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Fourth Cream Cake: [Action/Voice]
[It has been some time since he did this.
Tonight, Gregor is behind CH7 with two large aluminum bowls. He places them on the ground.
One, he fills with sweet-scented bark and sage leaves. The other, with twigs and dried paper.
His hair has grown too long anyway. Carefully, he snips two locks of raven-black hair from his head. One for each bowl.
He kneels in front of the second bowl, the one filled with ordinary fuel, and tosses a tuft of hair in. Then, he strikes a match and sets fire to the contents. As it burns, he quietly adds a slip of paper with his signature written on it in his best handwriting. His official Imperial signature.
He says nothing as the death offering for his father burns. He's done this many times, at the guidance of Lady Alys. There had been no funeral offering for Prince Serg but the one which had filled the sky of Sergyar.
He returns to the first bowl, tenderly adding the lock of hair, a slip of paper with an invisible kiss, and, of all things, a child's shoe. As the offering burns, tears glisten in his eyes. When he's sure no one is around, he curls to the ground and quietly weeps.
He's aware of the limited privacy, but he'll whisper a few words over each offering. Anyone clever enough to sneak up would have to come very close indeed to hear them.
It is supposed that the burning of these offerings helps to drive away ghosts.
When that's over, he simply sits with his back to the wall and speaks into his journal. It's soft and hesitating--he's certainly not the "inspiring speeches on a dime" sort of ruler back home, but writing in the dark is ill-advised. His voice is somewhat rough.]
On Barrayar, we burn offerings for the dead. People died on the draft, but generally, the usual rites don't apply if they're coming back. It's limbo. What do you do?
Um. Could...someone give me a haircut?
Tonight, Gregor is behind CH7 with two large aluminum bowls. He places them on the ground.
One, he fills with sweet-scented bark and sage leaves. The other, with twigs and dried paper.
His hair has grown too long anyway. Carefully, he snips two locks of raven-black hair from his head. One for each bowl.
He kneels in front of the second bowl, the one filled with ordinary fuel, and tosses a tuft of hair in. Then, he strikes a match and sets fire to the contents. As it burns, he quietly adds a slip of paper with his signature written on it in his best handwriting. His official Imperial signature.
He says nothing as the death offering for his father burns. He's done this many times, at the guidance of Lady Alys. There had been no funeral offering for Prince Serg but the one which had filled the sky of Sergyar.
He returns to the first bowl, tenderly adding the lock of hair, a slip of paper with an invisible kiss, and, of all things, a child's shoe. As the offering burns, tears glisten in his eyes. When he's sure no one is around, he curls to the ground and quietly weeps.
He's aware of the limited privacy, but he'll whisper a few words over each offering. Anyone clever enough to sneak up would have to come very close indeed to hear them.
It is supposed that the burning of these offerings helps to drive away ghosts.
When that's over, he simply sits with his back to the wall and speaks into his journal. It's soft and hesitating--he's certainly not the "inspiring speeches on a dime" sort of ruler back home, but writing in the dark is ill-advised. His voice is somewhat rough.]
On Barrayar, we burn offerings for the dead. People died on the draft, but generally, the usual rites don't apply if they're coming back. It's limbo. What do you do?
Um. Could...someone give me a haircut?
action:
Or, at least, that's what Clove thinks when she sets out. It takes her twenty minutes to find him.
For a few more minutes, she just watches. The bowls are nearly extinguished, but she still hangs back. He announced it. An open invitation, she feels, but the sense is more like seeing a village family bury a child who fell ill and died. Something private. Where she, a girl of the Academy, had every need met and every cough examined by a doctor.
At home, there was a funeral. She knows because she's attended them. All of the Academy students turned out in immaculate uniforms. Six boys or six girls to bear the coffin of their dead tribute, both this year. A stirring speech by the headmaster about sacrifice and glory. Then the coffins would be buried with the rest of the dead children, killed by the Hunger Games. She knows she and Cato were buried. Side by side.
But she didn't see it. Didn't get to say goodbye.
Finally, voice uneasy as she shifts her weight from foot to foot:]
What do you burn?
action:
Whatever you want, along with a piece of yourself. Usually hair, since it grows back. Maybe something that smells nice when it's burned, like sage. Whatever you think suits them. Something you'd want to give them if you could. Something you shared.
[The charred remains of a child's shoe lie in one bowl.]
Or just...something that burns and a piece of yourself. It doesn't have to be complicated.
action:
Whatever you thinks suits them.
A piece of yourself.]
Does it help?
[There are no bodies, here, to bury. Nothing for any of the tributes. Nothing for Cato... Nothing for her. Because that's just as frightening. That she is dead. Should be dead. But here she is, walking around a village, talking, fighting.
