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“Come, you whom my god has blessed; inherit the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of this world.”
The man waits for just a moment, allowing the solitary silence to wash over as he unclasps his hands with an exhale to stare downward at the rather mossy and overgrown headstone below him. The letters and numbers barely even legible from under the accumulated lichen and other earthly grime that have made their home on the man’s granite grave.
“Alright,” Fundy says, his hands falling onto his knees. “Let’s get to work.”
Gravestone cleaning is an interesting process, one Fundy certainly didn’t see himself ever learning about, let alone routinely doing around the cemetery by Church Prime. But yet, here he was. Bent down with a trowel in hand as he dutifully moves the grass clinging to the edges of the headstone placed in the dirt below.
This headstone in particular is a bit unlucky, being placed directly in the grass means it’s more prone to overgrowth, but Fundy doesn’t mind the bit of extra work that comes with it if that’s what he wanted.
With overgrowth, Ivy family plants will need to be cut and die on their own before removal but luckily the majority of the growth is not in the ivy family, making Fundy’s life just a bit easier.
The fox sits back, wiping his arm across the sweat on his forehead. Giving a few quick sweeps with his hand to the unreadable tombstone below him.
And now, with most of the overgrowth being moved and the full grave sitting at his knees, the real cleaning process can begin.
It’s important to be respectful when cleaning, keeping your motions gentle, but firm enough to properly clean off the headstone. Fundy usually takes to saying a prayer before and after the cleaning, to ensure the gesture is reverent and true. As well as to give a general blessing to the deceased.
The first step is to wet the grave, simply taking a smaller hose and soaking the grave entirely. If the buildup is as bad as it is today, the second step is to take a plastic scraper to remove the lichen and moss- that way it won’t be rubbed back into the grave and cause staining.
With that out of the way, Fundy wipes a bit more newly accumulated sweat off his forehead before pouring water and oil-free dish soap onto a soft scrub brush and carefully, yet firmly, scrubbing the grave.
The fox can’t help but hum a soft tune, attempting to follow along to the birds chattering overhead. Whispering soft hymns to himself and whoever may be around to hear as he rubs circles up and down the headstone. Allowing the soap to cover all bits of the grave.
After almost ten minutes of scrubbing, he reaches over to grab a thin piece of wood. Giving out an exasperated sigh as he bends back down to pick the grime outside of the letters, slowly working so the date and name are actually discernable.
Finally, after another minute or so of picking he finally reaches over to the hose and douses the grave down. Watching as all the bits of grime and muck fall below,
Here Lies:
J. Schlatt
xxxx - 2020
“All that time and effort just for a guy like that huh,”
The sudden new voice cut through the silence like a sword through the neck, causing the Fundy to jolt upwards. Even causing a bit of a yelp to escape the fox as his neck whipped to the side to get a look at who snuck up on him.
And there, in a red cardigan, a wooden crown necklace donned on his neck, dull blonde hair and blue eyes to match; was Tommy.
“...” Fundy didn’t exactly know how to answer that, so the hybrid just gazed down at the headstone before looking back up and giving a shrug. “I guess so.”
Tommy stared back at him, Fundy being able to notice his eyes shifting from the freshly cleaned stone and then back to Fundy. An unsteady silence formulated between the two as the fox hybrid began cautiously packing his cleaning supplies together.
“You even cleaned the letters…” Tommy’s voice was quiet, a mixture of unease and intrigue. His confusion made sense, Fundy only got into Church Prime as a whole whilst Tommy and Fundy’s father were exiled so his unknownness to Fundy’s time as arch-bishop wasn’t exactly a mystery.
“Well I was Arch-Bishop during Manberg.” Tommy’s brow raised at the statement, his brain probably connecting the dots to why Fundy wore that particular outfit during the Red Festival, despite every other member donning suits. “Got into a lot of habits I never really broke.” he chuckled softly, fixing the collar of his black button up as Tommy continued to eye him silently.
Fundy finished placing his things together, giving another look at Tommy as the boy stared in thought, his mouth opening and closing with uncertainty as a question seemed to toss itself in the blonde’s head. Before he eventually found his confidence, and his sullen eyes locked right onto the fox knelt down just a bit away from him.
