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It’s almost midnight, when the thief is finally dragged in to face judgement. The clock ticks its merry little tune in the corner - tick-tick-tick! as the man’s legs are kicked out from underneath him and his knees hit the ground with a grunt of pain.
Grief lounges on his throne, eyebrows arched in a carefully crafted expression of disinterest. If this truly is the fucker who’s been stealing morphine from his caches, well… the thief is lucky that Grief isn’t a violent man, at least by industry standards. The only sound is the shaky breath of the man on his knees before him.
“Now, look what the cat dragged in,” Grief drawls. He leans forward to get a better look. The thief looks to be only a little older than he is, but there’s dried blood in his blonde beard from an earlier beating or perhaps the chase. His face is gaunt but entirely unfamiliar to Grief. Hm, not one of his men, at least. Small blessings, but he’ll take it. Much easier to deal with an outsider.
The man does not reply, just spits on the ground in front of him. Grief twitches a look up at Shiner, who understands immediately. The thief’s face is in the dirt in a flash, with Shiner’s boot on his neck.
“Ain’t gonna fly, treating the boss like that,” he hisses. The thief groans into the dirt as it mixes with spit. His nose is likely broken, either from this treatment or from before. When he decides it’s enough, Grief motions to Chainlink and Shuteye and they shoulder in to lift the thief back to a kneeling position. He breathes heavily. Grief can see him go to spit the dirt out of his mouth, but he seems to think better of it.
“That’s more like it,” he says, and he allows a cruel smile to pass over his face. “What’s the story, Shiner? Catch him red-handed, or ya got witnesses?”
“Saw him stuffin’ his pockets,” his man answers obediently. “Chased him down, all through the Tanners. Fool cornered himself in a backyard.”
“Hm.” Grief had hoped to keep this little issue tucked away from Saburov's men - they were forever sticking their noses into his business. Perhaps more importantly, he had also hoped to keep the boss man in the dark when it came to issues with the inventory. He knows the Boös has eyes everywhere.
“He make a scene?”
“Not after Chainlink showed off that lockpick a’ his. Was quiet as a kitten after that.”
Grief casts a raised eyebrow over to Chainlink. In his own experience, kittens were pretty damn loud, but Chainlink just shrugs and crosses his arms. Eh, a problem for another day. He launches to his feet and saunters down the makeshift stage to where the thief kneels quietly, eyes staring hard and resolute up at him. Grief revels in the drama of the moment, of the baited breath before anyone speaks. The tension in the room is thick enough that he could cut through it, if he weren’t the superstitious type. He cocks his head to the side.
“By my count, ya owe me… How much was it, Shuteye?”
“‘Round two dozen vials, not counting the one that broke in his pocket.”
“Two dozen!” Grief lets out a low whistle. Underneath, his brain whirrs with the mental calculations for how much coin he’ll have to adjust for during his next unfortunate rendezvous with Fat Vlad. It becomes increasingly clear that he’ll be on the hook for a substantial amount because of this asshole.
While his mind spins away, he walks over to where his shotgun lays, propped up against the pile of crates he was just sitting on. He makes a big show of opening it to check the two slugs snugly in their chambers, as always. They’re the same ones that came with the damn thing, but that’s a card he keeps close to his chest.
On the ground, the thief has begun to weep. It’s absolutely pathetic.
“I-” the thief’s voice is hoarse. “I’m sorry, I can fix it, let me-”
Grief snaps the gun closed with a satisfying click and presses the barrel up against the guy’s chest. He goes completely still.
“My drugs fetch a pretty penny these days,” he says, quiet, like it's just the two of them. It’s intimate, in a way. Grief can feel the hot air of his panicked breath, sees the sweat dripping down his nose and splashing to the dirt below. Sweat from the stress and injuries, or from withdrawal as well? Grief is no doctor. He hasn’t seen hide nor hair of one in some time, either, not with Artemy gone and Rubin pissed the hell off. The thought sours his already rotten mood.
“You don’t strike me as the kinda fella who has that kinda cash just floatin’ around. Which begs the question-” he presses the barrel further into his chest until he almost falls backwards with the pressure. “-what do you suppose we do about it?”
“Look, look, I can get some of it back,” he babbles. “I can get it back, please, mercy-!”
“Some ain’t good enough. Where’s the rest?”
“Please-!”
Grief growls, lifts his boot to kick the thief off his knees. The man goes sprawling face down into the dirt again with a cry. He stands over him, uses the toe of his boot to nudge the sleeve up and finds the injection marks dotting his inner elbow.
