♫Japan - Nightporter♫

Here I am.

In a house full of doors but no exits. Alone, in the cavity of a room filled by the darkness, where my needs can't be denied. Sleepless as an owl awaiting for the early morning sound rise into the horizon by the dawn, drowsy eyes staring at the wall, my jaw is about to fall and bite off this tongue, wasted of fraught prayers spent at the chapel. Prone on this empty bed, to later watch a sky emanating of a grey, like the skin and ashes of a dying old man. The haze brought by the warm slivers of breath of mine proved that I'm alive, somehow, even when lying on a bed covered by flowers, found below the pillow I rest, and the walls of eiderdown surrounding me into a hollow space, as I hear the voices coming from outside.

Carefully, I struggle to look for a second, then I return to where I was. There's nothing else to see but darkness. The same darkness, that found a way to open my door, lurking into the floor, staring at me by the walls; above me, I see the night leaking from the roof, filling in each object and furniture from my room with the same gloomy as the obscured sky from the other side of the window. When I close my eyes, the same night found a way to sneak in, as if it was willing to persist into each space of my house. The night brought the dark into my eyes, as it also brought of its stars. Little by little, they appear where I look, glowing in tones of red, blue, even molding into a constellation of green like a colony of algae in the lake; as they came closer, like fishs being pushed by a net, to parallel into sparks near my vision, they disappear into the air, to once again appear in a row and later vanish as before.

The comfort brought by the night and its stars, even if it did only last for a while, resemble the same those arms once here to hold me into caress now rests in the same blanket I am in hiding, like a child afraid of the storm, a sheath belonging to a blade about to be uncovered by the fear that guides the hand of it's owner. As this tail of mine moves ceaseless by the trepidations of a trembling heart, a pleasant despair filled into my head, instead of my chest, aching like an egg with a broken shell. Ears burnt by the flocks of blood persisting as bones into dust crumbled, and the pain goes on from my toes, to my knees, to my joints, to the depths of my eyes; as I feel the pulse of my anxiety taking the islands into throught my arms, now I hear, if by whispers, the cry that once echoed into the silence of my period pains, as the inner voices of mine guide my arm to the candle, holding still of the fire I gave.

Hypnotized as a moth, the closer I get into the light above the wooden nightstand, the greater the menacing shadow at the back of mine becomes. As the fire coming from a distance burns into my throat, and the loneliness of this room linger on, I am about to trespass the door, not until I close the gap of my wardrobe. Unaware of what may be inside, fortunately, for the sake of my doubts, there is nothing else but my clothes. Each one looks the same, well, except for the one above them all. And here, hanged on by the hooks, lies the pieces of the outfit I and the Crescents before me used to wear as a Dragoon Knight, heaped with the mementos carried by my mind. From the rain and the others standing below it, to saw the other's by its two openings, to shield the purple eyes of mine to allow many smiles, no matter how such dreadful were the days; that red hat, the helm I once wore in my head, used to cover my face alongside this white hair. Those were the days I used to fly around the country with those metallic wings, crossing throught the wires while bearing of the weight of this same escutcheon I'm holding with my arms.

Even belonging to a kingdom without a crest, each Dragoon Knight carries with the chest the coat of arms resembling the country of Burmecia. The same was once held, as much as me, by a pair of buckles tied up in the sleeves of that coat, once wore above the unseen orange trousers. I see the piece of cloth who I once tied into a cravat onto my neck, as pale as the white of the lies I once told as a little trouble girl, blue like the regret I felt into the tears, distinguished by the threads of a coat below, whose red seem to be taking over the entirety of it as a creeper hanging on the wall; the Dragoon blood running throught the veins of the Crescent clan. Since I was a toddler, mother used to feed me and my brothers with the tip of her javelin, in order so one of us would became the next Dragoon Knight from the Crescent lineage.

The only part I still wore to this day are those gaiters on the feet. Even with them, I still feel naked, each time I look at the Dragoon outfit, who used to be part of me, part of the Crescent, and the days I've been wrapped into the garments by those buttons, holding of a spear and a duty to protect, by breaking every door lying beneath me, instead of leading a normal life as now. To think I felt dizzy later that day... and still I am. I had woken up once this night to thrown up. My head felt dazzled as the day Bart and the others found me, lying on the floor of the streets. Before, I caught a breeze in the air I flyed, and then, everything faded into this same dark as the night. I would had forgotten everything, if it weren't for those people who I protected. They said to me I collapsed in an instant, and the same happened more than twice in the same week. Since I got ill while in training, I stood there at home. Maybe it's the season that changed so abruptly, or the weather, claimed them, and still some do. I still don't know if I am alright or not. Maybe I've been trying too hard with this job as a Dragoon, I'm still not certain, but if I do needed a change of scales, that, he knew it was the right answer.

