hope this cut works :X
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v410/hatewheel/twtw.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v410/hatewheel/twtwDRGWAR.jpg
”Listen…
“Looking at the great orange moon, I get to thinking…about the past, about the way things were… Back before I started running away.
“I guess I was always a sentimental kind of guy, that looking at the harvest moon does this to me; takes me back through time, over steps I can only retrace in my mind, to the life I left behind.
“Listen…
“Now I am alone on the shores of regret, and time is the sands of the hourglass, broken and spilled across this beach…run out and washed away with each new tide. But it is a destination of my own choosing. And I listen.
“I listen to the ghosts that whisper on the breath of the sea at the edge of the cresting waves, telling me I was wrong. But I tell them I had no choice.
“Listen to me now, for when the moon sinks into the ocean, the spell will be broken, and I will fade away.
”Listen to the way things were.
“Judge me by them…
“For your judgment will be all that is left of me, the last Dragoon.”
FINAL FANTASY XI - THE WAY THINGS WERE
“Back then…”
“Living in Bastok is a lot like being a prisoner, or so the saying goes.
“It’s a place where to get by, your life is set to the tune of time. You wake up, you eat; you work as, by degrees, the sun moves across the sky. When it’s gone, if you’re lucky, you eat again. Then you’re tired, sore, possibly blistered if you worked outside; or if you are like many Bastokans, a lunger because you work in the mines; and you go to sleep in a hole in the mountain they like to call the Residential District.
“If you wake up early enough, like just before sunrise, the food lines might not be too long.
“Why do I do it? I was born in San d’Oria. People ask me that all the time. San d’Oria equates to lavish houses and expensive parties and bards on every corner singing the praises of the city’s new daily champions, but most of all people think of gil when they think of the Kingdom.
“Well, first of all, I wasn’t born in San d’Oria. But that is for another tale.
“Because Bastok means more to me than money, I tell them.
“Because Bastok is a place of hope. Though the life is hard, there is a chance, if I work just a little harder, dream just a little stronger, then I can make a place for myself here. I guess you could call it the city of opportunity, even though it looks like all the odds are in your favor of dying in a bomb blast or a cave in or of starvation.”
“Today, the streets are crowded…”
The smell of the Mines district is the same as it ever was, and ever will be; only slightly different today- it has just rained- the heavy tang of copper and zinc commingling with the effluvium of water in the air.
As Kaska sits along the railing of the drainage ditch, he can see the fine mist that is rising from the cobbles, warmed by the machinery that thrums beneath the city streets. Workers move in groups, pickaxes slung over their shoulders as they flock toward Zeruhn. For some, the pick is replaced with the fishing pole.
His face is pockmarked by soot, his arms piebald from his early morning excavations. He beat the morning crowd by waking up early, but not to the food lines; he had gone straight into Zeruhn, and faced the consequences of his actions. For one, no one had been awake to vend sulfur fuses to him, so he had no torch going in. Which lead to him hitting a lot of walls. It also led to him breaking the haft on his pickaxe an hour into his dig. But he’d come away with a chunk of iron. It would replace his tool, at least. It would get him by another day.
As he sits on a rail, he dangles a string from a stick into the flow of the drainpipe, paying little attention to his juvenile efforts to fish all the while; he is more concerned with watching the comings and the goings. Occasionally these groups of workers will call for an extra hand.
His stomach growls, but he ignores it. At his hand is a single popoto, and it would have to last.
He’s hungry, dirty, and poor, but he has hope.
Hope for greater things has made many a great man, as this story will attest; it has also led to their downfall.
“Hi there Kaska.” that voice instantly recognizable: female with a slight hiss behind the S’s, and most R’s rolled.
“Lejanta, do ya always have to sneak up on me?” said the young hume, trying to command an air of annoyance he doesn’t really feel; he is actually glad to see the mithra who, like himself, is new to Bastok and trying to make her way.
“I’m a Thief! That’s what I do!” said the kitty, her face genuflect, as if the rebuke were serious. Then her eyes flicked toward the popoto briefly.
Kaska took a better look at the Thief. Her tail was twitching laxly, one of her ears was folded down by the brim of her cap. Ever present was her knife, strapped to a belt looped around her hip. Later they were supposedly going to head off toward the Valkurm Dunes to hunt. No lizards this time; this time they were after big game; Snippers all the way.
“So we’re going to party in the Dunes again?” Kaska wanted to know.
“We’ve got a Black Mage this time, very good, hic. Taru-taru.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, her name’s Taku.”
“Funny name. Sounds familiar.”
“Lives in Bastok too,” said the Mithra, her leather gear creaking as she leaned over the rail a few spaces down and gazed at her reflection in the water, her face marked with delicate white stripes, her hair a shade brighter than silver, hidden beneath a bronze cap. Kaska saw the face on the water, too, and wondered if it was the face the mithra had intended. He thought not. Her eyes were shining, as if she saw some greater destiny for herself. He could relate.
But he hadn’t seen her since their last foray to the dunes, and now it was obvious to him that something was wrong. Her eyes were heavy with the shadows of exhaustion. And he could see the slightest flutter in her legs. Even now she was leaning against the railing, hiding the fact that she was having problems standing.
“Uhh, Lejanta? How long has it been since you ate something?”
“I eat all the time, I’m a rich cat you know.”
“Uh huh…okay well, I’m just gonna turn my back then, and fish.”
Lejanta said no more. Eventually, Kaska felt a tug on his line, and pulled up a crayfish. He could use it to bait a hook and catch a real fish he supposed. And he would need it, because as he expected, when he turned around, his popoto was gone, and Lejanta with it.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v410/hatewheel/twtwDRGWAR.jpg
”Listen…
“Looking at the great orange moon, I get to thinking…about the past, about the way things were… Back before I started running away.
