IMPORTANT STUFF: Digimon does not belong to me, and the Final Fantasy series is Squaresoft's.
DIGITAL FANTASY: LEGEND OF THE TWELVE DIGI-CRESTS
written by K-chan
Characters of Fate: DANCER
"In Search of an Identity"
She sat quietly and still in front of the oval mirror hanging on the wall, staring at her own reflection as if she was finding solace in it. The oil lamp was left burning on the vanity dresser by her side, letting the flickering of light play against her features. Half of her was in light while the other in darkness, just like who she was. But that was the very question she had asked herself many times: who was she?She didn't have amnesia, but she just couldn't remember the 'real' her. Every now and then, she would think about her childhood, being as important to them as they were to her, but she could only make out the blurry outlines and features of these people as if time was slowly erasing them from her memories. When she was younger, the memories were like dreams from a fantasy story, but as she grew older in a time of war and uncertainty, the fantasies were pushed further away.
It wasn't until her mother passed away that she was informed of the truth of her presence in the dying woman's family. During the past thirteen years, she lived a mediocre with a father and mother, believing they were her own family. Her life was ripped apart when her father died of illness when her age reached the double digits. Since then, she and her mother were forced to move to a village, surviving on whatever her father left.
Life didn't seem to get any worse than that until a few years later when her mother had to leave her too. She remembered that day well when she thought her fragile life couldn't be broken anymore, but it did, shattering the glass into fine dust, when those words escaped her lips, "I'm not... you real mother..."
She held onto her mother's hand, staining it with her bitter tears. Her voice sobbed through those words, denying her ears of their existence. "Please mother, you can't leave all alone." She held the woman's hand against her face, feeling the warmth that would caress her cheeks lovingly.
"Sweet daughter," she breathed heavily, giving all her strength into a comforting squeeze of the girl's hand. "I'm sorry..." Her free hand slowly lifted into the air, pointing towards the desk across the room.
She only took notice of it for a second before screaming for her mother, whose hand suddenly limped within her own. She collapsed over the bed-ridden form and wept over the losses she had endured in her lifetime until her consciousness tired.
She shook the memory aside as her dainty hand reached for the hair brush on the desk. Keeping her eyes focused on her face, she smoothed the bristles of the brush through her silky, long hair. She wondered about the features of her face--who they resembled, did she look like her real mother, or her real father? Did she have any siblings? Why wasn't she with her real family? Were they dead? Alive? Searching for her?
Her hand stopped in mid-stroke as she pondered the last question. If they were searching for her, they would've probably found her during those thirteen years. She put the brush down and stood up, revealing an attractive, slim figure in the mirror. She wore a black, sleeveless top and a long, matching skirt. Her midsection was left bare with only a pair of golden chains dangling around her waist. One end of a pink cloth wrapped around her forearm and draped behind her to her other forearm.
She walked over to the bed in the room and stood over it, staring down at a medium-size, wooden box. Her fingers slowly traced across the surface of the top, noting the tiny dents and cracks it suffered through time like her own heart. The box was the only possession she had left of her dead mother as well as her past. It was the very thing that her mother pointed to before she passed away, containing a child's pink dress that she had worn when they found her and a letter of deep regret and sorrow from her adopted mother.
Her fingers rested on the opening edge of the box, but she didn't open it. She knew every single detail of the dress to the very point of where each blood stain had tainted, and she could recite the letter in her sleep. When she read the letter for the first time, anger had taken over her heart that she wanted to rip the letter in a million pieces. Her mother had been so selfish, keeping the secret from her till the last breath, but through time, she began to understand her mother's feelings.
The woman and her husband didn't have any children because of an accident in her childhood that prevented her from child-bearing. It saddened them greatly until they found a three-year-old girl collapsed in the woods. Minor cuts and bruises were apparent, but it was certain that the blood on the girl's dress did not belong to her. The couple didn't know what happened or what could hurt such an innocent child, but they nursed and cared for the girl as if she had been their own. When no news of a missing child ever came up and the girl only remembering someone telling her to run, it was then that they declared the girl in as their own.
Ever since her father died, her mother only had her left, and she wasn't about to lose the only family she had left, not until she was dying that she decided to write the letter, retelling of that fateful encounter and deep regret for withholding it that long.
She looked up at the knock on the door, and a female voice followed, "Miss Mimi, you'll be on in ten minutes."
"All right," Mimi answered. She turned back to the mirror, brushing her hand through her her mahogany hair, and shook it loose to make sure it had a seductive sway. She smoothed down her skirt and then adjusted the hem of her top so it wouldn't she something she didn't want.
Not in a thousand years would she ever imagine herself with such a job, flaunting her body to a crowd of men, but she had to make some living. After leaving her home, she was fortunate enough to have ran into a traveling troupe of dancers instead of a band of criminals, and that was her new family and home till recently when she was capable of being on her own. With a body like hers, graceful and alluring, the trade came to her easily, and money was no longer a problem for her.
But Mimi wasn't stupid. She was deeply instilled with morals from her adopted parents, and if a man didn't know how to keep his hands to himself, she would teach him a lesson that could cause him to fear women for the rest of his life. She was grateful of the dancing trouple, allowing her to learn their trade as well as the secrets that helped defended themselves.
If they weren't certain of her abilities and potential, they wouldn't have accepted her and let her go so easily. The trouple had rules to abide by like another guild or association. But the time came where she made her decision to leave. She had to in order to out about her past and her self.
"It's show time," she smiled faintly before turning away from the mirror. She walked towards the door, swaying her hips a bit with every diminutive step she took. For the first time in her life, she was certain about one thing: to continue living for her self.