From the corridor, a silence so deep filled in, only to be interrupted by the inner voices coming from my head, and the drips of rain that came with its bloom, from the outside of these walls, as the scent of dying asleep brings back the same night from a long, yet so near, July 15th. When I have contact with then, cold as the perturbation felt by my nerves I allowed the outward wind to undertake into the layers of my nightdress, all I am meant to feel is, if even for a short moment, the warm touch of mother, who once layed of the same bed as I, and now she lay with those who lay, like father, into the same ground I learned to walk. The moisture of the fertile soil, whom my feet touched, soaked as the drizzling falling at the ridge of the mountain... The rain, as much as I, has no other place to go.

As I walk across the path below me, I see the movement of something. There's a tiny lizard in the wall. A body, translucent with the light of the candle, skin softly gray as mine between the pinkish of the early days, and those gloomy orbits filled in by the dark of the night; it walks away, while attached into the surface of the wall, as soon as I approach near it. Blindly following its path, running away from the menace it sees into me, the lizard moves, until his skin becomes a pale green, as it stands above a single portrait, bigger than his entirety of body. The painting decipts the one who created it, my husband. There are two portraits, a self-portrait on the right, belonging to his, the first I looked upon, and the one on the left, belonging to me.

The first painting of Bart, the one where he painted himself, was finished earlier than mine's. While hours were spent at the mirror for Bart to draw and paint himself in this same portrait, days had passed for his tools to decipt me. I started to think he would never finish the portrait, before I knew, that sometimes, he was fooling me. After a week, the excuses of his became the same. He needed to bring the right colors to be able to finish the painting, he said, and already said like before. What else could I do, besides stay and see for myself the results of my test? Bart is a skilled one when it comes to arts and crafts. He ain't lazy or amateurish in the spectre of an artist. After all, he was the one who brought me that spear, designed to be used by the left-handed, the first one known to be made. That light weight spear, while not as strong as the conventional javelins, helped me a lot undergo becoming a Dragoon Knight. More than a gift, I still kept it. Since that day we met up with one another, I had Bart convinced to paint me, not to decipt who I am by the eyes of an artist, but who he was by the eyes of his true self.

The surprise struck me on the day Bart finished it, two weeks later. I knew he would realize someday that he couldn't paint me on such everlasting time. So tired he was, of the efforts he gave to bring out of his mind a deciption of me into the canvas, from the early sketch, the curves of mine draw by his pencil, to each portion covered by the oil, carefully brushed to distinguish me from the surroundings. Sitting on the chair, there was I, unrecognizable without that outfit. The hair, shielding my face as the arms crossing into one ahead of my chest, and the ears, both erect, now went crestfallen to the sounds. With the brush of his, Bart caught and get hold of the vulnerable side of mine, the one not meant to be shown by the other knights, or anyone else.

We are all layers of grey, hid under a layer of the 'color' show above the canvas of our skins. This 'color' varies from who you are. Children wear green, their mother lime, the men wear green, soldiers wear blue and green above their armour, on our newborn tails we tie orange, but our skin remains the same grey. Knights can choose which color they wear. Some choose blue for the tears of mirth, others green for the days spent at youth, and I used to wear the red of the generations, until I choose to cover my body with a layer of lime, like mother. But what determine us ain't the color. The clouds can change their colors and shape with the amount of rain falling, therefore, each cloud ain't the same, but that doesn't change a cloud of being a cloud. Each color is one color, but they're all colors.

An artist is able to show what he feel with the use of colors, and the object whose colors are spread into. So, is the artist the one who transfer his feelings into the work of his, or is the inspiration of his the art meant to be reconstructed by his thoughts? Even Bart had the same question, and the answer came for us after he finished my self-portrait, and now that I look at it once again, I see more than just me, but also a piece of Bart, who is also there, with me. Bart was more than the son of Major Brandford than I was only a Crescent. So beautiful, he said, contemplating of his work done. Mere tussocks, he referred to his self-portrait, compared to each strand of my hair, falling like a waterfall, whose water flows vertically above the rocks. Like the waves of the sea, with his paintbrush, the combed white hair of mine seemed longer, overtaking the purple stain of my eyes, embracing slowly the tones of gray and push them towards me, as a back sweep. The gray, as Bart told me, decipted himself.

