#i visited her grave in november and it snowed the next day | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dante-vergil64 · 4 years

Text

A Ballad of Spring and Winter

Rated T

It does not take any grand gestures, no world-ending battles with extravagant rescues and no romantic confessions under the moon and stars.

It happens as just as naturally as sunflowers bloom, as the birds fly and the rain pours. Like the sun rising in the morning dawn as it showers the earth with its warmth and light, and the wind blows the air through the sky unaware of all that’s below, dancing both gently and violently, and beautiful, and free.

One late November night, as she is seating in her large office quietly reading an old tattered scroll, a shadow makes presence before her with a message on her Hokage’s behalf. She is requested to lead the efforts in negotiating an economic treaty with a village in the far west on the snow country, a part of the alliance’s plan to spread out and welcome more vulnerable communities in their wide net of protection.

Her role as ambassador is an unexpected if not humbling one, she is not ignorant of the significance endeavors like this one hold to the people who live in small and remote environments lacking defenses against bandits and rogue assassins.

She accepts After all, she is no longer stranger to diplomacy and performing tasks relying on leadership, her responsibilities in providing and taking care of her people slowly drowning the echoes of voices and phantoms that haunt the depths of her mind.

It is to be a long, perilous journey and Naruto informs her he’s arranged a protective detail to escort her during her mission. The blow to her pride is not insignificant yet she’s not nearly as arrogant as to put innocent lives in danger believing herself invincible. She has a grave she visits every Saturday at nine thirty in the early mornings as a perpetual reminder.

She bows in understanding and leaves his office to begin preparations.

Her departure is a bittersweet one as she bids farewell to the many members of her family, the compulsion to watch over them and ply for their safety and comfort temporarily rooting her in place before she embraces the young ones and assures them of her safely return.

Her little sister has gotten so big, and mature, and reliable her heart aches with pride and love when she holds her petal-soft face and kisses her forehead before turning around, walking away lest the tears she felt slowly building into her eyes escape free of her control.

She parts from her family estate accompanied by three of her trusted retainers, hard-working, and graceful, and so very Hyuuga that it doesn’t feel too much like a good bye.

When they arrive at the gates, their carriage is already placed waiting to depart at her command, the guards Izumo and Kotetsu bowing to her in respect as they bid her farewell.

She does not notice at first, his tall, intimidating figure shrouded by humble robes that seem more fit for a travel through the harsh rays of the sun desert than the blankets of gelid ice and below zero temperatures proper of their current destination.

His name is one she has not heard of in more than nine years, his existence a shallow recollection as if the voids of time had swallowed everything that he was.

For but one single instant, she wonders what his purpose is in being there, doubts of his role as her escort, but then… just as easily she understands. Of course Naruto would entrust her safety and that of her companions to that man, her leader’s blinding faith in this silhouette of a fallen star something that would never be disputed.

It is a strange meeting, if only because he is but a perfect stranger, a man whose story has been nothing but wiped out of their walls in its entirety. As far as the world is concerned, he does not exist. Whatever feeling of pity this fact evokes from her is quickly dismissed. There are enough ghosts inside her head.

She approaches and greets her temporary guardian with a solemn bow that her retainers replicate. She is the only one privy to his identity.

He responds with a slight but polite nod in her direction before gesturing for the carriage to begin their journey.

“It will rain by nightfall” he says as he closes the door next to her, his eyes sorted on the pigments of blue in the skies as if he could see something nobody else can.

She does not see him for the rest of the day, not as she stares out of the small room she rented in Tanzaku’s inn into the falling rain harshly ahead nor the next morning as they embark to resume their travels.

But he is there, she knows. It is a feeling she cannot quite explain. She cannot feel him, he’s too adept at concealing himself, nor can she unveil him with her all-seeing sight. His skills are as sharp as they were, a lifetime ago back in the war. But he is there. Like a prickling sting in the back of her neck that does not allow her to forget this fact.

It’s unnerving, and in a very strange way it is also reassuring.

She finds his figure again when they are first ambushed ninety kilometers away from the village hidden in the leaves, on the second day on the road.

She sees them before she feels them, the blessed eyes of her family lineage and her prowess as a sensory ninja allowing her to detect them well before they actually make contact. Her mind is calm, almost eerily serene as she continues to monitor them like a sentry, and she isn’t sure when this becomes quite so simple. Like the very act of drawing breath. Despite her many years off the active roaster, years she spent leading as the head of her clan, her fingers tingle with barely suppressed energy. The tenketsu of her attackers are in her line of sight as she waits for them to enter her range, a procedure so deeply ingrained into her system it feels like she is not entirely in control.

The killing arts still flow through every pore of her body, yet it is a muddled guilt and something akin to sorrow that hum dully around her heart. Like a spill on the rivers of her tainted spirit caused by time and experience, a wound that invites the whispers to come closer. She frowns, and she breathes.

The carriage stops, and he is there.

standing, waiting, his form tall and straight and so nonchalant she almost wonders if he’s aware of anything. But that is a silly thought, because not even she herself saw him arrive.

They come, sharp weapons at the ready, fully intending on inviting massacre, and red, and death and then… they fall.

And it is anti-climactic, because once again her eyes managed to miss it. One moment they had the vehicle surrounded, and then the next they were motionless at his feet.

Often times, when she has to collaborate for missions with the interrogation and torture department, she hears the word monster thrown around by the worst kind of creatures this world has had the disgusting disgrace of spawning, a collection of human waste whose fitting fates should have been to serve as food to the worms beneath. It is spoken with dread, and terror, and repugnance. And It is a testament of the power the name Naruto Uzumaki exerts on those who would threaten the world he protects. Their abhorrence for the Hokage aside, she can see it. The might of those who could flatten countries with but a flick of their fingers. Entities not at all entirely human. Beacons of hope, unreachable to all in this mortal ground, envoys of change and revolution. The ones called monsters.

And perhaps this too, is something only the two of them share together. As she sees him standing there, his figure alone, and stoic, and still before the unconscious murderers, his image casts the perfect contrast to that of the warm inviting individual who leads their people in the leaf.

And so this stranger, this benevolent monster just like one within the center of the sun, becomes unreachable.

Or he should have.

But then he crouches down and lifts one of the attackers with his single arm before placing him gently against the trunk of a tree, and something like curiosity and confusion robs her of her senses.

They are alive. He did not kill them, any of them.

She is not happy, and she is not angry or sad or disappointed. It is inconsequential wether they live or die, they are merely enemy attackers. With their actions they have become criminals against the hidden leaf. She had been ready to kill them to defend those in her care.

And maybe this, this complete control over the lives and deaths of others is something only monsters understand. Because she does not. It is uncomfortable, the visceral knowledge that she had decided to take the life of someone else in a struggle to keep herself and her retainers alive and this man is not tied by those mortal conventions.

She wants to believe it was the arrogance of a giant as it stared down an ant, but his eyes tell a different story.

One of freedom, and peace, and mountains and seas. And she is sure then that his eyes can see farther than hers.

It does not take any grand gestures, no world-ending battles with extravagant rescues and no romantic confessions under the moon and stars.

It happens as just as naturally as sunflowers bloom, as the birds fly and the rain pours. This stranger becomes an acquaintance, he is a man who does not kill, a blend of man and monster.

She wants to ask, to clear her mind of her confusion. She wants to know the reason why this man who was once regarded as the ultimate ninja weapon behaves like anything but.

Her answer comes in the covers of the night, a small campfire illuminating his face after a meal shared between the travelers. It is now only him watching over them, and her casted away from Morpheus’ world.

“I…am tired. Of seeing it I mean, blood”

And she can tell, it is the truth. She understands, the feeling of that viscous liquid spreading on her hands as corpses fall impetuously. Wether her mission is to kill or to heal the seeping red never stops, the voices never quiet. The smell of rust lingers in the air, reminding her, poisoning her, she feels her head ache and her vision distort. That is the life of a ninja.

A life she abandoned years ago. Either out of cowardliness or prudence she threw it all away, simply unable to handle the remnants of death dragging through her skin, suffocating her slowly, painfully until the only thing in her mind is the glint of that kunai knife standing inertly in her weapons pouch, and how easily it would be to just make it stop.

This man, is like her. At least…in that respect

They arrive safely to a place enveloped in vastness of white. Snow falls like delicate petals in the chilling wind. And the citadel, an enormous structure of crystallized ice is so beautiful and magnificent it exceeds any expectation she could have had.

For the time being at least, she grits her teeth and the whispers stop. she follows the guards to meet the feudal lord. There is work to do.

Weeks go by in meetings with officials, discussions and platitudes. It is tedious, and difficult yet distracting enough. She frowns, and she breathes.

They are discussing the merits of opening up transport routes that connect with Suna when loud distant giggles reach her ears.

She turns, her gaze searching past the wide crystal windows of the main palace into the city plaza on the streets below as people go to and fro around the square.

The sun rising from the east illuminates a tall ebony building marked with the word bakery above its long thick window frame. The warmth from within is palpable as streams of thin steam escape the edges of the door. The smell of baked goods invigorating the townsfolk with enticing richness and sweet aromas.

Directly in front of it, a burly stall of trinkets stands as a man in a fur coat invites passersby animately.

The giggles repeat like Christmas bells and her gaze falls on two young girls dancing to their hearts content with what appears to be a little marionette.

They shout in glee and hold hands with the wooden toy but her eyes drift away onto something else.

