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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?
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.]
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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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Because it has to be real. She has to make herself remember that it's real. What happened to her-- and, ultimately, to Cato-- is her own fault. She'd strayed too far from his protection, gotten too blood-thirsty, thought too much about giving a show.
She'd seen how different it could have been if she'd just kept closer to him.]
He was pretty much my only friend. And I got him killed.
[Detached, like she's talking about one of the Games she watched, years ago. One that doesn't affect her life.]
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How did you do it?
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Usually it's just one. One of twenty-four walks out alive. This year... They were going to let two of us go home. As long as we'd come from the same District.
Cato and I were so close. But I got cocky. And I got us killed.
[Apples. Blood. Blades.]
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