Happy (Belated) Birthday, Dai!
Now that class has eased up the pressure I can finally get down to doing birthday gifts and writing and stuff like that. daimera 's birthday was a month ago and I promised myself to make up for the lack of Christmas present by making a short story to her liking at least twice as big! Of course it's not exactly a happy fluffy Lemmings story like requested. In fact I caution that anyone who doesn't want to read anything morbid, dark, and just overall sad might want to skip it. My muse took me in this direction after a long time of having difficulty coming up with anything and while I really like the idea from a writing perspective, it just adds another layer of darkness to Lemming Island. So, yeah, darkfic is darrrrrrk. Don't read if you don't want to think about death. (Then again Lemming Island is kind of full of death and darkness by default isn't it?)
I swear, I'll make a happy Lemmings story eventually. I just need to work through the setup to Lemming Island and character development I think. If this is too dark and you want something fluffier I can try again later, Dai. Totally not a problem to do that considering this is kinda the opposite of cute and WAFFy.
Oh, and for people who miss Fan Fiction Foibles, you can think of this being sort of like that, only not really. Hey, it's fiction, right? It's fandom, yeah? What more can you ask for?
Funerals were a daily part of life on Lemming Island. Through accident or the whimsy of the stoats, at least one lemming would die every day. Their numbers were high enough that it never bothered the stoats. Some of the passing lemmings were mourned, while others had no family left who possessed the mental capabilities to remember what a family was. There were never bodies to bury, as stoats carted them away to Paradise to receive their final rest, unless there was not enough left for the body to transport. What bodies they could find were burned in secret deep in a hidden part of the mine, their ashes scattered by loved ones or officials into an underground lake. The number of the deceased was then carefully etched into the wall of the massive chamber surrounding the lake. The place was known as Memorandum.
Lime was no stranger to Memorandum. He had visited the place far too many times while growing up. At the age of nine, he threw a handful of ashes into the lake that used to be the body of one of the servants he worked with at the Scar estate. They had been friends, but the man’s passing felt more like a cruel reminder of what a hateful place reality was. It did not make him feel empty inside, as he did today.
Lime turned thirteen not long ago. Though he spent most of his days working at the Scar estate, he managed to spend time with his family, particularly his little sisters. They were six years younger than he was, too little to be trusted with names of their own. If a lemming grew up to be an adult they could choose a name for themselves, as they would be mature enough to know not to react to titles not given to them by masters.
Today one of his sisters would receive a name because she would never grow up.
Cherry, Lime’s mother, carried the pot that held his sister’s ashes. Though she walked with her back rigid, she trembled with each step she made towards the lake. Zei, Lime’s father, kept an arm wrapped around her waist. He was a tall lemming with large muscles that came from working in a mine all day. His scarred face was more severe looking than Lime had ever seen him, but somehow even his dead left eye seemed sad as it gazed into nothing, his working right eye fixated on Cherry, who looked only at the ashes.
Lime’s surviving sister moved in an awkward gait. At random times, she would stop and stare at the lake, as though expecting something to appear. When the moment passed she hurried after their parents, only to pause once again.
Lime knew who his sister was looking for in the lake. The underground rivers and lakes were practically her twin’s home. He walked at the end of his family’s progression and when his little sister paused so did he, watching both her and the lake. He tried not to ignore the part of him that expected to see her twin suddenly burst from the water and shout that she had fooled everyone with another one of her pranks. His lost sister had been incorrigible when it came to water, for she was one of the few who could swim thanks to her unique birthright. It was why he and others would sometimes call her Mermaid.
The last rites began with the priest reading somberly from an ancient tome. Lime tried not to think as he and his family stood on the smooth circular rock that served as a platform hanging above the surface of the lake. The lights of at least a hundred candles and dozens of lanterns gave Memorandum an eerie glow. The ripples in the lake, caused by drops falling from stalactites, made the balls of light dance like lost souls. A stray thought made him wonder how many names were carved into the walls, and how many were given the chance to have their remains find their way home to the lake. Did it mean that their spirits would be there, haunting them as they held their daily funerals, agonized by their last moments?
