hush, little baby, don't say a word

It's a stupid song, I know. But I remember it always gave me an eerie feeling as a kid. I don't really remember my mother singing it to me, only because of me. And I never knew why. Sometimes I would catch her doing the wash, preparing food, or any of the other seven billion mom-jobs she did in our household, and for a few moments her huge, rugged countenance melted and seemed very femenine, something which my mother wasn't good at. It was just very, very difficult to picture her as a mother in the sense that most mothers are. She wasn't so much of a kiss-it-make-it-better mom... more of a stop-crying-or-I'll-whip-your-ass-and-give-you-something-to-cry-about mom. She'd just as often give you a swift backhand across the mouth as a hug. I guess that's why it always seemed that she had it in for me.

mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird

So you can imagine, it was just as difficult for me to picture my mom as cradling me in her arms and singing me a sweet lullabye as it was for me to picture her shoving her breast down my throat. My dad and a few of his buddies used to joke that she broke the umbilical cord with her bare hands, saying she had housework to do. Not that I'd put it past her. I think I've painted you a vivid enough picture, so I'll try and make my point... whenever I snuck up on her and she was singing that song, she always seemed detatched. There were these prolonged, awkward silences in between lines, in which she stared blankly off into space... almost as if she were planning something.

and if that mockingbird don't sing

I often wonder if there was any truth to the stories about my mom breaking her own umbilical cord. There was supposed to be some profound, mystical hullabaloo between a woman and her unborn baby, and that the breaking of the cord symbolized the end of the first stage of motherhood. So one might say my mom was trying to get rid of me as early as possible. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a big, hefty nuisance, but she was my mother. I honestly don't think she nor I really knew what that meant. We shared a relationship based on avoidance and mutual tolerance... I went on my business and she went on hers. She made sure I got fed and clothed, and I made sure never to let my childish hijinks burn the place down. When our paths crossed, it usually ended up with me getting slapped. That's the joy of growing up a country boy with a mountain for a mother, I suppose.

mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring

Bottom line: I never looked up to my mother. She cut the cord on me too early, so to speak, so there was always something missing between us. So I had to make new cords, with new people. I searched endlessly for someone to cling to, to call my own. The story about how I met her is long and boring... suffice it to say it wasn't exactly my best moment. In fact, it left me laying in the brown winter slush of Jowston, staring at the business end of a hideously large sword belonging to one Humphrey Mintz. Looming over me was the disapproving face and the crossed arms of an upstart and rather prissy (or, at least, I thought so at the time) kid called Blue Lightning Flik. I don't remember the whole story... I was drunk at the time and don't recall what I said. Maybe I'll ask Flik for the full shebang some other time when I'm feeling brave enough to handle it.

and if that diamond ring turns brass

I remember Flik's first words to me, though. Nice and clear. "How dare you speak that way to Odessa Silverburg!? Don't you realize who we are?" He meant business, and I don't think he realized how hilarious he sounded. Definately not dressed for winter in this part of the world, he sat there shivering in his Toran-stitched clothes, colored baby blue, trying to keep his teeth from chattering out of his skull while at the same time trying to sound all matter-of-fact. If it weren't for the great blond wall hovering above me, I may have squashed Blue Lightning down right then and there. Apparantly, I mouthed off to his woman in the bar... something he didn't take kindly to. I was, after all, just an uncivilized Jowston barbarian, someone who deserved as little mercy as possible from minions of the Scarlet Moon.

mama's gonna buy you a lookin' glass

And as drunk as I was, I'll never forget what happened next. Her voice was nectar-sweet and... no, forget I said that. If Flik looked over my shoulder and saw me writing this, I'd have a hell of a time explaining it to him. So let's just keep it to the bare facts. It was a woman's voice. The same woman from inside the tavern, the one I had apparantly lipped off to. She said, plain as day, "Flik, how many times do I have to tell you to stop standing up for me?" The blade in my face resheathed itself, and next thing I knew the girl (why dance around it? It was Odessa.) was holding her hand out to me, offering me help to my feet. Next thing I knew, I was hearing a story about the resistance in Scarlet Moon, and about how they tried to seek help in South Window, and about how they were turned away. Flik seemed dead-set against every word Odessa said, but he refused to say anything. Before I knew it, I was enthralled by her stories of liberation and asking where I could sign.

