[Deaths] Eduard De'Ath & the Morrigan
Title: morning after the wake
'Verse/characters: Deaths; the Morrigan, Eduard De'Ath
Prompt: larathia: "dead man's party"
Word Count: 395
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There are exactly two images of the man who'd been known as Angel Death while he was alive. She's known about the first for years, because it had been her who'd suggested the painter, and she's seen it many times, though the house it lived in is long gone. Edmund, standing next to his daughter, who was dressed in boy's clothes because he'd slipped a few times when she was very small and had never been able to persuade her of the power of skirts afterwards. The overwhelming impression of the painting was of A Lord and His Child, amused by the viewer. The canvas had been framed in wood, not gilt, because of the way their hair shone on its own.
The second image she found this morning, tucked into the back of a book, and unlike the painting if it's more than thirty years old she'll . . she doesn't know.
Because unlike almost every other silver-halide photograph from the period, Edmund De'Ath looks like he's going to grin in a moment, burst into laughter and twinkle his eyes, for all his face is unblurred by movement. Long exposure times meant most photographs were staid, still, dictated by what you could maintain, and somehow it isn't a surprise that he can hold a pose that says 'I'm going to laugh when you blink' so long.
Horseman below, she misses him.
His brother's holed up in the kitchen, hungover and sickly pale under the flush. She makes two pots of tea--one at a strength he might stand, the other her own--and he lets his head drop to the table's surface as the smell roils around the kitchen.
She sits down across from him, sets the pots, the cups, the accessories out, waits for him to raise his head.
When he does, she doesn't say "You should have been there," because it's a truth and a lie and useless now. Says, instead, "I wish I'd been there."
He nods, and it's because his voice would crack if he spoke.
If she'd been there, things would have ended differently. Perhaps it would have been her, who fell and did not rise again. Perhaps it would have been them both, or someone else, but things would have been different, if she'd been there.
And if things were different, she wouldn't be hearing a dead man's laughter in her ears, and only silence where she hears the calling of the crows, most days.
'Verse/characters: Deaths; the Morrigan, Eduard De'Ath
Prompt: larathia: "dead man's party"
Word Count: 395
---------
There are exactly two images of the man who'd been known as Angel Death while he was alive. She's known about the first for years, because it had been her who'd suggested the painter, and she's seen it many times, though the house it lived in is long gone. Edmund, standing next to his daughter, who was dressed in boy's clothes because he'd slipped a few times when she was very small and had never been able to persuade her of the power of skirts afterwards. The overwhelming impression of the painting was of A Lord and His Child, amused by the viewer. The canvas had been framed in wood, not gilt, because of the way their hair shone on its own.
The second image she found this morning, tucked into the back of a book, and unlike the painting if it's more than thirty years old she'll . . she doesn't know.
Because unlike almost every other silver-halide photograph from the period, Edmund De'Ath looks like he's going to grin in a moment, burst into laughter and twinkle his eyes, for all his face is unblurred by movement. Long exposure times meant most photographs were staid, still, dictated by what you could maintain, and somehow it isn't a surprise that he can hold a pose that says 'I'm going to laugh when you blink' so long.
Horseman below, she misses him.
His brother's holed up in the kitchen, hungover and sickly pale under the flush. She makes two pots of tea--one at a strength he might stand, the other her own--and he lets his head drop to the table's surface as the smell roils around the kitchen.
She sits down across from him, sets the pots, the cups, the accessories out, waits for him to raise his head.
When he does, she doesn't say "You should have been there," because it's a truth and a lie and useless now. Says, instead, "I wish I'd been there."
He nods, and it's because his voice would crack if he spoke.
If she'd been there, things would have ended differently. Perhaps it would have been her, who fell and did not rise again. Perhaps it would have been them both, or someone else, but things would have been different, if she'd been there.
And if things were different, she wouldn't be hearing a dead man's laughter in her ears, and only silence where she hears the calling of the crows, most days.