systemcritical | [OPEN] funeral: humankind is united today

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[OPEN] funeral: humankind is united today

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.

Threaded | Flat

The ceremonies are coming to a conclusion when there is a ripple of unease detectable in one section of the vast Temple.

Having stayed for the speech, Brutus is on his way out. He is a tall man, prone to wearing military cuts of clothing rather than the traditional, floatier robes of the typical politician, prone also to staring straight ahead to cut his path, even through the milling crowds. Two aides that double as security trail after him, and two more ahead, and they are looking around. And they are noticing the harder stares being given Brutus from the public as they go.

It would be good to walk faster.

Suddenly, a break of motion. The woman that emerges to interrupt his path is going grey at her temples, and there is a greyer quality to her face, sick with grief. She lunges, her hands open, to land her palms on his chest in a sudden shove.

Immediately, one of the aides springs in to grab her by the arm, hauling her backwards, pushing her back into the crowd, but she's made her mark -- her dark hands are covered in vibrant red, a powdered dye, and it is stamped bright and vivid on the green-grey of Brutus' jacket and shirt.

"What did you do!" is shrill from the woman, calling more attention. "Tell me! Tell us! How dare you--"

One of his aides goes to usher Brutus faster along the path set to leave, but it doesn't have any effect. Shoved into the crowd and the crowd surges back, they seem to collectively agree to block his path in a sudden walling of people, and Brutus himself stops as steady as a Temple stalagmite, his countenance grave and unyielding after a glance down at the smearing red.

Edited 2015-04-03 03:17 (UTC)

[Tavern]

Just leave me out there.

[ Metzger is drinking. ]

In a thousand years an archaeologist can find my skeleton squatting over an oil drum and have something to talk about.

[ He has one boot kicked up into the chair to his right, slouched back, reserving the space for leg room. It’s not very respectful, but he has more pressing concerns. Namely, getting the smell of human barbecue out of his nose and slipping the council, among other interested parties.

The absence of any red in his wardrobe is (no doubt) a strategic decision. ]

[After the Ceremony]

[ Visible near the fore throughout most of the funeral proceedings, Metzger has since vanished into a recessed cavern on the fringes of its disassembly like a little bat. He’s decked out in what passes for military dress in Zion, burgundy and black, with his hand cupped over the cherry of a lit cigarette to mask the glow.

A sharp eye might’ve caught him headed that direction, cutting against the flow of traffic after closing remarks from the council.

Elsewhere, there’s a ripple of tension in the ranks of the mourning, and he looks on from afar, just interested enough to stay exactly where he is: out of sight and out of mind. ]

Grief is an ugly, important thing. Natasha values it in the same way she values memory: she understands its purpose, it's transience, and the fact that her experience with it is different to most people. Patriotism, on the other hand, is more dangerous (she loves Steve dearly but she will always call the other side of that coin.) Natasha watches for it with a canny eye, still trying to understand why these men and women died.

When she's not making careful conversation with people from all over Zion — mechanics, children, political aides — she joins in the preparations. Most of the tasks are new to her, but she's patient and curious, a good listener and a fast learner, and soon she knows how to knead bread quietly as others talk around her, and which way to place the flowers into the intricate and colorful net. She works like a bird, with bright eyes and quick movement, her hair a guttered flame crested on her head, her woolen sweater too loose at the neck and too long at the wrists, plugs visible in a line at the top of her spine. She wears a black band at her wrist, and introduces herself as Widow.

Later, she attends the funeral as a stranger. Her clothes have a military cut and crispness, and the scarce visible skin is nearly entirely inked in henna patterns. straight black hair falls to her cheekbones, and her cheekbones are heavily bronzed, her eyes lined and smudged in smoky browns. Even the way she holds herself and moves is different, older and far more indelicate. But still, those who know her will still look into her face and see Natasha looking back coolly.

((feel free to get in touch if you want to orchestrate a specific incident or meeting, and i can write a starter with more specificity.))

during preparations;

These are not his people, and this is not his grief. Fenris lingers around the work tables, observes the bright flowers being threaded by so many small, eager hands. He surveys the things gathered for the ritual meal; occasionally someone asks him to carry a cask of wine or bring over a sack of beads, and he does, without question.

