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31_days2012-04-11 07:53 pm
seta-suzume.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2012-04-11 07:53 pm
[April 11] [Tales of Legendia] A View After Death
Title: A View After Death
Day/Theme: April 11, 2012 "When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie / Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by."
Series: Tales of Legendia
Character/Pairing: Walter, Fenimore, Shirley(/Senel)
Rating: PG
Supposedly, death was freeing. In this case they meant for the one who'd died, of course. No one was about to claim that death was anything good for the people who'd been left behind in anything but the most unusual circumstances. But when Walter looked at Mother, before they lowered her out of the boat and into the water, she didn't look peaceful at all. The other women of the village had fixed her up as pretty as they could manage- he was sure of that- but it wasn't pretty at all. She looked sick even now, paler than in life.
*****
Death was all around. That was just an ordinary part of the Ferines condition- it had been that way for all of Fenimore's life (and as long as there had been no Merines, so it had been for generations past). Maybe it was worse with Prince Vaclav afoot that in her childhood, but she'd been too young then to say. In any case, she was a pessimist. There was a side of her that wasn't too surprised that change couldn't come so fast. ...Was it worse for her and her village than it had been for all the rest? Probably not.
*****
Shirley didn't remember when Mama and Papa died. She had the vaguest of memories of them- holding her hand, singing to her, carrying her- but her family life as she recalled it from her childhood had pretty much begun and ended with Stella. ...Senel was different, even though he was family too. She remembered when he'd first come.
She'd seen too many people die- some at peace and some full of regrets. She didn't want to see any more of that than she had to. It would be sad, but, many years from now, old and in her bed, she hoped that she would go first.
Day/Theme: April 11, 2012 "When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie / Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by."
Series: Tales of Legendia
Character/Pairing: Walter, Fenimore, Shirley(/Senel)
Rating: PG
Supposedly, death was freeing. In this case they meant for the one who'd died, of course. No one was about to claim that death was anything good for the people who'd been left behind in anything but the most unusual circumstances. But when Walter looked at Mother, before they lowered her out of the boat and into the water, she didn't look peaceful at all. The other women of the village had fixed her up as pretty as they could manage- he was sure of that- but it wasn't pretty at all. She looked sick even now, paler than in life.
Death was all around. That was just an ordinary part of the Ferines condition- it had been that way for all of Fenimore's life (and as long as there had been no Merines, so it had been for generations past). Maybe it was worse with Prince Vaclav afoot that in her childhood, but she'd been too young then to say. In any case, she was a pessimist. There was a side of her that wasn't too surprised that change couldn't come so fast. ...Was it worse for her and her village than it had been for all the rest? Probably not.
Shirley didn't remember when Mama and Papa died. She had the vaguest of memories of them- holding her hand, singing to her, carrying her- but her family life as she recalled it from her childhood had pretty much begun and ended with Stella. ...Senel was different, even though he was family too. She remembered when he'd first come.
She'd seen too many people die- some at peace and some full of regrets. She didn't want to see any more of that than she had to. It would be sad, but, many years from now, old and in her bed, she hoped that she would go first.