“Rest of it is long gone, eh? Already in your veins, by the look a’ you.”
The thief is scrambling in the dirt, fighting against the force of Grief’s boot holding his arm down with a firm pressure that makes it clear that he isn’t fucking around.
“Mercy,” he sobs. “Please, I’ll make it up-”
“Hm,” He applies a little more pressure while he makes a show of thinking. Then, he lets off, crouches down next to the snotty mess of the face and uses the barrel of his shotgun to lift his chin up to look him in the eye. You could hear a pin drop, save for the gasps and whimpers of the man in front of him. His crew - his hungry audience, watch the production. Grief drinks in the attention.
“You have one week,” he finally tells the man. He watches as relief floods his features. “One week to make me whole.”
“I swear, I swear I’ll do it, it’ll be like nothing ever happened-”
“Aw, ain’t that optimistic,” Grief mutters as he stands up, speaking more to his boys than the man grovelling before him. He glances back down and remembers the sheer scale of the theft. Two dozen morphine vials… it really is unacceptable.
“Shiner,” he orders, setting his gun back down and leaning against the crates. “You wanna give him a preview of what happens if he’s empty-handed in one week’s time?”
Shiner nods, hard resolution, or maybe satisfaction on his face. He places his heavy boot on the thief’s elbow, pins it to the ground.
“Hey, w-wait,” the thief says.
Grief doesn’t look away when the thief’s elbow snaps the wrong way with a resounding CRACK!
Artemy winces at the sound as he sets the broken bone. What was left of their platoon had limped back to their field camp a few hours earlier, and after that, it had been nonstop triage and wound care. Now that the soldiers with life-threatening injuries were either stable or dead, it was time for the more minor patching up. A broken tibia was minor, he supposed, at least in this circumstance.
He turns his attention away from his thoughts and back to the task at hand - he splints the reset bone the best he can and wraps it so it won’t jostle too much, though it’s a losing battle. There was already talk of moving camp again, so its likely that the bone won’t heal very well unless the man could be discharged, and that isn’t Artemy’s call. He’ll do his best given the circumstances. Once he’s done with the leg, he peels a dirty bandage off of a forearm, cleans the wound, closes it with tidy stitches that would make his father proud. Even before this damned war had interrupted his studies, his stitches were among the best of his classmates. He dimly wonders where they ended up, each of their educations commandeered for this pointless conflict. He hadn’t been particularly close with many of them, but he had liked Yakov and he had been just getting to know him better when everything had been turned on its head. It had been an adjustment, being away from his corner of the world which had once felt so big. The endless beautiful steppe and complex bustling town... And then he had gone to the city and it had swallowed him up. And then came the war.
Artemy finishes with the forearm stitches. He finds a shallower cut on a bicep which seems to be from a near miss with a bullet, which he cleans and bandages - no stitches necessary. Then, he moves over to the next cot, where he finds a badly sprained ankle, a concussion, and then the next cot that holds a shoulder-
He realizes he’s stopped treating the person, has begun to split people into separate parts, like they did to cattle in the abattoir. He shakes his head, exhales with some frustration. When did he stop seeing people as a whole entity? What is wrong with him?
Mercifully, after the shoulder wound, he’s able to escape the med tent and take a break. He finds a group of soldiers sitting and smoking by the fire. The haze of smoke lifts up to cloud the air above them while he digs his own cigarettes out of his pocket - a nasty habit that he had picked up while in school - and decides to join them.
One of the men, Ilya, lifts an eyebrow at him when he approaches. If Artemy had found it difficult to make friends in school, it was worse out here. They all knew he had been plucked from his school before he had the chance to graduate, and they didn’t entirely trust his capabilities.
“Got somethin’ on your face, doc,” Ilya tells him, motioning with his own cigarette. Artemy lifts a hand to his forehead where he can feel the dried blood crusted onto his skin from the arterial bleed he had tried and failed to stop. He feels embarrassed but he doesn’t know if it’s because of the failure, or because he didn’t notice he was walking around looking like a murderer. He rubs at the dried blood until it flakes off. Still, nobody else meets his eyes. Morale was abysmal, even before their recent crushing defeat. A reminder of death was the last thing they needed.
