July 22nd, 1800
...
"Bird strikes are rare", the captain said as soon as tragedy followed.
He did not seem shocked or anything, and he was the one who nearly got hit by the flying creature. What happened is that we were taking the airship from Lindblum to deliver supplies to Burmecia when a large Zuu collided against the cockpit's windshield, which forced us to land immediately. I'm glad no one got hurt, but I feel sorry for that poor Zuu who died instantly after the impact. It was quick like a heart attack, I saw its life passing before my eyes, it took a second and, well, it was gone. Quite sad, isn't it? I was the one who asked the captain if we could bury it, and his reply was that he did not want that fallen carcass on the deck.
He also ordered half of the crew to repair the ship while the other half had to go on foot to Burmecia with the supplies being carried on our backs. Five miles under heavy rain, I was beyond exhausted after taking that herculean task, but when I noticed a dozen Burmecians raising an entire building from scratch in a single day, I thought to myself... "Well, it could be worse".
That Zuu could have made a big bloody mess if it had flown against one of the propellers instead of the window, and I could've lost my family, which I did when Bahamut ravaged through Alexandria's streets on that horrible night, but I'm glad I'm not a Burmecian. We all suffer, but no one suffers like the Burmecian people, who are looked down upon since the day they're born and their existence wiped from the face of this stinking world like they were never here, like they never existed or had the right to do so. They don't even bleed elegantly when they die.
It's days like this where I realize our minds are as naked as the paradise we stripped. I heard folks comment about how many bodies were lying in the streets, but I see none of them. All I see are the living, or perhaps the dead disguised as living, it's hard to tell when no one faces you directly, as if to avoid any contact between us or themselves. It would be foolish if the Burmecians were to isolate their kingdom from the rest of the world after all of the help we've offered. An antidote given by the snake that bites, that's how I see the kind of help we're providing to them. Kind of hypocritical, you know? We do war, we kill almost their entire population, we rape their nation as we've done for centuries and then, after all of this, we offer a gentle hand to settle things down.
Eh, it's better than more annihilation and carnage. I admire Queen Garnet's decision to rectify her mother's wrongs, it's more than I could ever do on my own.