July 20th, 1800
...
My father is a retired Dragoon.
Twenty-five years of service, then came the war and I thought he should stop risking his life for once.
No, I was wrong. He likes hunting. Every weekend, we travel outside of Lindblum's boundaries in search of any wild beasts and their skins as a reward. Not just skin, but their flesh rich in nutrients, their scalps, their feathers, anything that can be later sold in the market for a few bucks. Rarely do we go on a hunt to get some food, but there are days my father and I find ourselves distant from any known civilization. A few ruins once hindered by Mist are seen in the way and we make our camps near those when it's necessary.
"Never eat raw meat in the wild. It's either poisoned or filled with vermin, always fry it", it's one of my father's pieces of advice he learned during war. Not just a single war, but he's been in many conflicts since young. He chose to be a Dragoon so he did not have to move away from Burmecia everytime the army summoned him to follow his soldier obligations. Whenever I ask about if we will return to Burmecia, my father either ignores me or looks away to say "do it yourself, follow the way home. Follow your brothers and sisters. You are no longer a child, you can take care of your own", but I think, despite his bitterness, that he too wants to go home.
One gray morning, when I was removing the tent, I heard my father from a distance. "Behind you!", he shouted, and when I looked back, for an instant I saw a giant Serpion who had been following us for a while. Never encountered one before, and I wish I did not. I ran like hell when I saw it roaring at me. My father's reaction was to reach for his javelin and throw it right on the beast's heart. The Serpion took the hit as it fell on the ground, completely dead, and when father came near its body, he took the heart out, it was torn in two perfect halves.
"I wish I could do that to the bastard who took your mother's life away", he said, the first time in months he ever spoke about the invasion. Or mother.
She was at Cleyra when it happened. Nothing else to comment on. If you ask how I feel, then fuck off. It's been months and I'm still trying to process everything, so does my father. He honestly believes that it was a soldier who killed her instead of Odin, because it's easy to blame a nameless person rather than an eidolon who knows no cruelty or suffering.
Late at night, as we walked through the main avenue of Lindblum, both of us carrying the Serpion's body wrapped around a leather bag, that horrible stench of rotten meat and iron leaking out of a hole and filling everyone's noses, I thought about how I'd feel better as soon as I took a bath.
"Father... What if you could change your past?" I asked as we delivered the body to the local butcher.
"But would that kill the hopes and dreams that could still be your bright future?", he answered as he looked upon to see a moonless sky. Not different from Burmecia's sky, except for the lack of clouds. I thought for a while about how the future offers endless possibilities, that no matter how tempting it may be, the past is something that can never be changed.
On my way home, I saw Kal and Wei playing with their children. Wei gave birth to four healthy siblings and later adopted some of the orphans she found wandering in the streets. Burmecians and humans, it did not matter if she and her husband got plenty of love to share. I believe this is where change truly begins.
