fft - when the rains stop
title: when the rains stop
word count: 565
rating: g
characters: eiden (oc)
notes: a drabble written for syvia, as part of our ongoing project to write original characters against the backdrop of final fantasy tactics. ♥
It is wet here. Mamá says that back home, back where she lived in Romanda, it was dry and rocky. Zeltennia is like that too, she says, in the east, but Papa does not like it there. He likes the trees, the wet and cold. He likes the big walls of the monasteries, the moss creeping over the rocks. Mamá likes that we blend in with everyone around the trade city, that you see brown faces among all the pink and cream, that you see dark hair next to blonde. In Fovoham - that was their home, once, before Mamá, before me. In Fovoham my sisters lived with Papa and Lady Elinor, who was very kind and very quiet and died when Josie was born. In Fovoham there were many refugees, and Papa said that I couldn't play outdoors. It was too dangerous for me, he said, no matter that I was his only son. I don't remember.
It is wet here. Cyndra is to be married when the rains stop, in the summer. She is my eldest sister. Josie is the youngest, and Ely is named for Lady Elinor, even though she could not yet talk when the Lady died. Mamá says light a candle, pray to the Father that Lady Elinor rests safe within His keeping. Mamá is not like the Lady Elinor, Cyndra says. Mamá is small and dark and quick; she smells like the kitchens, like burning wood and olive oil. Lady Elinor was tall and frail and smelled like lavender perfume. They were ... I don't know the right word, the Ivalician word. They were pigeon-friends; they wrote letters. Mamá told me, Eiden, you will learn to write, and then someday you will have a pigeon-friend like Elinor was for me.
The water drips from the edge of the roof. Josie and Ely have a new game. They say come and see. Sometimes it is cards, and sometimes we hide in the wardrobe where they tell stories of the ghost-lady who haunts the old manse near Orbonne. She is looking for her son, they say. Or, she is looking for a new son - but then they hold me tight and say that I am their brother and they will never let me go and besides Mamá would never allow it. I am not to go outside, not without Papa or the guards, not even if it ever stops raining. There is still a war, and it does not matter that we lost long ago. Mamá had a sister, but she is dead of the Death, and her brothers, too, her aunt and uncle and cousins. That is what war is, Papa says, and never speaks of the times he fought in Fovoham, the medals he won. He hides them away in a box, and though we have no ghost-mother in our manse, I feel Lady Elinor watch and worry.
It is wet here. Josie goes to beg cardamom sweets from Mamá, to ask to taste the nutmeg just after it's been ground. Ely reads to me from her favorite book, and I try to pick out the words I know. I will write a letter, when I learn how. I will tie it to a pigeon's leg and ask it to find a friend.
When she reads it, she will know that it is wet here, and I am lonely.
word count: 565
rating: g
characters: eiden (oc)
notes: a drabble written for syvia, as part of our ongoing project to write original characters against the backdrop of final fantasy tactics. ♥
It is wet here. Mamá says that back home, back where she lived in Romanda, it was dry and rocky. Zeltennia is like that too, she says, in the east, but Papa does not like it there. He likes the trees, the wet and cold. He likes the big walls of the monasteries, the moss creeping over the rocks. Mamá likes that we blend in with everyone around the trade city, that you see brown faces among all the pink and cream, that you see dark hair next to blonde. In Fovoham - that was their home, once, before Mamá, before me. In Fovoham my sisters lived with Papa and Lady Elinor, who was very kind and very quiet and died when Josie was born. In Fovoham there were many refugees, and Papa said that I couldn't play outdoors. It was too dangerous for me, he said, no matter that I was his only son. I don't remember.
It is wet here. Cyndra is to be married when the rains stop, in the summer. She is my eldest sister. Josie is the youngest, and Ely is named for Lady Elinor, even though she could not yet talk when the Lady died. Mamá says light a candle, pray to the Father that Lady Elinor rests safe within His keeping. Mamá is not like the Lady Elinor, Cyndra says. Mamá is small and dark and quick; she smells like the kitchens, like burning wood and olive oil. Lady Elinor was tall and frail and smelled like lavender perfume. They were ... I don't know the right word, the Ivalician word. They were pigeon-friends; they wrote letters. Mamá told me, Eiden, you will learn to write, and then someday you will have a pigeon-friend like Elinor was for me.
The water drips from the edge of the roof. Josie and Ely have a new game. They say come and see. Sometimes it is cards, and sometimes we hide in the wardrobe where they tell stories of the ghost-lady who haunts the old manse near Orbonne. She is looking for her son, they say. Or, she is looking for a new son - but then they hold me tight and say that I am their brother and they will never let me go and besides Mamá would never allow it. I am not to go outside, not without Papa or the guards, not even if it ever stops raining. There is still a war, and it does not matter that we lost long ago. Mamá had a sister, but she is dead of the Death, and her brothers, too, her aunt and uncle and cousins. That is what war is, Papa says, and never speaks of the times he fought in Fovoham, the medals he won. He hides them away in a box, and though we have no ghost-mother in our manse, I feel Lady Elinor watch and worry.
It is wet here. Josie goes to beg cardamom sweets from Mamá, to ask to taste the nutmeg just after it's been ground. Ely reads to me from her favorite book, and I try to pick out the words I know. I will write a letter, when I learn how. I will tie it to a pigeon's leg and ask it to find a friend.
When she reads it, she will know that it is wet here, and I am lonely.