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On her way back home from school, Relm caught yet another group of grownups talking about her missing father. Until they realized she was approaching and went completely silent until she passed them by. She overheard them before and after the encounter.
Just how stupid do they think she is?
Being a child meant that everybody else got to tell her what to do, where to be, and what should matter to her. She was very little when her dad disappeared, but she remembered him. The image of his face was vague in her mind, but she had a clear memory of herself sitting on his lap and his puppy trying to jump in to cuddle next to her.
Strago had no qualms telling her about her mother. Relm had always known about her mom’s early death, but when she asked Strago about her dad, he had nothing to say. It’s fine if he doesn’t know where he went, but not telling her anything? It was one of those things that made Relm feel looked down on by adults. It blows that they refuse to take her seriously only because she’s young.
She had been moody about Strago’s secrecy, but having the entire village whispering, not about her dad’s whereabouts but about the fact that she was asking questions, made her resent all of them. She wouldn’t lash out at them; all she wanted to do was leave this town and go exploring. If the other towns were not interesting, at least she would not be surrounded by people who treated her like she wasn’t smart enough or strong enough to handle the truth.
She made it back home and went straight to her room, where she found Strago painting on canvas.
“Grandpa, what is that?!”
“A present for you, my dear! I saw the set at the market and immediately thought of you!”
“Well, thanks. But I mean, what is that thing you’re painting?”
“It’s a chocobo! You didn’t know your gramps had this hidden skill, did you?”
“Good painting. But in what dimension is that a chocobo?!”
Relm was impressed by Strago’s skill, but what she was seeing on the canvas was a gigantic, pink birdlike reptile with no feathers. When she heard the word ‘chocobo’, she expected a yellow chicken-like bird, only large enough to mount.
“Oh, you don’t know the chocobo’s ancestor. This right here is the original, from which the chocobos descend.”
"Gramps, you’re starting to get dementia! Chocobos are cute chickens. There’s no way they descend from that dinosaur thing!”
“Back in my younger years, when I traveled the world, I learned about these animals. We believe there is a connection between this and the chocobos as we know them today.”
“Strago, I read the textbooks. I know you’re making this up.”
“You tell me, young lady, who did the drawings of the animals on your school textbook?”
Relm raised an eyebrow, not really interested in the answer to that question.
“Gungho and others wrote a lot of the theory, and I did almost all the drawings. See for yourself.”
“I don’t need to see the textbook. I know it doesn’t mention any pink dinosaurs.”
"Well, dear, we chose to leave that out because the information we had was not conclusive.”
“So we agree that you got a screw loose?”
“THESE KIDS TODAY! I get no respect in my own house!! Just keep in mind, young lady, that whether I choose to speak or to remain silent, my decision comes from pure wisdom.”
Relm stared at him with a poker face, not convinced about the pink dinosaur, nor about Strago’s silence about the things that mattered to her.
He noticed that Relm’s mood didn’t change. "Well, my dear, I just wanted you to develop that skill of yours. Your teacher complained again about the doodles all over your homework. So try to put them here instead.”
Relm’s expression softened. She couldn’t stay mad at her grandfather. She felt misunderstood at times, but never unloved. “Thank you, gramps… Do you think you can get me more colors?”
Strago smiled, feeling encouraged. “Of course! I’ll go buy more right away; I think I can make it before the market closes.”
After Strago left, Relm took down his painting and put it on the floor, lying against the wall. She stared at it for several minutes. Strago’s skill really was impressive, and his particular aesthetic was haunting, but in a good way. Still, the idea of painting a pterodactyl and calling it chocobo was one of those quirky things about Strago that Relm couldn’t quite understand or sympathize with.
She put up a blank canvas and started making strokes with all the different brushes, just to get an idea of what she was working with. But Strago’s painting kept staring at her.
“What’s with the red eyes? Chocobos have like the cutest blue eyes!”
Relm turned her attention back to her canvas. She painted with all the different colors. The red and the pink made her look at Strago’s painting again.
“Ugh, that thing looks undercooked. And what’s with that huge beak and that deformed head?”
She shook her head. Back to her canvas, she used the yellow paint; it was intense, like the color of an egg yolk.
“Hold on. That thing doesn’t even have wings! That’s it; I’m going to show Strago what a chocobo looks like. I don’t even know what to call that creature he painted!”
She put up a new canvas and started working on bringing to life the image she had in her head.
“If I don’t do this, that thing over there is going to be stuck in my head for who knows how long. Just what the hell was Strago thinking?!”