Author's Notes
DISCLAIMER:
Claymore, in its entirety, belongs to Norihiro Yagi
Everything I did with the characters of Claymore belongs to me
The black clouds that were hanging had begun to pour their contents onto the ground in an outpour that seemed like millions of waterfalls hitting the holy city of Rabona that could be seen from the windows of Tabitha's study. The ground of the hills, forests and valleys around the town had turned muddy withing minutes. Even the ways of the estate she and her best friend lived on, though being made of a more solid material, didn't look very inviting for a walk anymore.
Jacob, their loyal butler, had to be worried about the flowers – his most important duty and love, after his Ladies, of course – was what she had figured.
Miria was approaching the door to Tabitha's study. The clicking sound of the heels of her black shoes echoed through the hallway that, no matter, how often Miria passed it, never seemed to get old to her. Lit by the brilliant light of the chandeliers that were hung there every twelve meters, one could spend endless times again and again to see all the portraits, trophies, honors and other, small and big, unimposing and outstanding wonders the long life Tabitha had led had collected. It was her wing, after all, and since she had found the plain ochroid color of the walls boring, she had decided to decorate it with whatever she found interesting. Most of the things were portraits of the warriors and their families, some of them even drawn by herself.
Miria never tired of regarding all the many things there and, soon after Tabitha had started to collect nearly everything, started to do that, too. She was caught in her friend's collection so much, that she didn't even notice that she had already reached the door and was a bit startled, as the latter opened in front of her.
A gentle smile of Tabitha instantly caught her attention and took the fright from her.
"Being absorbed into all that old stuff again, I assume?" she was warmly greeted by Tabitha, who invited her in.
Tabitha closed the door as soon as Miria had passed it as the latter took a look around in the room she hadn't seen for quite a bit of time. 'Whatever that means at my age,' she mused smiling.
Taking a few steps towards the room's center, the naked ceiling caught her attention. Every last corner of Tabitha's room was decorated despite the ceiling.
"Still have no intentions to arrange the chandelier you got for you eightieth birthday?" the slightly older woman asked her friend while staring at the ceiling.
Tabitha, who had, nearly unnoticed by Miria, placed herself behind her, gently let her hands slide around the latter's waist and rested her chin on Miria's right shoulder. With a quiet voice she whispered: "But I don't need it, Miria-darling. This room is bright all day, and when it is night I have the chimney's warming fire and more than enough candles. And, by the way," she paused for a bit, took Miria's right hand and directed it towards Rabona, "I could not see the beautiful lights of the city, if the room were too bright."
"He," Miria snickered, "there is also no changing you, is there?"
"I fear there is not, General Miria," she replied, imitating Jacob's way to talk as well as his voice, much to Miria's amusement.
Both of them giggled, as strong knocks were promising the arrival of the both woman's drink. After having calmed down a bit – and after having brought some distance between the two of them – Tabitha said: "Come in!"
Without delay, Jacob entered, the tea cart in front of him. On the cart there were placed three glasses, a bottle of gin older than Miria, as well as a vessel of purest silver, filled with icecubes.
"Good evening General Miria, Lady Tabitha," he greeted them, while slightly bowing towards each of them and moving the tea cart in front of the armchair that was standing in front of the chimney. A fire of friendly warmth and luminance was already jollily dancing around in it, making crackling and sizzling sounds.
After Tabitha had gotten her greatest treasure – a photo album, bound in fir green leather, the women both took place in Tabitha's armchair – the latter in it, Miria on Tabitha's lap. Jacob, as if it went without saying, got the chair from Tabitha's desk, placed it semi right of the dark armchair and began preparing their drinks. Two glasses he charged with two cubes of ice, the third one with three cubes of ice. Directly afterwards he poured every one of them a Gin and handed the glass with three icecubes over to Miria, took one of the other two himself and let the third one remain standing in its place, knowing, that Lady Tabitha would help herself.
