AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is just a single night in my character's life, it takes place before I met Tenshihi, before Dawn. It contains references to pieces of my character's history, and some FFXI history and locations (some real, and some made up). Ask me via email/IM/in game if you want to know anymore.

Take this story as a sort of futuristic sequel, to another time, another place, to my story "Our Love is Like a Fairy Tale", for that is what I intend it to be.

Please read and review. I need to know what you think of it, so I can continue writing! You can email comments to:

sm (underscore) scales (at) yahoo (dot) com

I am dedicating this story to the mithra sisters Ayre, Ferra, and Merodi. You all have impacted me in different ways, and I thank you for that.

I trace her name out in the dust on the red stained glass window, over and over again.

Kumori…

Outside, I know the rain is falling. It is splish-splashing against the Mhaurain pavement, running down the main street into the ocean at the end of the road.

Her name still rides on my lips, and her picture in my heart, no matter how much I try to forget her, or try to lose myself in others.

I down the rest of my ale, and motion over the petite waitress with the long brown hair to bring me another one. She looks at me with a slight concern in her eyes, and then goes off to the bar to get a fresh glass. She sets it down in front of me, the head starting to spill over the lip of the glass a little bit, sliding down to the faded teak wood tabletop.

I pick it up, and look back at the murky reflection starting out at me from it.

Her long brown hair…her golden eyes…her cherry lips.

Dancing with her under the moon next to the river.

Our first kiss, a bit nervous, a bit shy, underneath that tree with the blue sparkles.

Where I proposed to her.

My eyes start to well up, and spill over into my ale. I shake my head gently. The past is just that…

Past.

I leave my ale untouched, and leave a small pile of gil on the table, and go outside into the drizzle.

I hate the rain.

I hate the fucking rain.

It's always mucking everything up, all ways soaking through everything. Why, last time when I had FINALLY managed to convince that nice lesbo mithra chick to go with me and her friend…the rain fell and got into her fur. She then claimed that she had to go home and dry herself out for the next six hours.

Not to mention that I caught pneumonia that night also, because I didn't wear a jacket, having lent it out to the other girl.

Whatever.

It's unimportant.

I wobble down the street and flip a dirty gil piece at the beggar on the street side. He grasped it greedily between his fingertips, and scurried off to the pub where I had just exited, probably to get drunk.

Like me, I think to myself half amused.

I sneak beneath the fence guarding the docks, and sit down among the tackle repositories and fisheries, drawing my knees up around my arms, as I stare off into the fading sunset.

She loved sunsets. She would snuggle up against me, smelling of that juicy red fruit whose name I could never remember…some berry I think.

I cast a small stone into the water, and watch with some small degree of satisfaction as it skips three times, and then sinks to the bottom of the crystal blue waters of the Bastore Sea.

Now what?

I suppose I could go back to worshipping the Goddess of the Dawn, trying to follow Her to the ends of the globe.

Or I could go create an entirely new magic circle, with a whole new brand of magic to go with it.

Or I could try to find someone to spend the night with. I saw this mithra the other day…kinda shrimpy in size, but still attractive. I think she gave me a glance, but then scurried off. Just work a bit of the ol' charm, and I can probably make her mine in time for dinner.

Or I could sprout wings and touch the sky, at the rate I am going about doing things.

Damn it all!

I half-wish that the guardians of legend to Altana would come and take me away to that hell without even bothering to pass judgement on me. All decked out in the crimson armor that is said to be stained with the blood of those that dared to not obey Her, and decided to rebel in Paradise.

If I remember correctly, She was forced to cast those goddessforsaken souls down to Mordion Goal, where they still exist, ruled over by Ariminsol. Of course, that is only a fairy tale spoken back in the days when the elvaan still roamed the Quon continent.

Fairy tales…

"Our love is a fairy tale, and it has never been told before."

I remember her whispering that gently into my ear once, dressed only in that filmy triangle of peach colored mesh. It was later into the night, that time when I had ordained the wedding of Koji and Sango underneath the Celestial Moon, and after that the fourth demon came to life, hunting Koji's dead father.

Pulling myself up on the fish stands on either side of me, I strip down to the nude, and take a running dive into the water. With simple strokes, I swim to the stone archway where the ferry passes through every day and night, nonstop, carrying a lot of washed out, useless people to and from Selbina.

I climb out of the water onto the arch, the moonlight drying the water clinging to my back, leaving a thin layer of salt behind. Free-climbing upwards, I eventually reach the top, where I lay sprawl-eagled on top of the moss, the seagulls going about in lazy circles overhead.

Yeah, I have to be drunk.

I can sense her.

Next to me.

If I lay still at night, my eyes shut, I can almost feel her climb into bed with me. I can hear her heartbeat, feel her slender body's warmth pour across me, her arms wrapped tightly around my waist as she breathes softly into the nape of my neck.

If I can resist moving long enough, I can even start to smell the scent of her body lotion, and hear her murmurs as she talks in her sleep, like she always did.

When I turn over to see her, to kiss her, to just tell her that I love her and always will…

I find that I'm alone.

Alone.

Like she never existed. Like our love really is just a fairy tale…and it has never been told to anyone before.

Whatever.

Time to move on.

I gently close my eyes, and I start to feel her there, her body raked with salt, as if she swam through the sea next to me, to lay here with me.

I am just laying there, not moving, letting her be there with me.

I'll move on…

But not tonight.

-fin