“I guess I was always a sentimental kind of guy, that looking at the harvest moon does this to me; takes me back through time, over steps I can only retrace in my mind, to the life I left behind.
“Listen…
“Now I am alone on the shores of regret, and time is the sands of the hourglass, broken and spilled across this beach…run out and washed away with each new tide. But it is a destination of my own choosing. And I listen.
“I listen to the ghosts that whisper on the breath of the sea at the edge of the cresting waves, telling me I was wrong. But I tell them I had no choice.
“Listen to me now, for when the moon sinks into the ocean, the spell will be broken, and I will fade away.
”Listen to the way things were.
“Judge me by them…
“For your judgment will be all that is left of me, the last Dragoon.”
FINAL FANTASY XI - THE WAY THINGS WERE
“Back then…”
“Living in Bastok is a lot like being a prisoner, or so the saying goes.
“It’s a place where to get by, your life is set to the tune of time. You wake up, you eat; you work as, by degrees, the sun moves across the sky. When it’s gone, if you’re lucky, you eat again. Then you’re tired, sore, possibly blistered if you worked outside; or if you are like many Bastokans, a lunger because you work in the mines; and you go to sleep in a hole in the mountain they like to call the Residential District.
“If you wake up early enough, like just before sunrise, the food lines might not be too long.
“Why do I do it? I was born in San d’Oria. People ask me that all the time. San d’Oria equates to lavish houses and expensive parties and bards on every corner singing the praises of the city’s new daily champions, but most of all people think of gil when they think of the Kingdom.
“Well, first of all, I wasn’t born in San d’Oria. But that is for another tale.
“Because Bastok means more to me than money, I tell them.
“Because Bastok is a place of hope. Though the life is hard, there is a chance, if I work just a little harder, dream just a little stronger, then I can make a place for myself here. I guess you could call it the city of opportunity, even though it looks like all the odds are in your favor of dying in a bomb blast or a cave in or of starvation.”
“Today, the streets are crowded…”
The smell of the Mines district is the same as it ever was, and ever will be; only slightly different today- it has just rained- the heavy tang of copper and zinc commingling with the effluvium of water in the air.
As Kaska sits along the railing of the drainage ditch, he can see the fine mist that is rising from the cobbles, warmed by the machinery that thrums beneath the city streets. Workers move in groups, pickaxes slung over their shoulders as they flock toward Zeruhn. For some, the pick is replaced with the fishing pole.
His face is pockmarked by soot, his arms piebald from his early morning excavations. He beat the morning crowd by waking up early, but not to the food lines; he had gone straight into Zeruhn, and faced the consequences of his actions. For one, no one had been awake to vend sulfur fuses to him, so he had no torch going in. Which lead to him hitting a lot of walls. It also led to him breaking the haft on his pickaxe an hour into his dig. But he’d come away with a chunk of iron. It would replace his tool, at least. It would get him by another day.
As he sits on a rail, he dangles a string from a stick into the flow of the drainpipe, paying little attention to his juvenile efforts to fish all the while; he is more concerned with watching the comings and the goings. Occasionally these groups of workers will call for an extra hand.
His stomach growls, but he ignores it. At his hand is a single popoto, and it would have to last.
He’s hungry, dirty, and poor, but he has hope.
Hope for greater things has made many a great man, as this story will attest; it has also led to their downfall.
“Hi there Kaska.” that voice instantly recognizable: female with a slight hiss behind the S’s, and most R’s rolled.
“Lejanta, do ya always have to sneak up on me?” said the young hume, trying to command an air of annoyance he doesn’t really feel; he is actually glad to see the mithra who, like himself, is new to Bastok and trying to make her way.
“I’m a Thief! That’s what I do!” said the kitty, her face genuflect, as if the rebuke were serious. Then her eyes flicked toward the popoto briefly.
Kaska took a better look at the Thief. Her tail was twitching laxly, one of her ears was folded down by the brim of her cap. Ever present was her knife, strapped to a belt looped around her hip. Later they were supposedly going to head off toward the Valkurm Dunes to hunt. No lizards this time; this time they were after big game; Snippers all the way.
“So we’re going to party in the Dunes again?” Kaska wanted to know.
“We’ve got a Black Mage this time, very good, hic. Taru-taru.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, her name’s Taku.”
“Funny name. Sounds familiar.”
“Lives in Bastok too,” said the Mithra, her leather gear creaking as she leaned over the rail a few spaces down and gazed at her reflection in the water, her face marked with delicate white stripes, her hair a shade brighter than silver, hidden beneath a bronze cap. Kaska saw the face on the water, too, and wondered if it was the face the mithra had intended. He thought not. Her eyes were shining, as if she saw some greater destiny for herself. He could relate.
But he hadn’t seen her since their last foray to the dunes, and now it was obvious to him that something was wrong. Her eyes were heavy with the shadows of exhaustion. And he could see the slightest flutter in her legs. Even now she was leaning against the railing, hiding the fact that she was having problems standing.
“Uhh, Lejanta? How long has it been since you ate something?”
“I eat all the time, I’m a rich cat you know.”
“Uh huh…okay well, I’m just gonna turn my back then, and fish.”
Lejanta said no more. Eventually, Kaska felt a tug on his line, and pulled up a crayfish. He could use it to bait a hook and catch a real fish he supposed. And he would need it, because as he expected, when he turned around, his popoto was gone, and Lejanta with it.