WARNING: This text contains SPOILERS for Mother 3 through Chapter 7. If you haven't played M3, please don't read it. Thanks.

Three Autumns
by Wasuremono

We have always celebrated the equinox: 
The birth of spring and fall, the tipping point
Where the world is split evenly between light and darkness.

After all these centuries, we have perfected 
Our festivals: flowers for spring, a feast for autumn.
When we were young, spring ruled our thoughts,
But now autumn is in its ascendance. The dark
Has begun to devour the light.

It was at an autumn feast that Locria brought us the news:
A ship approached, bearing humans to the islands.
The murmur rose: humans? Again? It had been so long.
Mixshi just nudged me and whispered in my ear:
"Locria's counting coup. You know how he loves attention!"

We shared in turn our opinions about this news: 
Phrygia ambivalent, Doria curious, Lydia with his dismissive shrug. 
Only Locria stood in opposition, his voice rich but dissonant:
"They will bring our doom. They will wake the Dragon!"

Aeolia, softly: "If they do, it is not our place to stand in their way."

A storm rose in Locria's face, and he took his leave. 
It was his way; I thought nothing of it until spring, 
When I waited all equinox for him, in vain.
The garland I made for him wilted in my hand.

	***

The humans came; their gift to us was a bright-eyed foundling. 
Then they let us be. They were simple creatures -- 
Cautious. The years passed quietly.
I thought little of them until the forest burned
And Kumatora brought strange tidings:
Men masked as pigs, the ghosts awakening, 
A rich-voiced merchant.

That autumn, we dismissed it -- "humans and their problems!"
But it lingered with me, and after the feast, 
I walked with Mixshi into the night. I spoke simply:
"Do you think that time is coming?" 

"I don't know," he said, his smile still bright. "Here's a question:
Do you miss Locria?"

"I don't know."

The darkness ate my voice; under our feet,
The leaves became dust.

	***

It has been two years. This summer slips away,
And this year I will host the feast of autumn.
I spend days at a time in town: buying food, of course,
But also simply watching the humans at their harvest.
They are such simple creatures, and so finite,
But even they do not fear the coming winter.
Why, then, does the near-fall air chill my bones?

The Needle sings to me nearly every day now:
"Sweet Ionia, your service will soon end."
That time is drawing near: I can hear it in the wind,
See it in the humans' bright and distant eyes. 
This autumn will be our last.

I dwell on distant friends: dear Mixshi, who visits rarely now;
Poor Alec, of the shattered heart; 
Kumatora, our princess, our jewel. The guardian she seeks.
And, always, Locria. Does his Needle sing to him?

"Lovely Ionia," the Needle says, "you need fear nothing.
You will be well taken care of in the world to come."
It's an autumn promise if there ever was one:
The tree's promise to the falling leaf, 
The dark's promise to the light at equinox.