and if that looking glass gets broke

I cannot express in words how much I looked up to Odessa. I will never (and for emphasis' sake, that word was never) respect another superior like I respected her. It's one thing to offer my life to a commanding officer. It's something I've done for McDohl and Flik and Makoto, and it's something I will probably do many times more in the future. But for Odessa, I would have traded the entire resistance. She could have told me to cut my own tongue out of my head and throw it at Barbarosa's feet, and I would have done just that. She was filled with something I had never seen before, and have not seen since... some kind of mixture between youth and charisma and determination... I oftentimes found myself vowing not to rest until Odessa was the most powerful person in the world.

mama's gonna buy you a billy goat

It was Odessa's choice to die. It was her choice to leave me. I've tried blaming myself, thinking that somehow finding fault in my own abilities to protect her would make it easier to cope with her death. But in the end, it was by her word that I did nothing. She asked me to let her die, and I did so. She allowed herself to die because she saw in McDohl what I saw in her. This is the first time I will ever admit this - to anyone - but I feel that was the gravest mistake in the days of the Liberation Army. McDohl should never have destroyed the empire. It was an error that he became president, and that he was revered a hero throughout the Toran Republic. It should have been Odessa. Through and through. She should have had that honor. Flik and I should have been right alongside her. If it had been her, I never would have returned to Jowston. It was her choice... no, it was her right to die for what she believed in. And she believed in McDohl.

and if that billy goat won't pull

I remember lots of things from the Liberation, but I remember this above all else. McDohl and his gang had just escaped the crumbling palace... Soldiers of the Scarlet Moon were pouring into the hallway leading to the main foyer. Flik and I stood like rocks agains them. I remember fighting. I remember biting through the necks of ten or twelve imperial troops with the Star Dragon Sword, just off the top of my head. I remember Flik felling a few more with a raging blue bolt of electricity. And I remember being overwhelmed. Up to our necks in soldiers, the cuts getting more and more severe, the walls crumbling down, the noise and the chaos. I awoke alone, somehow, amidst the rubble. Maybe the old man saved me. Maybe it was blind luck. Fact of the matter is, I was alone. Flik was nowhere to be seen. I crawled out from the dust and blood, aching like the devil jabbed his flaming fork into my ass. And I realized, as the sun bathed my face in its golden glow, that it was over. Nothing was left to fight. I think that's why I left, originally. Odessa was gone, and McDohl had no more need for me. So I left.

mama's gonna buy you a cart and bull

I wandered for (what seemed to me) an eternity. I didn't bother to let the folks in Toran know I was alive and well. To them, I was just another war casualty. Don't be fooled into believing I was somehow important to the war... McDohl and Flik would have fought it just as well without me. The important thing was that yet another cord had been severed prematurely. I was again without meaning. Wandering. Aimless. Pointless. I did a great deal of hunting down creatures and taking odd jobs for one mayor or another in Jowston. I fought on whatever side of whatever border skirmish I happened to be closest to at the time. And I listened to the old man bicker a great deal about how I was not utilizing him to his proper glory. Life seems pretty bleak when you live in a world where nothing lasts, everything crumbles, and no one gives a damn.

