Isao Tomita - Footprints In The Snow
...
Rain and its scent pours down. From the window pane, cold is the sight. The touch and smell of a distant fire...
Green were once the leaves, and trees once still are falling down. So long ago, they lost their glow, and from their hands came the scythes. Rain pours down, the smoke is gone, the work is done. Gray remained into the clouds, translucid is the curtain, a child shares doubts, and the rain is the only one who remains. Not only the branches suffer, there is nothing else left for this rainy decade to offer.
Home. At least... Home.
Not a sweet one, because only the taste of the rain is enough. It tastes like stone. I already knew it, so did my tongue. In those times, I used to put anything I knew inside of me, literally. The finger, the food, the dust, the cracks of the walls... Eventually, I spit them all as soon as I grew up. I've used to know the world this way, tasting it with my mouth. Now an only sight is enough to discover something that either gives me chills, or surprises me.
Only a few times I am allowed to shed a smile, due to nothing impressing me that much, or being too sad for any laughter to come out. So did the words, some secluded into my mind, for good or for bad. Nobody else, watching me with those eyes, speaking to me as they look at me... They aren't like you, mother. Not like father as well. Or Jack, who was patient in regards to my doubts, somehow.
Mother, you knew when it was the time to say 'no' to me, but at least, you and father knew how much of a 'no' it was enough for me to bear. A single 'no' was enough to save my life a bunch of times, while many of them were unnecessary, almost never heard by me, only when I was found into a distance, which rarely happened.
To be a Dragoon Knight... Not as easy as it is to enlist the males to the army. I don't have anyone, except myself, to decide whether I should become one of them, or not. A door knob that can only be opened by someone else's hand... Ain't I old enough for this? I said, but I've heard no reply other than 'no'.
I was only seven years-old, now I am fifteen. Nothing changed, except that no more could I be sat above mother's arms, rarely I could do it in the first place. How easy it was for a 'no' to be told, and to not be spoken in words, to be understood not only by me. A 'no' followed by my name, which came after or before the same order, usually an exclamation, unseen alike the danger revolving around each corner I've avoided with the sight, and the voice of someone else.
Some didn't even share any voice, only primitive roars. Basilisks, Vices, hordes of Ironites; you have fought them all, mom. Each one taken by your spear meant a decay of your time spent with some other activity, with someone else to hold on to your hand, while they felt your claws instead. How come a pair of knives found at the tip of our palms and feet be this sharp, and yet we are so careful when it comes to touching someone, without leaving any harm?
To take a bath with this rugged loofah, flaying this skin of any dirt, transferring it to the water inside the wooden tub... I remember how tiny it was. I've used to take a bath like this, while inside a bucket, and either you and father used to bathe me anywhere. In the kitchen, in the room, near the bedroom; outside, rain keeps falling, yet that same water can't be used to clean ourselves. Nobody can walk naked when on the street.
Everyone wears clothes, and decorations, garments which may tell on a first look what the same person looks like. Each Burmecian wears gaiters on their both feet as well, except a few stubborn children, who may never have suffered a pain like the one coming from the tiny rocks under their feet. If a fisherman, hanging on a rod on its back, or a butcher, whose clothes are far more covered by blood than any soldier outfit, whose cyan outfits are polished as their helmets, whom I never saw being in a use other than stay atop their heads.
Mother never wore that helmet to cover her face, and her entire outfit wears tons of weight. Buckles to hold on the escutcheon on her front and the metallic jambs atop her shoulders, a red coat who would become crimson sometimes, smelling like the flesh of something else other than mother... It must have been a nightmare to bear such weight on her first days, besides the one coming she bore it through her entire life.
Mother also wore those orange trousers, which only reminded me of this ribbon at the tip of my tail. They share the same color, but this ribbon tells me who I am. 'Cr'... I belong to the Crescent family branch, mainly. Father was a child born from another family, the Brandford, whose members have assembled into another, and so it goes on.
