Post by Wilhelm Opens-the-Way on Feb 21, 2012 16:10:28 GMT -8
It's cold.
The rain is cold. Something about it beyond the temperature chills me. It's February, and the wind still bites. The rain is still occasionally dotted with crystals.
I tell myself that's what the chill is about.
It's a lie.
The headstone has been carved for the hall of heroes. The body has been wrapped, prepared, anointed, made ready in the traditional way.
He would have laughed. He never was a religious creature. He knew, he didn't believe., and there's a difference. He was worried about his immortal soul, but not out of any vague scriptural purpose, because Mammoth threatened it, and had perhaps the power, or the rage to make good on it.
The burial was for those left behind.
I could feel angry, and rage burns in my breast, don't doubt it. I consider, for an instant, a number of murders. I could choose to rage against the Garou that had sent us on the quest, the killer himself. the Fae trader that took his hat, or against my own inability to foresee the cost of that vindictive anchorhead puzzle, or not being fast enough to get in the middle of that arrow's path, or against the packmate that was lost to the wiles of the Arcadian Gateway before we left for him.
I could be angry at No-Sun for dying.
But these are all lies.
No-sun died because the shattered Umbra is deadly. It is dangerous beyond knowing, and half the time those that travel there are in deadly peril every moment they choose to interact with those realms. A Redcap Fae protecting his territory shot him in the throat for taking too long to leave. The shot was one in a million, a perfect shot. He died instantly, likely not even knowing that he'd even died.
He died saving a packmate. Saving his life. Refusing, as we all did, to leave a single person behind.
He died getting us home.
He died a hero.
No-Sun would have laughed.
We place a torch, the brick, the bandanna. Other trinkets. We each say some words.
We howl the howl of mourning, long and low and deep with reverence and sorrow, and victory. Some of us hope for such a death. A clean death.
Sing we to thy Mother's breast.
It's cold, and suddenly I know why:
I'm surrounded by ghosts.