and if that cart and bull turn over

War with Highland broke out, and it was difficult for me to decide whose side I wanted to be on. Jowston was, after all, my home. But Highland was new territory. Jowston had been unkind to me for so many reasons, I would need five more hands to count them all. But it seemed to anti-climactic to fight alongside the monarchy. I had just spent a huge chunk of my life helping to tear down one tyrant... I felt it was against my moral standards (ha!) to turn around and give my blade to another. With me in their ranks, Jowston barely managed to batter back Agares' iron forces. It almost looked as if Jowston would be overrun when finally the treaty was written. Golden words of peace marked the end of the war... but being on the winning side (to be fair, Jowston didn't really win the war so much as they didn't lose it) was of little comfort to me. Things still hadn't fallen into place, after all those years I spent searching for something... anything to... believe in? No, those are the wrong words. It's apparant that I was searching for something, but it's impossible to pinpoint exactly what. I'll do you a favor and try not to elaborate too much on things that I myself still am confused about.

mama's gonna buy you a dog named rover

Things got real quiet then. I got sick of the old man, like you no doubt read in the very beginning of this text. If you need any kind of description of what transpired concerning Flik and Pohl and Ridley after that, flip back a few pages and re-read it. Do yourself a favor and let it sink in this time. I hate repeating myself more than absolutely necessary. Here's this, though - something inside me was glad to hear that Highland had broken the treaty. Some little, insignificant part of me wanted blood so badly... I could sense it in Flik, too. It was the same reason we stayed and fought in Gregminster even after there was nothing left to fight for. It was some kind of binding tie (call it bloodlust or brotherhood, whatever) between the two of us and the battlefield. We yearned for it. And with Ridley's help, we got it.

and if that dog named rover don't bark

And that brings us to the razing of our wooden fortress. I carried Pohl's limp, bloody body as far from the flames as I could, and set him against a tree. It was too dark and smoky to get a good look at him, but my stomach churned just thinking about his wounds. It takes a lot to nauseate a guy like me, but the mutilation of a good friend will just about do it. This time, I wasn't going to leave alone. Not without Flik. If he was alive, he was coming with me. If he was dead, I was going to personally carry him back to his homeland and make sure he was buried or cremated or whatever else folks from the Warrior's Village do with bodies of their fallen friends and family. Lord knows why I went back in. Maybe I just didn't want to be uncertain anymore. Maybe I was tired of having my cords severed on me. Maybe I just wasn't ready to give up on Flik yet.

mama's gonna buy you a horse and cart

I found part of him, anyway. A piece of baby blue cloth, stained with blood and smoldering among a piece of fallen rafter. That shade of blue I knew only from one place on this green earth. My knees hit the ground. My eyes filled with water faster than I ever imagined possible. It was the first time I had felt the touch of tears since I silently wept myself to sleep the night we set Odessa's body in the river near her brother's school. And as my eyes filled with tears, my mind raced with rage. As best I knew, Flik was dead. Another cord crumbled, and I didn't have the power to stop it. All I had left was this tattered piece of cloth, and so many shadowy memories... I stood up, clutching the cloth (was it a piece of his bandana? or his cape?) so hard I felt as if my fingers were going to gnaw all the way through my hand. I screamed, as loud as I could. Words, at first. Words like: "You're going to burn in hell, Luca Blight!" Soon the words fell away, and all that was left were the cries, raw and terrifying. The last of the fort burned away around me, and I felt like laying down and burning away right alongside it.

and if that horse and cart fall down

Your guess is as good as mine why I didn't do just that. Next thing I knew, I was using a scorched shovel, salvaged from a fire-gutted toolshed, to dig Pohl Treybell a shallow grave. It felt horrible that he didn't have a coffin to be buried in, but I figured it was better than most of his comrades had; bodies peppered the battlefield as if they had fallen, burning from the sky. I had crudely bandaged the wound on my leg, a nice memento from Kiba himself, and the rune on my hand seemed dull and wasted. I finished filling the grave, situated beneath a tree some ways away from what little remained of the fort, and returned Shiko to its rightful place in the sheath on my back. I faced the rising sun, and inhaled deeply. In every sense of the term, this was a new beginning for me. I started my long journey to my next agony, my next false hope, my next severed cord. In the sole of my left boot was the bloodied shred of blue cloth.