Just beside them, sitting in the snow-covered steps of a closed for maintenance laundry place, the man she has barely paid attention to since arriving in the village hidden in the snow looks on with with a faint display of joy. It is but a slight uplifting of the corner of his lips, a barely-there smile, yet all the same, it is an image she has never seen.

The fingers on his right hand move with deft prowess and its like she can see the threads connecting to the little wooden figure without having to call upon her birthright. The marionette dances overjoyed, spinning and bowing and its like he’s bringing to life a little piece of happiness for those little girls to have.

She feels wetness on her cheeks and her fingers lift to find drops of salty liquid descending from her eyes.

She clears her throat and calls the meeting up before standing and turning away to wipe away the evidence of her lapse in emotional control.

Her attendant Takagi approaches concerned but she smiles at him and requests some time to herself. The conference room is wide and exquisitely decorated, the furniture composed of solid crystal with masterful engravings and details carved into them.

Alone, in that room of winter and starlight it almost feels like she could forget, like the chains on her heart and the scars on her mind could drift away, like falling snow.

Her eyes return to the place outside, the girls are waving good bye as they hold the hands of an older couple as they are walking away, to the warm and safe place that is their home.

The man moves his fingers and then the toy waves one final time before it vanishes into the pages of a book. He remains there, seated in the cold, freezing temperatures. And yet…his eyes of night and stars and space are so warm she feels her control falter once again.

“I didn’t know you could use the puppet master jutsu”

“A few years ago, during my travels in the land of the wind, I met this orphan boy. His name was Akito Miokotsu. He used to sculpt these little toys every day and gave them away for free. He wanted to become a ninja so he could use puppets to make people laugh. His little brother was killed during the war, a kunai pierced his right lung. He was poor, had no money to feed himself, he was thin and yet he was always smiling. i… wanted to help him. Just make sure he was able to accomplish his dream. I took him to Gaara, bought him some food, took him to the hospital. I thought…”

“He gave me this, before he passed. He said…it was his greatest masterpiece” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………

She cries. Once she’s in the privacy of her room. His words repeating as the image of the girls dancing happily overlap with the tale of the little boy. It disconcerts her. The fact that she hurts so much for a boy she has never met, will never meet.

The world they live in is filled with tragedy, she knows that. She knows it so well it sometimes feels like there is nothing else but tragedy. And yet…it hurts. That this world is still so cruel to people who have already suffered so much. She tries to focus on her work, of balancing the budget for construction projects, the logistics of stationing military presence, meeting with third party officials, discussing trade with the merchants, and fulfilling the role she was given by the village.

But the voices are so loud. She can barely hear what transpires around her. Her head feels like it’s being crushed under pressure, her skin burning as if it was set on fire. Breath enters and escapes laboriously out of her lungs and she feels like finally collapsing.

It is midnight when she wakes. Her room dark and empty save for the falling snow across the window. She feels marginally better and then notices her state of dress. Stripped of her previous clothes and in a robe made of silk but safely tucked under the fur covers of her bed.

It is surprisingly quiet and she opts to lay there, staring at her reflection in the ceiling.

The door to her room opens and her gaze drifts to that man bringing a silver tray that he deposits on a table made of crystal just beside her bed.

She turns away, seeking to escape his observant gaze in such a vulnerable state. He does not leave. His form sets beside the looming window, endless white flowing like petals drawing his eyes into the darkness.

“You should eat that before going back to bed. You need the energy”

“I’m not hungry”

“You haven’t eaten anything the past two days. It’s why you collapsed so suddenly. You haven’t been taking care of yourself”

“I’m fine”

“You’re not doing any favors to your aides by behaving in this way”

“stop”

“At this rate, the mission will have to be extended and you’ll take longer getting back to your family”

“I said stop! Just stop it! Please!”

She cannot hold the tears from slipping down her cheeks, everything finally coalescing into this moment of release. The cries and screams of those that fell, those she killed and couldn’t save finally breaking past the walls she had built trying to push them away. The unrelenting work no longer allowed her to tune them out of her head. Her hands sparkled with blood with every blink and any semblance of nourishment produced nausea.

A piece of damp fabric making contact with her neck snaps her out her spell and her eyes connect with a pair of serene obsidian ones. She does not notice his approach, yet the erratic movement of her lungs slow down to normal. The cold feeling of the water wiping away her sweat feels oddly relieving.

“You will be okay”

He says it softly, as if he was taking to himself. But his gaze rests on her. And it is said with such conviction, so sure that what he is saying is the truth, that she has trouble dismissing it as just another empty statement.

“How do you make them go away, the ghosts of your past that drag you to a place of suffering. That drown you with guilt and sorrow until you feel like you are dead yourself”

“You don’t. You face them, and smile, and you ask for forgiveness, and then you move. Step by step. Even if you stumble, even if it hurts, you smile anyway. And you say thank you, for being with me, for saving me. That is all we can really do.”

“How is it, that you can believe so blindly so certainly that I will be okay?”

“You are alive, just like me. Happiness, and peace, they are just past your fingertips. You only need to try and reach them”

He leaves, only after making sure she’s eaten her fill. Somehow it tastes better than what else she has eaten in a long time.

It does not take any grand gestures, no world-ending battles with extravagant rescues and no romantic confessions under the moon and stars.

It happens as just as naturally as sunflowers bloom, as the birds fly and the rain pours. This acquaintance becomes a friend. He is a man who does not lie. A little rough around the edges but always willing to lend a helping hand, a little more man than monster.

The mission concludes in the next few days, all the details and negotiations handled successfully, another ally to their efforts in the betterment of the world.

The snow is whiter, somehow less cold and her smiles, they are not quite so forced any longer.

Their return trip is a quiet one, the changing weather from snow to blooming flowers bringing warmth and color all around them.

He lays atop the carriage as he would a bed, no longer concealed from her eyes. It makes her smile, how alike a cat he is.

All too soon they have arrived, and she has to go back handling her clan’s affairs. There is work to do. She turns around and he is there.

His form tall and straight and so nonchalant she has to wonder if he’s aware of anything.

“Will you be departing soon? i want to hear about all the other places you’ve been to. All the sad, and happy things you’ve experienced.”

“Not for a little while, I have time for one more story. There used to be someone I admired with all my heart, someone greater than the stars and more brilliant than the sun. The story of my big brother…”

It does not take any grand gestures, no world-ending battles with extravagant rescues and no romantic confessions under the moon and stars.

It happens as just as naturally as sunflowers bloom, as the birds fly and the rain pours. This friend becomes something more. He is a man who learns to laugh, after having struggled for his happiness and peace just like everybody else. A man who loves and that is loved, a ballad of spring and winter.

#SasuHina #Sasuke Uchiha #Hinata Hyuga #sasuke #hinata

44 notes · View notes

moon-lily · 3 years

Text

November/FF14 Writing Prompt #22

~ Steaming Mugs ~

(A free spirit would only conflict with a leader rooted to their nation.)

“Thanks for coming with me,” Amaris said with a warm smile. “It means a lot that you did.” She, along with Sariel, Lilith, and G’raha Tia, were making their way through the Foundation of the Holy See, heading for the Forgotten Knight. She was dressed in a blank tanktop with a sweater tied around her waist, along with blue pants and black boots. Seemed she was mostly acclimated to the cold of Coerthas.

“It’s been a while since we visited the grave,” Lilith spoke up with a wry smile. She dressed warmly for the trip, a cream sweater with a pink scarf, navy blue leggings, and brown ankle boots. “It was only right to pay our respects after such a long absence.”

“Are you certain it was suitable for me to accompany you,” asked G’raha, rubbing his arms a bit from the cold. “I’ve.. read about what transpired on that day, but it seems far too personal for someone like me to be here. As if I’m imposing-”

“None of that,” Amaris interjected with a wag of her finger, moving right in front of him but walking backwards as they kept moving. “Reason why we’re all okay with it is for one simple reason, G’raha: Haurchefant would have definitely liked you if you had the opportunity to meet.” She then grinned and motioned with both hands toward her face. “‘A smile better suits a hero.’ You did a good job of that, from beginning to end.”

“She’s right,” Lilith agreed, looking up at him with a gentle smile. “Besides, I invited you to come with us, didn’t I? I would not have done so if I doubted it was appropriate.”

The red-haired Miqo’te looked conflicted for a moment but smiled back nonetheless. For a moment, he was about to disagree that he didn’t deserve such praise. But if he were to do that, he was positive that both Amaris and Lilith would lecture and reprimand him on that. “Just take the compliment!” they’d say.

“Your words mean so much to me, thank you,” he said to them, glancing quickly at Sariel. The Viera clad in a rebel coat had been silent the whole time, but when she noticed his glance, she gave an acknowledging nod to him. Her way of agreeing with her friends as well. Satisfied with this, Amaris turned around and continued to walk on ahead of them, bringing a hand up to lookout and keep the snow away from her face.

“Oh, Lilith, isn’t that Ser Aymeric? We haven’t seen him since after that battle at the Ghimlyt Dark. Maybe you should go talk to him? Give him a quick summary on all that’s happened.”

“Ah, you’re right. Tis only fair after he brought us here after all that, thanks to a certain someone calling me at a particular moment.” She eyed G’raha, who averted his gaze from her as he brought his hand up a bit to hide his face.

“Probably best he doesn’t meet Estinien yet,” muttered Sariel, smirking a bit.

