following this
After they left the ship, Vega and Huw had parted ways. "You'll make sure that the children are taken care of?", she said and Huw nodded. "You know you don't have to do this alone, Eva?" he said and Vega looked at him and smiled but shook her head, firmly. "I do, Huw. I do have to do this alone." Huw looked at her and his lips pursed tightly together. Vega knew her cousin well and she met his gaze. "You may be right. But Arlo isn't here so we won't know, will we?" Huw's expression softened. "It isn't fair that you know what I'm thinking you know." Vega gave a slight shrug and said, softly. "You're like an open book, Huw. Full of pictures." He mock-frowned at her and then, squeezing her arm, the cousins parted ways.
Vega moved over to her father's tent. There, his body was laid out on a table. He was laying on heavy fabric which was folded and sewn to take long poles either side. Those would be slid into the holes in the fabric and that would be how they carried him.
But, before that, she had to prepare him. She had, in her hands, some fabric and a rope from her father's cabin aboard the Wanderlust. "Hello, Papa," Vega said quietly. "I've got what we need. It's jus' me an' you now, so we can get you ready." She took the rope, first and she gently and carefully wound it round her father's hands. "This is the rope what wrapped around your hand an' mama's hand, on the day you got married." she said. "You hold on to that, Papa." Her voice cracked and shook, but she shed no tears. Doing this right was the last thing she could do for her father, and she would not allow herself to cry.
Next was the fabric she had brought from his memory chest. "This is the fabric given to you at your birth," she said. First, she kissed him softly on the forehead, then she lay the square over his face. "It's so that those who've passed an' migh' not recognise you will know it's you who's there. The rope will lead you to Mama, Papa, an' this will lead your brother to you. "
Biqaj traditions tended towards broad concepts and then clans each had their own interpretations. In their clan, there was a simple tradition, and so Vega wrapped him in the warm blanket which he lay on and then she waited. Sitting next to him, Vega spoke and sang the whole time, making sure that it was never silent. That was a strange superstition among her people, not to be silent in the presence of death.
After a few moments, her cousins arrived. Huw carried the two long poles, Reese and Shon walked in behind their brother. Vega continued to sing as the boys inserted the poles and then they moved and stood, one at each corner.
The plan was that the four of them would go to the shoreline where they would transfer her father's body to the raft and set it out to the ocean. When it was a distance away, they would fire a flaming arrow to it. Vega was ready for that, she knew what had to happen and that was fine.
"One, two, three... lift." Vega said and the four of them lifted her father's body up. Vega stood next to Huw, the two of them at her father's head and they interlocked their arms around each other's shoulders. With the outside hand, she held the pole and the three men did the same. Then, Vega's voice once again lifted in song. She sang with an awareness that she needed to project that sound and so made sure to breathe through her diaphragm, no matter how emotional she felt. Again, the song was meaningful, because it was a song her father liked; one that reminded him of her mother.
Singing, she stepped out of the tent in unison step with Huw and the twins and there, Vega's voice shook and for a moment she stopped.
She'd been expecting it to be just them. Just them in a small, private ceremony but as she looked out with eyes which now swam with tears, there was everyone. Every member of Sweetsong was there and they lined the small distance between the tent and the shore. Every one of them held a candle, a light in the darkness. Vega looked up and there, in the sky, she saw a star which she'd never seen before. "Look, Papa," she whispered as tears fell. "Look at that star. It's jus' for you that is."
The trail of lights led down to the shore. Vega breathed in and as they started to walk again, she lifted her voice once more in the song. Ahead of them was the shoreline and she saw the many, many lanterns, as traditional for this trial but which, today, would join her father on his final journey, lighting the way like stars in the darkness. She didn't know what to do, so she stepped forward, one foot in front of another and she looked around in the hope that someone might be stepping forward to direct things, because she was fairly sure that she couldn't.