Artists are known to portray themselves on their work, something they can and not comprehend. A circle draw by the hand tells more about a person than the words he spoke with the mouth. Some are able to draw a near perfect one, while others went awry in the process. For an artist, the meaning of each one of their work is meant to be said by someone else, because it ain't concrete as the math and the sciences. The fear of the colours, the love of a flower, the anxiety of the curves, the emptiness of the eyes... All reality reduced to expressions and the emotions carried by them. Bart cared so much for the painting of his, that he even explained to me the reason why he tried to finish the painting as much as I wished, but he couldn't. Because of those eyes, he said. My eyes. He couldn't stand to look into them, with each day spent he went distracted by the purple of them. So he refused to paint my eyes, as he looked further at them. Because of my eyes, he felt so worthless; I was above him, but what really bothered Bart was not only because I was a Dragoon, but because I was contrary to his male nature. Because of my beauty, he felt so empty.

Then, dependant of the eyes belonging to the woman he decipted, Bart decided to hid them inside my white hair, as much as I do. His feelings and their outcomes... It was useless for him as an artist to pretend to beat them as a man. Instead of going down on his knees, which sounded like an option, but never would he do it, as his tongue on hold never had the will and time to say what I already knew he felt, instead, he found a way to express himself throught painting. So, he hid those eyes in order to demonstrate to me he felt the same way as me. Me and Bart... From the day he saw something within me, the something that pushed him to engage a conversation, and from that same conversation, the spear and the painting of ours, the later who lead him astray for those weeks.

Like a thousand islands in the sea, I saw a thousand people, just like me. But they remain islands. Islands that sink and do disappear forever. Bart felt better each time I smiled at him. My smile motivated the spirit of Bart to continue and finish the painting. My smile prevented him of sinking into this vast ocean of Leviathan, without someone. Ever since the day we meet, we never finished to brush the pigments of our souls. They remained empty, but as soon as we came together, the thought of remain empty didn't bothered us, because we felt one as a whole. Two adjacent portraits, drawn by different artists, yet they carry on of the same design.

Even thought this is just a portrait of his, now that I looked upon the face of my husband, I remember I had a dream this night, before I awoke. Bart spend the last day of his with me, before his departure, and I recall I had of the same dream on that night. I was there, inside one of the portraits Bart painted, lucidly lying on the beach, with my hands touching the sand, feets on the border of the sea, and eyes glaring at the sun over the horizon. As the sun settled down, the heat of my body was gone, as the sand became colder, and the water from the sea became warmer. Then, I heard a long branch, whispering like the wind to the blurry window. From behind me, a fisherman, with a knife on his hand, went looking for oysters. There was oysters on cliffs so high where he couldn't reach, and some below him that he didn't bothered to look. Like the waves of the sea, my hair grew larger, and embraced the fisherman from the back to push him, like a back sweep, towards me. It began to rain when I showed to him the oyster I found. He tried to open it, as more the rain falled upon the oyster.

The more the tip of his rough knife struggled to open it, as if it was the last oyster to be found in the beach, more the petals of cherry went falling, sharing of the same color of its inside. Stretching into the narrow way, as the rain poured like the sweat of his efforts throught the skin of his, finally, it was then his knife bend, the blade almost broke, and the oyster had opened. With the border of the beach surrounded by the foam brought by the restless sea, the blue of his became white, and the white of his became the blue of mine. From the tip of his knife, metal to metal, fish hooks stood upon my oyster, and only one left a small particle of dirt, the same that went flying inside the oyster. As the soul of his went away in lurch, we gazed upon the stars above the dusk. At least, Bart was here with me, on all those moments. Just two people, me and Bart. Nothing else mattered between us. It was better if we had left it on the same way it was before. This lasted, until something more than what we felt grew on me.

"Don't worry. Lenneth's there, doing her best..."

When I left home from the door, I once heard Bart saying it to our 2 year-old son. Jack. From the corridor, I open slightly the door and I quietly approach his bed. Jack. Now that Jack is a 5 year-old boy, he's at the age tooths fall like the summer rain. Sharing of the same green as other children, the same green of his father, and the red of the Crescent lineage in blood. Lenneth... Bartholomew... Jack... Such are the names we've been destined to carry on throught this life, whether we liked it or not. Actually, many of us are satisfied with that. It's easier, much easier to be given a role than make one by yourself. The reason why we agree to stay together as a group is for us to retreat from our individualities. We are the same as a group, but as individuals, we are ourselves, or what we grew with.

