Chapter Text
♫New Order - We All Stand♫
...
There is no good or evil, only interests. Interests that favor one person to the detriment of others.
Not that I really care to know, I was born without knowing. I didn't want to be born, I didn't want Clyde to be my name, it was my father and mother's doing. Nature's doing. Sometimes, I feel like I have no absolute control over my life, and it's depressing as hell. Maybe hell might not be that depressing, but who knows? That's one question whose answer I'll never know, because when one dies... No one knows.
Fade to black. How I hate that sentence. I hate whoever said it first. I hate the way they say it like it's natural, which indeed it is, but it is so bleak. Do the blind see through the darkness of death? They were born without seeing, so do they even know what darkness is if they can't see anything? Everything we do, no matter how big or small, and you just say that everything fades to black, like... All the men who've built Burmecia and its towers, they died and that's it? They did something with their lives and they disappeared from history. They fade to black. Fade. Black. Void. Null. Nothing. Nada.
It's like people are doing better things with their lives as I'm speaking, but they really don't. Some are very unfortunate to carry on dark feelings. Everyone does, but not at the same time, and that worries me a lot. To hell with your grandma, that ain't of my concern, none of my business if your dog closed its eyes forever in front of you, I don't care if your aunt kicked her boots, why should I care!? I don't know those people, but I feel their grief. Why do I feel like nothing really matters? You see what I mean?
Then, all of these thoughts disappear when I'm invited to lunch. The Libers saw us as their distant relatives, and so they were kind enough to share some of their food. A bowl of millet never tasted so good, and to eat some slices of prickly pears for dessert was a godsend to my stomach. Still, I wasn't satisfied. Something in me was empty, yearning for more. As soon as we left the burrow to return to our tent, the Libers offered us one last gift. To our surprise, those were poppy straws harvested from one of their hidden plantations, unripe and dry. Prescott said he was grateful, but it was evident he didn't want them like I did. Bart stood neutral for most of the time, but he eventually agreed that the poppy straws could be useful in case one of us got injured and sought to ease the pain.
I could care less about the pain, because everyone in the world feels pain, but some of us feel a need to experience more in life. I didn't want to give in to opium, just swim on the surface and everything would be alright. On that matter, Prescott was the one who would regulate the dosage, given his knowledge on drug administration he earned during his years in the military. He explained that although opium is extracted from the dried latex of the seed pods, all parts of the plant can contain the drug, but the seeds have very low concentrations and are therefore safe to ingest in small quantities.
The withdrawal is what I was afraid of the most, since we've been eating those seeds for a while. Prescott said there was no need to worry, as we haven't had any side effects yet. Misuse of poppy seeds, usually served as tea, can cause vomiting, hypertension, excessive sweating, convulsions, diarrhea, none of which was pleasant, and if any of those things were to happen to my brother, in case I were in charge of handling the dosages, I would never forgive myself for it, so we entrusted our lives to Prescott, or at least Bart spoke for an hour about how much he trusted a friend of our late father, the man who saved his life from that Black Mage creature.
I wonder if there's more of them around. They could appear at any moment and they will hurt our people if nothing is done. If they come after Sigurd, then I won't care, but if it's somebody else, someone who isn't swallowing caviar down their throat while we speak, then I'll certainly care. I despise authority above all else, but that doesn't mean I've stopped caring about the people I've sworn to protect. As a soldier, a family man, a Burmecian... I'm not proud of anything. It's much easier to be given a place to belong, a role to obey, than to create something for yourself. I mean, if all of those things that define me are taken away, then what else is left?
Nothing, except hatred. Hatred against others and myself. It's at moments like these where pride is the least of things I want to show for my homeland, but mooning from a distance won't do much other than raise other's suspicions that I'm growing insane by each day. The Alexandrians are here for a reason, and fighting isn't their main objective. It's a distraction. It has to be.
Vube is seen by many as a no man's land. Other than the Libers, no one inhabits this harsh environment mostly populated by wild beasts. A large trunk stands in the middle of the desert, it's where the Cleyrans sought refuge after their leader, Aquinas, took ownership of a crystal shard that was the object of dispute between our people in the past. The remnants of that civil outbreak still permeate our very lives to this day. Burmecia doesn't recognize Cleyra's independence as it claims the desert to be part of their extended territory, and for centuries, our rulers tried to reunify the two nations to no avail.
Honestly, they don't care about an homogenous national identity at all, since Prescott told us about the recent discovery of gemstone deposits lying underground. Peridots, garnets, amethysts, to name a few. Could it be that Alexandria set its eyes on our treasure? However, no one owns the desert, so a conflict is born. Currently, Burmecia has control over the metallic resources extracted in Daines-horse Basin and a few mines around Popos Heights. The walls of Gizamaluke's Grotto are covered in aquamarine and fluorite, which explains its unique blue hue and a reason why that site used to be a ceremonial burial place. Some people still visit the cave to make promises, wishes, vows, offerings or simply to enjoy the view, as my wife once said.
What would she think of Vube? Would she enjoy this view of a sun that rises above Gaia to mock us with its unbearable heat? I don't know, Cynthia always loved to see a sunshower whenever they appeared on the horizon, a rare sight of beauty and disaster about to unfold. Beauty and disaster... Like the seeds of a poppy, its petals, the fruits of hard labor turning pain to joy, angst to harmony, a better world that exists only in our minds.
To say that I miss the rain would be an understatement. I do miss many things, like my wife, my children, a large house with plenty of space to fill in a room with so many ordinary things that we don't realize they're even there until the day they're gone.