♫Tangerine Dream - The Big Sleep In Search Of Hades♫

April 1778

The Knights of Pluto...

Fools.

All of them. Dastards; mere puppets, being moved by the invisible hand of the King. Blindly following throught the footsteps of another, without developing some self-confidence, or 'self' of anything; a tragic mask without a brain. But me... I'm just an assassin, with moral, following of my own orders. The path they and will follow is the same as mine, and our family. They're walking on air without me, Madalene.

I didn't train all these years so I could take a backseat to anyone. No one train for himself, in order to be surpassed by the other. The other doesn't train to be left behind by the skills of someone who claims to be better than his. Many wars were fought before the Airship Revolution came; many lives lost in the process of attempted revolutions. Obeying of the same principle, if there's a time to fear, then who's afraid of who? Men fought against Men, women against Men, and rats against the Man of Alexandria. Mainly we fought against the 'people' living below us, the rodents that lived on wet plains. Our ancestors thought they were monsters, children eater ones, but who could blame them, to be told the truth whispered? Even dogs can wait, unlike those hid from the sunrise over centuries.

Those rats... Easily, you could identify a burmecian just by looking at his tail ribbon.

And skin.

Grey as the smoke rising from the ashes of coal, dark as the clouds where they live underneath, members of a primary civilization, the large snouts remained the same since when humans like us were once hired as their Dragoon Knights. We used to live in a clear state of harmony, until a single chord caused the dissionance which ruined it entirely. The worst of the foes lies within the flesh, they say. A hundred of them were poisoned, by consequence. This was, and still is, the breaking point that instaured for months, years, centuries of war. Not the only reason, but more of the same. It's not my fault, nor of my people. Ignorant masses, how utterly they were stubborn to accuse us, without a density for their own fatuity with the stranger. It doesn't matter if the turtle is slow, compared to even rats, but given the advantage of 100 miles away from its opponent, no matter the struggle of his, the turtle is still miles away.

People and rats. I just pity them.

I can't tolerate this cowardice act that came from my people, my ancestors, and the rodent ones as well. I know you wasn't coward, Madalene. You were an empty back cover in a world of books printed with letters on the front. They overstimated you, those engineers from Lindblum. We all fight for something we meant. Peace is meant when war is over, and War is meant when peace is over. You didn't meant, but instead could prove you are brave. I, on other hand, also share of the same attribute of yours. A hundred of knights were once killed by your sword single-handedly by me, your successor.

To think I, while in the middle of one of those battles, lost one of my fingers to a mere insect, whom I had respect with his few moments, seconds longer than minutes, agonizing of the blade stuck in his throat, and phonemes came instead of his last words. Only a tepid would use of his final moments in the field or in the rebellion to talk about his love for the family, how they meant something to his self, and blame with rude words towards the one who killed him... if the resolve of his was enough, then why the waste of our time to carve a hole meant to shatter my pride with words, instead of admit he could not kill me?

Tight as a torniquete I am. The blood that flows throught the body of the others won't be poured by a slight cut of those javelins, not here in Alexandria, or above our plateaus. How many lives were taken by those before I came, this I and no one can't count, as the slices of breath ingested by my lungs throught the years of my life.

That boy... yes, he still wanders around the palace, when he's out of the orphanage, watching of the training of the same knights who saved him, including me. A rat once burned a house with a family, they were defenseless, and burnt within the fire. For Alexander's sake, I killed him, that misbegotten, lukewarm fool; the sword of yours, blade cold as the ice of Esto Gaza, had no remorse to demand a Stock Breather annex to his trembling heart for the aftertaste left of his. It seems the reputation of mine and of the Knights of Pluto that follow me seems to had been increased around the outskirts of the kingdom. But reputation, good or bad, those are just words. Those who say I'm good doesn't knew about my bad side, and those who are bad for me have, somehow, what we call by 'good' abilities. I commend the ability of it to produce javelins times before the discovery of metallurgy, for example.

To have the ability of fabricate objects with elements spread across to be found at the globe... On the ancient times like yours, Madalene, our Church, the same of yours, had maintaned all knowledge of the world on their own center, like the world they believed to be the center of creation. With the times, each nation had to create its own church, it's own methods of knowledge, their own people. We believe each person is born with knowledge, while those scientist from Lindblum agree that knowlegde is based on what we learn with sensations felt on this world, planet we live. It doesn't matter who's correct, those from Lindblum doesn't know the meaning of 'limit'. Their people were the first to read books and novels coming from the printing press, moving ladders, and those new steam-powered engines. They came up as a solution for our war against Burmecia.

However, it seems this 'revolution' only came for them. It also came for us... but it later dissolved, like salt in the ocean. No other nation besides Lindblum borrows them. All airships equipped with the engine that uses the mist as a fuel are manufactured exclusively at Lindblum's factories. Zebolt, that lindbluniam engineer who discovered its secret, assigned a warrant, granting him his invention's protection, and founded Zebolt Steam Engineered Shipyards Company; no one else can manufacture a steam engine without Lindblum's permission, or without Zebolt's. Greedy, don't you think? They do not attack us because we're rich enough to pay them, and they're rich enough to not invade a single country who pays them. The cost of lifes counted as a bribery in dynes of gil... Don't say that the ends and their raison d'être are what justifies any means of coward. What they only do is to place who shall bright in the entire story, themselves.

Persistence is what defines us, Madalene. No matter how ill mankind is, they, me, you... we can't stop. Even thought our gods aren't the same, or if they don't even exist, we from Alexandria and Lindblum are just witnesses of their time, and we shall remain the same. Even those who lay, like you; happiness can't be found as a canary once ought to met with his death on a coalmine. The endeavored spirit of yours, throught the centuries, still guide many of us to our own goals. I am mortal, the same fact I once reject it, but I know that I am, and someday I'll die. My body, the one seem with the eyes, I mean, no other besides Death could take your and mine's body to the grave. The soul, on the other hand, needs to share of a body when left of one in time. All things left by our past remains in our mind instead, the only part of the body that has acess to memories. Good or bad moments, I was hoping for a man, strong as Alexander, to carry on my legacy. But instead, my wife gave birth to a female as her.

May she'll be taught like you...

Madelene.