The fall festival was supposed to be a time of happiness, of laughter. And yet, there was a part of the festival that was tailor made for her, it seemed. She had studied many cultures over her many years, and she had learned so many ways to honor those that had passed on. So many worship or celebrated death with alters, candles, and vigils. Tonight, Katniss would honor those traditions. She would honor her loss and pray to the gods that he traveled safely into the afterlife.
In a quiet corner of the markets, away from most of the hustle and bustle, was a quiet tent lit with candles of all shapes and sizes. There were pictures of fallen heroes, of mothers, of fathers, of friends, and of enemies. But each was honored in a beautiful way and today, it was her turn to mourn the loss of someone who meant so much to her.
Stepping up to one of the unlight candles, she grabbed a small stick that had been left smoldering in an urn close by. Taking the stick, she gentle lit her candle, watching as the flames flickered to life. Placing the stick back into the urn, Katniss looked at her flickering light for several long moments. “He is beautiful, Metaphor. So vibrant and full of life. He wants nothing more than to help people and be just like you. He’s listened to hours of stories about your, wishing that he could have met the person who meant so much to his mother. He is perfect, he is yours.” She lets her eyes close softly, wishing, hoping, praying that Metaphor got her message, that he will look down on his son from time to time. Kibou was growing with each passing day, looking more and more like his father with an attitude cut from the exact same cloth.
With a heavy sigh, she turns her back on the flickering candle and begins to head out of the tent. But as she slips through the doorway, she so rudely nearly bumps into another. Startled, she halts and takes a step back, her eyes searching for those of the unfortunate soul who has found themselves in her path. “My apologies…I was not watching where I was walking…” Her thoughts had been clouded, her mind preoccupied. She should have been paying more attention. She should be looking to the future and not on the past.
Denocte pulsed with activity, a living, breathing organism stitched together from the tangled interactions of countless individually-motivated players past and present. Raymond slipped sinuously into the ruts worn by the memory of those that came before him, unremarked and unremembered as he passed shrines so carefully erected for the lost.
He commanded no attention here. The naked red of his hide jumped and pulled like yet more torchlight in a sea of burning embers, bathing the garishly-costumed cityfolk in an ever-shifting orange glow, just kindling to feed the fires of their revelry. A proper ghost would have drawn more eyes, as haply would become the form of his intent: this carnival of noise and crush of bodies was for the living and the dead.
Raymond was neither, and had no patience for mourning.
Why he had come down from the mountains, then, if only to pass unnoticed through the heart of a court he had once (and only once) bled to defend? What solace had he hoped to find in these cobbled streets and incongruous constructs whose very existence picked like vultures at the ragged edges of his wilder nature? Questions without answers - but he was here, and if you saw the weathered angles of his face you would read only a visage of benign interest, as you would expect to see from perhaps a foreign visitor willing but uncertain of how best to join the bustling festivities.
And as he passed yet another shrine, gaze averted in a skillful imitation of inattention, a dark dappled shape loomed suddenly and threateningly at the muscled curve of his hip. He arched instinctively, swinging round to face her in a fluid motion as his grey eyes sparked - first with intrigue, then with recognition. The practiced mask he'd worn loosened into more of a smile.
"No worries. You can't expect to cram this many bodies into one place without knocking a few elbows."
Would the mare recognize him? If she did, was it to his benefit or his loss? Did it actually matter, if he could not even muster the decency to be either living or dead in a place and time like this? Raymond didn't waste the energy it would have taken to worry. Katniss' eyes brimmed with a different kind of pain - one he understood, if he yet lacked the conviction to give it voice.
She hadn’t meant to nearly run anyone over tonight. Perhaps it was the increase in bodies that lined the cobblestone streets or perhaps it was just the fact that she was so preoccupied as of late. With Metaphor gone and Kibou starting to grow more independent, Katniss was struggling as a mother. She had never really been given the opportunity to be a mother before, so deciding what took precedence in her life was a juggle she was struggling to learn. Her court needed her…but so did her son.
She watched as his body turned sharply as a result of her colliding with his hip. She backed up quickly into the tent, only her head and shoulders visible from beneath the tent opening. She waits until there’s a little more room to move around before she steps fully from the tent, eyes looking upwards as the moonlight lights up the court. “That may be so, but it is still rude on my part.” Katniss had never been one to be rude intentionally. She had always tried her best to be welcoming, friendly, and overall kind. She had been raised in such a manner and rudeness was never something that she condoned, even amongst her enemies. Perhaps that was another one of her flaws as well.
It was now that she got to look at the red fellow, his color so similar to Moira’s. She had seen him before, at a court meeting she thinks, but it had been a long time since she had seen him around. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him wandering the court. At least he appeared to be well, and that was important to her.
It was when he asked what she had done in the tent of mourning that caused her to sigh. Perhaps the smiling, apologetic appearance now looked far more somber as she reflected on just why she had come to this very tent to light a candle. It was still hard to talk about her loss, to feel the feelings of grief and love. “I came to remember someone very dear to me who was prematurely killed in an attempt on my life.” She had come to find out that the bomb that had killed her beloved Metaphor had been meant for her. Someone did not like her in her current position and had seen fit to see her removed. But their plan had backfired and Katniss had lost the one man she loved more than anything. “…but in the same breath…thank him for what he gave me before his departure from this life.” Kibou. Her son. Her perfect son. Metaphor had given her the most precious gift before his passing and Katniss had vowed to protect that boy with every ounce of her being. That boy was all she had left of Metaphor and the love she felt for him. Kibou was so much like his father that it open hurt just to look at him. But when he looked up at her with those soft, curious eyes, she knew he would be great one day. He would be the medic his father so longed to be.