“Is this revenge for what I put you through,” asked G’raha, exasperated by their incessant teasing.

“Hm.. maybe,” chuckled Lilith, running ahead. “You all go to the Forgotten Knight. I’ll meet you there once I’ve delivered a report to the Lord Commander.” She gave them a quick wave before sprinting off to the Congregation of our Knights Most Heavenly.

“Heh, I figured to give her an opportunity to talk with Ser Aymeric,” chuckled Amaris, slowing her stride for her friends. “She always did fancy him for a long while now.”

“Hah, is that so? From what I’ve researched, he was a very effective leader. Or rather is,” mused G’raha, ears lowered slightly. They were soon approaching the front door of the Forgotten Knight, which meant they were closer to warming up from the cold.

“Amaris, perhaps you can order some drinks? G’raha and I can find a table,” Sariel suggested, Amaris looking at her with an assuring nod.

“Yeah, leave it to me! I’ll start us off with something warm.. then we can move up to the harder stuff!” After descending the stairs to reach the tavern, Amaris separated from them to order the drinks, leaving the two alone.

“Is aught amiss,” Sariel then asked after they sat down at the table.

“Ah, no, there isn’t anything worth of mention,” G’raha replied, surprised by her question. “Why do you ask?”

She gestured to her ears as she stared at him, notably referring to his own. “Amaris is oblivious to many things, so she wasn’t aware of the effect of her words,” she explained, crossing her arms. “The same can not be said of me. ‘Twas plain for me to notice how it bothered you.”

G’raha didn’t say anything to that, instead turning his crimson gaze to the table instead. He wasn’t sure what he could say in this moment or even how to go about it.

“Your silence is reassuring on that.” G’raha was about to retort when he heard footsteps from the nearby stairs, ears perking up as he turned his head to see Lilith approaching them.

“All done with that,” she said once she was within earshot. “He was not there but I gave a report to Lucia. She could pass on the message that we’re back safe and sound. Though I’m not sure why Amaris made it sound like he was here.”

“You’re not disappointed,” asked Sariel, the question garnering a confused reaction from Lilith.

“Eh? Well, it would have been nice to catch up with an old friend, but one can’t help it if this friend has responsibilities to their nation,” Lilith said with a small shrug as she sat down in the seat next to G’raha. “I believe G’raha would understand that better than any of us here.”

“I suppose I would,” he said as he brought his hands up to rest on the table, clasping them together. “Which begs the question if he shares the same wanderlust as I do.”

“Oh, he had mentioned something like that before. But his duty is to Ishgard. Traveling freely is a luxury that he can’t afford.”

“Here are the drinks!” Amaris’ unmistakable voice could be heard as she approached the table with four steaming mugs, filled with hot chocolate. Everyone reached for one and gently blew on the surface, taking small, careful sips. All the while, Lilith’s words echoed in G’raha’s mind, recalling his time as the Exarch. Bound to the Crystal Tower and Crystarium, he knew all too well of that luxury. But he had the opportunity to finally grasp it, and the proof of it was right before him, amongst the three warriors gathered at this table.

#writing prompt #ffxiv #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #original characters #G'raha Tia #steaming mugs

2 notes · View notes

captainmarvels · 4 years

Text

a war without victory

Summary: A hundred years have felt like eons to Diana, as she remembers Steve on the anniversary of his passing.

Warnings: angst (I tried my best!) and lots of crying

Word Count: 1536

A/N: (belated) merry christmas, @pughsflorences - i’m your secret santa! i really hope you enjoy this; it’s my first try writing wondertrev :) and a huge thank you to @wondertrevnet for this year’s WonderTrev Secret Santa! <333

I believe in love.

Love is a magistrate, its’ court filled to the brim with tried and true tales of deserving; of worth.

But only the judge can decide whose journeys will continue, and whose will face their demise; only love knows if this is all the love you will ever get.

Believe in love if you must, but know this - it is not for the faint of heart.

Diana stopped swaying as she looked around in confusion, innocent eyes studying the seemingly empty air. Steve squinted, mirroring her movements, until cold snowflakes landed on the tip of his nose. Squeezing her hand to hold her in place, a small chuckle escaped him.

"It's, uh- it's a snowfall."

Glancing at him, her wariness dissipated as she looked up at the soft white fluff falling down on them. A smile grew on her face, wide and bright and hopeful.

"Touch it," He gently encouraged, a smile dawning on his own face.

Diana laughed right then, a laugh as light and airy as the snow settling in her hair. It echoed in his ears, reaching down and warming his war-torn soul, chasing away the sounds of gunfire and bombs; the sounds that had become his life's song.

"It's wonderful!" Diana exclaimed, her laughter, music mingling with excited words, her eyes sparkling brighter than the stars peeking through the gray clouds.

Diana watched as Steve shifted his gaze from her to watch the snow through the eyes of a young, innocent boy - not the exhausted soldier she’d come to known.

As they came together and locked eyes once more, their cheeks a rosy pink, their breath mixing in the cold air, Diana couldn’t help but notice the slightest bit of blood coming down Steve’s forehead.

Diana gasped as her eyes flew open. 2:33 AM. The night sky was dark, and still. She sat up, chest heaving with sobs as tears streamed down her face. It had been a hundred years since that fateful day during the Great War, and yet she still cried for him. Cried for what could have been; what should have been. Time had softened the edges of her grief, and she had learned how to keep living - but she never stopped missing him.

Eventually her tears slowed. Sighing, she wiped the last of them from her cheeks, and leaned against the headboard, drawing her knees to her chest. She pulled out his watch that she kept tucked in her pillowcase and traced the glass face. One hundred years. Barely the skip of a heartbeat for a demigod, but to a woman still in love? An eon.

As she stood alone in the small cemetery in Enid, Oklahoma, the wind tugged at her long coat; it was the anniversary of when she had lost Steve. She made this journey every year to lay flowers at his grave; a reminder that he was not forgotten. In the beginning, she would spend time with his family when she came; she told them stories of his heroism during the war and they had regaled her with fond childhood memories.

One by one, though, they too had grown old and taken their own places in the ground where she now stood. She was the only one left to honor his memory. She knelt on the dying grass, laying her bouquet of lilies against the headstone. The white of the flowers stood in stark contrast to the weathered gray of the rock. She’d chosen them because they reminded her of the last time she saw him; soaring high above her. The inscription on the tombstone still appeared clear, even for nearly a hundred years of wear, and she knew it all too well: “Steven Rockwell Trevor, May 4 1891 - November 10 1918. Gave his life to save the world from darkness and hate.”

They had had so little time. As she sat back on the cold ground, Diana let her mind jump from one happy memory of him to another.

When he’d opened his eyes on the beach and looked at her for the first time. The way he’d jumped into the fight on the beach, without a second thought. Their conversation about Cleo’s treatises on bodily pleasure. Storming No Man’s Land and fighting side by side. The night they shared in Veld.

Then her mind settled on the last time she’d seen him alive, and her heart twisted. She had been so disoriented, unable to fully understand him. He had run off before she had even managed to get those three words off the tip of her tongue.

She hoped he knew.

Her memories pulled her farther back, bringing her to the day they had returned to England. Etta had greeted them with smiles and watery eyes. Sameer went back to his family with new hopes, and Charlie had gone back to the pubs to drown his sorrows away. Chief returned to his trade and promised to visit often.

But as for Diana, returning back to some sense of normalcy simply couldn’t be done. She spent most of her days strolling down the streets of London, her head pounding, and chest heaving as she fought back tears. She never won.

At night, she always saw herself as the one in that grave; Steve standing over her, pushing dirt into the wooden casket with his bare hands. Diana would open her mouth to tell him that she’s not gone, that she’s still alive, but Steve would only shove the dry earth into her mouth. She suffocates until she awakes, gasping for breath and only a bitter taste left in her mouth and the sting of tears to keep her company. Every night, she tried to bury him deep in the trenches of her mind. She never could.

Before she could stop it, Diana’s yearning had brought her further down memory lane.

The days where time had come to a standstill, only to push her down when she was caught off guard.

The first time it happened, Diana was on her way to visit Etta. She was walking down the street, head down and minding her business, when she saw him.

He was a few paces ahead of her, smiling at something that the woman he was walking with had said. His golden hair seemed to move with the wind. His eyes flickered towards her and his smile became polite.

“Steve,” She breathed, surging forward, taking his hands in hers. It is a miracle, of course, but it’s not that far fetched-

“Hey!” The man’s voice pulled Diana out of her train of thought and her head snapped towards him. “Let go of me!”

As Diana tried to apologize, to explain, she realized, suddenly, that this man was not her Steve. Instead, he was a young man she had never seen before, looking startled and confused as he yanked his hands out of her grip.

“I - I’m so sorry,” Diana began, stepping back immediately. “I thought you were, my friend.” She hurried off, face flushed from disbelief. Turning the corner into an alleyway, Diana dropped to her knees. She felt nauseous and her head was spinning. Is this what losing your mind feels like?

The next time it happened, Diana was walking back to her apartment, groceries in one hand, a worn book in the other. She spotted him at an ice cream vendor across the way, handing ice cream to the small boy attached to his hip.

She made her way over, handing the vendor her change from the store to pay for the boy’s treat. The man, who she knew wouldn’t be Steve when she looked at him again, let out a small, surprised gasp and thanked her.

Diana only smiled at him, and said that she hoped someone would do the same for her children - the ones she would never have - and the man grinned in response.

