Winter Shadows
Forcas meditating on war after the end of Tactics Ogre.
Ice floated slowly down upon the waiting world, covering the stony terraces with a fine, fragile white drift. Winter transformed the silent city into a land of phantasms for a few brief hours, swallowing shadows into absolute whiteness, twisting everything into a grotesque play of forms that was either beautiful or frightening, depending on one's mood. But this was a transitory vision, a moment in time before the rains washed the perfect white covering away and the feet of the passer-byes crushed the snow and turned it into a muddied-colored slush. And still, over the snowy rooftops, the silhouettes playing against the ice-blue skies and the ghostly forms of birds drifting on the winds retained some of the eerie, strange beauty of winter.
The young knight sat on the steps of the terrace, watching the winter shadows drifting in the cold air. He was clad in his armor but threw a long cloak over it for warmth, its dark hem swiveling in folds over the soles of his boots. He had taken off his helmet, and it was lying in the curve of his arm; his other arm was clutching at the hilt of his sword, whose tip was embedded in the cracks of the stones. He had not drawn the hood of his cloak over his head despite the crisp, bitter chill, and it was bare in the icy air. The sun hid behind snow-laden clouds, and the light was pale, but a few passing sparks still drew a red sheen from his brown locks. He was watching the beauty of the city silently, his expression still and his dark eyes giving nothing. For a moment he appeared to be a statue, a perfect simulation of a man sitting in thought; but then he spoiled the image by shifting and running his fingers through his hair.
The silhouette most clearly visible against the skies, distant but clearly-cut against the pale blue like a monument of strength, was that of the royal palace. The young knight remembered the princess, the new queen, at whose side he had fought, both of them under the command of her brother. He supposed that, somewhere in that palace, she might be standing and watching the drifting shadows herself from some high window, the pale gold of the new crown glittering icily against her fair hair. From the darkness of the grave where her father's ghost was entombed she rose to the white, sparkling height of the royal throne. He briefly wondered if she was happy up there, or if she was slowly discovering that it was yet another tomb, a high and narrow one.
Necessary. For the people, necessary. Someone has to make the sacrifice, or so Sisteena would say.
Sisteena's hands were the ones that dealt the fatal blow to the tormented shadow of the king, let loose of the arrow that lodged in its breast and shattered its life source. Sisteena had done a lot of killing in her life for the cause of her war, and she always insisted it was necessary. He could recall her killing one man with a thrust of a finely-honed dagger, and when the blood spurted out it had stained her pale clothes and face. When she came to him he panicked momentarily, thinking that the blood was hers, but she calmed him down. He took a strand of her pale hair in his fingers and smoothed it down, and when he withdrew his hand his fingers were stained with blood, and a red smirch tainted her fine ashen locks. He didn't know what to say then, but when they finally reached their dwelling again he insisted that she should wash herself. Her blood-speckled face watched him, the wide gray eyes boring into him questioningly. He repeated the order again and turned around, not wanting her to guess how thoroughly sick it made him to see her... HER... involved in all this.
And yet, did he have the right to fight more than she did?
There is no difference, Sisteena would say. We can both fight.
And, he thought, we can both be stained by the same marks, we can both taint our skin with the blood, until the blood is ours one day, and then we can both die, knowing we did the right thing...
...this time...
...at least.
He never had much qualms about the cause he was fighting for. He had always been a knight first, and a man later, or so he thought. Even if he had summoned his courage to tell her that the sight of the blood tainting her sickened him in a strange way, he would never have told her to stop fighting for what they both believed in. But what disturbed him was...
Maybe it was just that...
He wanted her... HER... pure of this taint.
He wanted her to be a pure, untainted maiden. A knight through and through, Sisteena would say.
A form looming in the shadows disturbed his thoughts. He could see this form, feminine, in a cloak, her voluminous dress falling down to her boots, her ashen hair surrounding a white, angelic face, with the dark gray eyes like shadows in it. The snow had increased, falling heavily, gently, smothering sounds. The form stooped towards him, its fingers touching his arm, pressing so lightly that he could barely feel them, a ghostly touch. It didn't say a thing... it didn't need to. It was a part of the shadows of many cold winters, swallowed by the white, heavy snows that covered the red memories... if only for a little while.
The young knight rose to his feet and, his boots making no sound on the snow-covered porch, he entered the house. The windows, like dark eyes, watched the wintry world, where the gray, misty image of the girl dissolved into the silent whiteness.
© Written by Hadas Rose
Tactics Ogre is © Atlus, 1999