Ever since the day he opened his green gems, Jack looked at me. When I cuddled him, when his father took care of him, on the crib before he slept and after he awoke; no matter where he was, he always found a way to took a glare at me. They say babies learn about the world throught objects and the unexpected. Maybe the red I wore, who detached me from the other colors, was more attractive to his vision. Or maybe it was my white hair, whom his little hand grabbed and holded tightly, as the navel string which once connected us, as I secured him on my arms. My voice, echoing sweetly to his ear to the mind every time I had to sing him a lullaby when his father was tired is another guess.

Jack, unlike other families of the country, is an only child, but that won't change such a troublesome one he became. All boys are raised the same way as their fathers, even my brothers. But Jack learned from other boys, more than what he learned from his father, and me. Each afternoon, he plays with them, by playing marbles, kill Basilisks by throwing stones to break their bones, knock the door and run away from the elder ones... Things only children do. Male children, like my son. Or his cousin Dan, son of Clyde, one of my husband's siblings. The children are knew as Nezumi by the elder. I also had been called this way, when I was a child. They are still free to think whatever they do want to do, without any consequences. Even when we, adults, intervene on their play, it doesn't change a thing. It's futile, because the Nezumi are meant to be disobedient, as much as we also had been with our parents. Even if Jack's behaviour is questionable around the neighborhood, he's still a child, and a child know how it feels to be alone.

"Dad. Mommy's there, not here..."

'Mommy'... The weight of this windswept word left me lost of it. It hurted more than the cramps I felt the day after. It also hurted Jack. To blame the loneliness of his to his mother like that... I couldn't protect my child from what he became. No, I couldn't protect him from what I am. But he's still my son, is he? If Jack was my son, this has already been answered. If Jack IS my son, that is the answer I've been looking for. Jack as well, and he already found it a long ago. Thanks to me, he found out his 'mother', the Lenneth who tried to take care of him, with less efforts than his father, yet she had tried, was gone, and another Lenneth, the one dressed as a Dragoon Knight, assumed her place instead. I still tried until this day, failed to do it so, but I won't forgive that I was the one who gave Jack a reason to carry on the word 'Lennie' to replace 'mother'.

While Lenneth was his 'mother', 'Lennie' is less than his mother. In order to protect himself from myself, Jack created this barrier, to withhold the pain towards the mother who created him and transfer it, along his anger and frustation felt, into the person whom he claims it took the mother of his away from the presence of the son. Soon as Jack realized it, he grew with the word 'promise' and its meaning spoken by a 'Lennie' instead. Some times, his 'mother' fullfilled of her word. Then, with the times, 'Lennie' often would play with Jack, something that became rare, and apparently never I had the time to do it so. 'Her' son forgot of those moments as soon as he grew up, and the memories of those times his 'mother' used to interact with him had mostly been erased, except for small fragments of glimpses of the lost days 'Lennie' used to not exist, except on a small portion of his mind.

To think beneath me, lies another Lenneth. No, I am just only one Persona. This 'Lennie', who Jack believes to be me, the one who have taken the place of his 'mother', is the result of the circumstances and positions that lead my son to think this way. The circumstances being my job as a Dragoon Knight, and the position of a 'mother', distant from her son. In other words, Jack avoids to look at me, the one he calls by 'Lennie', as he seeks for the lost comfort of me, his 'mother'. I'm his mother, or I used to be all day along, in other words. Bart says his father always came back at home the same way I came back each week from my job. On each night, the scars he saw left by those Grand Dragons on his back resemble the same ones I carry throught my body, he said. The more they appear, more Bart becomes upset. Bart do not want to lose me this way, even thought he still motivates me to do my best. Sure, he's worried about me, but he believes that I have the right to choose. Jack also do not want to lose me. Even thought I'm not his 'mother' anymore, I still carry of the name Lenneth.

Lenneth... who is she? Who am I? Lenneth, the pattern for all the Dragoons, an acolyte devoted of strenght, or Lenneth, who shall be taking new risks as I work on this new job, the paragon mother? Even I found a way to divide me more than my son had done. A dragon bites down with his jaw, until the flesh of his prey yields. A Dragoon Knight, on other hand, never yields to any circumstances; a Dragoon Knight is the nightporter who stands even when time decides to stand still. For the sake of my son, for the sake of his father, and for the sake of the being inside me, I shall take the job of mother, whose payment will be delivered in advance throught these days. Not in gil, because materia can't and never will handle enough to pay the abstract of the colors that reside within the layers of an injured heart.