[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

[lostsoldier]

His gaze drops to his own hand. Too-smooth fingers curl in to the palm. Deucalion had said something similar not so long ago, with that same skepticism, but it's not the question of whether to believe Zion's propaganda that unsettles him.

"Not a lot left to leave," he manages. Not just in their Matrix, although it's true he doesn't have much to hang onto that isn't out here. But there's so little of him to begin with. There was a time he built his world out of instinct and muscle memory, a collection of skills he couldn't remember learning and reflexes he knew to trust.

What is he, if he leaves those behind too?

[ex_spins462]

She can't deny he has a point.

"Maybe it just means you don't have to worry about getting it all back," is the advice she gives, soft and musing, like they're talking about the weather. "You can go forward, instead. Use the space to build something new." Like the mind can be interior decorated.

How viable that is with Steve here, still calling him Bucky, she doesn't know. There are a lot of people from their Matrix in Zion, which is one of the things Natasha has struggled with in trying to reinvent herself, or at least create a solid enugh persona that it looks like compliance, for all intents and purposes.

[lostsoldier]

Build something new. The words seem to strike him, and quiet eyes find her again — her beneath all her disguises, building. It's a nice thought. Not so simple as it looks. Beneath his hood, he shakes his head.

"He pulled me out for a reason, too." Steve. The words are gentle, without judgment; that Steve went back for him at all is the kind of thing that makes his whole insides hurt like a bruise, but Steve went back for his friend — and doesn't he deserve that? To get his friend back?

[ex_spins462]

The way Natasha tilts her head is almost bird like, but she's not listening for anything but the intonation in his voice there, trying to figure him out even as she knows she probably can't. It's the most obvious she's been so far, with regards to any onlookers, peering at his shadowed face.

"I think Steve would want you to put yourself first," she says, because she knows Steve, knows how bad he'd feel if he'd simply replaced HYDRA in telling Bucky who to be. Adds, softer, but a little flip, "Whoever that turns out to be."