[html] mall-caps;">this table was touched by Misery
Getting Phasma to the house had been difficult. Fatin was not that tall, carrying Phasma's body had been a task she was not built properly for. The tears had continued to flow down her cheeks, and as she dug the hole free sobs had left her body. A mother was not made to bury her children. She was incapable of realizing her own fragile existence because it was a thought she could not handle. She, who had issues with being abandoned, thus she continued to collect family members like they were trading cards. How could she leave anyone? She had lovingly smoothed the female's fur, trying to fit her into a position that was the most appropriate and honorable. She stood there, still and cold for a long, long time just looking down at Phasma's body. Snow began to fall atop her, and Fatin stood there shivering, unable to commence with burying her daughter. "You have to find your peace Phasma....my darling, darling girl, you will have your peace. Your babies will be there too, and you will all be happy...." Stumbling through the goodbye, she whimpered softly and reached for the shovel. Tears fell, striking the sand and the dirt and the snow and the ice - the elements mixed and slowly, the grave filled. For an hour or so, Fatin stood there, shaking as she realized this was it. Phasma Kiles, her Beta, her Daughter, was gone. "I love you..." She whispered hoarsely.
She turned back to Jaded Shadows, somewhere along the line she entered the Haunted Forest. A fallen log became her resting place, and she wept yet again, unable to let go of the girl who had held so much.
[html] Death was a funny thing to Valentine, who had never witnessed it for what it did. He had the grace that some didn't get; both parents were alive and well and still relatively young in their age. But he had known that Phasma was not old at all. She couldn't have been ill either, he imagined, because he had just spoken with her at a good length about the things that they had equally missed. Somehow he felt like there was something amiss when it came to the day as it had unfolded and the congregation had split from the den and oddly enough he cleanly remembered words that his mother had imparted to him. There was ever a cloud of misery hanging over the place.
Which was ironic, given that he was wandering loosely in a place referred to as being a haunted forest. It's dank and dark surroundings did not comfort him in the way that he sought. No matter how deeply he ventured into its cover, something tugged underneath his vibrant expression. Funny, how the very death of someone who was greatly rooted into its mainframe and history had made him homesick. At the same time, he had resigned to apathy and briefly wallowed in some mild throe of depression at the thought he had lost someone who seemed so very close to him, yet so very much like an acquaintance. He had not known the pain that Phasma had carried or the trials she had overcome in her short life.
He did not think that he ever would either, especially when the faintest weeping sound pulled him out of himself. His eyes had left the snowy forest floor to pick up the bright red locks that belonged to none other than Fatin, even though his brightened features dimmed at her sobbing. Perhaps had it not been for that sobbing, he would have thought she had died too. It was a bit late to correct his intrusion to her surroundings, so he did what he could swallow the passing guilt and instead placed a comforting, supportive hand on her shoulder. He didn't think about just how friendly of a gesture that was, but rather hoped she wouldn't react badly to his concern. [/html]
[html] mall-caps;">this table was touched by Misery
Her first instinct to his touch was a shudder. Not that it was unpleasant, but that it was unexpected. Her eyes of bright, strong green traveled up his arm and finally rested on his face. Fretfully she attempted to make herself presentable, one hand wiping the tears off her cheek and the other tentatively reaching out to grasp his hand. "I wasn't expecting anyone..." she whispered, as if to justify her state. It was hard to speak properly without the hitch in her throat. How could she not handle this better? This, life without her daughter, she had lost time and time again and yet it hit her just as hard now as it ever had. With a long, drawn out sigh she scooted over, dropping her hold on his hand instead to give him room to sit if he wanted. She leaned on her legs, hands toying with themselves without her knowledge. "She wasn't even my daughter - but she should have been. As much that touched us and twined us together, we deserved one another." She said, and tried to laugh. She failed. "I buried her today, out by the Syemv house on a rise where she could see it and the sea always. I.....I hope she'd like it. I think she would." She was unaware of the dirt on her body, and the fact that she had left the shovel out by the grave. Eventually, she'd return and retrieve it, and place a proper burial stone there marking Phasma's grave.
Looking at the much younger male she paused, wondering how he was doing. "I'm sorry Valentine...it looks like every time we run into each other, I just smother you with words..." Was it really a bad thing? Sometimes Fatin thought she was too outspoken, and didn't hold enough inside. however, she could not find a way to hold herself in. She wanted to lean on others, she just simply wasn't strong enough to hold her own head up.
[html] The sentiment that Fatin and Phasma had a mother-daughter relationship did bring a bit of a smile to his face, though it was pained just as much as her poor attempts at laughter. He sat beside her on the old log, his height slouching better to her level and beyond as though he was physically weighed down by such a sudden loss. “It's all right,” he offered to her wordiness, knowing that it was easier for some to talk things out than bottle them up. That was one thing that he surely took from his parents, that enabling ability to bottle things up and store them away. Perhaps one day he'd choose to spoil his liver on them like a long lost leader had, but that thought was neither here nor there. He was very rarely conscious of his throwback quirks of inheritance.