Artemy takes a drag of his cigarette and exhales into the air rather than get too hung up on it. He had done good work today, and he doesn’t need to be told so by career military men who jumped at their own shadows. The close-knit camaraderie that they all enjoyed was something that was noticeably absent when it came to him. He’s not sure if it’s because of his age, or his background, or his unfinished medical training, but it makes his chest feel tight with anger. It’s possible that some of these men wouldn’t be alive if not for him, and still, he’s always just outside on the periphery.
Too soon, his cigarette is finished and he has no more excuses to avoid the second half of his job. Artemy takes a final drag, then tosses the butt into the fire. He must check on his patients and find the names of the men who died under his care.
Back in the dim tent, the heavy weight settles back on Artemy’s shoulders and it makes him slouch a little as he moves through the space. At first he cleans up the frantic mess from before - glass vials, surgical instruments to be re-sterilized, bloody bandages… Slowly the space begins to look as it did in the beginning of this impossibly long day. Next, he checks the living, brusquely making sure his stitches are holding and that nothing immediately looks infected. He releases a few of them who have minor injuries and offers pain relief to the rest.
Finally, he turns his attention to the bodies. There are two today: the man with the arterial bleed, and another man who had been caught in an explosion. Artemy goes to inspect the contents of each of their pockets hoping to find their names and pull out any photos or letters they may be holding onto.
For the burn victim, what is left of his uniform is all but scraps, and his name has been lost to the flames that took his life as well. It’s a horrible thing to be buried without a name. He takes a moment with the remains before he pulls the sheet up to cover him and turns to the arterial bleed.
According to his things, his name was Grigory. For a moment, Artemy sees a flash of red hair, but he doesn’t have the time to follow that train of thought because someone is talking to him. He shakes himself and looks up, sees that the source of the voice is a soldier in the next cot over who’s looking at him with a quiet sadness in his eyes.
“What?” Artemy asks. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“Was a good kid, that one.” He’s an older man, probably in his late thirties if Artemy had to hazard a guess. His arm is in a sling - ah. The broken shoulder.
“I didn’t know him.” Artemy continues his search, pulls out two photos: one, of Grigory with a woman, dark hair, serious eyes. Another with what must be his parents, who look proud. After he sees the man’s eyes track the photos, he hands them to him.
“Damn shame,” is all the man says as he looks. “Waste of a future.”
Artemy nods. He checks the rest of the pockets, then the man hands back the photos. Artemy is about to cover Grigory with the sheet and leave, but he’s stopped by another question.
“What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, what’s your story? You got a girl back home?”
Artemy shakes his head. “No, nothing like that.”
The man waits for him to say more, but he just lets the sentence hang in the air.
“How old are you, doc?”
A distant pang of annoyance surfaces in his gut, but he fights it down. “Twenty-four, sir.”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me,” he says with some amusement. “Name’s Mark.”
“Artemy.”
“What’s your story, Artemy? No girl, but maybe a family waiting for you back home?”
Artemy thinks of his own photo that he keeps safely in his breast pocket. His father had sent it with him to university, though Artemy knows it must have been a difficult gift to give. It’s the only picture either of them have of Artemy’s mother, a woman from the town with kind eyes. Next to her, Isidor looks relaxed, proud. Happier than Artemy has ever seen him, even, and a toddler between the two - blurry with movement. Artemy can’t remember Ersher anymore, this smudge of a child is all that is left of him.
“Just my father.” After a moment, he can’t help but add: “He sent me to university, to become a surgeon.”
“He must be very proud of you.”
“I suppose. He’s a doctor too, works with traditional healing. But he wanted me to learn real medicine, not folk remedies.”
“...And now you’re here,” Mark says with a shake of his head. “Damn shame, just the same as him.”
They both look at the body. Artemy thinks of how the father will react when the military sends him the notice of his death. Back in the beginning, he had wanted to include letters describing what had happened, any last words from the patients so their loved ones could have a sense of closure. But now, with this endless parade of death, he’s lucky if he even remembers their names the next week.
He doesn’t reply, but he walks over and pulls the white-
–sheet settles over the operating table, nice and clean in contrast to the bloodstained one that lays in a basket at Rubin’s feet. He takes a moment to smooth out the wrinkles - it is unnecessary, but Stakh takes pride in his work as Isidor Burakh’s apprentice. He takes his role seriously - works hard to be worthy of a mentorship with Isidor. The operation they had just performed had gone well, a pregnancy that had to be cut out of the woman rather than delivered vaginally. Rubin had watched Isidor’s steady hands carefully - it had been tense right up until the baby began to cry and then it was clear that both the mother and child would both live. They were both resting in the other room, Isidor had quickly excused himself and left Rubin with the clean-up. Rubin could see the haunted expression in his mentor’s eyes all throughout the operation, though he hadn’t allowed it to bleed into his work. Altogether, it was very impressive.
