![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seikilosTitle: White Is For Remembrance
Fandoms:![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
luceti, Tales of Legendia, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tales of Phantasia
Genre: Angst/Gen
Rating: PG
Words: 860
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the above media.
Summary: As she says farewell to one of her dearest friends, she cannot quite get all the details right.
Author's Notes: This is a repost (with some editing) of a fic I wrote last summer and passed around to only a few people--Yosie, Hickumu, and Levy, IIRC. It's fairly easy to tell I wrote it before the whole mutual hatred thing really got going between Dhaos and Giles, but I wound up leaving that part of it alone. Eheh.
It's fourth in a series Hickumu and I are unofficially writing; you don't need to have read the previous three fics to understand what's going on, but it might help.
Tales of Legendia and Buffy the Vampire Slayer spoilers abound, so be warned.
For all she doesn't know the funerary customs of this planet very well, she finds the service remarkably easy to follow. It's simple to melt into the form of the day and become only one more person standing around the gravesite.
As is so often the case, the funeral is a gathering of those who knew the deceased best, a small one (too small for the man being buried, she thinks). There is a religious figure, speaking of the transient nature of life; of being born from dust and returning to it; of the cycle of birth, death, and birth again. She can only approve.
The central focus is, as in so many places, across so many galaxies, in so many times, the body—or in this case, casket, closed firmly against the mourners' eyes. It is there her gaze rests, unmoving, as she lets the words of the religious woman pass her by.
Oddly enough, it's the smallest details that are hardest when jumping to a culture for which she has not prepared. Colour—she has mourned in white and red and blue, in all shades and no specific shade at all. Here, it is black. Though it strays slightly from this culture's tradition, she wears grey. Black belongs to her other side; she will not wear it to say goodbye to a friend of the heart.
Neither is the shade of her hair quite right. Blond dyed green is clearly wrong for this occasion, judging from the odd side glances she, already a stranger invading the grief of others, has been receiving since arriving. She would not come here with her hair any other way. It is for the sake of the man they are burying, and for the sake of the silent man beside her, who has not stopped holding her hand since the service began.
Shape is difficult as well. She is the only mourner in a long veil. And she is the only person to wear a seashell necklace, its cheerful simplicity a stark, jarring note against black umbrellas and the chill of rain.
In the end, the details are not enough to cause the other mourners to believe that she is anything other than a strange, unknown friend of the deceased. Even if they were enough to raise suspicion, she would not set them aside to conform. Their meaning is too great.
The service ends. One by one, the mourners leave, or drop flowers on the casket. They move on to talk in small groups, to cry, to hug.
When it is her time, she gently tosses her bouquet. The daisies fall amidst the roses, and she turns away. Another detail wrong, but this is the most important transgression of all. She had picked the flowers herself that morning, before the funeral. She's quietly glad they grow on this world; their presence in her farewell was yet another sacrifice she was unwilling to make.
She is walking past a small group with her partner when she hears it.
"...don't know why we're doing this. He could still be alive!"
She stops. Her partner stops with her.
"You have to face facts. He's not coming back. You need to let go and move on."
"But if they never found the body, he could still be out there!"
Grune looks to Dhaos. He meets her gaze, his eyes widened. For the first time in days, the slightest of smiles touches her lips.
She says nothing and neither does he. They leave the mourners, and when they are out of sight, they melt away into a cloud of white feathers.
*
They come together amidst stone. It makes up the floors and walls, carved delicately into emblems and arches high enough to make a tall woman and and even taller man feel small, were they meek enough to be intimidated by mere architecture.
A courtyard of some sort, her eyes tell her, a vibrant home to people of all shapes and species. In an alcove, she and Dhaos are shadowed away from notice.
It is what her ears tell her, however, that is most important. From above, a laugh floats down the staircase, ahead of the man who set it loose. It's a sound that touches her memory quicker than recollection ever could.
She looks up.
Two men are descending the stairs in front of them. The younger one is clearly excited, expressing his ideas with enthusiasm. Only the back of his sandy blond head is visible from where she is standing, but she knows he is beaming.
The face of the older, she can see. He's smiling fondly, occasionally making suggestions when he can fit in a word. It's been a very long time since she's seen him so at peace.
"Grune," Dhaos whispers beside her.
She turns to look at him, smiling, and shakes her head. "This is enough."
She looks back, watches the pair cross the courtyard together and disappear into a door, and she aches with all the love she holds in her heart.
A glance to Dhaos to confirm, and they vanish to the world they're protecting, leaving Giles to his happily ever after.