Burning things...
Is it more effective than smashing things? Throwing delicate pieces of glass against a wall, throwing her knives so things break.]
action:
[They say it helps banish ghosts. He hasn't really decided if it's done anything with the ghost of Prince Serg, the genes in Gregor's own body that could rebel at any moment.]
action:
Even though you're not really doing anything.
[Critical as her words are, her actions speak differently. She is stepping forward, just eyeing the set-up.
It is nothing. It means nothing. Just something for those left behind. ...Left behind in life, left behind in death. It doesn't make sense. She's not supposed to be alone now. She died. There's no loneliness after death. There's just... nothing.
This isn't supposed to happen.]
And it's... that simple? You get the stuff together and just... let it burn?
[She does understand, in a way. It's no different than burying the dead tributes. It doesn't really matter, but it's something to do.
A way to say goodbye.
A way to move on.
But there's no moving on.]
action:
action:
She... It's nice.
[And then a pause. Because she has to say it.]
Blood doesn't smell sweet when it burns.
That's what we shared.
[So much blood.
Another careful step forward, though.]
Blood and apples and blades.
action:
[With a toe, he overturns the still-hot bowl which held Serg's offering, emptying it. Trying to make it look routine.]
Re: action:
She takes a thin breath and lets it out.]
I...'ve intruded.
I... I'm sorry.
action:
Do you want to try it?
action:
Not that she has much.
But the gesture is enough. As is her slow kneel down.
Yes, she'll give it a try.]
action:
action: (tw: self-harm)
She presses the flat of the blade against the flesh of the fruit, squeezing out at much of the juice as she can. She puts four pieces-- the eighth she cut out-- into the bowl, all with the same done.
Apple.
Then it's back into the pack. What else does she have that reminds her of Cato?
If she had her district token, she'd put it into the mix. It wouldn't burn, but it belonged there.
She put the blade against her palm and pressed in. Just enough to break the skin, to let a bit of blood fall on the white meat of the fruit.
Blood.
And a piece of herself. As if the blood weren't enough. But blood doesn't burn.
She pulls her uncut hair over her shoulder and cuts a bit off without cleaning the knife first. It goes into the bowl, on top of the blood.
A piece of yourself.
It's a poor offering. But she doesn't have the sword she took from the Third Party soldier. The one that is for the boy who won't come. She doesn't have any personal items on her. Not except her knives.
And Cato would want them to stay with her.
Clove looks up at Gregor, silent.
It's not enough. It needs something else. Something to scent it. But she doesn't know what, and she doesn't have anything anyway, so it will do.]
action:
At her look, he stoops and gathers some dry kindling he'd managed to...create, really, by keeping damp kindling under shelter all day. He collects it in one hand, then picks up a few pieces of cinnamon bark and holds them out to her wordlessly. It's all he has left of the makings of his own offerings.]
action:
She takes it, puts it in the bowl with the dry kindling and then... gets up briefly to find leaves. Green leaves. She wrings them out as best she can. They might not burn well, but they'll smoke.
Smoke to burn her eyes. To excuse any tears that fall.
Plenty of smoke.]
action:
action:
Blood and apple and cinnamon and leaves and the faint trail of smoke.
The fire that's trying to catch.
She closes her eyes, her breath steady for now.
...She doesn't seem to even think about the flickering match, her hunched position, and the ponytail dangling over her shoulder, dangerously close to becoming its own kindling.]
action:
action:
Some of the kindling is catching now, and the smells are more telling. Especially the blood. But maybe that's partly her hand. And her mind.]
We bury our dead. Where I'm from. [It doesn't matter. He doesn't care. She isn't even telling him.] I never got to go to his.
action:
We bury ours, too. Usually we burn these offerings at the graves. But there wasn't anything left of either of my parents to bury.
action:
She thinks of Glimmer, her face swelling. The brief glimpse she saw before she bolted, headed for water.
Or the tributes who stepped off the pedestal too soon.
Or the accidents...
She nods.]
I'm sorry.
[It is what it is-- words of consolation. Without any real meaning behind them. Not a complete lack of empathy, no, but the sound of someone used to violence and death. Of having to say those words often.
They aren't insincere. But they aren't passionate.]
action:
So am I. I hope your friend can see your gesture.
action:
But he was there for me.
I wasn't there for him. This... is for me. I know it is.
action:
Funerals always are. For the living, not the dead.
action:
[What could have been doesn't matter, but the fire's caught properly, the smoke stinging her eyes. There are tears falling, but she can excuse it as the burning.
She's not crying. Not for Cato. Not for herself. It's just smoke in her eyes.]
I screwed it up.
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