After cleaning and re-sterilizing the tools, he picks up the basket with the dirty laundry and exits through the back door. He drops it off with the woman down the street who takes care of such things, but lingers a moment outside in the sun - breathes in deeply and feels the crisp spring air moving through his lungs. The cold of the morning feels sharp on his scalp. It’s a completely new feeling, to not have heavy hair to hide behind, but it makes him feel like he’s outgrowing who he used to be, growing into a new, better man. Leaving childish things behind and embracing his future under Isidor’s tutelage. He knows he is still not the desired heir according to many, but he will prove himself to them in time. He will rise above his circumstance while Artemy is off galavanting around at some far-off school, spitting in the face of what he was taught.
The thought about his old friend ruins the moment. The wind that comes through suddenly feels colder than before, the absence of the dark braid down his back makes him feel strangely exposed. He hurries back in to finish his work to reset the room and prepare for whoever their next patient will be.
“Stanislav,” Isidor calls him over when he returns, ducking his head slightly as he crosses the threshold. His mentor is finishing up the addresses on two letters. Rubin doesn’t have to look at the neat handwriting to know the first is for Artemy and that it will likely go unanswered, as all the rest had. But the second is addressed to a name he doesn’t recognize, off in the capital. It’s not often that Isidor writes to strangers, so it must be someone he knows from earlier in his life. He glances up at Rubin from his seat at his desk while he waits for the ink to dry.
“I need these sent on the train that leaves this afternoon.”
“I’ll head there now.” Rubin pauses. “I will check in on Merav as well, make sure she is recovering properly from her fall last week.”
“Good,” Isidor says. Rubin feels a warm sense of satisfaction from the praise. He hands the letters, Rubin tucks them carefully into his bag and sets off. The cold makes him hurry through the Hindquarters, heading north up to the Tanners. He knocks brusquely on the door and steps back when Astrild opens it. Her face looks pale, but not as pale as when she had first called for him, after the little girl had fallen off a ledge slick with melting snow.
He had known the woman since the outbreak a few years past when he was working with Isidor to save the town from certain death. It had been horrible, the complete despair that enveloped the Crude Sprawl, and so many bodies… It had been a morning after one of those sleepless nights that he had met Astrild. As the sun rose, he had helped her bury her newborn boy and her husband. It had been nothing short of a miracle that she hadn’t ended up sick as well.
“Ah! Stakh, come in,” she says, ushering him inside out of the cold.
“Thank you. I’m just here to check on Merav.”
“She’s in the back room. The windows are covered so it’s dark like you said, and the house has been as quiet as I can make it. She’s in a terrible mood, though.”
Rubin thinks back to his own bad fall, and the long recovery that felt like it would never end, the dark quiet room and the way his thoughts had felt all jumbled together, even weeks later.
The memory loss around the event had been substantial, but his friends had described the scene to him once he had recovered enough to take visitors. The four of them had been climbing one of those giant rock structures, near the steppe village. It was stupid of them, the way they used to scale them as if they were invincible. All it had taken was one poorly chosen foothold, and Rubin had fallen all the way back to the earth. He doesn’t remember the impact, nor the days of the following week, but his friends used to describe how Cub had run all the way back to town to get Isidor, while Gravel and Grief stayed with him listening to him ask what had happened, over and over and over. They had all been a little too clingy in the week afterwards, treating him like glass. It had been obnoxious.
“It’s boring work, to recover from a brain injury. How’s her memory?”
“It’s coming back… Stakh, is it permanent? The fogginess and the balance?”
“I don’t know.” He has to be honest, looking at her with a heavy gaze. “...for me, the headaches became chronic, but my memory was only damaged temporarily.”
He doesn’t know why he says it, why he is sharing his past with a patient's caretaker. He reflexively rubs the back of his neck, suddenly feeling too big and awkward in the space.
“I didn’t know you went through this too,” Astrild says quietly. She doesn’t ask what happened and Stakh appreciates it. He makes his way into the dark room, off to check on his patient.