Fandoms:
luceti, Tales of Legendia, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tales of PhantasiaGenre: Angst/Gen
Rating: PG
Words: 860
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the above media.
Summary: As she says farewell to one of her dearest friends, she cannot quite get all the details right.
Author's Notes: This is a repost (with some editing) of a fic I wrote last summer and passed around to only a few people--Yosie, Hickumu, and Levy, IIRC. It's fairly easy to tell I wrote it before the whole mutual hatred thing really got going between Dhaos and Giles, but I wound up leaving that part of it alone. Eheh.
It's fourth in a series Hickumu and I are unofficially writing; you don't need to have read the previous three fics to understand what's going on, but it might help.
Tales of Legendia and Buffy the Vampire Slayer spoilers abound, so be warned.
For all she doesn't know the funerary customs of this planet very well, she finds the service remarkably easy to follow. It's simple to melt into the form of the day and become only one more person standing around the gravesite.
As is so often the case, the funeral is a gathering of those who knew the deceased best, a small one (too small for the man being buried, she thinks). There is a religious figure, speaking of the transient nature of life; of being born from dust and returning to it; of the cycle of birth, death, and birth again. She can only approve.
The central focus is, as in so many places, across so many galaxies, in so many times, the body—or in this case, casket, closed firmly against the mourners' eyes. It is there her gaze rests, unmoving, as she lets the words of the religious woman pass her by.
Oddly enough, it's the smallest details that are hardest when jumping to a culture for which she has not prepared. Colour—she has mourned in white and red and blue, in all shades and no specific shade at all. Here, it is black. Though it strays slightly from this culture's tradition, she wears grey. Black belongs to her other side; she will not wear it to say goodbye to a friend of the heart.
Neither is the shade of her hair quite right. Blond dyed green is clearly wrong for this occasion, judging from the odd side glances she, already a stranger invading the grief of others, has been receiving since arriving. She would not come here with her hair any other way. It is for the sake of the man they are burying, and for the sake of the silent man beside her, who has not stopped holding her hand since the service began.
Shape is difficult as well. She is the only mourner in a long veil. And she is the only person to wear a seashell necklace, its cheerful simplicity a stark, jarring note against black umbrellas and the chill of rain.
In the end, the details are not enough to cause the other mourners to believe that she is anything other than a strange, unknown friend of the deceased. Even if they were enough to raise suspicion, she would not set them aside to conform. Their meaning is too great.
The service ends. One by one, the mourners leave, or drop flowers on the casket. They move on to talk in small groups, to cry, to hug.
When it is her time, she gently tosses her bouquet. The daisies fall amidst the roses, and she turns away. Another detail wrong, but this is the most important transgression of all. She had picked the flowers herself that morning, before the funeral. She's quietly glad they grow on this world; their presence in her farewell was yet another sacrifice she was unwilling to make.
She is walking past a small group with her partner when she hears it.
"...don't know why we're doing this. He could still be alive!"
She stops. Her partner stops with her.
"You have to face facts. He's not coming back. You need to let go and move on."
"But if they never found the body, he could still be out there!"
Grune looks to Dhaos. He meets her gaze, his eyes widened. For the first time in days, the slightest of smiles touches her lips.
She says nothing and neither does he. They leave the mourners, and when they are out of sight, they melt away into a cloud of white feathers.
They come together amidst stone. It makes up the floors and walls, carved delicately into emblems and arches high enough to make a tall woman and and even taller man feel small, were they meek enough to be intimidated by mere architecture.
A courtyard of some sort, her eyes tell her, a vibrant home to people of all shapes and species. In an alcove, she and Dhaos are shadowed away from notice.
It is what her ears tell her, however, that is most important. From above, a laugh floats down the staircase, ahead of the man who set it loose. It's a sound that touches her memory quicker than recollection ever could.
She looks up.
Two men are descending the stairs in front of them. The younger one is clearly excited, expressing his ideas with enthusiasm. Only the back of his sandy blond head is visible from where she is standing, but she knows he is beaming.
The face of the older, she can see. He's smiling fondly, occasionally making suggestions when he can fit in a word. It's been a very long time since she's seen him so at peace.
"Grune," Dhaos whispers beside her.
She turns to look at him, smiling, and shakes her head. "This is enough."
She looks back, watches the pair cross the courtyard together and disappear into a door, and she aches with all the love she holds in her heart.
A glance to Dhaos to confirm, and they vanish to the world they're protecting, leaving Giles to his happily ever after.