A brief shake of her head was used to keep the tears at bay. The loss was still fresh, still hard. She could not be seen emotional in front of another fellow soldier. She was supposed to stand tall and brave, not collapse in a heap of emotion. “What has brought you back to court life? It has been some time.” Diverting the conversation would be best, she supposed. At least now they could talk about him instead of Metaphor, of Kibou.
THE MANY MILES WE WALK, THE MANY THINGS WE LEARN
THE BUILDING OF A SHRINE ONLY JUST TO BURN
***
"I see," Raymond replied, matching his tone to the weight of her aching smile. He had never been the sort to spare words for the lost, much less to erect shrines and burn incense in their honor, but such was the way of savage beasts. Out there in the between spaces, people died with none but the coyotes and vultures to remark upon their final rest, and perhaps ten seasons on their ghost might be stirred by the recollection of an old acquaintance's stray memory, but mourning - proper mourning - was a luxury left to civilized folk.
What has brought you back to court life?
The red stallion frowned, blinking briefly down at the space left between them in a vain attempt to draw from it an apropos response. None came.
He had retreated because Ruth slept as though dead, brought low by a hundred Thunderbird wounds. Because Calliope had gone to face the rift without him, taking with his heart the whole of the only family he had known in his tumultuous life. Because there was no place within stone walls and gilded halls for the law of beasts. But all those incontrovertible truths could not silence the quiet, still-primal call of an ancestral need buried so deep that even the rift couldn't burn it out.
And that, dear reader, was what tore the half-strangled chuckle of derision from his sooty lips. "I suppose I came back because, despite my best efforts to the contrary, I am still a horse." Nothing more, nothing less, a lost soul ruled by the basic equine desire to belong.
Disgusting, right?
Raymond found his eye drawn past Katniss to the tent's interior, where her votive still worked whatever sentimental magic it possessed on the air within. He could not deny the romantic sincerity of it despite a lifetime of self-denial, and a quiet corner of himself set to wondering at each dip and shudder of the candle flame. What might he say in memoriam - and to whom?
Huffing softly, he reined in his wandering thoughts. "Ruth fared poorly in the Thunderbird attack. She healed swiftly, but for months I didn't think she would wake."
Yes, Raymond, but what of Denocte's regent? What of the perils that befell the kingdom and its queen in his absence? What of the horror that followed Katniss home? Do you know a fraction of the suffering your presence could possibly have prevented? Do you care?
He didn't, and that was part of the problem. Whatever cloth had been cut to make the red stallion a good servant, whatever dutiful patriotism his Rendari upbringing had granted him, had bled out with the massacre of his tribe and turned to ash under the scorching Badlands sun.
"Now that she's awake and well, I'm free to return." He tilted his head upward with an easy but closed-lipped smile that faded as quickly as it had come at the sight of the candle still flickering like a firefly at the mare's back.
At length, distant and low, he asked, "Does that help?"
***
Raymond
that's the way it is, that's the way it is
She supposed she understood that instinctual need to belong, to be a part of something that was more than just ones own person. Equines were social by nature, traveling and living in herds to maintain that need for socialization. She had always found herself amongst others, but she also understood that some preferred to be left alone more often than some. Each individual was different and with those differences was a different degree of desire to be alone vs. being social. “Something tells me your reason ventures beyond that. But your reason is your own, I suppose.” He very well could have come back to court life because he desired something more. However, Katniss understood that not all reasons were public knowledge, some preferring their reasons to remain secret. She understood and respect that thought. She would not question him on it for it was not her place.
But as Raymond began to open up about Ruth, a name she had not heard before, Katniss listened quietly. He spoke so fondly of her and Katniss could only muse that perhaps Ruth was a lover…or a bonded. She spoke the same way of Metaphor and of Finnick. She looked back behind her to see the way the candles flickered. Did he want to light a candle for Ruth? “Many perished then. I had only just arrived. Talk about a welcoming.” She remembered being ushered into a cave seeking shelter. It was there that she had met Isra and her respect for the woman only grew from there. She had been lucky to find shelter when she had. She had learned that many had died, others injured far beyond repair. She had been lucky to come out unscathed. Perhaps she should pray for those who had not.
Katniss offered the man a gentle smile as he stated that Ruth was awake and he was free to return to court life. It was good to see him back, even if he did not necessarily feel the same way. She had always thought “the more the merrier” and had always welcomed new faces. She would welcome Raymond back with the same welcoming as she did any other.
But it was the way he looked past her that caught her attention, the way his eyes lingered on the candle that she had lit in Metaphor’s honor. At his question, she sighed heavily. How could she answer such a question? Did it truly help? She supposed it only helped if she wanted it to. “For me, it does. It’s simply a way to remember and honor.” But everyone was different, everyone grieved in a different way. Some would not think lighting a candle would offer any sort of benefit but it only worked if one believed it would. Katniss used the candle as a way to reflect. It offered nothing more than a gentle reminder. “It means something different for everyone.” She could not tell him how to remember those he loved or honor those that had fallen. It was up to him on how he chose to do those things. These candles flickering in the background were only a vessel. The true magic came from within.