She kneeled down, and asked the young boy if he thought the ice cream was good. The young one nodded enthusiastically. There was strawberry ice cream all over his face and Diana simply chuckled at his innocence.

It was only once she walked through her front door that she let herself succumb to the grief again. When she finally rose from the floor, knees sore, cheeks wet, and eyes red, she put away the groceries, broken eggs and all.

Her eyes stung as the pads of her fingers caressed the smooth stone, the pain and grief of her memories beginning to consume her once more.

“Oh, Steve.” She sighed. “I have fought so many battles. I have slain gods and monsters and saved the world of men again and again. I have been the victor in every fight…” Her voice caught in her throat as tears began to spill down her cheeks; Steve’s last words ringing clear as day in her heart.

“I can save today; you can save the world.”

“Except with you. You are the one war that I will never win. Only love can save the world, and you were gone before I could save you.”

As her demigod tears fell on the grave of her mortal love, the heavens and earth joined her in her eternal mourning.

#wondertrevsecretsanta #wondertrev #tusermadison

27 notes · View notes

elenatria · 5 years

Note

Ok, so before I sleep I have something to say. Thanks to you I have been sucked in the Valoris ship and not only can't get out but also come up with head canons so here is one: How do you imagine Boris(from the series) reacted when the news of Valery's (from the series)death reached him?

Took me long enough to answer that one, didn’t it?… Sigh. Hopefully I’m not off topic. Here it is.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19349599/chapters/47025865

Here.

Here and now.

Boris squeezed one last time the jagged piece of metalthat was getting slippery with sweat between his thumb and index finger. As ifwaking from a trance he shifted his eyes from one end of the half-lit corridorto the other like a burglar weighing his chances; he had been standingmotionless in front of that door for a good five minutes.

Too long.

Inga is waiting.

Taking a sharp breath in he wondered if there was a pointin carrying on with his plan.

Gubarev said “there must have been a tape foryou”. Not “there is”. Valery had “hinted at it” but what did that even mean?What did Valery say? He should have asked Vladimir his exact words but it wastoo late now, the journalist was long gone and Inga was probably freezing, mewingher lungs out in his trunk. He shouldn’t leave her waiting, he reckoned, lockedin the car just because he was too eager to find Valery’s gift on that sameday. She was only a cat.

Another gulp of air, another squeeze of the key. Heclutched his eyes shut.

What if it’s not there? What if the police, the KGBfound it already? What if they heard Gubarev’s tapes and solved the riddlebefore me?

What if I’m here to waste the next three hours of mylife, whatever life is left of me, searching for something that doesn’t exist?Something I wasn’t bound to find?

“B’s gift.”

What did that even mean?

It meant nothing, they never exchanged gifts whenValery was alive, when they still had time.

Time - the one thing Boris always took for granted,the one commodity his high position in the Party couldn’t grant him. And that fuckingnerd was never the sentimental type, never accepted his presents. Besides hedied on him, didn’t he? No second thoughts, no consequences, no Boris. He nevergave a fuck.

“B’s gift.” What a joke. Time was the only giftI wanted from you, Valery, and it was the one thing you couldn’t give me.

You bastard. How could you leave me behind, howcould you—

Boris tightened his fist around the key letting its metalteeth sink into his flesh. The sharp stinging brought him back to reality, backto rational thinking. Back to standing in front of a closed door.

I didn’t leave you behind, Boris. I had no choice.

He snapped his eyes open. There it was again, angergiving way to guilt.

But there was no time for regret.

Inga was freezing. Inga was waiting. Inga was only acat.

Valery was dead but Inga was alive.

He pushed the key into the lock and turned. With one briskclick the door creaked open into the dark apartment.

The smell of mould and dust hit his nostrils like theitch of an old wound, like a long-forgotten memory. He had never been therebefore yet the scent of old furniture felt eerily familiar. Maybe if he openedthe shutters a stream of pale November light would rid this place of its glum otherworldlyair but he didn’t want to make his presence known to people on the street.

Another lie.

It was the thought of sunlight entering this place, thistomb, that he hated the most. The specks of dust dancing in the frozen air,the rustling of feathers coming through the open window… it was all about life.It would feel as if nothing had changed, as if life went on.

But it didn’t.

Not for Valery, not for him.

He tossed his leather gloves on the telephone desk. Ashe took off his ushanka hat to put it on the hanger he caught a glimpse of hisreflection in the mirror above the desk.

Was that really him? The Deputy Minister sent toChernobyl two and a half years ago who would yell at both his superiors and hissubordinates with equal fervour?

Those weren’t his eyes anymore - they were worn,tired, heavy. He had lost weight, he was missing colour from his cheeks. But itcouldn’t be that bad, could it? He probably didn’t look half as bad as Valerydid on the day he took his own life. Maybe Valery had gazed at this very mirrorminutes before tightening the noose around his neck. Maybe he saw exactly whatBoris was seeing now: a pair of vacant eyes looking back at him, filled with amillion accusations, a million regrets.

You didn’t do enough.

All those people, all the innocent lives you sent totheir graves—

and then the one who mattered most.

You did nothing.

He shook the morbid thought away. He had wished athousand times to be with Valery that fateful day, any day. He had wishedhe wasn’t a coward.

And die for me because of a visit? he almost heard afamiliar whisper in the shadows, vibrant and secure. Have me read about yourdeath in the papers? Wouldn’t they love that, Boris. Wouldn’t they gloat overmy despair. “He fell from the stairs of his own house.” “He slipped on snow.” “Hemistook rat poison for salt.” “He died in his sleep because of a gas leak.” Athousand imaginative ways to die in the hands of the KGB, a thousand convenientdeaths to break my heart. And what would I get? A cheap watch instead of amedal. A faceless article instead of a call from your family announcing yourdeath to me. You would have done them a great service had you come here. Andyou still think you should have done it? How magnanimous of you, Boris. Howgloriously naive.

(shut up you’re not here you’re not me you don’t knowwhat it’s like--)

Boris almost collapsed, his pale forehead against thedoor casing being the only thing that kept him still and standing. When the voicecreeped back into the walls he forced his eyes open and squinted around atsilhouettes of objects he still couldn’t discern.

There should be a switch somewhere, he thought, thereshould be some light. Had to be.

How he craved for it now.

He fumbled in the dark for the small plastic square onthe wall like a castaway desperate for a float.

A click and there it was, the sickly light of a lightbulbgiving colours and names to what were shapeless shadows a second before.

“Hesaid he had hidden something for you in the kitchen, ‘B’s gift’ he calledit.”

Toocryptic. But of course. He didn’t want them to find out.

Borispeered through the corridor. The door at the end of it had been lefthalf-opened revealing a kettle on the stove and a used towel hanging from adrawer under the sink. He dragged his steps across the hallway, his eyes fixed onthe opposite wall, on the kettle and the cracked white tiles behind it.

Enteringthe kitchen he realized there was not enough light for his search – and yet he couldn’tstand another bulb hanging above his head faking daytime. He walked around the tablestaring numbly at the tape recorder on it and the ashtray where someone hadleft his final cigarette butts. Laika smokes and their familiar scent.

Hisscent.

Borisopened the window and blinked painfully as the hard white light engulfed him. Thebanging of shutters against the wall startled a couple of pigeons on the ledge causingthem to flutter away.

Heleaned out in the fresh air.

Valery’sapartment was on the fourth floor so he could have easily jumped from there,give his life an instant merciful ending. But it would have been messy,wouldn’t it? It would have alerted the KGB right away. Perhaps he wanted togive Gubarev time to learn about his death from neighbours and find his tapes.

Perhapshe didn’t want to make this public, his death was only meant for those whoknew. Those he blamed.

Borisslammed his fists on the ledge. Squeezing his lips shut he turned back to thekitchen.

B’sgift, B’s gift, B’s gift. He should start somewhere.

Hedragged the drawers open with a clang, pulled them out, emptied their contentson the floor. He pulled the dishes out of the cupboards one by one, stacking bythe sink the ones that escaped his feverish haste, kicking on the side the onesthat got smashed in the process. He emptied every pot, every box big enough tocontain a tape. He removed the strainer from the sink and shoved a hook madeout of a hanger down its depths only to bring up black pulp of rotten food andgreasy strands of red hair. He folded those in a table napkin, carefully pattedthem dry and hid them in his pocket.

After an hour of turning the kitchen upsidedown he was aching from head to toe. He wasn’t a young man anymore; he wasn’t ahealthy man. He collapsed on the chair, his chest heaving as he leaned on thetable, resigned, defeated. There was notone tile on the floor he hadn’t checked, one rug he hadn’t flipped, onecookbook he hadn’t opened in hopes of finding its pages torn and replaced bysomething as small as a tape. He had emptied the cupboards in search of falsebacks. He had traced the inside of the cooker hood, the vent, but those werethe first things any agent would search.

Therewas no hope. There was no tape addressed to him. There never was.

Hishand lay lifeless on the table next to the ashtray. Unconsciously he traced theflower-shaped edge of the cool brown crystal. He fiddled with the butts andrubbed his fingers together, watching idly the ash fall on his lap. He was solost in the deep blackness of his mind that he barely noticed the buzzingintruder flying through the open window.

Theunlikely visitor landed on the back of his hand tickling his skin. Its yellowand black stripes looked so out of place on such a cold day that broke him outof his haze.

Borislifted his hand to take a closer look at the frail lifeform.

