Author's Notes

I was well aware that I was heading for troubles when I heard this little, squeaky voice whispering in the shadowy corner of my mind: "Hey, why don't you write a story about Nina's banishment from Windia?"

"No way!" I replied, horrified. "There's already TONS of stuff written about Nina's agony and tragic life! Writing about that is one heavy cliché."

"Yeah, but why don't you try to put it down a little differently?" the scheming voice persuaded, "Make it a little sad but not too angsty! Show 'em how it is done!"

I, the old fool, began toying with the idea over and over again. Some time later, I found myself sitting before my computer and typing down the words: Just a Little Bird.

Here, I am trying to fill a gap in the story of Breath of Fire II, how Nina Windia ended up into the Great School of Magic. Of course the things cannot be as simple as they first seem to be, and the story has gotten much more complicated than what I had originally meant it to be. Oh well, at least I've had incredible amount of fun writing it!

The story of Just a Little Bird has a very special meaning for me. It is absolutely the longest story I have ever written so far (The former record was held by Bound by Honor, with the length of meager 25 pages.) It is also my first story ever to break the length of a hundred pages. To further add its value to me, it is also my first experiment to tell multiple smaller tales at the same time, each one of them twining up into the destiny of Nina, telling her their stories and teaching her more about the world which she lives in. The results, perhaps, may look like that I allow the main character, Nina, sit in the background and watch while others play.

Such, however, was not my purpose.

Yes, just as I said, you can divide Just a Little Bird into at least three smaller tales. The first and the most important story is of course that of the main character, Nina Windia and her troubles at finding a new home. The second story is that of Aryn Seaholt, his acquaintances and past. The third and the least important part is more like basement work for one of my future projects: Path of the Silver Dragon, the story of Pooka O'Silver and the mysterious sword he wields. I have already implied that there's something important behind the silver blade, but I have yet to tell what it really is.

Other than telling the tales of this or that character, Just a Little Bird is also a tour to the world of Breath of Fire, an image of how I saw the different places and creatures in the game. Of course, there are plenty of places that have completely been made up (such as Port Coursaran in Chapter XI or the Wounds of Earth in Chapter XII), but mostly I have attempted to stay in the area introduced in the game. I attempted to see if I could make this world alive... Did I succeed in it or not, that's up to the reader to tell me. ^_^

One more thing about the Clan names. I began writing this story quite a long time ago. Back then, I didn't yet know the real names of Breath of Fire Clans. Thus, I have used names that I thought most fitting for each Clan. This has led to many mistakes, most remarkably the Dog Clan, who are officially called Grassrunners or Plainsrunners, as well as the Fish Clan, who (I think) are called Manillo Clan or something… And I'm definitely not planning to go through the entire story just to fix these little mistakes, so I'm afraid you'll just have to endure…