A/N: Well, here we go! My first fanfic after, what? 2-3 years? God, what a hiatus. I'm really hoping that this'll be something that I can finish, since I've been planning on writing this thing since I had first gotten Revenant Wings (That, AND the fact that I am sorely disappointed with how little LlyudxFilo fanfiction is out there). Let's see how far I go this time.
P.S.: Yes, this WILL be written in the same format as a journal.
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"Records of an Aviator" - Prologue
Miracle Mar
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12/07/992
--An old leather book was recovered near the airship's graveyard in Tchita, in decent condition. The pages are torn and some are missing, and the text is faded due to years of being underground and written in a style of our language long dead. I will begin to restore and translate the texts in hopes of finding history buried beneath the sands of time.
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12/24/992
--After much articulate restoration, I have found that this is a journal written by – I believe – a sky pirate who had lived at least 250 years past. Sky pirates are a rare find these days and there is very little documentation on these groups (other than criminal records); to find a document in such a relatively good condition... this is quite the discovery! I still cannot seem to understand what is written however. I will ask for the assistance of a dear friend who happens to be a linguist.
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13/10/992
--My friend has contacted me with translation of the very first page. I cannot contain my excitement; my hand is shaking as I write this entry.
--I have returned with the final translations. The first entry seems to be a reminiscence of the sky pirate's youth, and the author claims this journal to be a sort of autobiography, which is an even better find! For a dead language, the author uses such simple vocabulary. But, this war which she speaks of... could it be during the time of the Archadian/Rozarrian war?
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Entry 1
Who'd have thought that I used to think Penelo's idea of keeping a log was a stupid one, and yet here I am writing in a personal journal. An autobiography, I think it's called. Kinda stupid, but I guess I got used to it after really being a sky pirate. If this is really supposed to be about my life, where should I begin...? My first memory, I guess?
Hmm... I never really thought of shooting stars as some sort of sign of death from the "Super-Almighty Exodus," or whatever his name is. I remember something that my mom used to tell me when I was only around two or three. A few times in the past, she would sneak me to the roof of the boarding house we lived in and show me the night sky. The lights in Rabanastre were pretty bright, so we couldn't see many stars, but my mom would always say that if you went to a place where the only lights were from the firebugs, you'd see millions of them!
...Or something like that.
For some reason, I can't remember her face. I'd close my eyes and try to imagine the woman that was my mom, but all I could come up with was a blank face. Yet for some weird reason, I can remember her beautiful voice and the night she told me the story about the Gods' Messenger in the Sky as clear as day.
It was a summer night and I was being restless for some reason, so my mom took me to the roof when everyone else was either asleep or using the can. She sat down on her usual crate which was right behind a dormer and sat me on her lap. We began to look at the stars and the river of lights that covered Rabanastre with an almost twilight glow. I was too distracted with how pretty the lights were (I was positive that some of the lights made out the shape of a happy bunny) that I wasn't able to see what my mom saw.
"Look Filo! A shooting star!"
I've never in my life heard of a shooting star, so if it was enough to make my mom jumpy, then it must have been cool! But when I looked up, I didn't see a shooting star... just a streak of purple where it probably was. My mom laughed and shook my shoulder as I moved my head in every possible angle just to find this "shooting star."
"Aww, you missed it sweetie."
Disappointment hit like a huge rock to the face. I missed it? But I wanted to see it! I wanted to see what made my mom so giddy about this "shooting star". I remember that I became more fussy and started to cry, screaming: "I wanna see da shooting star; I wanna see da shooting star!"
My mom started to bounce me on her knee, shushing me in her gentlest voice. "Filo, shh. Do you want to wake up everyone else?"
But I still cried, "I wanna see da shooting star!"
My mom continued to shush me until my screeching and bawling died down to whimpers. She cradled me in her arm so that I was looking at her. Mom looked back at me, her shoulders shaking with her silent chuckles. "You're just as loud and stubborn as your father." She brushed some hair off of my cheek that managed to get stuck thanks to my tears. "Do you want me to tell you a story?" I remember nodding to that answer.
"Well," She said in her gentle and quiet voice, "Long ago, the gods had just created the hume race. All over the place there were mothers and fathers and children like you and me running around in the fresh lands of Ivalice. The humes were so new to the land, and didn't have all of these buildings and machines and airships, so the gods offered help whenever the humes wanted it. However, the humes had so many requests that it overwhelmed the gods--"
"What's 'over-whaled'?" Mommy laughed.
"It means that someone gave someone else too much for them to handle. Anyways, the humes gave the gods too many requests and the gods found that the humes' requests were absolutely greedy." I remember how I gasped when my mom emphasized the word "greedy." I probably sounded stupid.
"What did dey wish for?"
"The humes wished for bad, bad things to happen to their neighbors, sweetie. They wanted to... to just make bad things happen to their neighbors." Right now, I can tell that part was sugar-coated.
"But sometimes, the gods would hear a good request, from the pure hearts of the children." She tickled me on the stomach. "They would wish for good luck for their hard-working parents and for good things to happen to their family. The gods were so happy to hear such nice wishes that they sent special messengers only for the children's wishes." Mom pointed to the sky, where the shooting star had flown through the sky.
"The messengers came as shooting stars. They would streak through the sky and deliver the children's wishes directly to the gods so that the gods could fulfill those wishes first. So Filo," She flicked my nose and smiled...
"Whenever you see a shooting star, make sure you make a good wish. The messenger will hear it and take it straight to the gods so that they will grant it for you. 'Kay?" I started bouncing on my mom's knee, and looked up to the sky, looking for another shooting star 'till I fell asleep.
It's funny how that's my only happy memory of my mom, since the only other memory I had of her was how horrifying she looked when I was taken to some sort of safehouse when my mom had caught the plague. That's probably the last time I ever saw her, too. I'm not all that upset though. I'm glad that the only good memory of my mom was when she told me that fairytale.
'Course I never believed that the whole "Wish upon a shooting star" thing worked...
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--The rest of the journal is still being translated and restored. This is the end of the first entry, and I am glad to know that the story of 'The Gods' Messenger in the Sky' survived all of these years. It is still my personal favorite fairytale to date.