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“Papa?”
“Yes, Angelina?”
“Why’s mama so sad?” Angelina held a stuffed animal, some sort of long tailed creature. She wore her usual purple, but with black sleeves, and a big necklace made of some type of rock she’d never seen before. The long haired purple girl called it ‘obsidian’. She also wore a slightly tired expression. It was near night, and papa had woken her up from a nap for something called a ‘funeral’. She looked up at her father.
“Well…” Her father, Bow, spoke apprehensively, before crouching down to pick the 5 year old up. “You know how you have a mama and a papa, right?”
“Yeah.” She nodded.
“Well, your mama had a mama and a papa too.” He said. “And she loved them very much.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Why’d you say loved? Did they do bad?”
“No.” he said. “But now they’re gone.”
“Gone?” She asked. “But where’d they go?”
“Well, I…” He sighed. No way over it, no way around it, he thought, gotta go through it.
“Sometimes, people die.” Bow said. “It means you go away, and never come back. It’s like...falling asleep forever.”
“Mama’s not gonna do that is she?” Angelina’s eyes shot wide open, and she looked fearful.
“No, no, sweetie.” Bow said. “Mama’s just fine. But...her dad, grandpa? He just died.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “So she’s sad?”
“Very sad.” Bow was never incredibly attached to Micah. The death hit him more in the vein of seeing his wife so torn about it. Unlike little Angelina, he knew that the death of Glimmer’s mother hurt her. Micah was almost all she had left, and now he was gone, too, without her even getting to say goodbye. This wasn’t a big lead in; he never spent a day in hospice, or even palliative care. He had a heart attack. He just...didn’t wake up one morning.
On the bright side, it was peaceful. Hardly getting sucked into a portal, although Bow would never, ever say that in front of Glimmer’s face.
“So we’ll never see grandpa again?”
“I...no.” He sighed. “We’ll never see him again.”
“What happened to him?” Angelina asked, inquisitively, in that way that children can so often be when faced with such a new concept.
“It was a heart attack. His heart kind of...stopped beating.” Okay, not exactly that, but clots were hard to explain to a kid. Still, Bow was never one to dance around this sort of thing. Being raised by his parents, he never got any sugar coated explanations. Death was death. No “passing away” or “in a better place”.
“Can that happen t’me!?” Angelina was scared again.
“No, it doesn’t normally happen to people your age. You’re gonna be fine. I promise.” Bow smiled, and kissed her forehead. He took her towards the hall where the ceremony was being held.
“I liked grandpa.”
“I liked him too.”
“I liked his stories.” Angelina said. She giggled a bit. “He was so funny!” She looked straight ahead. “I’ll never see him again.” She teared up a little. “Never…?”
“Never again.” Bow spoke. “He’s gone.” Bow sighed. “That’s what death is.”
“Who dies?”
“Hmm?”
“Who dies?”
“Everyone, someday.”
“Oh.” Angelina looked down, glumly. She shivered a bit, a draft pouring in from an open window. “Should I be...more sad?”
“What do you mean?”
“Mama cried a whole lot.”
“You didn’t know him like mama did.” Bow said. “What’s important is that you’re able to say how you feel. It doesn’t matter how you react. We all have different reactions to death. What matters is that you know what’s going on.”
“Okay.”
“Do be quiet during the ceremony, though, okay?”
“Okay, papa.”
“I love you, Angelina. I love you so, so much.” He hugged her a bit tighter.
“I love you too, papa.” She said. “Don’t die yet.”
“I promise.” He smiled.
Glimmer stood in the circle around the body. The circle was made up, really, of only 4 people. The living offspring, right across from the high priestess, then a celebrant, then a grave digger across from him, who helped to lower the boy into the grave. The body was wrapped in sheets, and only exposed at the head, a rolled up towel under the chin to keep the mouth from hanging open. It lay in a wicker coffin.
“...as we offer your soul to the great deities, may your soul be guided by Ilthos to the next realm, may Akiton solidify your bones to the earth, and may Pithonae sing songs of you, so we may delight in those songs forever.”
Glimmer spoke at the end of each verse from the holy book on this subject, the Cahen, with the now too familiar phrase “Deities, answer our request.”
She was clearly choking up. Her cheeks were wet with tears, and even though she was holding herself together, it was evident in how she had to fight the words out of her throat that she was ready to just...sob. Again and again.
She never got to say goodbye.
Never.
When her mother died, all Angella saw of her was her going some place with fucking Shadow Weaver, a woman so evil that Glimmer would have personally executed her had a beast not beaten her to it. She never got to say sorry, or goodbye, or even plead for her to stay. She didn’t get any of that.
She never got to say goodbye to Micah, either. Standing next to a coffin made of wicker and some nice flowers on a cold, overcast evening wasn’t her idea of saying goodbye. She wanted to help him, at least. She wanted to be there for him when it happened. She certainly didn’t want him to die while he was in bed and while she hadn’t seen him for a week due to business. She was so angry. She was furious at herself. How dare she not be there to say goodbye? That was her fault, not theirs! How dare she even attend this!? What right did she have to be here? Any privilege she had to do that was squandered ages ago, she-
“Would the offspring of the deceased say a few words?”
“...” Glimmer had something prepared. It was long, sure, but it was...prepared. She had it memorized and everything.
