As I have said, I have kept true to my word. I find myself unable to part with you, my heart skipping a beat as I opened your leather cover, as it would when meeting a friend after a long while. Never would I have imagined such a weathered journal to elicit such emotion from me. Is it because I can vent whatever it is that’s troubling me? Or is it because your pages allow me to say what’s truly in my heart? I wonder.

Earlier today…well seeing as how it’s already the 19th as I’m writing this, yesterday, I had told you about a tale I would recant though I ran out of time before I was able to. Would you like to hear it now? A silly question to ask I know, as you have no say in the matter. Now, to tell you the tale about the boy with the red hair, and the girl with the short blond hair that struck up a rather unusual friendship in the slums of Ul’dah, beneath the shade of a windowsill as they stuffed their faces with the pie they had stolen, though I suppose stolen might be a powerful word here, borrowed shall suffice.

This humorous little memory that I buried in the back of my mind for so long, surfacing itself like a bottle in the ocean that carries a message, how very strange, how very strange indeed.

Am I growing sentimental? Or have I become an old woman, my memories of the past surging forth replacing the new ones. I wonder…oh how I wonder. Before I ramble on once more, let me begin by telling you, my confidant, that it’s not out of emotion that I recant this tale, but out of necessity, so that if I ever open the pages of this journal many seasons hereafter, I’ll see just how foolish I was, even if I already know how foolish I am, and how foolish I will continue to be.

Now, where was I?

Ah, that’s right.

The meeting.

The intertwining of two souls as they come into contact with one another for the first time, their initial encounter, the most important. I admit; it was one strange encounter. For you see, the girl was silly, and the boy even more so…

That day was a silly day, in particular, the girl had cut her hair short in an attempt to look more like boys her age, but instead looked as if her hair was sheared by a blade. As she sat beneath the windowsill of that small inn, tears streaming down her face, she was approached by a strange boy asking what had happened to her hair. How did this silly girl respond? Did she wipe away the tears that streamed down her face like a river flowing in the shroud? Nonsense, she rose up and tried to push the boy down, a very silly thing to do, but she was a very silly creature, a very silly creature indeed. What was sillier than this however, is not the girl’s reaction, but rather the boy, how would you expect a boy to react to a girl pushing him? Surely he would’ve pushed her, or knocked her down, and yet he did neither of those things, instead he stood his ground as the silly girl attempted to push him, to pound on his chest, and lastly, to curse every name that came to her mouth, including hers. So, how did that boy react? How would anyone react to such a foolish outburst of such a silly girl? The question troubles me, for when I place myself in the shoes of that boy I would walk away, but why is that? For the boy didn’t walk away, he laughed, and laughed, and laughed…why would he laugh?

He laughed, and yet I can’t recall his face, nor his lips, nor his eyes, just his hair, that red hair that shone like the sky at sunset. How foolish that girl was and still continues to be.

Gods curse this memory of mine, for I can’t even recall what came prior to the pie those two borrowed…such a foolish thing memories are. They tease you with past events that you can never again have, how cruel they can be, remembering slight events that happened seasons ago at random intervals in your life, and yet forgetting crucial details that go along with them, how cruel indeed.

As I sit here in this tavern, the many voices bouncing off of each other, each one focusing on their partner, these many faces. I wonder if you’re among them, sitting idly by scribbling down in a journal of your own as you recall the tale of how you met that foolish girl all those seasons ago. Perhaps you are, or perhaps you’re not, there’s no way of knowing.

I wonder…Where are you now? Are you perhaps a Knight in some court? A body guard for a princess? Or maybe you’re leading a humble life, a simple fisherman in a village, or a ship builder in some city? Or perhaps, just maybe, a pirate in a far away land? I wonder, and I keep wondering, on and on like a bride left at her own alter, thinking of the possibilities that may have happened had her groom stayed. Forgive me, you red haired phantom that haunts my memories, and forgive me as well oh dear confidant, for it seems this foolish one continues to be foolish.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some unfinished matters that I need to put to rest, or else I fear this heart will continue to be as shaky and unstable like the ocean during a storm. Or perhaps it will continue to be this way after, I have no way of knowing and the only thing I can do is to keep wondering.

Oh how I keep wondering.

Yours,

Cydni Eloise Aizah

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