Lime covered his face with both hands to shut out his surroundings. He tried to focus on the drone of the priest’s voice, but none of the words penetrated his brain. His sister had been too young to die, let alone murdered in such a grizzly manner. He wiped the wetness from his cheeks and looked to his surviving sister. She knelt by the edge of the platform and he wondered if she was looking for their sister, or if she was remembering those last moments with stoats and blood in the water with their sister after the twins dared to sneak out to the surface despite their little mermaid’s condition…
Lime bit his lower lip to swallow a shuddering breath. His imagination painted a ghastly scenario, and he never saw the body, let alone the death. He had been dusting Sandy’s room the entire time and he thought his day could not get worse than when he accidentally broke a photograph and a vase. He had been afraid that his clumsiness would get him eaten. Fortunately, the worst he received was a slap from Dorian, which led to a yelling match between father and daughter. Unfortunately, the fears for his own safety turned to bile in his throat when he returned home that night and learned of his sister’s fate.
The sound of Cherry’s voice brought Lime back to the present. “…to ash. We return you to the Guides, and pray that they lead your spirit to a place far better than this.” He watched his mother step forward to the edge of the platform with the decorative urn held high in the air. “I, who held you as you came into life, and formed your body, hold you now as we say goodbye to the body you and your father have created.”
Zei stepped forward and gently took the urn from Cherry’s trembling, scarred hands. Lime saw her face was wet with tears as she turned to Zei. For a moment his parents stared at each other, their expressions wracked with grief that threatened to overflow. Cherry forced her gaze away and carefully scooped a handful of ash from the urn and closed both hands around the cinders. She turned to the water and kissed her thumbs before holding her palms upward. A thin stream of ash sifted from between her fingers, no longer visible to the naked eye long before it fell to the water. “I am the first,” Cherry said, her voice wavering, “to say goodbye to our beloved daughter Marina.”
Lime felt his breath catch in his throat when he heard his sister’s name. Tears blurred his vision when Cherry blew the handful of ashes into the air over the lake, and he viciously wiped them away. Marina was the name that evolved from his teasing. At first, he called her Mermaid, then Mermania, and any other name he could think to derive from the word mermaid. Marina was just one of his many attempts, and one day she said she preferred that nickname out of all the others, because she saw in a book that it meant the sea, which she dearly loved. When his family gathered to decide her name for the funeral, no one would consider naming her anything else.
The tears refused to stop when Lime realized that he would never again tease Marina with silly nicknames. There would be no little mermaid sister to ask if she found sunken treasure, as she claimed she would. He would not one day grow up tall and strong enough to carry her out to the ocean as he promised. All plans they made for the future, however foolish they were to make when living in a place like Lemming Island, were gone.
“It’s not fair!” Lime covered his mouth when he realized the outburst came from him. A sob escaped him as his mother’s delicate arms wrapped around his trembling frame, and held him close as he broke down crying. He heard a quiet whimper come from Cherry as well, as he held onto his mother for dear life.
The cave was silent for many minutes, save for crying and the drops of water that fell onto the surface of the lake. When Lime managed to gather his bearings, he realized that he missed his father’s turn to say a few words and spread a handful of ash just before his breakdown. He felt ashamed, as he knew he would regret forgetting any part of Marina’s funeral. He pulled himself away from Cherry and muttered that he was all right and ready to do his part.
Touching Marina’s ashes almost undid Lime. The knowledge that the gray sand in his hands used to be his little sister’s body was too much to contemplate. He spoke the words he memorized, or at least he hoped he recited them well, as he felt too detached to be sure. No one corrected him.
Lime’s surviving sister was last. He held the urn for her, as his mother hand done for him, and waited for his sister to play her part in the ritual. It worried him that she had not cried once since he came home and heard the news. His little sister who ran around on land was always so outspoken and energetic. Now, she barely spoke a word, and her gaze always seemed distant and unseeing. He wondered if she even knew what was going on.
