Well, here I am, slaving over a hot oven and preparing pasta for nine different children. Times have certainly changed, and quickly at that. Not three weeks ago I was slaying Kefka's minions with a blade grasped in my own two hands; now, those very same hands are creating fine dining for a gaggle of the most painfully beautiful orphans I've ever seen.

Now that I think about it, there's not a lot of difference between the battlefield and the kitchen. The injuries, the heartbreak, the sporadic usage of fire, and the reward reaped afterwards, be it a shiny new sword or the grinning faces of a multitude of hungry toddlers. Despite the glorious drama of either profession, there is no glamour to be spoken of. My hands are sweaty and shaking and my hair is a complete mess. I must look like hell, though Duane's playful womanizing (to the equally playful disdain of Katrin) tries to assure me otherwise. Perhaps there's a certain dynamic to having green hair that interests him, but how could this heat-frizzled mass upon my head possibly appeal to anyone? It certainly amuses the kids; if I had a GP for each time one of the kids compared this old rat's nest to the grass, leaves or even their crayons, I could send all of us to the Opera House every night for a month solid.

I wonder how I got green hair in the first place. No human I'd ever met had irregularly colored hair, that's for sure. I suppose it comes from the Esper lineage in me; sure, Maduin's straight gray tresses were as far away from green as possible, but everything is fair game in Esper genetics. I'm lucky that I didn't end up with three arms or a gigantic pair of red spikes sprouting from my back. With my luck, though, it wouldn't surprise me too much.

The Esper blood in me is really what stirred the sadness within me in the first place. I was a marked baby, to say the least. Ripped mercilessly from my mother and father since before I could remember and thrust into some world where no cherubic beings, no kindly old men with wings, tended to my late-night tears. There is nothing crueler than a baby left to cry all alone, sealed in a chilly steel room, shown no attention by anyone except the fleeting glance of some ascetic guard. One sentry in particular had heard me bawling away - these memories come flooding back as vividly as yesterday - and touched my face with his cold, gloved hand. Under the shade of his oversized helmet, I could see a sympathetic, hauntingly winsome smile cross his face.

At that moment, I stopped crying. When Gestahl and Kefka saw this blasphemous violation of his ever-developing weapon, however, he saw to it that that guard would never move so much as a finger again. With my vision confined strictly to the ceiling, I could see nothing. I could only hear his bones being snapped, his cries of pain, and the blood bubbling from his mouth. As I began to cry once more, Kefka swept over to the side of my tiny little iron cradle and hissed into my tiny little ear:

"Don't cry, my dear little half-breed. Or I may kill you."

And I never cried again.

The years wore on and life only got harder. Sixteen hours of training a day, two given so generously to me for such luxurious facilities along the lines of eating and using the bathroom, and the remaining six for sleep. Of course, sleep came rarely and fitfully in that steel-shod hell; when I finally found a comfortable position on the rigid cot, the piteous screams of those being tortured in the cell right next to me shook me straight out of my slumber.

At the age of 18, the day finally came where I was ready to fulfill the Empire's ideals of conquest. I was taken by Kefka, a man whose comical nature is betrayed by his surprisingly strong grip, into some sequestered room, where he placed a curved tangle of wires upon my head. The wires dug into my scalp; I hated this thing already, without even knowing what it was.

"My sweet little magic user...! Uweeehehe! With this Slave Crown I'll practically OWN you!"

Those were the last words I heard before I slipped into my trance. When I woke up, that crown was no longer there, and the first thing my eyes fell upon were my hands, stained with blood. Gestahl, Kefka, General Leo, a pretty woman with long blond hair and the Imperial Guard were all watching me. Too horrified to look up from those sinful fingers, I just stared solemnly, fighting back the tears. I couldn't cry.

"Congratulations!" cackled Kefka, his jubilance doing nothing to stir me out of my bloody reverie. "Fifty armored Magitek soldiers in three minutes!" I didn't know what he was talking about until I finally brought myself to lift my eyes. There laid a hideous landscape of broken bodies and charred armor, all of them my doing, and I hadn't even known that I'd done it. Gestahl was delivering a speech to his cheering subordinates, but his words of ambition fell on my deaf ears. I immediately remembered that guard, seventeen years ago, and how something as simple as my tears had cost him his young, promising life.

Before I could walk, I could kill.

They only used the Slave Crown on me one more time. I knew very little about the assault on Narshe, but apparently Kefka had gotten wind of an Esper being located in the town, and his Esper-lust overrode what little sensibility he had. It would be a small operation; three Magitek soldiers would storm the little mountain hamlet and seize the Esper within. And then finally...the sharp pains of the Slave Crown on my scalp once again, and the slow drift into unconsciousness.

Though one loses their concept of time while asleep, this period of nothingness felt infinitely longer than the first one. I awoke in a soft, welcoming bed, a sensation I hadn't felt since birth, and I didn't want to leave. It was then I realized that I didn't remember anything. My past was all I had, and it had left me. Everything. All I had was my name...a name given to me by a mother I'd never known.

Terra.

Locke was good to me. I'm lucky to have met someone like him so soon after losing my memory. He guided me through all of the hardships standing in my way. My soul was a disaster zone; the only emotions I could feel were sadness and despair, scars from a past that I couldn't remember. Despite the words he said to comfort me, the actions he took to shelter me, and the faith he placed in me when all seemed lost, he could not fill the inexplicable void tearing me apart. What was it? Was it...

...love?

I didn't love Locke. Locke didn't love me. He loved Rachel, and he loved Celes. I merely buried the concept of this foreign emotion. The discarded child of a lost woman and a reclusive Esper was not meant for love, anyway.

Love came to me with the end of the world, and the beginning of a new one.

I am rid of the Esper in me now. No longer can I transform into the surreal fiery being; no longer can I conjure magic born unto me from my inhuman father. A part of me died with the Goddesses, and its departure was a bittersweet one. That day marked the end of my spirituality, and the birth of a new soul. This was a soul free of the scars of the past.

It was a soul in love.

My meditations were shattered when little Jordan burst through the door, likely to complain about the lack of food on the table.

"Mama! Where's the food? ...Is something wrong, Mama? You look upset...!" God bless his curious six-year-old soul.

"Oh, it's nothing, sweetheart. Mama was just thinking of something sad. You run along now; dinner will be ready in a second." Jordan squealed in delight and charged out of the kitchen. I turned back to look at him and saw all nine of those beautiful children, their eyes shining with hope for the future, chattering and laughing without a care in that barren world.

And as a single tear rolled down my cheek, I realized that regardless of my birth, my past, my future and my death, that I had found what was truly important, and that is an irreplaceable love to overcome the inerasable sorrow.