Nobuo Uematsu - Kingdom Of Burmecia

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The second day of thirty ones that compose the entirety of July has come, and still hasn't gotten away yet.

When the morning came, with its everlasting silver of the flow of each cloud surrounding the skies of Burmecia.

The gray from each cloud varies, as the people who inhabit such lands by centuries. Lands, hills, plains, who had become fertile and productive thanks to the water element, that may be found falling from such sky, obscured by the clouds for what seem to be an eternity, or flowing into the landscape, as part of Kinneas, a river of great distances that is source of both food for the local population, like fishes, mostly tiny minnows and trouts, and once navigation on ancient times, when Kinneas covered mostly of these lands the people who followed Bahamut stood.

Those people are referred to, by others and themselves, as Burmecians.

They are well known beings, due to their peculiar appearance. This singular group differed quite a lot from other groups. The external peculiarities from a muroid rodent from the genus Rattus, like a double pair of ears, a large snout characteristic from the species, alike a tail and a pair of claws for both upper and lower limbs, and a fur that covers their naked skin, the body that resembles a human body characterize this interesting group.

Around the year 1300, a group of travelers, mainly from Lindblum, went deep down the sea of Mist, only to find out the place where these people came from, who had changed from a mere civilization bounded by mutual needs to a new and complex society.

Unlike other people of the Mist Continent, there are many of them, an entire population, a kingdom to be called their own, but most of their history remains forgotten for the general populace of Gaia. This is because the oral tradition surpassed the writing tradition in terms of storytelling; the myths surrounding their origin, the creation of their kingdom, the legends surrounding the historical figures... Documents, manuscripts had never been written on a large scale, until the discovery of a proper writing system for all.

Before, a few had been written by the usage of an standard alphabet, also found in the ruins of what were once known as Bulu, Klaire and Kilde. The oldest document written with this sort of writing is a copy of The Book of Gizamaluke. Not exactly a book, but manuscripts that were later revised as a book, kept since the death of his author on the inside of the Burmecian Palace.

Though these kinds of documents of an era are well maintained until these days, still most of the history surrounding Burmecia remains unknown, even if the records of past eras told to describe such are found until this century. This happens because it takes time to translate from a language to another, as the writing develops to the major population than it was once reserved for a few people to the entirety of the society, for generations.

Since the contact with explorers from the lands above, the Burmecians learned more, and started to include such knowledge of the world to their own, such as the words of the current alphabet, customs varying from table manners and even slang terms were included to their vast amount of traditions. In return, the Burmecians learned the concepts of Market and Trade, as they deliver until today their products to the neighbors, mainly spice, and fish.

Kinneas, whose wellspring can be found atop the mountains that surround the back of the kingdom's outskirts, mainly the commercial area of such, the core where mostly they live, known by all kind of people who live there and foreigners as Market, and the Palace, where the Royal family, or families, since many had taken the throne after centuries, live to rule.

Although the river supplies fish to the population, his water can't be used for consume, because of the amount of dirt that comes from the mountains into his stream, thought the majority of the population drinks of such water, besides the one Bahamut offers then, they all, his rain, the gift brought to his people. From above, water falls from the skies, falls into the trees, becomes small puddles in the pavement, becomes part of the below, the land where the people who feed of same water inhabit for centuries.

Rain falls down and fills in lakes and marshes, where dragonflies await to be born, live throughout their entire life, to later die to be born once again, avoiding of being eaten by its predators, such as the pike, the major predator of all animals that resides within the marshes, except from those who came from another lands.

Once stabbed with the tip of a javelin, pike meat, like the meat belonging to other specimens of fish that once swimmed in the quiet lakes and marshes, or in the stream o f Kinneas, had become another dish often consumed by the people of Burmecia, alongside lizard tails, frog legs, iced tea, chai, moorhen pie, scrambled eggs of same jacana, ironite beef, fried axolotls, oats and rice. To eat, or to be eaten; don't play with your food, unless it plays with you first.

So it is war and its principles. Since its reunification, Burmecia stayed in relative peace, well, until centuries later, before its rediscovery. Lindblum explorers who were willing to go deep into the sea of Mist found this civilization, and the people who changed from raging hordes to a complex society, similar to their own.

Since then, the Burmecians had entered in contact with other civilizations, prominently Lindblum, the kingdom who officially rediscovered them all and its rival, the kingdom of Alexandria. By convention, they are all humans, but some are more human than others. During the middle of the 14th century, a civil war broke out, and the main reason for this incident was the ownership of a shard belonging to a crystal, once in possession of Alexandria.

With the war over, and King Magnus claiming the shard to his, another tragic incident happened on those scoundrel days. A hundred Burmecians were poisoned, presumably due to toxins found running at the main river, and the fish who resided there.

Claiming to be a curse brought by the foreign ones, a group of fundamentalists, members of a cult created by Aquinas, retired themselves to the lands that once belonged to them and their Burmecian ancestors, to found Cleyra, their own settlement, up on a gigantic tree trunk.

During war times, it is common for the decrease of male individuals in a certain population to happen. The majority of Burmecia's army is composed of proud, brave male soldiers. A high number of them meet the end of their lives at the warfield, grated for being able to protect their homeland. Though, such contradictory indexes tend to happen on those times. Even after the loss of many in war, it's common and still is the sudden increase of birth rate among the Burmecian population.

By tradition, the more they had sons, the more prospere their lives would become. If you ask to a Burmecian child about their future, the answer given might depend of their sex. Boys want to be soldiers, girls naturally tend to become moms, although only one future is common for the two: The future of becoming a Dragon Knight.

Dragon Knights, or just Dragoons, are the main inspiration of the majority of the population. The main job of a Dragoon Knight before they became renowned was to hunt dragons. In a similar way a whale hunter hunts down whales to extract their oil and meat, dragons were hunted and killed by those noble knights to extract all they could from their deceased bodies.

But as time went by, to be a Dragoon Knight achieved a new meaning. To be a Dragoon Knight meant something more than just killing dragons, but to be respected, to be remembered by generations. To be a Dragoon is the dream of a lifetime. But, for some, to be a Dragoon means to live in seldom, to be kept away from others, in order to secure others.