“Why do you clean his grave, Fundy?” The boy asked, his stance rigid and his arms crossed around his chest. His hands seemingly unable to stop fiddling with the wooden crown along his neck as he waited in uncomfortable silence for an answer.
Fundy stared back at him. His expression could only be described as a cacophony of unreadable emotion as he processed the question Tommy was asking him.
The fox looked down at the ground for a moment, the birds chirping halting to a sudden stop, the wind rustling the grass clinging to his knees as even the universe waited with bated breath for an answer.
Fundy stood up slowly, his tools in hand as he turned to finally face the boy across from him, a kind of confidence painted vibrantly across his face that Tommy’s truly never even seen before. For once, Fundy didn’t look like the kid that sat around coloring his uniform in crayons, or the child who decorated his room with poorly made drawings of him and his family or the kit that tried so hard to copy his fathers songs on his piano.
“If I can be honest with you Tommy,”
Fundy’s face morphed into a spiritless smile.
“I don’t think anyone would do it for me either.”
Tommy stared at the grave, his face drowsed in a new kind of bittersweet realization. But before he could process the words left haplessly in the air above them, Fundy cut him right off.
“I’m about to do the closing prayer.” He said, adjusting the tools in his hands, “If you want to stay you can, but it’s up to you.” The fox hybrid waited for no answer as he made his way back into the church. The wooden doors shut with a slight thud behind him as Tommy stood unmoving. The bird’s wasting no time in resuming their harmonious chirping as the wind resorts back to its unfittingly calm breeze.
The response wasn’t exactly unexpected, who on this server would take time out of their day to go and clean a gravestone that would probably never be seen by the person lying under it? That was just one of the things you could never see happening in a place like this.
But here Fundy was, whether by his own volition or by the will of his God, Ex-Dee, Scrubbing and cleansing each headstone with meticulous care, taking the time to practically dowse each of his tools in compassion.
Tommy wasn’t given enough time to process any of the interaction he just had, as before long the fox was walking right back out with a small bottle of blessed water, two sticks of incense with their proper holders, a lighter with a faded X and D on it, and one stem of Hyssop.
Tommy’s eyes never left the fox as he placed the small tray to the left of the grave. Kneeling down on the ground once again, the man finally turned to look over at Tommy. An uncertain look painted across his face as his eyes darted from the grave back to Tommy over and over.
“Would you like to light one?” He gestured to the incense stick. “It’s fine if not, know you don’t have a good view of the guy and ya know I’m not-”
“It’s fine I get what you mean Fundy, can I just watch?” The boy inquired with a slight tilt of his head, Fundy giving a nod in response.
‘Yeah yeah that’s fine uhm.. I may stutter a bit though so sorry about that.” A bitter chuckle leaving his mouth as Tommy just shrugged.
“S’fine, just do your thing.”
Tommy may not be able to grasp how Fundy does it, be willing to kneel down before the man that ruined his life and do everything and then some just to give some peace and comfort to his fucked up and half rotted corpse, but he can understand why he does it. Or at least he can theorize why, maybe the fox feels an impending sense of karmic destiny if he allows the headstone to be grown over, or maybe it’s something specified in the Ex-Dee scripture the boy hasn’t found the time to study- or maybe this is just another mystery about Fundy to add to the ever-growing pile.
Fundy took a breath, taking the small lighter to light one of the incense sticks. Placing the stick gently in its holder before repeating the motion with the other. The lighter was put onto the corner of the tray as the fox placed down the hyssop flower gracefully onto the edge of the headstone.
He closed his eyes, bowed his head and the words flowed as if he’d heard it a thousand times prior.
“In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through him, we commend to Almighty deity our brother. and we commit his body to its resting place.”
Tommy watches as the fox reaches over for the water by his side, opening the bottle with caution as he begins pouring it across the gravestone.
“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. May you please bless him and keep him, for you may make his face to shine upon him and be gracious to him, Ex-Dee, lift up his countenance upon him and give him peace where he may reside with you in your palace.”
