"Moments"
by Aizhen Aschenhimmel
Disclaimer: RO belongs to Gravity. CT belongs to Tom.
A/N: I've always been a fan of Tom Valor's Crimson Twilight series :3 Many of these stories will only make sense if you read Crimson Twilight. I endlessly emailed him for info about his world, and the results, I used in these fics. It should be in Shards, but I've frozen the story (sigh). Not all stories will be CT-based though...because some could stand alone by themselves. Others are made with CT in mind but ended up more like a stand-alone one shot. Anyways! Reviews would be very much welcome :3
Dedication: To Barbs aka Kinori, one of the best persons around there. The first three one-shots are dedicated to you.
First Glimpse: Vincent
Memories become more lucid as time passes by - especially the ones you want to forget.
They get clearer with every visit he takes.
And along with the sharp images came the sharp pain, the overwhelming sorrow barely containable and almost impossible to hide.
It was one of those days when gloom was the word to describe the atmosphere - a day that seemed to suspended in a state of perpetual twilight. Cold and gray with nothing audible over the faint whispers of the early morning breeze and the murmurs of the leaves rustling against each other. The perfect backdrop for a visit in the city's graveyard.
It wasn't that he relished the grief. It wasn't in his nature to brood and reflect the darker sides of life. He found no secret pleasure in this sadness, found no relief in the stock reasons given to him in vain attempts of comfort. It tormented him, those memories, the sights and sounds of it, the emotions that went along with them. He would've stopped visiting...no, he wouldn't have visited at all. But it was duty. Duty to the deceased family. At least he had to show that he valued them.
It was duty to remember.
Everything he did was for them. But according to his vows as a knight of Glastheim, he must value the city more than everything else, more than his life, more than the life of others.
They had taken the same vows too. They were a family of knights proud for producing six generations of defenders - respected, though not particularly wealthy, known by most of the populace. They had known the chivalric oaths by heart, reared up to believe that the noble blood of the Glastheimian knight runs in their veins, that their ultimate duty was to defend the fair city with their life. One belief was instilled to them from their earliest days, a belief that is shared by every knight and raydric: there is nothing more glorious than to die in the name of the Church and Empire.
It was also the quintessential response of comfort for the fallen knight's bereaved.
He felt no relief from those words. Only more despair. Maybe a bit of anger, though he cannot admit even to himself. His pride as a knight severely shattered under the blow of sorrow caused by near-simultaneous deaths. The thought that things would've been different if they weren't knights.
But what was there to do? He was alive, they were dead. A knight of Glastheim sheds no tears. He must continue his service to the Empire, offer up his life, wait for what they say was a glorious end.
Yet no matter how hard and long he gazed, he saw no glory in the bloodied faces that refused to be forgotten.
A/N: The first story's already an exception...well, Vincent was supposed to be longer with two characters involved (Vincent and a female knight, Sharia). But I liked the way the story turned out, short and in my opinion, captures Vince's melancholic, angsty and somewhat desperate mood. The other stories will be longer. Reviews are welcome. If grammatical errors are spotted (I tend to have them a lot, sigh) please tell me. Thanks : )