“Whatare you doing here?” he mumbled, his eyes watering at the sight of a creatureso fragile and beautiful. “Aren’t you supposed to be hibernating or something?Protecting your queen from the cold? Who brought you here to die?”

Heturned his hand to get a closer look at the insect’s transparent wings.

“You’re doomed away from your hive, you know, awayfrom your queen. You weren’t supposed to be here at all. You were supposed towork, you were supposed to live.”

Thethought of the bee’s fate made him numb.

Heknew he couldn’t protect it, he could only watch it die slowly or let it go. Forgetit ever existed.

Hejust didn’t know which was worse.

“Youmust be hungry,” he muttered, “but there’s no sugar in this apartment, Idropped it all in the sink. Maybe there’s —”

Hislast words dissolved in his drying mouth. He got up slowly like a somnambulist,mesmerized by the insect’s yellow and black stripes.

Heknew now.

Gubarevnever said “Boris’ gift”. He said B’s gift.

Bee’sgift.

Andbees have only one gift to give.

Howcould he ever think it was about him. How selfish, how blind he had been allthis time. It was a riddle. Something the KGB would never suspect, cynicalbastards that they were.

Borisplaced his palm next to the sink letting the bee fly off and then franticallyturned to the cupboard next to the vent. There was one jar left, one jar hehadn’t checked because it was filled with a substance so inconspicuous and denseand sticky nothing could be preserved in it without being ruined.

Heopened the cupboard and grabbed the honey jar. It was big enough. It wastransparent yet dense enough. No one would have guessed.

You’rea genius, Valery. You’re a fucking genius.

Heunscrewed the lid and let the honey drip into the sink.

Thereit was, a heat-sealed bag and a tape with a red cover in it.

There.It. Was.

Heturned on the tap and rinsed the precious find carefully making surethere were no holes on the plastic to let water in. He wiped it with the toweland ripped it open until the tape was safe and dry in his palm. With shakyhands he took it out of the case, turned to the table, pressed the ejectbutton and shoved the tape in.

Click.

Manyseconds dragged by without a single word coming from the recorder.

(hesitance)

Howunlike Valery. He was never afraid to speak his mind, never had second thoughtsabout it. But he was at a loss of words whenever Boris was being a bit too bold,whenever he took their relationship one step further. Valery would turn into alost puppy each time Boris asked for reassurance, each time Boris showedaffection. Each time Boris asked for more.

Thefirst sound from the recording broke Boris out of his reverie.

Aclearing of the throat. A cough. A sigh.

“Thistape belongs to Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina,” the voice began in an almost formaltone. “I don’t know if he will be Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministersby the time it reaches him. I don’t even know if he’ll live long enough toreceive it. But there it is… Months of silence condensed into a single tape.”

Borisfelt his stomach clutching as the voice continued.

“Thereason why I’m making this tape now, Boris, is that… you called me thismorning, didn’t you? I knew it was you. And I knew we couldn’t talk. That’swhy I’m talking now.” Valery’s recorded voice drew in a deep breath, preparing hislistener for what was bound to become an unstoppable river of words.

“Ihad been waiting for that call. How long has it been? Six months? A year? I’velost count. To be honest, I thought you’d call earlier. I would lie in bedstaring at the ceiling and imagine the talks we would have you and I, hours of them,and as months went by and I didn’t get to hear from you I would come to imagineour silences instead. The ones we would share after a long tedious day at thepower plant, smoking and drinking and going through endless reports withoutexchanging a single word. The silences that enveloped us each time we found newways to… explore each other. Sometimes you couldn’t stop, sometimes Icouldn’t stop. But there was always silence afterwards. I cherished that asmuch as I cherished watching you come undone in my arms. Losing control. Iloved you the most when you were like that - vulnerable. Digging your nailsinto my ribs, holding on to me for dear life.”

Therewas a pause after that as if Valery was trying to gather his scatteredthoughts.

“Forgiveme, Boris, but I had forgotten how you sounded like, the deep soothing tone ofyour voice. My memory…” He clicked histongue, probably shaking his head in regret. “It must be the medication,getting heavier every week, every day. Sometimes I just refuse to take it becauseI don’t want to forget, you know? Least of all you. But you called.” He laughed.“I knew it was you, I heard your breathing in my ear and it all came back. Theorders you gave, the barking on the phone, the promises that you’d get us… get meeverything I needed.” A pause. Valery giving himself time to think, toremember. “The pleas, the soft whispers when we were alone telling me what todo, the desperate gasps and soft whimpers when you… when you… Oh god…”

Boriswas almost certain he heard a stifled sob. A biting of the fist. “I’m so sorry,Boris, it all comes back to me now… It’s harder than I thought it would be. It’ssavage.”

Anothersob, masked as a sharp intake of breath. “It’s worse than being alone. It’sknowing that I’m still alive and you’re out there, in a phone booth who knowswhere, wasting your coins on me, unable to even say ‘hi’. Because of what Idid. Because of what I said. I wish I could take it all back now...”

Therewas no doubt now, Valery was crying.

“G-giveme one more chance to lie to the world, Boris, and I’ll take it. One horriblelie for one more day with you. I-I think it’s fair...”

Borisheard the clicking of plastic; Valery had removed his glasses and dropped themon the table. “But I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, not when I knew that they werethe reason you were coughing red stains into your handkerchief. Not when I sawyou broken like that, bending over your knees on that miserable bench insteadof enjoying the sunlight, feeling hopeless, worthless. You’re not worthless,Borya, not to me, not to anyone. Not to the millions of people you helped save.”

Borischoked. His vision was getting blurry but he refused to dip his hand into hispocket and bring out the handkerchief – he knew Valery’s hair was still there,soft and fragile, folded in a napkin. He knew the feel of it was going to ruinhim.

Hewiped his cheek with the heel of his palm instead.

Thevoice continued. It was clearer, more composed now. “Do you remember the daywhen we set the lunar rover to motion for the first time? I thought I would neverforgive you for making me blush in front of everyone. I mean how dare you,”Valery chuckled. “That night you made it worse - you kissed me. You made mekiss you. I didn’t know I could do that, Boris. I had forgotten. When the firstrays of sunshine found us together in your bed you traced my lips promising mysmile was yours to protect, forever. I didn’t understand it back then. I didn’tknow why my smile mattered. And you didn’t know ‘forever’ could be awfullyshort.” Valery huffed. “I guess we were both equally ignorant.”

Afaint laugh.

Boriswinced hard against his fist as hot beads slid down the back of his hand.

“I’msmiling now, Boris, I wish you could see it,” Valery sighed happily smothering asniffle. “You may think they won but they didn’t because not a day passeswithout your thought putting a smile on my face.”

Borisblinked again and again trying to get rid of the thick tears blinding him.

Therewas no time for grief. He had to listen to the end. He had to stay focused. Hehad to drink in every single word.

“They’llnever take that, you know,” Valery reassured him, his tone steady and firm likethat day in the court. “It’s that last inch of me they cannot take. The inchthat is you.”

Valery’svoice lowered until it was nothing but a dark whisper. “They turned my worldinto a prison, Boris. They took everything. Except you. You’re that part of methey will never have.”

TheUkrainian was leaning on his elbows, uncaring of the tear stains gathering onthe tape recorder. He didn’t need it anymore. Valery’s words didn’t need a recorderto be remembered.

“Don’tdie before me, Borya,” came the final choked sob from the speaker. “I couldnever live with myself if you did.”

Borisfidgeted with the keys, brushed his hand over the speaker just to feel thevibrations of Valery’s voice.

Justto feel.

Heclosed his eyes waiting for the beloved friend’s last words to pulsate throughhis fingers as if they were together one last time, in bed, feeling each other’slips in the dark.

Thewords finally came. Maybe he had heard them before. Maybe he hadn’t. He didn’tremember. It didn’t matter anymore.

Valerylived. Valery existed. Valery was his.

“Ilove you, Boris. Don’t die.”

…

Thatevening, and for many evenings to come, Inga enjoyed a royal meal - not justthe usual canned pet food, no. She had baked salmon served in a porcelain bowl anda large basket to sleep in in front of the fireplace. However the basket wasonly meant for naps and she’d rather spend her day being petted and purringhappily. When she was done licking herself clean she would hop on her new owner’slap and settle herself between the pages of a Pravda issue and a hot cup oftea.

Shewas never denied the tenderness she deserved even if sometimes the petting wasinterrupted by long intakes of breath and hands stilling on her back as if timehad stopped, as if the world had come to an end. She didn’t know what thatmeant, she was only a cat, but she knew what she wanted and she would consistentlybring her owner back to reality with her soft mewing and the playful blinkingof her big emerald eyes.

Thegrey-haired man’s lost gaze would then turn back to her, his reddened eyessoftening, and he would continue to indulge her with long even strokes alongher back, the ones she loved the most.

Shewas only a cat. Maybe she knew instinctively that her time on this planet waslimited and those displays of affection, those shared moments with someone wholoved her were enough to make life worth living.

Maybeshe was so happy because she didn’t know how long she had.

Butthen again, who does.

