A/N: For those who are reading Final Fantasy IX fanfiction in 2024, and anyone who has reached this far into my story... You are amazing. Honest. Thank you very much, and have a nice read! I'm aware I haven't updated in ages, I have been working on a lot of things recently, but more UTCM chapters are coming soon as I get into the mood of writing. Those will be great stories, you won't miss it.

Swans - Minus Something

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Vube Desert

Morning

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I fought a skeleton this morning.

Whether or not the undead was my enemy, I'll never know. It had no reason to live other than fight. It somehow came back to live but it had no thoughts in mind. I mean, it had no flesh even, so how could it even think? Or feel pain? I wonder if that skeleton belonged to one of my fellow Burmecian mates, or if those bones were the remains of a soldier that fought a war hundreds of years ago. Nice to meet you, great-great-grandfather. I am your great-great-grandson, Prescott. I might have killed you again, my mistake. I'm sure you won't complain about the way I broke your jaws

I hope I'm not losing my mind. Wouldn't that be funny, Fratley!?...

I sure hope I haven't lost myself when I come home to see my family.

I wonder how the kids are doing. Probably better than me. Three meals a day, they play with each other on rainy streets, nothing ever bothers their minds. Their thoughts are pure. I miss the dark clouds of Burmecia. I wish I could see those holes in the sky and all the rain falling from them in the distance. It always rains in my homeland. I met my friends under a weeping willow. I got married on a heavy rain day. The first thing that fell on my newborn child's head was a raindrop.

So... Today is June 06th, 1778. Everything is alright.

It's alright. Bart is going to be fine, he said. Fine, as if he didn't happen to come across the devil.

Whoever, or whatever did that to Bart, I don't really want to come across such a creature. I do not consider myself to be religious, I sincerely do not believe in devils because they do not believe we exist either even if we stood naked in front of them. I know because I fought a devil once. They're called Vices, you can find them around the world, always on the run as if they never evolved past their barbarian ways. Little is known about them, but I've heard they assault travellers, merchants, caravans, anyone who dares to travel across the Mist. Despite their clothing and armor and weapons, they're just monsters, little nuisances who could care less about your daughter's arm. They are thieves, that's what they are.

Like bacterias taking advantage of an open wound, they can't live without us. Can we live without them, though?

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Somewhere else...

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Time always moves forward while we wish it moved backwards.

Staying here on Vube Desert feels like standing within a broken hourglass that is still spilling sand around everywhere. You lose the sensation of time. You don't know where you are, is it North or South? East or West? You can't tell, not through a gut feeling or by the wind caressing your skin for a second. Just a second... It's all it takes to feel relieved, then you're back to your pitiful self, who expects time to give you any rewards, but it never does as you stay here, fighting in the name of your beloved country.

Fighting against who, may I ask? If you're counting on me, and solely me, to offer you an answer, then... I don't know. I'm not ignorant, I'm not what you'd consider a model for the youth, the words I speak do not inspire anyone to do something as silly as dying for a country. A country! A piece of land that does not care if we live in it, or on it. A country beloved by many, but then I ask who really loves Burmecia? Who cares so much for that godforsaken place? Who wants to live on that filthy land? I did not ask to be born there, I did not want my father to die in war, I do not want to follow in his footsteps, I do not want to be here either, so what do I want? Do they really care for what I want?

Our lives... Our beloved kingdom... They are nothing but a joke. A big, perverted and twisted joke!

I feel as mistreated and insignificant as a toy being tossed against the walls by an ill child who wants to see it broken in pieces because nothing else, and I mean nothing! Nothing will ever satisfy that child more than seeing myself shattered until my last remaining bit of hope ceases to exist.

How mature. Yeah, maturity is the right word. Might be. Maturity is easily read as ''makes good financial decisions'', ''does not laugh at fart jokes", "arrives late at home with no time to speak with your parents like my choices didn't matter, but I'll make them matter, even if nothing really matters at all. Things only matter as soon as you make them do... But nothing matters! So why the effort to make something matter if it does not? Does that make us heroes or what? We are just here in this depraved position, stripped away from any common decency that distinguishes us from civilized men and cockroaches.

We will not be here any longer. Soon we'll die without knowing life's greatest answers.I mean, we create so many expectations and relationships and choices but you die and that's it. Life's only certainty is that it might end, and we know how it ends. We die, but when? Why? How? We don't know, and that's scary. Someday you could be taking a shit and well, your pants won't get any dirty if you ask me.

Like… I have no control over my life whatsoever. My name is Clyde because of my mother's choice. I am a Brandford because my father happened to be a Major and so did his father, his grandfather and all the men that came before had a status in the military. I'm a soldier, but I did not ask to be one. When I was born, my parents and relatives and siblings looked at that frail being covered in blood and pissing all over himself, and at the moment they realized I was a boy, my life was already set. Carry a sword, wear armor, respect the elders, love the girl next door and serve the nation, all of this crap.

That bastard wearing a crown sent us here. He sent their men to die for their beloved Burmecia. Not that I want women to be here in this desolate place, they do not deserve to be here. None of us do. I love my wife, my sons, my daughter is yet to speak a word as I'm yet to be back home to hear it. Hell, what if I lose my hearing? Or even my sight? Or both of my arms, both of my legs? Even if my tongue were to be cut, I still would remember this place, I would find a way to tell others about how I felt standing here while the heat of the sand burns within my toes.

— We are all rats in a sinking ship that is the quicksand of Vube! – I yelled, but no one heard me. Not even Bahamut, whose rain rarely feeds the flowers who happen to bloom in the most bare of lands. It's a short sight, one I will probably miss, but for a second, just a second, I felt the kind of Peace I've been yearning for so long.