His little sister suddenly tore the urn from his hands and harshly thrust the ashes towards the lake before throwing the pot as well. She was on her feet as the urn hit the water with a loud splash and turned towards everyone with an ugly expression. “She’s not dead!” she screeched, her ragged voice echoing off the high ceiling of the cavern walls. “Marina isn’t dead! Stop acting like she’s never coming back!”
No one reacted in time to stop his little sister from fleeing Memorandum. Lime stared at her retreating back, stricken. The funeral was not over, and to leave before it was finished was dishonorable to the memory of the one who had passed on. His parents chose to break tradition, and decided that Zei would go and find his sister to bring her back, or at least calm her down.
Lime could not imagine what his little sister was thinking. She and Marina had a connection deeper than anyone he had ever seen before. The only thing that separated them was that Marina had Sirenomelia, or Mermaid Syndrome. Marina could only move freely in water, while her twin was forced to remain on land. It never seemed to bother the girls, however, as he would always see them at the shore, one in the water and one on the land, smiling and laughing together.
Marina was there when the stoats pounced on her twin by the lake near the village. They were children who hunted lemmings for fun, and held no self-control when it came to dining on fresh meat. When Marina screamed and threw rocks at the stoats, she saved her twin’s life. Perhaps she earned their wrath, or perhaps she was simply an oddity to them because she was a lemming in the middle of the lake, wearing light clothes unlike any the other lemmings on the surface wore. Because she lived her life underground, hidden from stoat eyes, she was freer than all the other lemmings despite her condition.
The stoat children would never have caught Marina by swimming. No one was better than she was. However, one of the stoats had a cattle prod, likely taken from one of the ranches. The children liked to torment lemmings with tools as well as fangs and claws. Lime expected that they were going to torture his land dwelling sister. He doubted they planned ahead of time to turn it on and throw it into the water so that it would electrocute MariNa. As morbid as the thought was, he prayed that it stopped her heart, so that she felt nothing when the stoats dove in after her once the water was safe to swim in again. The recounting of his surviving sister and the other lemmings that gathered due to the screaming never made that clear.
Lime did not ask how they gathered Marina’s remains from the lake. He did not ask what condition the stoats left her body after they had their fill and returned to their homes. He did not want to know. He did not want to see what his remaining little sister saw.
Everything left him wondering if the stoats murdered both of his little sisters that bright and sunny day.
I swear, I'll make a happy Lemmings story eventually. I just need to work through the setup to Lemming Island and character development I think. If this is too dark and you want something fluffier I can try again later, Dai. Totally not a problem to do that considering this is kinda the opposite of cute and WAFFy.
Oh, and for people who miss Fan Fiction Foibles, you can think of this being sort of like that, only not really. Hey, it's fiction, right? It's fandom, yeah? What more can you ask for?
Funerals were a daily part of life on Lemming Island. Through accident or the whimsy of the stoats, at least one lemming would die every day. Their numbers were high enough that it never bothered the stoats. Some of the passing lemmings were mourned, while others had no family left who possessed the mental capabilities to remember what a family was. There were never bodies to bury, as stoats carted them away to Paradise to receive their final rest, unless there was not enough left for the body to transport. What bodies they could find were burned in secret deep in a hidden part of the mine, their ashes scattered by loved ones or officials into an underground lake. The number of the deceased was then carefully etched into the wall of the massive chamber surrounding the lake. The place was known as Memorandum.
Lime was no stranger to Memorandum. He had visited the place far too many times while growing up. At the age of nine, he threw a handful of ashes into the lake that used to be the body of one of the servants he worked with at the Scar estate. They had been friends, but the man’s passing felt more like a cruel reminder of what a hateful place reality was. It did not make him feel empty inside, as he did today.
Lime turned thirteen not long ago. Though he spent most of his days working at the Scar estate, he managed to spend time with his family, particularly his little sisters. They were six years younger than he was, too little to be trusted with names of their own. If a lemming grew up to be an adult they could choose a name for themselves, as they would be mature enough to know not to react to titles not given to them by masters.