The atmosphere is somber, muted, and although he knows few names in Zion, he will not behave as though nothing has happened. For the past several weeks, he's melded well enough into the anonymous bustle of the city. But the tone, the pace -- it's different now. It's focused. Fenris can't relate to the particulars, but loss is universal. He will acknowledge it.

He could pitch in more directly, perhaps, but that doesn't feel right, either. He's a stranger here, and sitting down at the tables would seem an intrusion.

Instead, he stands awkwardly, daily, by the sand mandala. He watches it grow, and he says nothing. Silence is the only offering he has.

speech/dirge;

Fenris doesn't have much in the way of proper attire. He wears simple, dark clothing: a black shirt, black pants, and a thick red sash around his waist. He keeps to the back of the crowds, and does his best not to make eye contact with anyone. The speech flows through him, incomprehensible, meaningless. Fenris doesn't think of himself as human, though his body says differently. He doesn't feel any especial sense of unity, either, and he can tell that he isn't alone.

Fenris is sensitive to the subtleties of his environment. He manages to keep himself in place, to look forward, to maintain the position of his feet. But he notices a thread of unrest among some of the gathered, something that goes outside of mourning and into anger. Fenris doesn't know why. He hasn't been here long enough to fully understand the politics of the city. He wonders about it, but now isn't the place or time.

When the speech ends, Fenris starts to file out with the rest, but then slips away and hangs back. Listens. Watches. Misses his old body. He had such good ears.

[The speech is going to start soon. Tony is kind of weird about being serious in public, especially when people have tragically died (and abandoned children, his uncontrollable rage-monster problems, what if he cost Rhodey his job or something someday, etc.), so he wasn't planning on being here really. But after the last drop-off he made to the Temple was of a couple of cute girls carrying bread, he thought. well.

Might as well see what all the fuss is about.

It's not like Coulson, exactly, but the minute he thinks the thought he realizes how much it is, and it makes him uncomfortable. He stands underneath a hundred stalactites, watches as they start to carry in the flowers. So many flowers, represented by every imaginable color. Whole blankets made of flowers.] The world ended, [he says aloud, not hearing the other man come up in the crowd of people bearing wine.] The world ended and we have a hundred different shades of tulip.

Hell.

( milagros had contributed to the preparations in her own time, and in the practical way she preferred; she is not an artist, to handmake icons, and there are memories tied up in the weaving of flowers that she doesn't choose this time to break open. not because they are unwelcome, or because she would deny them - but because this loss stands as it is. the dead and those rumoured to be responsible for their deaths are not so unknown to her, after three years here and the bulk of that time given over to the zdg; she doesn't need to be reminded of past pains to feel this one acutely.

so she had left the flowers and her memories to the side, and brought out soups, bread, and sliced fruit desserts to contribute, and will linger afterwards to share that meal, and speak quietly with others that do. there's no shortage of conversational topics, although some of them might not be entirely fitting.

she is militarily dressed when she attends the funeral, her hair pulled severely from her face and falling down her back in one tight, high braid; she clasps her hands behind herself and remains neutrally impassive through the speech. less so when brutus is intercepted, but she observes only for a moment, committing to memory some of the faces involved, moves with more purpose in another direction before her own lingering can become marked.

old habits die hard. )

Edited 2015-04-05 10:33 (UTC)

Jay is watching the sand mandala as it's being built, standing a little too close to the edge. His eyes dart around, as though he's looking for something in the patterns, some particular symbol, but his expression is drawn and tired and a little hopeless. A few times, he stops one of the people working on the mandala to ask them whispered questions in a pleading tone that's rather unlike his usual manner of speaking.

He's exhausted. He hasn't slept well and the final dream of the night still lingers in his memory - the gas lamps of Svet-Dmitring, the smog above the city, the whisper of a soot-spirit in a blind alleyway - and it makes him restless and fraught and homesick. Eventually, he stops his questioning and turns away from the mandala, face hidden in his hands.

"Bugger all this for a lark," he says, loudly enough to not be private, but not aimed at anyone in particular.

Threaded | Flat

BRUTUS ♞ TEMPLE; OTA.

Metzger - OTA

NATASHA ROMANOFF / OTA

fenris; ota

closed to dorian who poops gold;

mila, callsign miracle, open

CLOSED TO HAWKE