She couldn’t get it out.
“...I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” She sniffled and just broke down, dropping to her knees. She didn’t drop onto the coffin, she was too proper for that, but it was obvious she was emotional. Her cries were loud, and they sounded angered as much as they did sad. The celebrant reached over, and helped her back on her feet.
“Are you going to be okay for the rest of the ceremony?” He whispered.
“Yes, I’ll be fine…” She nodded and collected herself very quickly. The ceremony continued.
“Akiton, take the offering of Micah’s bones, that you may use them to further enrich the tapestry of Etheria.” The coffin was lowered into the plot, at a headstone in the garden. He was next to the ceremonial plot given to Angella.
The quiet shuffle of people through the open hall was music to the ears of Glimmer. She was done. She didn’t have to be in front of anyone. She was horribly embarrassed.
“Glimmer?” Bow was standing behind her, and Angelina held onto the end of his jacket.
“Bow…” She rushed to his arms and just let herself collapse into him. He held her tightly, kissing her forehead and looking down at her. She spoke.
“You don’t think that was too much?”
“Too much?”
“A queen should be stronger than to break down at a funeral like that.” Glimmer said.
“Papa says we all got different re-....react…” Angelina sounded it out, “Re-ac-tions to it.”
Glimmer smiled, and leaned over to hug Angelina. “I know. And I know this is new to you, but...I’ve seen a lot of it.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” She wiped tears from her own eyes.
“You shoulnd...sh...shouldn’t feel bad about crying mama.” Angelina kissed her mother’s cheek. Glimmer hugged her tight, and kissed Angelina’s cheek, too.
“I know, Angelina. I know.”
“I love you mama. Sorry grandpa died.” Angelina said. She held out the stuffed animal. “Snug’s sorry, too.”
Glimmer smiled a bit. “Thank you, Angelina. And thank you, Snug.” She scritched at the stuffed animal’s nose.
“I’m going to go rest a bit now, okay?” Glimmer ruffled Angelina’s hair, and kissed bow softly. She walked off to her room without another word.
“Is mama gonna be okay?” Angelina asked.
“She’ll be alright. This is really hard for her.” Bow held Angelina’s hand. “Let’s get something to eat, okay?”
“Glimmer?” Bow poked his head into her room, having tucked Angelina into bed. Glimmer was dressed for sleeping, looking out at the dim lights of the palace district below. Snow was beginning to fall.
“Glimmer, love, did you eat dinner?” Bow asked, walking closer.
She didn’t turn to face him.
“Glimmer?”
“I won’t be there when you die.”
“I...beg your pardon?”
“I wasn’t there for mom and I wasn’t there for dad.” She spoke. Her voice was shaky and her breaths were short, and shallow. “It’s like I’m fated for this.” She said. “I’m fucking fated to never be there when someone I love dies.”
“Glimmer, I-”
She turned around, her eyes red and puffy, her face covered in tears, and her expression one of anger, anguish, and defeat .
“I’m not good enough….i-if I can’t be there for my own father, Bow, how can I be there for anyone else?”
“Glimmer.” Bow kicked off his boots on the way to her, and held her as tight as he possibly could. “You have had awful, awful luck with this. But it was just that. Luck. You aren’t fated for that, it’s not your destiny to be absent.”
“Bow…” She kissed him, and pulled away. “I need you to know I’m so so so sorry if I don’t get to you in time to say goodbye if something happens.”
“I assumed you would be.” He rubbed her back. “I don’t know if you’ll be there for it. I can’t know. No one can.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “But I know you love me, and I know you would be there for me if you could.” He stood. “I’m gonna change for bed.” He walked over to the closet, and he heard the sheets rustling, and Glimmer getting under the covers. She used magic to turn the lights out.
Bow walked to bed, and nestled into it. He got his arm under Glimmer. She smiled to herself, facing away from him.
“Please don’t let go.”
“I won’t.”
“I love you, Bow.”
“I love you, too.” Bow rubbed her side. “You’ve been doing so much grieving.”
“All my life, it feels like.” She turned over, to face him, moving in bed so her head was closer to his. “It’s worse when you can’t grieve the way you want to.”
“How do you want to grieve?” Bow asked.
“...” Glimmer thought for a moment. “I just want to be able to say goodbye and hear them say goodbye back.” She said. “I want to take time to grieve. But when mom died we were in the middle of a war, and right now I have that trade deal with the hillsca-”
“Let me and Finara deal with that.”
“Bow, no.”
“Glimmer, you need time to grieve, right?”
“I don’t have time to, I just told you.”
“You do now. I’ll run things for a while. As long as you need. You rest, and mourn however you need to.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” Bow ran a hand through her hair. “I want you to be able to recover from this. This has been hard on you. You deserve time.”
“Thank you, Bow.” She held onto him as tight as she could, and closed her eyes. She let her breaths become deep, and long. She started to drift to sleep. It’d been a hilly day for her, between thinking she could handle this, and suddenly not being able to, and then finally getting a bit of a break. She always felt an urge to keep going. But some things, you couldn’t just shovel through. Some things took time to deal with, and adjust to. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but Glimmer would get the hang of it.
And she knew her father would be watching as she learned, whether she could see him or not.