[Wild Roses]
Title: farewell
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Arianhrod, Jared, Aodh
Prompt: 83C "goodbye"
Word Count: 555
Rating: PG
Notes: first war; fourth in a set. Madeleine’s funeral.
They stood at the head of the pyre, facing one another, neither flinching as the wind shifted and smashed the smell of burning hair and meat across them, or when it shifted again, blowing away from them and towards the foot. Another attendee's small gift, perhaps, though no-one would have admitted it if asked.
The fire had been lit by the smaller of the two, in place of someone gone a little less than a year. Brothers taking the duties of lovers, brothers and friends deciding the clothing of the dead and where her ashes would lie.
Jared would have burned her barefoot, given back to her favourite playtoy and her remains scattered across Jasmine's grave.
Aodh had dressed her in boots, instead, scattering bundles of her favourite tobacco blend in her pyre before he set it alight with his fingertips, brief core of blue bursting across the pattern of bundles and obscuring the body in flames before it cooled to orange and yellow and clear heat waves in the daylight. He hadn't argued the location of her memorial--no one would have, having met the two now dead.
Aodh's tears were obvious, soot-edged clear tracks down his face and splashes on the edge of a pale gray shirt. Jared stood more stoically, the smudges of his own tears potentially caused by the wind and the soot in his eyes. The dead woman's much younger brother, standing opposite the dead woman's older friend.
They'd exchanged no real words in days, both too polite--or too focused on the necessities of preparing the body of a relative for burning--to level accusations. No 'where were you?'s, no 'why didn't you-'s, but the words hung unspoken between them.
Neither flinched when the wind shifted again, streaking a thin, angry banner out towards the distant water where no one stood, and the dead woman's mother appeared out of the remains of the smoke, at the foot of the fire, accompanied by the sharp snapping crackle of burning tea leaves. Her hair was loose, flying out in a thick, quick tangling banner of curls, and she wore a skirt a shade paler than her son's shirt, barely darker than her son's bleached hair.
The fire burned faster than it should have, collapsing in on itself in coals and white-gray ash, focused will of those remaining making charcoal of dry hardwood.
When it was down to glowing embers, people began moving again, some disappearing to wait for the next day's scattering. Jared crossed to the once-foot of the pyre, moving deliberately in his aunt's full view, and bent to kiss her temple in greeting. She reached up, ran her thumb up his cheekbone to his temple in reply, tears standing in her eyes but not yet spilled over.
"I would I were not seeing you today," he said softly, "not for this reason."
She nodded, eyes half closing, which started the tears down her face. "I find I agree with you," she said, voice thick with previous weeping, and stepped away from him, moving towards her living son, who still stood watching the coals of her dead daughter.
It was a moving sight, Jared's writer-brain noted, watching the way the two reached blindly for one another, arms coming to rest at waists--too close in height for one to reach for shoulders while the other caught at hip.
He wished vainly that he'd never had reason to see his aunt and cousin moved to tears.
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Arianhrod, Jared, Aodh
Prompt: 83C "goodbye"
Word Count: 555
Rating: PG
Notes: first war; fourth in a set. Madeleine’s funeral.
They stood at the head of the pyre, facing one another, neither flinching as the wind shifted and smashed the smell of burning hair and meat across them, or when it shifted again, blowing away from them and towards the foot. Another attendee's small gift, perhaps, though no-one would have admitted it if asked.
The fire had been lit by the smaller of the two, in place of someone gone a little less than a year. Brothers taking the duties of lovers, brothers and friends deciding the clothing of the dead and where her ashes would lie.
Jared would have burned her barefoot, given back to her favourite playtoy and her remains scattered across Jasmine's grave.
Aodh had dressed her in boots, instead, scattering bundles of her favourite tobacco blend in her pyre before he set it alight with his fingertips, brief core of blue bursting across the pattern of bundles and obscuring the body in flames before it cooled to orange and yellow and clear heat waves in the daylight. He hadn't argued the location of her memorial--no one would have, having met the two now dead.
Aodh's tears were obvious, soot-edged clear tracks down his face and splashes on the edge of a pale gray shirt. Jared stood more stoically, the smudges of his own tears potentially caused by the wind and the soot in his eyes. The dead woman's much younger brother, standing opposite the dead woman's older friend.
They'd exchanged no real words in days, both too polite--or too focused on the necessities of preparing the body of a relative for burning--to level accusations. No 'where were you?'s, no 'why didn't you-'s, but the words hung unspoken between them.
Neither flinched when the wind shifted again, streaking a thin, angry banner out towards the distant water where no one stood, and the dead woman's mother appeared out of the remains of the smoke, at the foot of the fire, accompanied by the sharp snapping crackle of burning tea leaves. Her hair was loose, flying out in a thick, quick tangling banner of curls, and she wore a skirt a shade paler than her son's shirt, barely darker than her son's bleached hair.
The fire burned faster than it should have, collapsing in on itself in coals and white-gray ash, focused will of those remaining making charcoal of dry hardwood.
When it was down to glowing embers, people began moving again, some disappearing to wait for the next day's scattering. Jared crossed to the once-foot of the pyre, moving deliberately in his aunt's full view, and bent to kiss her temple in greeting. She reached up, ran her thumb up his cheekbone to his temple in reply, tears standing in her eyes but not yet spilled over.
"I would I were not seeing you today," he said softly, "not for this reason."
She nodded, eyes half closing, which started the tears down her face. "I find I agree with you," she said, voice thick with previous weeping, and stepped away from him, moving towards her living son, who still stood watching the coals of her dead daughter.
It was a moving sight, Jared's writer-brain noted, watching the way the two reached blindly for one another, arms coming to rest at waists--too close in height for one to reach for shoulders while the other caught at hip.
He wished vainly that he'd never had reason to see his aunt and cousin moved to tears.