Today one of his sisters would receive a name because she would never grow up.
Cherry, Lime’s mother, carried the pot that held his sister’s ashes. Though she walked with her back rigid, she trembled with each step she made towards the lake. Zei, Lime’s father, kept an arm wrapped around her waist. He was a tall lemming with large muscles that came from working in a mine all day. His scarred face was more severe looking than Lime had ever seen him, but somehow even his dead left eye seemed sad as it gazed into nothing, his working right eye fixated on Cherry, who looked only at the ashes.
Lime’s surviving sister moved in an awkward gait. At random times, she would stop and stare at the lake, as though expecting something to appear. When the moment passed she hurried after their parents, only to pause once again.
Lime knew who his sister was looking for in the lake. The underground rivers and lakes were practically her twin’s home. He walked at the end of his family’s progression and when his little sister paused so did he, watching both her and the lake. He tried not to ignore the part of him that expected to see her twin suddenly burst from the water and shout that she had fooled everyone with another one of her pranks. His lost sister had been incorrigible when it came to water, for she was one of the few who could swim thanks to her unique birthright. It was why he and others would sometimes call her Mermaid.
The last rites began with the priest reading somberly from an ancient tome. Lime tried not to think as he and his family stood on the smooth circular rock that served as a platform hanging above the surface of the lake. The lights of at least a hundred candles and dozens of lanterns gave Memorandum an eerie glow. The ripples in the lake, caused by drops falling from stalactites, made the balls of light dance like lost souls. A stray thought made him wonder how many names were carved into the walls, and how many were given the chance to have their remains find their way home to the lake. Did it mean that their spirits would be there, haunting them as they held their daily funerals, agonized by their last moments?
Lime covered his face with both hands to shut out his surroundings. He tried to focus on the drone of the priest’s voice, but none of the words penetrated his brain. His sister had been too young to die, let alone murdered in such a grizzly manner. He wiped the wetness from his cheeks and looked to his surviving sister. She knelt by the edge of the platform and he wondered if she was looking for their sister, or if she was remembering those last moments with stoats and blood in the water with their sister after the twins dared to sneak out to the surface despite their little mermaid’s condition…
Lime bit his lower lip to swallow a shuddering breath. His imagination painted a ghastly scenario, and he never saw the body, let alone the death. He had been dusting Sandy’s room the entire time and he thought his day could not get worse than when he accidentally broke a photograph and a vase. He had been afraid that his clumsiness would get him eaten. Fortunately, the worst he received was a slap from Dorian, which led to a yelling match between father and daughter. Unfortunately, the fears for his own safety turned to bile in his throat when he returned home that night and learned of his sister’s fate.
The sound of Cherry’s voice brought Lime back to the present. “…to ash. We return you to the Guides, and pray that they lead your spirit to a place far better than this.” He watched his mother step forward to the edge of the platform with the decorative urn held high in the air. “I, who held you as you came into life, and formed your body, hold you now as we say goodbye to the body you and your father have created.”
Zei stepped forward and gently took the urn from Cherry’s trembling, scarred hands. Lime saw her face was wet with tears as she turned to Zei. For a moment his parents stared at each other, their expressions wracked with grief that threatened to overflow. Cherry forced her gaze away and carefully scooped a handful of ash from the urn and closed both hands around the cinders. She turned to the water and kissed her thumbs before holding her palms upward. A thin stream of ash sifted from between her fingers, no longer visible to the naked eye long before it fell to the water. “I am the first,” Cherry said, her voice wavering, “to say goodbye to our beloved daughter Marina.”
Lime felt his breath catch in his throat when he heard his sister’s name. Tears blurred his vision when Cherry blew the handful of ashes into the air over the lake, and he viciously wiped them away. Marina was the name that evolved from his teasing. At first, he called her Mermaid, then Mermania, and any other name he could think to derive from the word mermaid. Marina was just one of his many attempts, and one day she said she preferred that nickname out of all the others, because she saw in a book that it meant the sea, which she dearly loved. When his family gathered to decide her name for the funeral, no one would consider naming her anything else.