Usually, the name of the male one's family persists into his children, but there are other factors, like the importance of a family over another, not only secluded in the surname, but riches and history also counts. The 'B' comes before the 'C' ain't that much of a factor, but who even cared about logic when it comes to naming your child? Some do not even have a name, but they are deemed as numbers instead.
First, Second, Third... I have a bunch of cousins with these same names, the reason is because they are young, and unfortunately with more chances of passing away, if they aren't lucky enough.
Luck... Was the love mother felt for father a thing that happened by chance? Did she become a Dragoon Knight because of any chance? To be born with these tiny claws, only so to approach the enemy, before he or it comes from behind... How many of them caught your front as well, mom?
I didn't even had to ask, only count the scars left at your back, naked or mostly covered by this coat. How many times it was sewed, how many times your life was spared instead of my own, how many Dragonnades were organized centuries before to hinder the only way out of the gates of Burmecia for those who called themselves Cleyrans, at any cost.
The Dragoon Knights are forbidden to kill any civilians, but those who didn't believe in Burmecia anymore were deemed as a threat, and the first principle of being a Dragoon Knight was made in regards to protecting Burmecia at any cost.
Those who attacked it were only animals, beasts, dragons... I want to believe that something changed, but I have always carried on the thoughts of my mother, and that same blood which appeared, almost unseen due to that coat, but the once white cravat wrapped around her neck shared a blood like mine. Glowing in a red either dark or either bright enough to be called by orange... It wasn't someone who tried to kill her, but someone as well. With bare hands. More than once.
How many wounds are needed to kill someone until they are dry of any blood? None. They can't be seen, and this land will never run dry, like this rain. Sure, Dragoons are also tasked to contain any kind of riot, coming from a horde of dragons, and a crowd of Burmecians as well. Rarely they appear, to be fair I never saw a 'Rat King' outside the legends told. I never tried to enroll my own tail with someone else's tail, because there are plenty of ways to make ties amend.
Sometimes, a warm flash of light appears from a gap beneath the skies. The clouds briefly open up, and only a few there to be impressed. Children or adults, they still keep stepping over the puddles... A rainbow disappears, unlike its colors brought to this gray. And those limes, clothes and dresses... The orange at the tip of their hairs and tails. I have never dared to take this ribbon out, not even when taking a bath like this.
Only once... Now, look at the mark it left. How tightened to me, like my own name, a name that remains my own. The name is as old as it was my grandma, so does the tradition of a Crescent to become a Dragoon Knight. Is it a tradition, after all? Because everyone wants to become one of them. I'll have to go to the market, yet again. Just like the mark left by the ribbon, it became part of me. It intends to, in a way it satisfies my pleasure, my hunger, my anxiety, anything that is part of me.
How much time it took for me to get out of that tub, wear these clothes, wrap that ribbon at the tip of my tail, comb my hair... I forget to wrap these strands. Now they are getting in front of my eyes. This hair will get soaked anyway, so I won't share any complaints related to this matter.
Fräulein... I'd rather be called by Frida instead. Even Jack knew how to make me angry, with a charm. It ain't polite to punch a woman, father was right, and so Jack obeyed his. Father said nothing about words, and the way they affect us. Any word, like fräulein for example. This name pisses me off, but people think that's such a cute way to refer to a girl. A rather archaic way, I would say, but I have just remained quiet. Soon all of that would be over, but sometimes I wished it wasn't.
Those parties, the marriages, even the funerals; these were the times I would be close to my mother. She was dressed like a Dragoon on each of them, except when taking a bath. Instead of muddy, the water became red, and the wounds hid by the thick fur, but not by the scent they brought. Geez... do I really want to become a Dragoon Knight, if I remain thinking about these things? That job shares other virtues, so do the people.
I can eat as many vegetables as I can find, but they won't belong to me forever. Like the sources of fuel, they need to be supplied from one time to another. Like my father once told me, when traveling on the seas or these lands engulfed by a sky, sailors and explorers suffered from scurvy, who would rotten their jaws as a whole unless they brought a lemon, or some orange with themselves.
