Ashes to Ashes

[livrose 1594]

Ashes to Ashes

 

Spoiler

a little late to the game.. but i thought id post it anyway! its not a pk

 

 

It was already early evening when Emma set foot out of Karosgrad’s gates.

 

The sun had cast a warmer gaze onto the Kingdom for weeks now, and today was no different. Metal whined as the gate clanged shut behind her, and she glanced rightwards, out towards the sprawling Haeseni farms. Pin-sized men worked in their pastures and fields, still bowed over to sow their crops. It was the end of the planting season. Soon they would return to their homesteads, to the clamour of ordinary life, to wives and children, and send their prayers to Godani for a bountiful harvest later in the year. 

 

She certainly did not envy their labour in this weather.

 

Few clouds obscured the sky that she peeked at through boughs of evergreens. Emma leant on a cane… his cane, and it accompanied each of her steps. With every click it made, resounding against the stone underfoot, she found some solace. It was as if another remained in stride beside her.

 

Walks had the capacity to stretch time into a translucent film. Perhaps that was why she had taken to them, so. They punctuated her days with steady steps: the crunching of gravel, the scuffing of heels, soft trampling of overgrowth. More importantly, they took her away from Karosgrad: from the pitying looks of passing courtiers, murmured condolences, and the palace which now seemed so stifling. 

 

By the time she paused at the crest of a hill, one peppered with flowers half in bloom, the summer sun hung low in the sky, heavy with sleep. She squinted up - by her estimations, she couldn’t have been far from Jerovitz. Rays of sunlight dappled the ground beneath in a hazy patchwork, as the air grew thick with chirping and buzzing from all manner of insects. A low soothing hum, spurred by the warmth of early summer, surrounded the lone woman as she caught her breath. 

 

It was as if the evening had sucked in a last gulp of air and stilled, fearful of her intrusion into its serenity. The wind dropped to almost nothing, and the silk layers of her skirt fell back into place.

 

Only there in that clearing did she let the smile slowly droop from her expression. Years of muscle memory and an infectious habit of laughing had created deep smile lines in her cheeks. She slowly rubbed at them, smoothing out the aches. It was a Queen’s smile, she’d been told. One of tenderness, of understanding, concentrated with a warmth that made the receiver feel as though her attentions were spotlighted upon solely them - if only for a moment. She wore it from noon to night, sometimes. An accessory; like her favourite earrings, or headscarf. She was not truly Emma without it. 

 

But in solitude, in quiet, where the gentle afternoon faded into night; where birdsong chimed and the day mellowed, she let it fall. Emma tilted her head up a little, towards darkening skies, and inhaled a whoosh of air through her nose. 

 

In truth, the last few weeks afforded her time to think. Too much time, perhaps, as the ghosts of her past re emerged into her consciousness. She had thought of her steady mother, of the father she had yearned to truly know. Jan, with his unshaven chin and boisterous laughter, her protector and confidant. Oh! How she regretted not sending him that letter. Her sisters, all of them scattered across Almaris. Kaustantin was long-settled on his remote cabbage farm. She tried to imagine Eleanora, then Petra’s face, picturing her dearest friends as standing before her, arm-in-arm. Diana, Adalia, Johann, Ana, Henrietta, Konstanz, Andrik, Marus, Marie, and Adrianna joined them. Names and faces swam across her vision, so many more than she could list. Edvard. Josef. Sigismund.

 

And now Eirik was leaving, too. Haeseni generations shift with a snap of a finger… She could picture him, standing arms-crossed by Majid, wearing his usual pensive frown. …And suddenly, we are no longer needed. 

 

Emma couldn’t bring herself to disrupt the wind as it swirled drowsily around her, and voice this loneliness aloud. Speaking it almost made it seem too real. For a moment, she had considered going with him. But then her children, her grandchildren, soon replaced those thoughts. She wanted to see Karl settle upon the throne, continuing his father’s legacy. So she would not leave - not yet. 

 

She laid down the cane. In its place, her hands sought to clasp the urn. It was a simple pot; clay, with no grand embellishments or gold edges. No one could have known the remains of a King lay inside. All are equal in death. Someone had said that to a girl-ish version of her, once. She straightened up, weighing the pot in both hands. Now, what to do… just dumping it seemed a little crass. So she cleared her throat, and on the quiet hill, her quiet words rang out.

 

“It’s a little disconcerting that the whole of you fits in this pot.” A strained laugh broke from her lips, and she winced at her choiceful first words, just in case someone was listening. “Uh.. szam. What I… what I mean to say, is that I cannot quite believe you’re not…”

 

Emma trailed off. For a long moment, she gazed at the urn, trying to muster up the right words. These, somehow, felt more pertinent, more important, than before.

 

“I wish you’d have told me. I wish… for so many things.” She fiddled with the lid of the urn, letting the silence settle once more before she continued. 

 

“Godani, we both know, has his limits. Even he does not keep his oaths. I suppose you’ll know him by now…” The idea amused her. God and Sigismund finally in the same place.  “He certainly has much to answer for.” 

 

The Queen-Mother narrowed her eyes at the urn. “Any sign that he’s truly there would be appreciated. A… a rustle of a branch, or snowfall in summer, or- a little bird, swooping down now.” She paused, expecting some magical act to make itself apparent. Nothing. The only answer came in the form of squawking birds flying overhead.

