Author's Notes: Well, about time I got to this. Things have been complicated in my life lately, and thus this has been delayed. But it is here now, and so begins the next phase of Nida's journey. I will note, though, that I do not intend to keep this style of writing through the whole story. Just for this prologue, and potentially for any intermission I might require.
Eden's Chosen – Prologue
Everyone has one great story in them. Okay, so maybe not, but it is what I've repeated heard throughout my life. Everyone has one great story that they create. Or maybe that they live. It can span minutes, hours, or years, and it's never a solitary journey. One person's story mingles with another, caught up in the greater story we know as life itself. We all have our places in the story, weaving in and out. All of us are the main characters in our own stories, but when woven into the larger whole we may be a side character or a member of a mob, or of no consequence at all.
Most of my life I felt like I was in that last group. I was born, my parents died, I was adopted, and I lived quietly in Winhill with my mother in what amounts to obscurity. I was Nida Nomura, fated to live and die in a small town, maybe making my life growing flowers or something. Things were simple, and at night I dreamed of flying, soaring high above the world. In those dreams I was strong, I was important. I was a catalyst of change. Little did I know that someday it would all be true. My dreams were—are—prophetic, though I didn't know it then; wouldn't for many years. Every day, though, was quiet and peaceful. I longed for something new to happen. I have never been careful when I wished, and predictably a change came that I didn't like. My mother, Daphne, grew ill, and she didn't get better. Every day was worse, for all that my dreams stayed the same. When at last she passed I didn't quite know what to do with myself. Neither did the people of Winhill. I was not the first orphan they had to deal with, but there was no one willing or able to take me in. So I was dealt with the same way all orphans my age were: I was sent to a Garden. Not the nearby Galbadian Garden—it was too militarized for the Mayor's taste—but to Balamb. There I would live and grow, become my own man, able to care for myself once I graduated. My mother's house was held in trust for me in Winhill, because I swore I would return. That I would protect the town I loved with what I learned.
Balamb, I suppose, is where my story changed. Went from being something slow and peaceful to something frantic and strained. I trained, hard, daily, and guided by my closest friend—the one who would be my lover and my betrayer—I found a place there that was almost sedate. But everything changed. I guess that's covered, or will be covered, in the history books though. They call the one I was most changed by 'Hyne's War' now. Not because it was really religiously based, but because of the goals of the Zebalgans and their ruling council. I learned so much at Garden: to fight, to kill, to struggle to be something. I was hardly noticed until my minor role in the Second Sorceress War, where I flew the mobile base of Balamb Garden. But it was after that, in the war against the Zebalgans, that my name became more commonly known. I was, after all, the Heir of Vascaroon. The one with weighty blood who saw the future. Legend said one of my blood would guide the Zebalgans to the body and greater magical power that Hyne had owed the world. The Zebalgans wanted me to work for them, my lover among their number pressuring me towards their ends. The Garden Forcers wanted me out of Zebalgan hands, and held my loyalty.
The worst part was that, when all was said and done and my lover lay dying in my arms, and by my own hand, my life fell apart. Irvine, my friend and student, had stepped up and claimed what I had never wanted, what I had hated. He was the Heir, I a simple cousin and apparently cheap substitute. All that fighting and suffering for nothing. War went on around me and I could barely keep up. War swelled and fell, holding us as the winners in the eyes of history. But what we lost...
When all was said and done I found myself in Galbadia Garden as SeeD Commander, with the infamous Seifer Almasy as my second. It was almost amusing, still is, to realize that one of my closest friends was once public enemy one, and once tried to kill me. It was in his hands I left Galbadia Garden, knowing that someday he would be the Headmaster others suggested I be. I knew another chance like that would never come, and I hadn't hesitated to see myself passed over for another. The hunger for recognition I had before the war had not survived long past my first dose of serious attention. The chance that was given me for several months of recovery from everything that had happened was too tempting to pass up. The call to return to responsibility was too easy to ignore.
I hadn't been expecting the call that had cut that peace short. The job. The new dreams and old memories that resulted from it. If I had... Well, I suppose I would have done it anyway. An order is an order, and I had no reason to say no.
How was I supposed to know that my major role in history wasn't over yet? Well, maybe it's arrogant to say that now. It's been, what, a week since everything started? But there is just this feeling, deep in my gut, that says things are beginning again, or maybe truly for the first time. But, m ore than anything, the dreams tell me that a new storm is rising, and if I don't' face it, it will sweep me and all I love away.
Hyne help me, let it be wrong. But, in case I'm not, I've chosen to start this. A collection of my thoughts and experiences, uncensored. It runs counter to all my training to risk potentially sensitive information like this, but I want to be remembered as I am. Or at least as I see myself. Maybe it will help it all make sense later. Maybe some day I'll find someone to entrust this to, as Elijah gave his own journal into my hands. Maybe instead it will be a stranger.
In that case, know this. My name is Nida Sheya Nomura, Rank A Elite SeeD of Balamb Garden, former SeeD Commander of Galbadia Garden, and once the leader of the allied air forces during Hyne's War. I have killed and saved men. I have loved and lost and given up hope to love again. I have, so I am told, the blood of Vascaroon, an ancient prophet, running through my veins.
And I think that last night, for the first time, I dreamed my own death.