Chapter Text
July 11th, 1800
...
I saw a few birds playing in the drinking fountain outside of the church.
That sight brought me joy like no other. I wish that joy could last forever, but sadly it doesn't. Today is the day Adam and Jack would have turned six years old. They were born on the same day in the morning and the skies looked gray as they do right now. I remember that, and despite the great pain I've gone through, I swore I'd protect those little things I held dearly in my arms.
I've met other parents who have lost their children and most of them feel the same as I do. They'll never feel the same thing, but they have experienced the same kind of pain that, if I could describe it, which I can't, but if there was a way I could tell that anyone could understand, it's like stepping on glass that you thought you would never break, or better, to think about walking on broken glass when you don't really want to but your mind teases it to the point it forces you to do so and when you realize your feet are bleeding, you don't feel a thing.
I have no idea, it's the same as staring at the clouds and saying "my soul is up there". I don't really like to talk about it very often, I have other things to do in life other than spend the days reminiscing about faces I'll never see again. By chance, I saw Gray working in the synthesis shop, and he told me about how he is no longer a full-time soldier and has been thinking about doing odd jobs until he finds out what he wants to do that offers less risk to his life.
It was supposed to be a short visit, just a friendly chat, neither short or drawn out, followed by a "see you later", but then Gray commented about the Council's decision of honoring the lives of soldiers and civilians lost in the war by building a memorial wall. That took me by surprise, since most of the population's efforts are aimed towards rebuilding the damaged neighborhoods, so I asked where the wall was being built, and Gray said the site chosen is around the palace, the place where most of the casualties took place.
Leaving the synthesis shop, I went to see the memorial wall so far, in search of names I know. There are so many, and while I try to find my husband's name written on the stone, I think about that day, how everything was normal until I found myself running for life. I used to live in a neighborhood on the west side of the palace. Dan was on duty and he escorted me and our children away from home when it happened. "Close your eyes," he said to us halfway through, as if that would stop our ears from hearing the screams of the panicked crowd and our noses from smelling the horrible scent of blood on the floor,a blood as thick as ink dripping from our toes as we ran away from whoever caused that loud explosion.
I'd know days later, when those Black Mages followed by Alexandrian soldiers invaded Cleyra to do the same atrocities they've committed here on Burmecia in that place. As a result, Cleyra is gone and my old house is nowhere to be found. There are no ruins, all of my goods were consumed by the fire or stolen by robbers who took the chaos that followed as an opportunity to get rich and not all of them succeeded, some of them ended up being killed anyway.
After a while, I found his name. Daniel Caius Estheim... It's when I realized I rarely spoke his full name, Dan was just fine. He was a great person. Not perfect, but great. A nice company, a well-trained soldier, someone you could have a decent conversation with and I never thought I'd find myself in here. I never thought I'd feel the rain getting lighter as the days go by, almost as if its essence is vanishing before my eyes, but it could be a result of the lack of Vube's dust around this time of the year, or the lack of Mist, I'm not so sure and it doesn't matter to me, a drought is the least of things I want. Enough death, at least for today.
I was never fond of rain, yet somehow I miss it, not in the same way I miss my family, but it was part of my life as well. It rained the day I was born, when my grandfather died, when I met Dan, when we laid under a willow tree, when we married, when our kids were born... Not seeing any rain feels wrong, to walk around Burmecia and not feel it is just plain wrong, it's like touching a dead body growing colder and colder and you don't feel the heat going out because it's been like this for centuries.
It's cold outside, so I better go home now. Three miles to go, it'll be quite a long walk.