I was never fond of the taste of any lemon, but I need to wear a cloth with the same color. It smells like lime, but it may be because of its color. These were the first things I saw, and felt as well. Now I don't feel anything else like before, when I smelled a chalk instead of eating it for the first time. The rain dissolved it instead of my own salivating mouth, and my hungry stomach. White like milk... I don't know what I may have thought, because I was just a baby, but mother had a good memory. I bought her one, plenty for a change, so did Jack.
My breaths can be seen, a thick fog comes from my lungs, but the pain within the chest won't stop. I disguise it, but after a few attempts, I perceive that I have failed to do it, yet nobody seems to notice, or care about it. They do not even know how I feel, how I want to feel any better, instead of dying each day of the week like this.
Eggs... They are so fragile, so easy to be thrown away, to be eaten as well. Mother used to not afford any waste coming from those eggs and the price they carried on. She used to pour the shell coming from any egg, rotten as well, above the soil of the kailyard. They worked as a sort of bean, refreshing the earth below, increasing the growth of many plants.
What I've once thought to be a sort of magic, or part of the Dragoon skill sets learnt by mother, it was all but the result of a work well done by nature. We may not be able to understand its forces, or even care about them. A random stranger can tell me that the sun sets at the horizon due to Gaia's movement through space, but like my father used to say, the sun is meant to rise and be set at the horizon because it needs to. Done.
I never saw the sun, only its light. I felt it as well, only briefly. Then, the clouds began to move, and only the rain could be felt, as usual. I just ignored it, because I already felt it throughout my entire life. No matter the amount of ripples flowing through the surface of each street, the droplets hitting and falling somewhere other than the ceilings of those houses, the clothes getting soaked by something other than sweat...
There is just silence for me. Apples, eggs, oranges, cinnamon rolls, bread and cheese; I don't know if whether I shall eat one at once, or all of them together. Have some variety, at least.
Back at home, only me sat on a chair, to prepare whatever it may be cut by this single knife. I wash it when cutting something else, because a bread can't share the same taste like a strawberry. Did I buy them too? Well, I'd better eat them today, because these pretty strawberries aren't known due to their taste, or the high price they are sold to us. They already seem to be a bit rotten, anyway.
A single touch over one strawberry, and a mark is left on a softer place, which means that this 'fruit' began to rot. Not prepared already, and this strawberry wants to return to the same earth its seeds once belonged to. I understand... Nobody knows when to give up from a good shelter, when most of life has been spent, like this house I'm in. Nobody else, but only me who remained, unlike these clothes.
Why the need to hang those clothes into lines found outside their homes, if they will get soaked anyway? At least, they will be clean of any dirt, except the one who shall wear it. Mother's ones at least fit me, now, which came first: the orange color, or the orange fruit? That was one of the many kinds of questions made by Jack, and neither of us knew how to answer it. Not even father, who once said that the sun rises from the horizon because that's how it happens.
People do not give up from living because that's how life is, because they now share plenty of reasons, arguments, doubts that fill in their heads, and before they pass away, some of them had already been dead for so long ago.
Instead of creating life or destroying it so easily, mom sometimes just let it grow, and I had been tasked to create my own life, if by digging up the past on such moments like this, or by growing up to live outside the earth...
...
...and the people who step over earth, mom?... they do not want to give the seeds any chance?...
...The seeds are well protected by the earth they reside within, Freya...
...uh... and the streets? the seeds won't grow with stones above earth...
...See that grass over there? Below your feet? No matter how many cobblestones you build to fill in an entire street, there are always gaps in the middle of them all...
...grass grows anywhere, mom...
...You are right, Freya...
...gaps can be found anywhere too... mom, will grass grow inside Dan?...
...Well, why do you ask?...
...nothing big, mom...
...Heh, so you say... I can see that something is growing within you, my dear... It may not be grass, but no matter how many try to step over you, it will resist within time...
It sure did, mother, whatever it may have been.
