Hey, it's a new part! By the way, I've found that strips the strikeouts from the stuff uploaded here, so I've taken out the struck-out words. You can find the good version on my site (link in my author profile). The same goes for "Athanasia", which also has a Fancy Version in the correct font up.
By Amanda Swiftgold
Entry Two
--I have seen now that you can never truly return to the place you have left. Everything has changed here, though it has not been so long since I went to Alexandria. Maybe it's been like this - for longer. Maybe all I have now are my memories of Burmecia, my childhood memories. It is not the same, it's colder now, and even though we're rebuilding and rubble no longer lines the streets, they are not my streets.
My home. My beautiful home. Why can't I love you like I used to?
Oh, I hope my melancholy can be forgiven. But, this is all I can think of as I sit here, looking out the window of my room, listening to the rain, watching it spill across the stones, streak across the glass.
I left, storning away like a child, seeking solace in Alexandria, seeking Dagger's advice. This is what everyone knows, what the people murmur to each other, why they watch me with veiled gazes when I pass by. My journeys have ruined me somehow, even though they were once only in search of Sir Fratley, my aim only to kneel at the feet of my senior knight, to find comfort in his arms once more.
He, of course, has forgiven me for running, accepted my apologies of frustration at the state of things here in Burmecia. And, tomorrow morning, Fratley will sit down at the table with me in the echoing halls of the palace. As we have ever done, we will make the decisions that will affect our people's lives.
But it is he who is their leader now, him they will look to for protection, not me, not Freya their so-called hero, who has ever abandoned them when they needed her. A Dragon Knight, yet still a flighty female, still unworthy of my lance in their eyes, though they would never say it now.
And yet I will abandon them again, I will prove them right, and go traipsing around the world with Amarant - with a 'bounty hunter', they might sneer, if they were inclined at all to be polite. They would sneer even if he were King of the Outer Continent, for whatever else he may be, Amarant is not Burmecian.
No, not Fratley, either, Fratley who says he loves me even though he doesn't remember the night of the moon hidden against a cloudy sky, our whispers to each other, the dreams of young lovers in the dark. They can't understand why my feelings for him have cooled now that he has returned because some things are better in memory alone.
Most of all, they can't understand what has happened in the time since I left. I have come to a turning point in my life, a time when I have to make important decisions, decisions that I really do not want to make. I must decide what is in my heart which is no easy task. Amarant ran from me because he is was afraid of what he I thought of him after he told me his secret.
I was very lonely that day I approached him, when I tried to get to know him better and everything unexpected happened. It was just very painful, to for the first time see his eyes, and to see that they are blue and to also see fear in them... Amarant is not the man I'd ever think to see fear on his face. Oh, I am rambling now, now I know how it feels. I do not have quite the way with words that he does.
What I am trying to say is that I never expected Amarant to tell me why he was afraid and I must admit for a moment I was afraid of him after that too. It makes me ashamed to even say this, and things could have turned out a lot worse. I could have lost him for good but thanks to Zidane that didn't happen. It was very strange to read his thoughts in his book, to see what he thought about me and about what I did, these things I had no idea about. And it did make me think of him in a different light, and I was most especially not prepared to have to save him when I found him in Treno.
I was not prepared for anything that happened, and that has unnerved me quite a bit. My heart is heavy now with many troubled thoughts, enough that I must feel much like Vivi did.
Now that I am in Burmecia now, there are many things I must do and decide. I must decide how to feel. This is not something I can do in one night's time, or even one week. And so here I must stay until everything is settled. My head must be clear before I choose what my duty will be. I owe this to both of them.