It is strangely nostalgic, to be back in a cocoon made for the brain to heal from bruising. It’s quiet and the real world feels oddly far away. Rubin remembers laying in the dark, trying to pull together the events that had brought him to this place even though Isidor had instructed him to clear his mind. It had been frustrating and disorientating all at once.
Here, Merav is still a ways away from a full recovery. Her balance is obviously strained even when sitting, she has frequent bouts of nausea, but she remembers that Rubin is the doctor that helped her, even set her broken arm. It’s about what he had expected for the time that she’s been recovering. No alarming signs of something truly wrong. He finishes his examination.
“When will this be over?” the girl asks, plaintive. She tries to sit up for the third time, but Rubin places a firm hand on her shoulder, both to steady her, and to stop her from rising any further.
“There is no timeline, but you will recover,” he tells her. “Clear your mind.”
When he exits the room, Astrild is waiting for him. He relays information to her - professional, if a bit formal. She takes it in, and as he’s getting ready to leave for the station, she presses a heel of bread and some cheese into his hand.
“For the road,” she says, squeezing his arm. He furrows his eyebrows at the gift.
“I’m not one of your orphans.” It’s a true statement, though he has a suspicion that she can’t help but see him that way despite his age. But she just laughs softly.
“Of course not. This is gratitude for the house call. Thank you, Stakh.”
After he makes his way across town, Rubin arrives at the train station. The big engine sits while workers unload supplies, mail, and people into the town. He looks down at the two letters in his hands, particularly to the one addressed to Artemy. It looks identical to the rest that had been sent out. How many had his mentor sent without a single response? All those sheets of paper carrying goodwill, updates, information, news of-
–his unfortunate execution, for disobeying direct orders from command. Please find his personal effects delivered with this notice…
Lara is reading the letter again. After a certain point, her hands tremble and her sight becomes too blurry to make out the smudged ink on the page, so she places it back down on the table, next to the old photos and the unsent letter to her that had been found in her father’s breast pocket. It was dark with retractions. The army had even taken away his last words from her.
She hadn’t been able to sleep last night. The notice had been delivered a few days ago and her world had completely shattered. And now, here she is, dressed in a long black dress that she thinks used to be her mothers. She takes in a sharp breath at the thought, anger sparking hot flames in her stomach and somehow mixing with her sea of grief. She picks up one of her father’s pictures that had been sent home without him.
It’s an old photo, from when Lara was just a girl, back when they were a whole family. Her child self stares happily out at her from between her two parents, her father looks happy, proud, but her mother holds a deep resentment behind the clipped smile. Lara has no idea where she is now, or if she is even still alive and frankly she doesn’t care. She remembers the heavy emptiness of the house after her mother had left on that train, never to come back. The two of them had managed alright after that, but she will never forgive that woman for leaving them, will never forget the sadness that had never truly left her father’s face.
She almost throws the photo back down on the table and draws in a sharp breath as another wave of grief and anger threatens to drown her. Clasping her hands in front of her, she digs the knuckles of her thumbs into the space between her brows until she can control herself and force the tears back. A glance at the clock tells her that it is almost time for her to make the long walk to the cemetery, but there is a knot of dread in her stomach at the thought. There was nothing to bury, save for the hat and uniform that had been sent back to her. It was to be a symbolic affair, she supposes, but it just feels like a completely empty gesture to her. She knows it must be done, even if the thought of it pains her - her father is not hers alone to mourn.
Suddenly, there’s a knock at the front door. Lara freezes. She prays for whoever it is to go away, to leave her to this endless pit of grief in her dark empty house. When the knocking doesn’t continue, she relaxes marginally, but it’s too soon - the knock comes again. It’s a stubborn knock, but not an insistent one. After the third time, she sighs, dragging herself to her feet and wrapping her black wool shawl around her shoulders as if it could become a barrier between herself and the world at large. She takes a moment to gather her hair and twist it back out of her face, secures it with her long carved pin. She must be somewhat presentable, even if it's most likely one of her neighbours at the door wanting to give her their sympathies. Lara is so deeply tired of the pitying words and glances, but she is acting on behalf of her father now as well, and she will not disappoint him. She composes herself and opens the door.
The cold spring wind isn’t what shocks her, it’s the fact that Stakh is standing there before her. He’s shaved his head since she last saw him, but that had been weeks ago. Their friendships had all begun to shift once Cub had left, it was a little sad, but it was just the way things went sometimes. It was normal for childhood friends to grow apart, which is why it’s a little surprising that he’s here now.
“Hi, Lara,” he says, quiet and a little awkward.