#chernobyl #a single bullet #inga #cat #valery's cat #valoris #valery legasov #boris shcherbina #chernobyl fanfiction #valoris fanfiction #angst #too much of it #you will drown in angst #beware #ao3 #elenatria

67 notes · View notes

me-myself-and-my-fos · 5 years

Text

Navin Week Day 1: Thanksgiving

Pairing: Gavin Reed x Nic Blake

Summary: Nic goes on a trip down memory lane and brings Gavin with her

Word count: 2.2k+

From the moment they met, Gavin knew Nic didn’t get along with her family. He never met her parents, and didn’t push to unless she wanted him to. And from the start she made it clear that she was not in any way ashamed of him, but of her parents. When Nic moved to Detroit she only brought with her the memories she wanted, leaving behind practically her whole life. Sometimes Gavin felt guilty about this, and Nic would remind him she did it of her own free will. She hasn’t looked back since, so when she came to Gavin one afternoon and told him she wanted to visit her hometown for Thanksgiving, Gavin was taken by surprise. He loved his wife, he really did, but sometimes her ideas were questionable at best. But upon seeing the pleading look in her eyes, he agreed without question.

He took a week off from work since they’d be in Virginia Beach for a week. Nic seemed excited, she talked nearly nonstop on the flight about all of her old stomping grounds that she was going to take him to. The hotel they were staying at was right by the beach which Nic did purposely. By the time they landed she was practically vibrating in her seat. A taxi ride to the car rental office and they headed to unpack. It was much warmer than Gavin expected—he was only used to weather in Detroit. While it was still chilly, there was no snow which only slightly surprised him. By early November Detroit was normally covered in a thin layer of white but there was just a bitter cold that wrapped the city of Virginia.

Gavin noticed Nic’s driving was much better than it was in Detroit. He figured it had something to do with that she grew up on these streets and knew how native Virginians drove. The hotel was nice, Nic having booked them a room with a balcony that overlooked the beach (“We call it the Oceanfront, the Beach is the city. You’ll get used to the slang.” She explained as some point). It was only eleven in the morning so Nic eagerly requested that she drive him all the way to her favorite childhood bakery in the next city, Norfolk. It was at least an hour drive to said bakery, and upon arrival Nic was bouncing on her heels as she dragged him to the mud green, rusty exterior bakery with large words on the sign saying “The French Bakery”. His wife quickly explained how she had been going there since she was small and that she knew the owners almost personally. This reigned true as she opened the door, a small bell ringing and an older middle eastern gentleman coming from the back to greet the customers only to break out in a grin and calling Nic by an old name long forgotten. She smiled and once they reached the counter, she leaned over and hugged him as he exclaimed that it had been too long since her last visit. She introduced Gavin who was greeted just as warmly, however he felt out of place. Nic ordered two pastrami sandwiches along with a long list of desserts that Gavin knew would give them both stomach aches that night. In his opinion they spent too much money but the grin on his wife’s face made it worth it. As they drove back to their hotel, both eating their lunch and making a mess of the front seats, Nic went on to tell him how she was surprised to find the bakery still open and how she expected it be out of business. Gavin listened intensely, devouring his meal and coming to the conclusion that the expense was well spent.

They spent the afternoon unpacking and eating the desserts bought, and both went to bed with stomach aches. Nic said it was worth it.

The next morning Gavin woke up early and ordered room service, wanting to get an early start that day. Nic woke up at half past seven, and that was late in Nic’s opinion. She woke up to pancakes with blueberry syrup and a cup of coffee, and Gavin half soaked wearing nothing but a towel as he stepped out of the shower.

That day she took him to the golf course with a long winded story of how that exact golf course is where she had her seventh birthday party and she hadn’t played a game of golf since. Her inexperience showed as she lost the game, a score of 130 to Gavin’s 80. He still questioned how she managed to get such a high score on an 18 hole course. After the game they got lunch at one of the many restaurants that rested on the strip that was the Oceanfront. Many shops were closed, Nic telling him that they normally closed for the winter since there weren’t any tourists. Virginia was a tourist heavy spot during the summer, something Nic loathed in her youth. After lunch, Gavin was dragged to the many stores that stayed open. Some of them had useless souvenirs, others had neat collectibles or stones that seemed to interest Nic. She left Virginia at nineteen and coming back home after nearly a decade gave her a large wave of nostalgia. She wanted to show Gavin everything she enjoyed, although they only had a week which wasn’t enough time in her opinion.

That night, she dragged Gavin to her favorite barbecue restaurant. It was the best barbecue Gavin had in a while and he was disappointed that it’s so far away. He joked a bit that they’d have to fly down to Virginia again if he ever gets in the mood for barbecue. That night was the first time Gavin has also seen Nic so relaxed. She really seemed to be enjoying this trip on memory lane, focusing on all of the positives.

They went to bed that night in a pile of limbs as they cuddled, Gavin suggesting they come back again for her birthday.

The next few days were blurs as Nic dragged him to several different places, all of which held special places in her memory. At one point, Nic brought him to her old high school to visit her favorite World History teacher who happened to still be teaching at that school. They talked to the class, a mix of freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, with a lone senior. Some of students seemed to be fascinated with Nic, asking mostly questions about college and studying advice since she had been in their exact spot. She was disappointed when it was time to leave, but she managed to catch her old English teacher as well last minute as they were leaving campus. He told her about the Holiday Thrift Shop the school held every year about Thanksgiving. Nic insisted to Gavin they go before leaving for Detroit. They did go, buying some trinkets such as healing rings that Nic insisted on using for her wrists.

The second to last of their trip was Thanksgiving Day, and Nic has something special planned for them. She drove them out for two hours, not bothering to tell Gavin where they were headed. The moment Gavin notices the sign with the word “cemetery” in it, he had a good feeling what was going on. They parked in the loop, walked through the crunchy, frost covered grass down rows and rows of gravestones. They finally arrived at the gravestone with two familiar names and dates. Those names and dates were tattooed on Nic’s forearm.

With hands stuffed in her pockets, Nic spoke quietly. “Hey grandma, hey grandpa.” She smiled softly, and Gavin saw tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “I know it’s been a long time… too long, honestly. But I didn’t forget about you. I didn’t forget about where I came from. I just needed a chance to find me.” She shrugged, giving a teary smile to the grave. “I found her. I had to lose a lot of family on the journey but… I think it was worth it. Besides, they wouldn’t like who I am now anyways. I know you two would though. Yeah, you were always proud of me no matter what.” Nic looked over at Gavin and held out her hand to him. He took it, tangling their fingers together as he rubbed his thumb over her wedding ring. “I want y’all to meet someone.” Gavin almost laughed. Her accent had gotten stronger since being there. “This is my husband, Gavin. He’s really good to me, and I love him a lot. I know if given the chance, y’all would have loved him too.”

He cleared his throat, not wanting to intrude in the moment but feeling the need to speak. “I promise I’ll take care of her.” He brought her hand up and kissed it. “Always.”

On the way back from the cemetery, Nic stopped by a small family owned diner. She ate there every time she would visit her grandparents’ grave and got to know the family that owned it. It originally owned by a lovely old woman named Ruth, and her husband. They have children, and two of their daughters worked in the diner alongside their parents. After the passing of Ruth and her husband, their oldest daughter took over the diner along with her sister, now both sisters and their children ran it. To say the diner was family friendly was an understatement. Nic insisted that Gavin get the clam chowder, her favorite soup of all time. He enjoyed it a lot more than he expected.

That evening, they went to the gift shop on the boardwalk and got some fudge. Nic got it every time she went to the Oceanfront and stated that it was the last thing she ate before leaving Virginia. She got half a pound of her favorite dark chocolate caramel sea salt fudge. Gavin got a pound which gave him the option to pick four different flavors. He picked peanut butter, red velvet, chocolate pecan, and white chocolate. The fudge ended up being their dinner, once again giving the couple stomach aches to nurse for the night.

Their last day was more intimate. They spent a good portion of it in the hotel room, watching tv on the crappy hotel television and listening to the waves. Come afternoon, Nic went out to the beach to have a walk. She was barefoot and in shorts, walking in the shallow part of the ocean where the water barely reached her ankles. Gavin joined her after a few moments, not wanting her to experience this alone. Hand in hand, they walked the length of the beach and back in comfortable silence. The waves and the cawing of crows and hooting of pigeons filled their silence. They watched the sunset, night blanketing the earth and making the air too chilly for their liking. They went back inside the hotel, opting to take a nice warm shower to combat the cool air.

Gavin sat on the bed, flipping through channels with the remote in an effort to fight off the boredom gnawing at his mind as he waited for her to get out. God, he thought, she always takes the longest showers. When Nic finally did, pajamas on and hair still soaked despite ten minutes of drying it, she sat down in front of Gavin, smiling softly. He shut off the tv.

“Thank you for doing this,” she said, taking one of his hands in hers and playing with his scarred, calloused fingers.

“It’s no problem,” he replied. “I had a lot of fun.” There was a pause. “If you ever want to do this again, just let me know. I’ll take off and we can fly down, whether just for a day or a week, or a month…”

Nic snorted. “I cannot stay for a whole month. I would go insane. Virginia gets pretty boring after a while.”

“With the places you took me, hardly seems like there’s a dull moment.”

She pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “Yeah well, I took you to the fun places.” Her smile dropped as fell into deep thought.

Gavin knew that look. “Uh oh. What’s wrong?”

“Just…” she sighed, going back to playing with his fingers, “thinking.”

“About what?”

“I’m not gonna lie, when I planned this trip… I wanted you to meet my parents.”

“Nico–”

“I decided against it on the flight here. I realized, I should focus on the things that make me happy, like you and fudge and buying stupid souvenirs that we are never going to look at again.” She laughed, and Gavin laughed with her. “The positive memories are what made me come back, the negative ones should stay in the past.”