Finally, Fundy poured a bit of the water across the single hyposs with clemency Tommy couldn’t even fathom would be given to a man like the one mangled, bitter and six feet under that piece of granite.
“For as you once said: Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean”
Fundy bent down further, his hands reaching towards his pocket to grab the small bright green box out of his pocket. The design eerily resembled that of a shulker, but its size and way it opens showed it was just a mock up.
Fundy gently opened the box to reveal a bright thin golden chain, and hanging right at the bottom a dull white circle, with a golden embedded X and D carved across the pendent, with two white angel wings embedded in the back.
He grasped the pendent in his hands, and the silence fell once again over the cemetery. As Fundy spoke a silent prayer for the disfigured, heartless tyrant below, and Tommy stood right behind him. The boy letting his brain sit in the newly found somber quiet, allowing the serenity of the scene before him to cloud out the questions and concerns tossing themselves around his head.
This is no place to ask questions. Tommy could sit here all day if he wanted, making menial attempts to pick apart the brain of the hybrid ahead of him. But in the end he’d never learn anything for sure, Fundy is as much of an enigma as anyone else on this server is and attempting to study the boy under a microscope would pose nothing but wasted time and a few useless guesses.
So for now, Tommy gives a nod to the fox. Waving a silent goodbye and leaving the boy to his own prayers and wishes. Whatever is going on in his head is for Fundy to know and Fundy alone to share.
Once the scent of incense is out of the boy's nose, he gives out a long sigh. And if he happened to give a prayer to Prime for the kit knelt down bowing to the grave of a maniacal villain who gave him nothing but a bottle to the head and an affirmation he can never truly be human, then that's for him to know and him to know alone.
-
It happens a few days later, one of those solemn nights where his limbs feel far too heavy. His soul feels all the more cold and above all empty . A night where he can only rest after giving another wish to her that he’s still alive, a wish that his body isn’t just a reanimated corpse destined to rot over time, that he’s still a human boy with so much more time left than he was given. A prayer for any semblance of life to be found in the caverns of his resurrected body.
The church is always empty at this time, which is a bit of a shame. At this time the moon hits its peak and the stained glass windows luminate the chapel with a beautiful arrangement of colorful hope, not many have come to witness it.
It’s as it usually is, cold yet inviting, empty yet brimming with presence from just beyond.
But there is another presence. One more tangible than the usual nights.
In the center of the chapel, kneeling on the ground with his head staring daggers into the marble below. The winsome beauty of his god, Ex-Dee, illuminates his form in a stained-glass discordance. His sob’s the only thing to break the steril silence of the chapel.
Was Fundy.
HIs hand gripped the replica shelter box in his right hand, like it’s the only thing keeping the world together. His other hand, working to wipe the tears coming out of his bright, slitted eyes, the golden chain being wrapped carefully around his thin fingers. As he shakily moved his hands to clasp around the box.
Upon focusing more on the scene Tommy was able to recognize the ground wasn’t empty, underneath the fox lay two bright golden rings. Each one carefully crafted, with what looked to be small carved-in symbols on the underside, at least from what Tommy can tell from his distance by the last pew.
“I know... “ The fox let out a pitiful hick, “I know you’re doing this for me.” his throat shaky and hoarse, leaving an underlying tone of bittersweet gratitude laced under the surface.
“I know this is better for me, and I trust you. I always have.” His hands have finally moved to clasp in front of his head. “But please, I beg of you.” He grovels beneath the site of his deity, letting the cold marble of the ground touch his head.
“Just let me be happy.”
Tommy feels his body become rigid. For reasons he can’t exactly identify.
“I’m trying, I’m trying so hard and I don't know what to do. How long do I have to wait? I know, I've been nothing but selfish and I somehow have the entitlement to come here to ask for more, but... ”
The world falls still for a moment, as it feels even the heavens wait in bated breath for his devotees' next words.
“Please let me have a happy dream.”
After that, the church fell still again. With only the quiet sobs of a boy aged like a poor man's wine, groveling below a god who will spare him no true clemency.