“Stakh…” her voice catches a little, in her throat. He waits for her to say something else, but when she’s quiet, he shifts a little on his feet and continues.
“I thought you might want someone to walk with you. To the funeral.”
She blinks at him for half a second before the emotion overtakes her and the tears are back. She pulls Stakh into a fierce hug, though he has to hunch down a little bit for it to be comfortable for either of them. She fights tenuously to regain her control, but her shoulders shake a little bit anyways. He returns the hug - reliable and steady Stakh. Oh, she hadn’t realized how truly alone she had been throughout the entire horrible last few days.
“He was a good man,” he says quietly into her hair. No emotional condolences, just a statement. Lara nods, taking a deep breath before she steps back and collects herself.
“Yes,” she agrees softly. She takes in another deep breath, looks at the clock, and exhales. “Thank you for coming here, that’s kind of you.”
Stakh nods but doesn’t say more. Lara’s grateful for it - she doesn’t feel like talking. She collects her father’s hat and gently folds his uniform to bring to the cemetery, the knowledge that they will be buried makes her feel sick. She holds them to her chest as they silently walk through the town. Lara feels like people are watching her as she makes her way down the streets, but she doesn’t have the energy to care. Some people stop her to give their condolences. She manages to accept graciously despite wanting to scream.
When they make it to the cemetery, she murmurs her quiet thanks to Stakh and they separate. He goes to stand near Isidor, who looks at her with a solemn expression, and she nods her head in gratitude. She’s glad to see him, she can remember happier times in her childhood when her father and Isidor would play cards late into the night, while she and Artemy played together by their feet. She thinks she can remember Ersher too, but she had been still quite young when Artemy’s older brother had drowned and all of the details of him had faded away.
Each of the ruling families are represented in the crowd as well - she sees Victor looking at her with compassion, Maria looking at her with withering pity by his side. Vlad, both the older and the younger are here and Capella stands with the cemetery girl talking quietly. Alexander and Katerina, too, have made an appearance. Lara dreads having to talk with each and every one of them, even though it is kind of them to be here for her father. She realizes that of the crowd, there is only one person who is there for her, and the selfish thought makes her ashamed and angry all at once. She hasn’t seen Stakh in weeks, but he’s still here, had even come to her home to show his support. She had seen Grief not even two weeks ago, had even dressed a nasty cut for him after Stakh had apparently turned him away. And yet, he was conspicuously absent from the crowd. Lara swallows her anger, holds on to the dim hope that he will still arrive, and makes her way to the shallow grave.
Once she stands before the hole in the ground, she feels almost like she is on the edge of a cliff. The spring wind picks up and catches some of the loose strands of her hair. It's like she’s in a nonsensical dream or in some cruel theatrical production, performing the gestures of a funeral for some pieces of fabric while the body of her father is buried somewhere, nameless, surrounded by strangers. Lara looks down at the inside of the hat, notices a dark hair caught in the lining - he hadn’t even really begun to go grey before he was killed. Her hands are shaking again and she feels ill. The people gathered are waiting for her to say something, or to place the objects in the dirt, but how could she do that? They were objects treasured by her father, treated with the utmost care, how could she betray him like this? For a long moment, she stands, unmoored, trying to bring her head back above the water of her grief before it drowns her.
Lara takes a deep breath, then another, and the audience waits for her to begin. She does not buckle under the weight of expectation - she cannot, will not dirty her father’s memory by succumbing to her grief in front of her father's mourners. With the third breath, she gathers all of her grief and all of her anger, and she locks it deep within her chest. Then she begins to speak.
She thanks them for coming, speaks to her love for her father, and his love for the town and his friendships with each of them. She speaks to her intentions to make him proud.
It all tastes like ash in her mouth, and years later she will remember that feeling more than any of the actual words spoken. When she finishes, she crouches down to place the beloved uniform into the damp earth. Every inch of her feels like this is wrong, that she isn’t ready to give them up, that she needs more time. The fabric still faintly smells like that gunpowder scent she remembers from her childhood and the thought thickens in her throat. Everyone is waiting for her to place the objects in the grave. She must not disappoint them.
She places them down as gently as she can manage with her hands made clumsy by grief. Runs a last hand over the top of the cap, traces her finger along the tarnished metal buttons - especially the one she had sewn back on the last time he had come home. All she can think is I can’t- but something inside of her forces her back up.
She can only watch as the dirt is dumped over the most precious items in the world.