's unreconizable without that single piece of orange cloth wrapped at the point of its stirring tail. Since the birth rate tax has increased in years, each adult became afraid that their sons might get lost. Kids these days looks all the same, so they came up with this: To wrap a piece of orange cloth around the newborn's tail, like a tie, and write the initials of his name, like 'Cr' for 'Crescent'. That boy had a 'Cr' on its tail, so it surely was Jack. We inherited this habit from one of our ascendants. The people of Bulu, a long lost civilization of wanderers who estabilished their civilization across the hills, to avoid the mist. This was long before our ancestors migrated to these wet plains, where the rain kept us safe. So, whenenver a child were born, it was part of their custom to tie an orange noose on the newborn's tail. The tie symbolizes union and affection, while the orange colour had a unique meaning for each age. On infants, the orange meaned the vitality of a new being; during the youth, it is associated to the pulsating of primary instincts; on adulthood, the fidelity of a couple and at the senescence, the renouncement of life pleasures. They also adopted as a sacred item the bell, which symbolizes the ear and everything that's perceived by it. Bells are said to terrify evil spirits and beings by their sound as well. That's why each house of Burmecia has at least one internal vault in a shape of a bell. Even the habit of drinking chai on afternoon was inherited from them.

Like a baby in my arms, I carried Jack upstairs, because his smudge feet were dirtying the carpet. I filled a large bucket with water and prepared a bath for Jack. He smelled as rotten as a carrion, that not even the most hungered of the vultures would try to eat it. Yuck! I even felt dazzled for a while, carefully washing all his parts with a luffa, while he fought reluctantly, like a drowning man. The waves dissipated and splash! He caught me off guard, twice in a row. I still had dominance over him. After some arduous work, Jack ceased and finally get clean. The cleanest he ever been. His laurel hair, flowing down like a waterfall; that gray flur smooth like moss, and both his eyes, green like jade gemstones. To be fair, he's a handsome boy, like father.

Finished, I curled Jack on a towel and took him out of the bucket and went to his wardrobe. Later, I prepared the dinner at evening. The friction of the crickets legs vanishes as we hear the croaking of frogs from the marsh outside, a symphony alike our stomachs. A recipe of my mom, a soup flavored by vegetables and worms was prepared. Jack only ate the worms and refused to eat anything else beside. But when I looked down on him, he ate everything. A little bit of force majeure never hurt anyone. Funny, at that moment, Jack did the same as me, when I first ate this soup mom prepared. I was put to rest on bed, my right arm still injured, and I was learning to use my left arm instead. It was easier to suck those vermins with my mouth than eat a piece of cabbage floating in a liquid surface of hot water. I refused to eat, given my condition, and later, I saw an arm being raised until a fierce and rough slap is delivered on my cheek, and another injury to be carried. That's what father would do to convince me to eat. But mom were so kind, and raised a spoon into my mouth. Like a breast given to a newborn, she took care of me and my siblings until the day she died. Again, I'll never forget her.

After we finished dinner, I washed the dishes. To think only two dishes were washed this night, and for once one is mine. For an instant, I slighty turned back. Jack was still sitting there, looking at the empty chair his father used to sit to. He had no expression, just an empty stare on his face.

— Jack? I asked. He was tired. His eyesight were as bad as a mole.

— Yes...? He answered. Only a word came from his mouth, before he went yawning.

— Isn't already late? You know, time to sleep. I briefly looked at the outside from the window. The clouds were dark, and the sound of raindrops on the roof slightly increased. The delicate sound of thunder and lightning could be heard across a mile away.

— Uh... O... O-Okay...

Our conversation didn't last too long. Jack left the table, without saying a single goodnight for me. Poor little thing. He seemed alright from outside, just another reckless nasty kid as usual. But I knew that, from inside, he was entirely riven, torn apart like a mistreated ragdoll. His heart was a stricken one, more than the ones belonging to anyone else, including me. His father were always there when he needed, unlike his mom, training over influence of her ancestor lineage, instead of taking care of her own offspring. Leastwise, I shared of his feelings. Like a bond, instinctively estabilished between mother and child, I feel what my son felt, but I don't think it's enough for the seeds of trust to grow up yet.

I light a candle, to walk across the shadows of these enlarged objects at the living room. Then I went upstairs, to Jack's room. He's already sleeping, and so I'm about to do the same, so I went to my bedroom. As soon as I layed on this bed, I blew this slowly burning candle resting on the nightstand, and this entire room went into the current state of my soul. Everything faded into black, and only darkness remained, like a deadly calm. I had no idea if my eyes were close or not. I felt briefly like a violet, growing up in the darkest of the corners.

This bed is so big without him. I know Bart won't come back soon. There is no place to run until the fighting's done. Until this bloodshed stops, to pray for your safety... It's all that we can do to put our faith in you.

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