After taking the first sip of Gin, Jacob knowingly stated: "A fine vintage, indeed, but no comparison to the one from thirty years ago," and after a short pause he also added: "and of course no comparison to my two ladies here."
"But Jacob," Miria said with played indignation, stemming her right hand into her waist, "what do you think you are saying here?" Tabitha had to giggle on that.
Jacob, totally keeping his cool, convincingly stated: "But General Miria, you should know better than to suspect me of indelicate talk. Of course I meant to say, that out of all the people out there, you are my favorite ones to spend my time with. No one else has such a rich pool of experiences to share as the two of you."
At that, both Miria and Tabitha had to snicker for a bit. Of course they knew what qualities Jacob cherished about them. Even though they would never take amiss any other interest he might have had in them – after all, he was a man at service of two ladies that, due to both of them having lived for more than a hundred years each, still looked like they were in their early twenties.
Tabitha then opened the album, took out a folded paper and closed it again. She unfolded the paper to reveal an erasure she had done herself a long time before, eighty-one years, to be precise. She always called it a sketch due to it not fulfilling any standards of art. Miria, however, found it to be one of the most beautiful portraits that Tabitha had ever made. The both of them, as well as Jacob, regarded it for a while.
The latter then broke the silence to reveal a question that he had since the first time he saw that picture: "Ladies, if I may ask, you always regard this one picture on every third of October. Still, you never say a word about it. Please excuse, if I seem brisk now, but you always turn melancholic after seeing it. May I ask the reason for that?"
The picture basically showed nothing more than a young family. A young man in plain clothes, a woman wearing a warriors uniform, as well as a girl around the age of twelve, wearing nothing but a white dress. However, holding her parents hands, she looked like the happiest girl on earth.
While still looking at the erasure made by herself, Tabitha explained: "After we, under the command of Captain Miria, had brought down the Organization, we began to purge the island. We wanted every monster that still was left to vanish, to never allow them to return. Roughly six months after the Organization's defeat, a fellow warrior of us, Clarice, found herself a man – and therefore a father for her foster-daughter."
"The three persons on that picture, I assume?" Jacob asked.
"Yes. Still, even though the three of them look happy in this picture, fate had not planned for them to actually be happy," she answered him.
Musingly Jacob took another sip of his Gin. He knew that the comrades of his Ladies never had an easy life, so them having a tragic story didn't seem so surprising to him. Still, he could see in his Ladies' eyes, that that story was different from the ones he had heard before.
Tabitha folded the picture again, put it back into the album and finally took a whole mouthful of her Gin, too, downing it in one swig. For a moment she had her eyes closed, letting the taste refresh her spirits. Asking for seconds, she told them: "What I want to tell the two of you today, is a story that only I still know about in detail. It is something I do not really want to speak about but still it is part of the past of us warriors. It must not be forgotten."
After pausing for a bit, she directed her gaze towards Jacob, who had already refilled her glass, and, with honesty in her eyes and voice, asked of him: "Dear Jacob. I want you to remember every last word of what I am going to tell the both of you now. I may never bring myself to writing it down. I do not plan on leaving this earth soon, but still I don't know if I will be able to write about the events regarding Miata. So, if worse comes to worst, I want you, my dear Jacob, to write down the story that I never wanted to tell – to keep the memories of us warriors alive."
Jacob felt honored. Never before Tabitha had asked him to bear her memories in case she wasn't able to write them down. He knew that keeping the knowledge about her comrades and their trials alive was the most important thing to her – most likely the only thing that kept her alive. For her, to entrust such an important task to him, he had never been given such an important task in his entire life.
After having made his decision, he honestly told her with his deep, strong voice: "I will, Lady Tabitha. No event on earth will make me forget your wish!"
"Very well," Lady Tabitha said, took a sip of her second Gin, and began to tell the story of Miata.
