All of these lines, across my face.
The tenth of Cylus.
This trial marked the "Sea of Light" festival across Scalvoris. This arc it was a quiet, sombre affair most everywhere, but Vega didn't know or care. All she knew about in this moment was that her father had died and, as his child, it was her job to put him to rest.
She sat, on the edge of their bed in the Wanderlust - the boat she and Arlo had bought together, so long ago it seemed. She'd sat there many times, of course, but she remembered the time she'd been in this bed, her legs shattered and broken, her mind frantic with worry. Arlo had pushed her, forcing her to sit up on her own, to not give in. She hadn't needed him to do that, then, she considered, but it had helped. Because he made her angry and that anger gave her energy to move, to do. Which, of course, had been what he intended.
Her father, Vega knew, had been outside the door. Listening, supporting Arlo. Making sure that everyone was cared for. That was how her father had been, always. Vega looked up at the tiny mark in the ceiling, probably nothing more than the mark of a memory and not really there, but she saw it and it was where those stupid rings had hung and she thought about her husband. She hadn't needed him then, but he had helped enormously. When the fire-demon had taken control of her, and she'd gone up the mountains, Arlo had come. Looking down at her wrist, she glanced at the bracelet he'd had made for her, then rescued from the burnt out remains of the docks and re-made.
Breathing in, Vega swallowed and touched one finger to the slightly charred stone. "Where are you?" she whispered. "Don't you know I need you?"
But there was, of course, no answer. She needed him now, maybe more than she ever had, but the links they shared had stopped working and their son had celebrated his first birthtrial two full seasons ago. They had a daughter he knew nothing about and Joy had stopped mentioning him. Angrily, Vega wiped the back of her hand over her eyes and she stood up. There was no point to this, none at all and so she turned and walked out of the room they had once shared and made her way to her father's room.
Breathing in, she straightened her back and tensed her jaw as she reached out across what felt like a chasm to grasp the door handle. Her hand shook, she noticed and her long fingers curled around the handle and twisted it open. The room stood before her and Vega knew that it was like quicksand in there. A quicksand of grief and memories and pain, but a quicksand she had to wade through. And, like quicksand, she had to not fight it.
Fighting it just made it worse.
As she walked in she felt the hot sting of tears as she realised that this room would need to be stripped bare. The bedsheets and blankets were gone, of course, gathered up to help in the early trials of the snow, but there were his clothes hanging in the wardrobe, his pipe, sitting on the dresser. Remnants of his life, proof that he had lived. Tears burned at her eyes as they sought out the reason she had come here. His memory chest. It was something that they did in her clan - in quite a few, as far as she knew. Everyone had a chest, an ottoman that contained items of emotional significance to the individual. Kneeling down in front of it, Vega lifted the lid of it.
"Are you sure you don't want any help, Eva?"
It was Huw, her cousin, and she turned to look at him. His eyes shone with tears, also. After all her father was his uncle - his own father's twin brother. When Huw's father had died, her papa had lost his brother and he had taken in Huw, Shon and Reese as his own children. They had grown up together her and him and his brothers. Things had not always been easy between them, but as they got older things got better and he was one of a very few people - now only three - who had known her all her life.
Her instinct was to say no, no she didn't want or need help, but she looked at his eyes and she nodded. "You're welcome here. You were his son in all the ways what mattered." Huw's face contorted slightly and he made his way in to the room and knelt next to her. He looked stricken, Vega thought. Hopeless. She looked down, lifting the fabric which covered the contents of the ottoman.
"Will you wrap him in this?" Huw asked, reaching to touch the fabric. Vega nodded. "We will," she said. There was a subtle difference in her answer to his words, and they both noted it. Huw smiled at her. "Thank you, Eva," he said and then did not speak of it again.
The cousins both turned to look at the contents of Jo'qan Leinnox's memory box. There, sitting on the top of it was a folded letter, the outside of which had one single word, written in her father's handwriting.
"Eva"