“I know you tell me how happy I make you, and I don’t doubt you about it, but…” Gavin tried to think of the right words. He never was a words guy. Hell, Abby helped him with his vows. But Nic didn’t marry him for his words. He continued, “But this is the happiest I’ve seen you in a long time. Your smile? I haven’t seen that one since our wedding day. So, once I saw that smile that you only break out for the purest moments, I knew this would be good for you.”

Nic tackles him onto the bed, her chin resting on his chest. “You’re so sappy.”

“Only for you.”

“I know.” She grinned. “I love you.”

“I love you too, nerd.”

#foweek #gavin reed #bastard husband #dbh #navin #self ship #self shipping community #my writing #self insert fic #mywriting

3 notes · View notes

iwillruletheuniverse · 6 years

Text

Thirty-eight weeks and this is getting ... I don't know. I swore I would kill myself in September and now it's April. This was not the way I pictured it. I can't believe it's April. It feels like as if time stopped when Chester died. I wasn't aware that the summer ended, that fall came and ended. I wasn't aware that winter came and ended either and I am still not aware. It's spring now. Or summer. I am not sure. Everything is blurry. I try to focus and it causes headache.

I write in my diary every day. The inside of my head is a terrible place and I write daily about how I feel. I can't help but to look back on what I wrote last year. Not good things but I lived on hope so it was better than nowadays. I was so sure that I was going to see Linkin Park live last year and I remember how sad and upset I was back in 2011 for that I wasn't allowed to go and see them. I was sad and upset back in 2007 as well. My mother promised me. "Next time", she said. I believed her. If I had told her about that last year, she had said, "I didn't said that. Why would I say that?" Why did I live on hope? I should have known. "Well, should we book the trip to Berlin", I asked her. "Tomorrow" Every day one year ago. When I asked her about it, she became angry. I thought it was weird considering her always talking about how much she wanted to travel to Berlin. I swallowed tears as I understood that there would be no booked trip and they were so cheap. She was asleep while I checked flights and hotels for hours. 'Next time', I told myself but I think I knew there would never be a next time. My mother did book a trip. For my birthday. It was lovely and just what I needed. I saw the news about Chris Cornell when I came home. The price of the trip my mother booked was twice the price of the trip to Berlin. Will my mother regret that she didn't took me to Berlin when instead of celebrating my birthday, she'll be visiting my grave? I don't even want a grave. No funeral. I just want to be erased. Maybe I never existed? I know seeing Linkin Park wouldn't have helped at all. Still, I think back and God, I want to stop thinking.

It's still up and down. Still mostly down. I think of Chester all the time and when my mother fell this Monday, I thanked Chester. Karma is a bitch. At times I think, 'He is dead. He really is gone' and it hits me and the words are so foreign, so extremely terrible that I don't understand them. They are not welcome here. The chock is just as paralysing as it was on the 20th of July. It doesn't feel, and whoa.. Once again it feels like I am beaten billions of times. My ribs are being crushed. My visceras crack but I don't die. How the fuck can I live with a broken inside? I am just wondering. It shouldn't be possible. It hurts so much. When my parents are home and when I am out in public, I bite my teeths and my jaw hurts so bad to not scream.

The snow haven't fell. There probably won't come anymore until November, possibly December, most likely January. I am dead then and I'd like to believe there's lots of snow in wherever I may come. So much snow that I can build snowmen, lots of igloos and do thousands of snow angels. Maybe Chester and Chris can join? I hope they'll like me.

#linkin park #chris cornell

2 notes · View notes

bloody-avery · 7 years

Photo

V. ACCEPTANCE

( 2 - 4 January 1980 )

i. denial // ii. anger // iii. bargaining /// iv. depression /// music inspo i. /// music inspo ii.

“ Why Canis Major and Leo? ”

His skin is soft. His eyes look up, judge her face, look back down again. He pauses.

“ Regulus is the brightest star in the Leo constellation. It’s called ‘the heart of the lion.’

Again, a pause. Not doubting, but nervous. His lips part and his voice is slow.

And Sirius is the brightest star of Canis Major. The dog star. ”

It’s just ink. That’s what she’d told herself, that it was just ink, and that one day it would fade. His skin is soft as she kisses the little stars on his forearm.

“ They suit you. ”

He looks at her like she’s always wanted to be looked at.

“ Marry me. ”

Cassandra jumped awake, sitting bolt upright. Her breath rattled in her chest. She looked to the bed next to her, but it was empty. Her ring was cold. Cassandra’s hand shook as she rubbed it over her face. She put her head back down on her pillow. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend he was still there. If she closed her eyes, she could sleep.

“ Do you--? Do you miss who you used to be? ”

She pauses. Maybe. There are words, but they’re hollow. If he lets out a breath of relief, they’ll fall over. She doesn’t even know if she means them. She does, she tells herself. She will.

“ It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t go back. That part of my life is over. ”

“ I love the person you were, I love the person you’ve become.

I know that’s not enough to make up for the rest of it. ”

It is. It should be. It is, it is, it is. She loves him, she loves him so much that it burns. She would walk through hell for him without blinking. She’d turned her back on a lifetime of what she’d thought was the right thing because of him, hadn’t she? She shakes her head. Her hair tickles her shoulders.

“ Change doesn’t happen without sacrifice, and if that’s what I have to sacrifice to be who I am now, I can live with that. Even if it’s hard. This is the first time in my life where I’ve done the right thing... I started doing it for you, and it was hard. It was hard but it felt right. But I’m not doing it for you anymore. I’m doing it for me, for our future. So the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black actually means something again, for us.

For our children, if we have any. ”

Barty’s hand was shaking her awake, pulling her from sleep. She grabbed onto his arm as tightly as she could and sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

But it wasn’t him she was apologizing to. She couldn’t tell him what she was apologizing for, couldn’t fit it all into words, couldn’t make him understand and see how much she had to apologize for. She buried her face in his shoulder. She wouldn’t sleep. She couldn’t sleep.

“I told him that I’m scared shitless that you’re going to get hurt and it’s going to be my fault.”

Why is she burning? Why is it burning, why are they fighting? Stop. Stop and just hold me, stop with the secrets. She wants to yell it at him. She wants to cry. She wants to feel anything other than burning.

" We’re getting married! And I know that that’s not as important as the Riddle to you, or all of the rest of it, but everything is secrets and the Riddle and fighting with people and whenever we talk about Sirius or Barty or— or anyone or anything it all comes back to secrets we’re keeping and it’s exhausting. ”

The silence is pained.

“ You never said anything. ”

She’s selfish. One day he’ll resent her for it and she won’t even blame him. What a stupid girl, to think that she could do this. It would be Riddle first, her second, until it was over or until she was dead.

“ Maybe I didn’t say it all. But maybe you weren’t listening either. ”

Maybe if he’d listened, he’d still be alive. He’d been gone so long. His birthday was tomorrow. She missed him. The bed was cold, the sheets didn’t smell like him anymore. She went into the closet and found one of his Quidditch uniforms, pulled it on, and crawled back into bed.

“ You want to talk about heirs right now? ”

Tell him. The words are on her tongue, they’re balanced there. Tell him. She doesn’t. They fade.

“ I’ve been preoccupied but I haven’t been invisible. You didn’t say a word. ”

“ I didn’t tell you because I—I wanted to bring you good news, and I-I… I don’t have any. ”

I did. I should’ve. I lost it. If it fades it’s my fault, if you’re mad, it’s my doing. She wants to cry. It happened once, it can happen again. They can try. She wants to tell him. She doesn’t. He’d not say it, but it’d be a blessing in disguise. She can’t see the relief in his eyes when she tells him what she’s lost. She lets it go. They’re supposed to have years for this.

“ I won’t choose killing someone else over going to Azkaban or dying myself. ”

For once in his life, she wants him to be selfish. But he isn’t. He never was, not until he left. The one time he was selfish was the one time she begged that he wouldn’t be.

They visited Regulus’ grave that morning, had put a wreath of flowers against the stone that marked an empty coffin. Beni ran his fingers over the letters there-- Regulus Black, loving son, husband, and brother. Died 15 November 1979. She’d fought for brother to be on there, tooth and nail against Walburga. Threatening to deface Regulus’ grave by carving the word there herself after the fact was the only thing that got Walburga to finally give in. Cassandra was a woman of her word when it came to threats, if nothing else. And so loving son, husband, and brother were carved into the stone.

Cassandra had not kept her word, however, and the gravestone had been, in a small and indistinguishable way, defaced by a charm of her own. Beni’s fingers traced over the small bumps there, spelling out the words in braille for him to read. His fingers paused on the word brother. He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve before he stood. Cassandra couldn’t bring herself to touch the stone. Her ring was still cold against her finger; she didn’t need to feel the chill of the stone on her hand hours after they’d left to know that Regulus was still gone. To know that Regulus wasn’t coming back. She took Beni’s hand and with a crack, they disapparated.

Knockturn Alley. Cassandra’s footsteps crunched in the snow as she walked. It was with purpose, for the first time in what felt like ages. She had an appointment to keep. A piece of paper was clutched tightly in her hand, though she was careful not to crease it, careful not to bend it. She held Beni’s hand tightly in her other. His steps quicker than hers, twice the speed to keep up. His shoes were muddy, his face puffy; he’d not said a word since she’d gotten him up that morning to come with her.