 

She sighed, lowering the container. Her gaze snagged on a flower just by her left foot.

 

“If you were here, I’d give you a whack for breaking your promise.” She admitted quietly. A series of emotions flickered across her expression as she murmured those weighted words. Anger, chiefly, soon dissolved into pensive rumination. All of the frustration she’d kept balled up, which pressed down on her chest in a tight knot, had been slowly unravelled on her walks. She imagined it to be like a long yarn string, trailing behind her - and when she wished to turn about, she did not attempt to gather it back into herself… all the hurt, and frustration, but allowed it to guide her home. With that cavity opening up, came space for acceptance… and eventually, forgiveness. 

 

“I…am trying to understand, love.”

 

“As I see it,” she continued, more matter-of-factly. “Hosting resentment will only leave it to fester and spoil happier memories. So… I embark on a journey of forgiveness - you know me, I could never hold a grudge for very long.”

 

She had, perhaps selfishly, wanted these last few moments with Sigismund alone. To scatter his ashes to the wind, to say a few, last, words. For good measure - as Emma wasn’t one to take chances - she muttered a quick prayer. 

 

As the evening darkened still, and a blanket of mist seeped over the meadow, the clearing seemed to Emma as though the air itself shifted, pregnant with… with a sense of something about to happen. Her sister had always gushed about places of intersection, pockets in time, where spirits intertwined with the earthly and mortal once more. She half-expected spectral figures to emerge from trees, to convene among the grassy centre. Tendrils of mist crept closer, and with its eerie beauty, she could almost hear the lilting echoes of their last conversation:

 

It is the duty of the living to remember the dead. 

 

Emma had always loved stories. Princesses, knights, gallant deeds and heroism, faraway worlds of magic and gaiety. History books and essays would record the life of Sigismund III, certainly. His actions and decisions would be poured over by historians for years to come. But Sigismund Karl… Emma found her gaze returned to the urn. The stories deemed too trivial for academic texts she would tell to little Valdemar, to Andrei and Georg. 

 

She would paint a picture of the red-clay Karosgrad of their childhood, and the vibrant sun which sunk behind its walls. She would show them how the glowing orb threw the last of its rays over the tiled roofs, how it lit the harbour’s still waters, or melted dripping snow off the trees. She would show them all which she had loved. Old passages of the city, haunts and hidden spots. The Karosgrad they had built, had lived and served for. The Karosgrad that would come into fruition in Karl’s prosperous reign.

 

That thought, and the reminder that in the passing of one generation another was ushered in, comforted her.

 

She smiled down at the little pot. It was a sad, wavering smile. “Tell them I love them for me. Just… just hold them. Until I see you all again. There are things to sort here, yet.” 

 

The sun had, in its descent, brushed the sky with hues of pinks and purple. It must have been the prettiest evening Emma had seen in a while. With a last exhale, she tipped the urn… and the wind picked up. It was then that a gust blew across the green expanse, lifting the ashes up higher, and farther away. 

 

Emma didn’t dare move. A wobbly smile remained long after the cloud of ash had faded into obscurity. She couldn’t help it - seeing him light as air, carried up into the unclouded sky. 

 

No fears, no troubles, could weigh him down now. 

[sarahbarah 5037]

Petra Emma awaited one of the many missing pieces of her family to join her above in the Seven Skies.

 

Her heart ached for one of her dearest friends and family members, longing for completion, for the fullness that she had in life.

[Xarkly 12922]

 

The ashes marked the wind in grey swirls as they drifted up and up, flashing gold in the setting sun.

 

Until the end, he had had only one regret.

 

But that much, Emma knew.

[Mady 3091]

With a somber expression, Annika watched as Emma released her sons ashes, setting his soul free at last. “‘Tis a burden most women bare. You will see him again soon, sweet girl.” Memories would flood the late queens mind of a little girl with a limp who always boasted about her crabbing expeditions. Such memories left a smile upon her lips as they are certainly memories to treasure. 

[CopOwl 1668]

Adrianna Darkwood peers down to her friend and mentor from ... Somewhere inbetween. "I'm sorry fur leaving du, Emma.." She murmurs quietly as she bows her head in silent shame and regret...

[zuziee 3251]

Quietly tracing her fingers over the hard leather cover of her annotated prayer book, Reverend Mother Maya turned her head to the front of the church. In the last year, the once uncomfortable wooden pews had become softer than her bed and she hadn’t spoken a word to anyone but Amadea, even then it was only about chess. She couldn’t bare looking at Karl or Sergei. She couldn’t bring herself to forgive. She knew she’d have to soon. 

 

However, for now she reminisced. Her fingers opened the prayer book to the last oath she gave, one to her father. 

[crazedpudding 2170]

"Ea could niet stop him, Mamej... Yam szam... Yam so szam..." These were the words Klara Elizaveta repeated daily to herself, and no matter how much her mother told her it wasn't her fault that she couldn't stop that duel, it would never stop Klara from repenting.

 

Eleanora Amador smiled down at her beloved friend. "We know, Emma. We know. Ea am sorry Ea had to leave vy so soon, mea friend. Ea am sorry."