“I'm sure she would love any place you chose for her, whether it was at the seaside or deep in the forest. I think she knows that you would only pick the best for her,” that was of course, only speculation on his part. He barely knew Fatin aside from running into her offhandedly and of course, her accepting him. Yet he thought it was the right thing to say, even if he wasn't exactly sure that it was something that everyone would do. He thought to himself, if he were to have died suddenly before he had ever left home, would his parents have buried him in his favourite place, or in their own backyard? He could easily picture them arguing more over the location than what he would have wanted, humorously enough.
“I just can't believe it happened like it did… I could have sworn that she was fine the day before.” Even at that, he had only seen her briefly. In passing, like so many other jumbled up faces. [/html]
[html] mall-caps;">this table was touched by Misery
She wished she could have told Akumu. She figured that Akumu would probably have known what Phasma would have enjoyed as a final viewpoint. Fatin somehow, just wanted someone to stand beside her and go "yeah, that's what she would have wanted' or condemn her for putting Phasma somewhere that she would be miserable for all her days. "I hope so...that's one of those things you just dont think to talk about." She said quietly. "People are too afraid to talk about it really...I Know I am." If she died, who would bury her? Who would be the one to think of where to put her? The only place she felt at home enough was in her own solitary den in Jaded Shadows. There, she could properly return to the earth without stinking up the pack's den space.
"I know..." She said quietly, looking at him for a moment before she took a deep breath. "She had so much sadness in her past....maybe it just weighed her down too far." How did Fatin survive then? She was too afraid to die. "At least it wasn't painful, at least that she let on. It seemed peaceful, quiet." The best way to go, no doubt. No pain, no remorse. Just peacefully dipping into slumber for the final, deep, everlasting rest.
[html] If sorrow could truly weight someone down to the point where they simply gave up, then Valentine found himself suddenly wanting to find something else to do. Something to take his mind out of the vicious cycle of thought and all of those what ifs that threw themselves at the gate. He felt like Fatin could afford to be upset about the entire thing because after all, it was her daughter that they were talking about. She knew so much more about her, leaving Valentine to vaguely grasp at his emotions awkwardly. He was by no means overly emotional, but there was something about the rapid succession of everything that had left him feeling raw. He forced his gaze to meet hers, although he would have sooner looked at his own feet on the ground.
In fact, he would have sooner wanted to change the subject to evade a depressive story time, but couldn't help but ponder even that. Now wasn't the right time to probe Fatin for what it was that had bogged his sitter down. “I wished I could have gotten to know her better,” he commented, feeling even the slightest tinges of anger creep back in his bottom of his stomach. It was hard to not be resentful for being taken away from the place, away from the faces he was most familiar with, but now he was being resentful for other reasons. “My mother told me before I came back here and that this was a miserable place. I only thought she was saying that to deter me, but so far I haven't met anyone who hasn't had a miserable past.” Though that wasn't true, it seemed that way. Deuce had hinted about being run out of a home, Phasma had hinted and spoke of a darker part of her life. Now he was simply living his own, being so fresh and new into the old mould of things. [/html]
[html] mall-caps;">this table was touched by Misery
His words caught her off guard. It was odd to think that yes, most people were miserable here. Most people did not find happiness. "In a way, it's the truth. And she of all people should know it." She pondered over her own life, trying to make a list of pros and cons that had happened here. "I know I haven't had an easy life....but I dont think it matters how much sadness you have, so long as you dont give up." She said softly. Maybe it was the mantra that she lived by, because she never could give up. "I hope you can't complain too much...you're still so young. Did you know that I'll be six come May?" She said, a small smile growing on her face. Most people had no idea, she was blessed by her mother's good genes and graceful aging. Her fur had yet to start fading, and her hair was still as bright and vibrant as ever.
"But don't worry too much over it....life is too short to constantly fret over things we can't directly change." Why was she throwing her life lessons at the poor boy? With a sigh and a rather unattractive sniffle, she turned her head towards him. "How have you been anyways? Being honest, I hate winter. I hole myself up until it's over." Thus, she had been avoiding the word, her pack included. Maybe there was something interested she missed.
[html] Valentine found her words to be cryptic on a certain level, as though there was something about his mother and her past that he didn't really know about. Although he was sure that he could take his own various whacks at it, just as he could his father. But the thoughts were pocketed as Fatin spoke on and he took an interest in what she had to say. “Well, I can't say that I have much of anything to complain about, but I've only lived about two years, and most of that away from here.” Two years had certainly flown by quickly, even if he still had another fourth of a year to go before he could consider himself a full-fledged adult by any maturity means. Six wasn't all that old either, he thought, because Fatin didn't look old. She looked older than he did, which was expected, but still quite youthful.
They did have a better grasp on youth too, because they didn't die at six or seven years old very often. At least from where he had been spending his time, needless to say. “I've been getting along okay. Trying to meet all of the locals that I can find around the pack. I met your sister, and one of your boys,” he spoke on, finding it was easier to talk about the living rather than the dead. He had liked Alarice and felt like he had befriended Endymion a little bit too. Then there had been a multitude of other faces and names that he could recall, but didn't just yet to pace things. “I suppose I should get myself a little more familiar with the lands, I haven't really ventured too far away from Jaded Shadows since I got here.” [/html]
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