The tears refused to stop when Lime realized that he would never again tease Marina with silly nicknames. There would be no little mermaid sister to ask if she found sunken treasure, as she claimed she would. He would not one day grow up tall and strong enough to carry her out to the ocean as he promised. All plans they made for the future, however foolish they were to make when living in a place like Lemming Island, were gone.
“It’s not fair!” Lime covered his mouth when he realized the outburst came from him. A sob escaped him as his mother’s delicate arms wrapped around his trembling frame, and held him close as he broke down crying. He heard a quiet whimper come from Cherry as well, as he held onto his mother for dear life.
The cave was silent for many minutes, save for crying and the drops of water that fell onto the surface of the lake. When Lime managed to gather his bearings, he realized that he missed his father’s turn to say a few words and spread a handful of ash just before his breakdown. He felt ashamed, as he knew he would regret forgetting any part of Marina’s funeral. He pulled himself away from Cherry and muttered that he was all right and ready to do his part.
Touching Marina’s ashes almost undid Lime. The knowledge that the gray sand in his hands used to be his little sister’s body was too much to contemplate. He spoke the words he memorized, or at least he hoped he recited them well, as he felt too detached to be sure. No one corrected him.
Lime’s surviving sister was last. He held the urn for her, as his mother hand done for him, and waited for his sister to play her part in the ritual. It worried him that she had not cried once since he came home and heard the news. His little sister who ran around on land was always so outspoken and energetic. Now, she barely spoke a word, and her gaze always seemed distant and unseeing. He wondered if she even knew what was going on.
His little sister suddenly tore the urn from his hands and harshly thrust the ashes towards the lake before throwing the pot as well. She was on her feet as the urn hit the water with a loud splash and turned towards everyone with an ugly expression. “She’s not dead!” she screeched, her ragged voice echoing off the high ceiling of the cavern walls. “Marina isn’t dead! Stop acting like she’s never coming back!”
No one reacted in time to stop his little sister from fleeing Memorandum. Lime stared at her retreating back, stricken. The funeral was not over, and to leave before it was finished was dishonorable to the memory of the one who had passed on. His parents chose to break tradition, and decided that Zei would go and find his sister to bring her back, or at least calm her down.
Lime could not imagine what his little sister was thinking. She and Marina had a connection deeper than anyone he had ever seen before. The only thing that separated them was that Marina had Sirenomelia, or Mermaid Syndrome. Marina could only move freely in water, while her twin was forced to remain on land. It never seemed to bother the girls, however, as he would always see them at the shore, one in the water and one on the land, smiling and laughing together.
Marina was there when the stoats pounced on her twin by the lake near the village. They were children who hunted lemmings for fun, and held no self-control when it came to dining on fresh meat. When Marina screamed and threw rocks at the stoats, she saved her twin’s life. Perhaps she earned their wrath, or perhaps she was simply an oddity to them because she was a lemming in the middle of the lake, wearing light clothes unlike any the other lemmings on the surface wore. Because she lived her life underground, hidden from stoat eyes, she was freer than all the other lemmings despite her condition.
The stoat children would never have caught Marina by swimming. No one was better than she was. However, one of the stoats had a cattle prod, likely taken from one of the ranches. The children liked to torment lemmings with tools as well as fangs and claws. Lime expected that they were going to torture his land dwelling sister. He doubted they planned ahead of time to turn it on and throw it into the water so that it would electrocute MariNa. As morbid as the thought was, he prayed that it stopped her heart, so that she felt nothing when the stoats dove in after her once the water was safe to swim in again. The recounting of his surviving sister and the other lemmings that gathered due to the screaming never made that clear.
Lime did not ask how they gathered Marina’s remains from the lake. He did not ask what condition the stoats left her body after they had their fill and returned to their homes. He did not want to know. He did not want to see what his remaining little sister saw.
Everything left him wondering if the stoats murdered both of his little sisters that bright and sunny day.