pring.
It was simultaneously the best and the worst time of the year, a time of great joys as the winter thaw gave way to beautiful flowers and green grass and the leaves coming back to the trees… but also the memories of times gone by. These past few years, the game changed every single year around this time. Two years ago, there was the finals of the Mistral Regional Tournament. A tournament that I won, a junior facing off against seniors from all across the kingdom – no, across the entire world. I proved myself to be the best candidate there was when it came to admission into one of the Big Four, into following your footsteps. It was the first step I needed to take to prove myself your equal, because you won the tournament yourself back when you went to Sanctum. That year as a freshman at Haven, one of the Big Four prestigious Huntsman Academies in the world, you made it to the finals and lost by inches on the grandest stage of them all in the Vytal Festival. All four academies sent their best and brightest, and you fell only in the finals one on one against the top performing student from the highest ranked academy that year. Someone who had three years of training at that level under their belt, while you had only half a year.
Everything I have, and everything that I am I copied from you. I had the same trainers that you did, learned the same style, and had the same equipment. I watched tapes of your training and your fights religiously, and I was glued to the television screen every time you came on. We went to the same primary combat school and had the same hometown, and somehow word got to you about me and you decided to come down to train with me a few days and take the time to reach down to help me when you didn’t need to – you took the time to watch my matches and point out my mistakes when you didn’t need to, and took the time to correct my form and show me just how far I was away from catching up to my idol.
God, you were
good. I didn’t land a single scratch on you, despite us using damned near identical equipment and me using every trick in the book I had against you. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise, because every trick I had were tricks taken from you at least a year ago, and while you kept growing I was just trying to keep up. You were the prodigy of Argus, the most renowned freshman in your class across all of Remnant, and I was arrogant enough to think that I could catch up to you. You were only two years older, I thought, and I could be that good too if I was given the same time that you were. I would work just as hard, I thought, because I thought that was all that made the difference.
I’m in my first year now, the age to the day you were when you made the finals of the Vytal Festival and shocked the world. The same age you were when you put Haven Academy back on the map as a force to be reckoned with and made the clear statement that the future was here, and you weren’t going to wait for your turn. I run my bare hand across the stone across the black granite wall, a wall with two hundred and fifty-six names inscribed in the stone.
The plaque in front of it read:
Time is passing. Yet, for the Kingdom of Mistral there will be no forgetting that fateful day in February of 24. We will remember two hundred and forty eight students and eight faculty members who were lost to us in the airship crash off the shores of Atlas in a tragedy known as The Fall. They fought together as brothers and sisters in arms, they died together, and now they sleep side by side. To them we have a solemn obligation. We will move forward because we have an obligation to remember and honor the memory of those who gave their lives in the pursuit of a dream to make the world a better place for everyone regardless of race, creed, or nationality by living up to the example they have set for us as a nation.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”Freak accident, they said. Couldn’t have ever predicted it. The airship had an engine problem while flying over the ocean too far from shore to even make a distress call that would go through… and the rest… well, the rest was history. No remains were ever found from any who died in the crash, so a memorial was made in their honor instead. Red was always her favorite color, so I bring roses every time I come to set down next to the column that has her name.
The truth is, I’m nowhere close to ready to fill your shoes. You were always so confident and decisive, always knowing what to do in any given moment. You were a natural born leader with the skills to back it up… and I’m… I’m not. Two more years and I’ll be older than you ever were or will be, and I won’t be ready to fill in your shoes then, either. I never come in the daytime, because the monument still gets visitors around, so I try to come when I know nobody will be there. I have an image to maintain, you understand, I have to pretend to be put together and confident when other people are watching…
But the fact of the matter is, I miss you Cressida. Even whole one year later, I still miss you so much, and I’m still not ready. I cry my eyes out every time I see your name here, even though you’d hate me for doing it and yell at me if you were here.
Why did you have to leave?
Why did you have to go?
Why am I the one who was left here and not you?
I know you’d hit me and say that I don’t need you to become great, but that’s just the thing. I
do need you, and you’re not here anymore. You were always strong enough to take the whole on by yourself, but not everyone can be like you.
I can’t be like you, no matter how much I want to and try my best I just can’t…
I just can’t.
