[OPEN] funeral: humankind is united today

[carnem]

CHARACTERS ▶ All
LOCATION ▶ Throughout Zion
SUMMARY ▶ In the wake of terrible news, Zion rallies around the fallen, drawing from traditions old and new, Real and otherwise.
WARNINGS ▶ PG-13 for language and indications of death and violence
NOTES ▶ Following the Return to Harbour plot (conclusion here), the city gathers to commemorate and say good-bye to the soldiers of the four ambushed ships. Political unease cannot get in the way of paying respects.

▶ Mourning in Zion

It takes three days to prepare for a funeral of this magnitude.

Of course, some may say that the Council spends those three days doing more than running the logistics behind incense and flower supplies. However, whatever other activities might have been involved, all that the people of Zion saw were to be expected: Kamadeva rallying the cooks and the florists, Xolotl reviewing the perimeter defenses despite that it had been done for Truce Week so recently, and the Morrigan calling meetings with the more powerful economic forces of the city to ensure the importance of the occasion was understood. The city will not be brought to a halt, but nor will the Council allow the grieving time to be interrupted by day-to-day bustle and commerce.

So it begins: three days.

PREPARATIONS ◀

For three days, Zionites take turns volunteering or even time away from their work.

The work tables are immense. Flower blankets, that will either fade or burn with crisp and potent sweetness, must be woven by teams of dozens. The spiritual practitioners of the Temples welcome all help in this, but it’s children especially who tend to come and join, running spools of bright thread back and forth and perched on higher stools as they fit new blooms into the growing lattice. Each of the dead will wear one.

Artists work with paints and whittles to create dozens of tiny icons: of beds and tables, luxuries to carry into the afterlife, to burn with those of the dead who are designated for cremation. Other donations are real enough: fruit reaped from the harvest, unleavened breads out in dishes, rolls of herbs, soups, kebobs, and wines. These will be eaten afterward-- the final meal to share.

In dozens of homes and throughout the bazaar, people are otherwise at work. They dip incense, draw pictures of memories drawn from sims, build candles, soak rosewater, tell stories and make songs.

A sand mandala flowers slowly by the entrance of the great cavern, expanding under the patient precision of studied hands. For this work, few are invited, but all are welcome to look at the vivid pattern. Symbols of major religions feature on contrasting fields-- not only the faiths of Earth-that-was, but even of some known only to Matrixes, an artistic decision that perhaps the Council and ZDG officially disagree with but nonetheless do nothing to prevent. Elaborate vegetation-- or is it circuitry?-- and a spiral of birds cavort through the space, and here or there, a pale young man looks through breaks in the vivid pattern. Neo.

SPEECH AND DIRGE ◀

It’s understandable, that when Councilor Brutus arrives for the final ceremony, he draws a few looks askance. He has brought four attendants with him, but the security is implied rather than looming a threat en force. After all, much of the Defense Grid is present and they are expected to behave accordingly, as if anyone living in Zion might be sick enough a soul to foul the funeral with dissent.

Most of the time, the bodies are burned at the same time. But there had been a few Muslims, Christians and other groups. Some of the flower blankets arrive empty, symbolic of a soldier who has since been buried.

It’s not difficult to recognize their families, standing at the fore of the massive gathering. Sometimes it’s a husband or a wife who cries hardest, but it is perhaps the worst to see the children who do not cry at all.

It is Councilor Aries who steps out into the stony platform. Chiron comes with her, Orion by his side. However, the men remain silent as she turns to address the crowd, this time for an event much more somber than the last. “Humankind is united today,” is the beginning of her speech. It has the ring of honesty to it, her face hard with grief, but there are murmurs as she speaks. Little doubt, some in the cavern would disagree, but few will put words to it-- at least, until after Aries has said her piece and the funeral songs fade.

The survivor known as 'Proxy' remains conspicuously absent.

Comments

[sfoils]

Wedge, for all of his distaste of formal occasions and the formality of dress that comes with them, bothered to dress less like a mechanic and more like a captain: no oil stains, brand new coveralls, topped with a mask of military solemnity.

He knows better than to start polemics in the middle of a funeral. For those who know him, this bout of gravity seems at odds with the man who has no problems cracking jokes and poking fun at the council. But for those who truly know him, it's no surprise. In his Matrix, he's attended enough funerals of his crew to be adamantly against nonsense during what's meant to be a respectful ceremony.

Which is why this little attempt at stonewalling Brutus annoys Wedge. The wailing woman, gaunt with grief, gets a pass because her grief is genuine. But Wedge doubts the rest of them have such an alibi. There's politics all over the place, it seems.

"Move," Wedge demands, jumping into the path out of nowhere. The advantages of being built like a pilot, compact, and easily weaving through the crowd. "I know no more than you all do, and I was there."

[carnem]

It's not improbable that the crowds might give slack to a pilot of the ZDG, especially someone who led a team into bringing back the bodies of the dead -- perhaps the bodies of their loved ones -- and at best, the line does not press in, uncertainty writ on the faces of those in front. But accusing stares fly by Wedge, over his head and past his shoulders, Brutus like a gravitational force of attention now that he's been marked.

The wailing woman is that stereotype -- mad with grief, emotional, perhaps even hysterical, but she is still sane, and she shakes off the hands of a younger man trying to still her by the shoulders.

"He knows," she declares, flinging a red hand wild in the Councillor's direction, addressing Wedge, dressing the aide trying to block her with an arm, address everyone staring at her. "He sent them!"

"You have something to say?" the young man at her arm says, directed at Wedge.

But now that things have lapsed for the conversation, some of the tension is easing. Gradually. Not so much that anyone can waltz through and leave, not enough that it won't suddenly spark up again if Brutus tries, but a temporary stale mate settles.