Eighty-two years ago, in the vast lands of the east, led by our Captain, we were, miraculously, able to bring the Organization, the curse of this lands, to its knees. After we also freed Clare, you may vaguely remember her, Jacob, and defeated Priscilla, our greatest trial began. We had a whole continent full of Yoma and Awakened Beings to purge before we thought to finally be able to live in peace. The aftermath is another story, however.
Nevertheless, not all of us traveled the lands to slay the remaining dangers. A few of us stayed in Rabona to protect it, some other settled as soon as they had found a nice place to stay. Mostly that were the former trainees, who, by and large, weren't able to deal with those monsters to begin with.
Two of the warriors to remain in Rabona were Clarice and her foster-daughter Miata. The latter was a mentally unstable girl of eleven years that had to have underwent things only the heavens know about. Clarice was the person she desperately clung on; making contact with other people was nearly impossible to her. Clarice knew, that, even, if she was just a guard, it was not unlikely for her to lose her life when an attack would come. Who would take care of Miata, then?
The solution to that problem came more or less by chance: as she was asked to order two dozens of armor for new recruits, she, of course, took Miata with her. Rabona's blacksmith at that time, a skilled man of high experience, was the one who should take care of that matter. However, due to an accident he was not able to work and so his assistant, a young lad of around twenty years was the one to take the guard's order. As Clarice herself told me a few weeks later, they got along instantly and, what even more was to her surprise, even Miata seemed to like him and vice versa.
Sooner or later one thing led to another and, half a year after the Organization's fall, Clarice and Torben, the blacksmith's assistant, married. It was a big event and nearly every warrior was there. It also was a first-timer, because never before a warrior had contracted the holy bond of matrimony.
Everything was great for the three of them, you could say. For Miata it was probably the most peaceful time of her life. However, things don't always go smoothly.
There Tabitha paused to down the remainders of her second Gin. Miria also had finished her drink.
Jacob instantly replaced the molten ice as well as the Gin and lectured the women: "Ladies, a Gin this old is a drink to savor!"
Miria, with a monotone voice, replied: "Says the one who once drank eight beer in a row, followed by a whole bottle of Brandy and an aged wine. Within three hours."
Ignoring Tabitha's giggles on that, he, not losing focus of his work, plainly stated: "You are able to do, what you are able to do."
After Miria's and Tabitha's glasses were refilled – and Tabitha had taken the next sip already – she continued her story.
The joy of this young family was not supposed to last very long. After a group of warriors died during the attempt of destroying a secret laboratory of the Organization in the northern lands of Alphonse due to the sheer masses of Yoma there, Miria, meanwhile General of Rabona's military, decided to dispatch a larger group of warriors to once and for all take care of that huge Yoma nest.
The day of depart was the twenty-ninth of October. Clarice was one of the warriors chosen to be part of the mission. Miata was meant to go there, too. Clarice, however, didn't want her beloved child to have to kill again, so after pleading General Miria, the latter decided to keep Miata out of this mission.
It took Miata some time to cope with the fact that she would be without her mother for a while, but she still had her father, so in the end it was alright. The evening before Clarice's departure Miata had prepared fruit tea with sugar as well as Donauwelle for her parents. The three of them enjoyed it together. It should be the last time, however.
The next morning we departed. As long as she could see us, Miata stood at the town's gates to see us off. It was a tearful depart, but surprisingly the one to cry was Clarice and not her daughter.
After two straight days of walk we reached our destination – an amount of Yoma that basically looked like a swarm of flies from afar. I was not able to even guess their numbers. Still, it had to be done, so we engaged them. We nearly had mobilized all the warriors and still it was a struggle that, even today, would lack comparison.
After nearly twenty hours of sending body parts flying, finally the last dull sound of a Yoma's dead body falling to the ground ended it all. At first glance, we had no losses ourselves, but...
Due to the uncountable sources of Yoki that those monsters had spammed the area with, we were unable to keep track of our comrades and their movements. But then, as we finally became able to use our senses again, there was one Yoki missing. Clarice's.