The bell at the door rang as they entered. There was talking, a blur of conversation. Cassandra held out the piece of paper, and the woman examined it for a moment. Her lips tilted upwards in a smile.

“The constellation Leo. Nice choice. Where do you want it?”

She lifted the bottom of her shirt and pointed to the space on her ribcage, below her heart. “Here.”

The woman nodded, and patted the table.

“Come and lay down, then, while I get my stuff ready.”

The table felt cold beneath her. She didn’t wince at the needle as the woman did her work, didn’t flinch. She closed her eyes. Her skin prickled. The woman used a mirror to show her her work when she was finished, the pale lines etched there on her ribcage, beneath her breast. It would be too obvious on her arm, on her shoulder like she’d wanted. But it was close to her heart, still. A little mark of something that would remain. Something that she would not let fade.

She looked over at Beni perched on a chair beside the table, legs pulled up to his chest and his chin on his knees. She looked back at the woman.

“We need you to do two more.” She nodded to Beni, and the woman looked at him. Cassandra touched Beni’s shoulder gently, and his head lifted. “I gave you the paper, do you still have it?”

He nodded mutely and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. She took it from him and held it out to the woman, who looked down at it. She frowned.

“I don’t know this constellation.”

“It’s not a constellation,” Beni finally chimed in. His head lifted slowly from his knees, tilting towards her. “It’s my brother.”

Cassandra looked down at the collection of dots on the page. They wouldn’t mean anything to anyone, wouldn’t mean anything to anyone but the two of them. Those little circles, those little marks, meant the world to the two of them sitting there. To the rest of the world, they were just dots. But to them, it was spelling out a name. Spelling out a secret.

búho.

Beni sat on the edge of his bed and traced his fingers over the little raised bumps on his wrist. The tattoo was pale against his skin, barely noticeable, more obvious by the bumps it left than the dots. It was a simple charm, one that Cassandra had discovered before she’d suggested the idea to Beni. A tattoo was useless on him if he couldn’t see it, but this, he could feel. The letters in braille against his skin, a quiet homage to the man that had been more family to him than he’d ever dreamed he could have. Cassandra’s own fingers traced over her tattoo just below her left ear. The rise and fall of her skin where the dots marked her, dappled on her skin in pale ink. Somewhere she could touch, somewhere she could feel, without anyone noticing, without thinking that it was anything other than a nervous tick of hers, toying with an earring or twirling her hair between her fingers, while in reality tracing her fingertips over the name hidden there. Another little white lie to add to her ever-expanding list of deception and secrets.

“Do you think he’s okay, wherever he is?”

Cassandra looked up at the question, and her fingers paused against her neck. “What?”

“Do you think he’s okay?” Beni paused. “Do you think he’s still looking after us?”

He would be, if he was still here. But she couldn’t say that to Beni, so she sighed instead and shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Beni fell into silence again, and Cassandra thought he was done speaking until he leaned back and dropped down onto his back. He brushed his curly hair away from his forehead. “Do you think he’d be proud of us?”

Cassandra settled next to him, her head turned to look at him beside her. She couldn’t say yes. Regulus wouldn’t be proud of her. He would be ashamed. He’d asked her for two simple things-- happiness, and to finish what they’d started. She’d abandoned the locket with Kreacher, never even let herself lay eyes on it. And she knew that she could never be happy again. Not when he’d left her. Not when saying goodbye to her had never even crossed his mind. She reached out and brushed her fingers through Beni’s hair.

“He’d be proud of you, Abejorro.” She could keep her voice from cracking. For his sake, she could keep it together for him. “He loved you so much. I hope you know that.”

“I do.” He fell silent again, and traced his fingers over his wrist again. Cassandra looked up at the ceiling again and focused on keeping her breathing even. Beni’s head tilted towards her. “Do you?”

Cassandra looked at him again. “Do I what?”

“Do you know that he loved you?” Cassandra’s breath caught in her chest, and she didn’t answer. She did, didn’t she? She knew that he’d loved her. He’d gone alone to the cave to protect her, he’d gone alone because he loved her. Because to him, doing the selfish thing was better than letting her take the fall for him. She took a shaky breath and let the first tears fall.

“Yeah, I know.”

Beni shifted, and he curled up against Cassandra’s side. His arms held onto her, thin but strong, and his curly hair tickled her neck.

“It’s okay to cry.”

“I know.” And she did. Her body rattled with it, her cheeks felt cold as the tears slid down them, disappearing into the dark curls of her hair. She bit down hard on her lip to keep herself from letting out a sob. “I miss him so much.”

“I do too.” Cassandra felt a drop of cold on her arm, and she looked at Beni. He was crying too. She held onto him even tighter, and he squeezed her right back.

It was okay to cry. For the first time, her tears didn’t fall out of anger. They didn’t fall out of frustration, they didn’t fall out of hurt. They didn’t fall out of confusion, out of loss, out of sadness. They fell because it shook her. They fell because in all this, she’d never stopped to think about how much she just wanted someone to hold her, how much she missed that feeling of being loved and having someone love her with everything they had in them. She wiped at her eyes and pressed a kiss to the top of Beni’s head.

“I love you, Abejorro. Okay? I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

#ofc: drabbles #drabbles #[ avispa ; ]#[ abejorro ; ]#[ teach me how to say goodbye ; ]#tw: death #tw: death of a spouse #tw: needles #tw: grief #acceptance #tw: nightmares #tw: death of a sibling #tw: miscarriage #( for those of you that are confused regulus' nickname was buho that's what beni called him )

2 notes · View notes

exileancestrysearcher · 7 years

Text

A Pause to Write and Reflect

I’m finally taking a substantial breath for the first time since April 15th, when I arrived in St. Petersburg, Russia, after a quick early morning flight from Moscow. I am in Vienna tonight, after a week in Poland, preceded by five days in the Russian Federation. I will try to go in chronological order to give you a sense of what I’ve been doing and seeing.

First, the weather in St. Petersburg was mostly awful, especially for mid-late April. It snowed, there was a lot of ice and slush, and the winds were often bitterly cold. Score one for remembering to take hiking boots. These were particularly useful for traversing the mud and slush on the walk to where my grandfather fell. I should have taken gloves and a good hat, but I was already overpacked as it was.

I have to say that the food was really good in the St. Petersburg area, the people were mostly friendly and the city looked fairly prosperous. My centrally located and comfortable hotel room at the Domina Prestige was resplendent in purple and I enjoyed some rest to recover from a bit of jetlag - the city is seven hours east of Port of Spain/Ottawa/NYC time. I took a walk to St. Isaac’s Cathedral and shuffled carefully over the ice around part of the city centre.

The next morning, the 16th, I was picked up shortly after nine by Dasha, a young Russian woman who was my assigned driver for the day, courtesy of the Ingria team of the St. Petersburg State University. Dasha took us in her Lexus to meet some other members of the team, Alex, Alexandra (my trusty translator), Sergei, Alex, team leader Prof. Yevgeny Ilyin, and Maria Khodesevich, who was the person who discovered my grandfather’s remains. They are all impossible sweet people. I felt truly cared for during my two-day program with the team.

Also joining us in the two-vehicle convoy was Tatiana Gord, a print journalist for St. Petersburg Evening, and we were eventually followed by another car with a TV (78 ‘Life’) news crew. I had no idea my visit would attract so much attention but the media activity sustained itself for at least the two days I was there.

We exited the city eastward towards the town of Kirovsk. My father (born in 1938), his two older brothers and his mother were evacuated to the Kirov region in 1941 from the Russian city of Smolensk, which had fallen to German forces earlier that fall. We don’t know how long they were in Smolensk or what their exact path was from Poland in September 1939.

We do believe that my family saw my grandfather not long before he returned to the front for a final time in November-December 1941. He and his comrades participated in one of the first large efforts to break the German-Finnish siege of Leningrad, as it was then known. The siege ultimately lasted over 900 days and killed over a million people, plus well over a million Soviet soldiers. Prof. Ilyin believes my grandfather belonged to the 204th regiment of the Red Army; I have been unable as yet to find any information on this grouping.

Our first stop outside the city was at a Panorama Museum site built c. 1984. The interior was stunning. It portrayed the Soviet front lines and a panorama of the region from Lake Ladoga in the north to the Gulf of Finland in the south. It was an apocalyptic vision, with fire everywhere, bombers overhead, and doomed soldiers moving en masse across land and sea in an attempt to free the starving masses of Leningrad.

Outside, we walked past various tanks used by Soviet forces during the war, including one that was painted white for winter warfare. The fastest tank there could reach over 60 kph but this was a war of attrition for the longest time.

The next place we visited was the Sinyavino Heights War Memorial, where soldiers of the 1941-44 Soviet offensive were buried. My grandfather, who was discovered on May 5th, 2015, was interred there in a mass grave the next day. I had thought there was a headstone for him but there isn’t one - yet. I intend to rectify this situation eventually. The location of the gravesite on the Heights is indeed poignant - it was the target of my grandfather and the forces with him.

I placed flowers at the mass grave and we lit candles of memorial. Tatiana gave me a stiff belt from her flask, as she had done outside the Panorama Museum. The TV crew was obsessed with showing me walking everywhere, trudging through the snow and mud. I swear they had cameras trained on my feet for a total of twenty minutes or more. It was a solemn experience otherwise and I had a strange feeling of a circle being closed, standing so near the mortal remains of my grandfather.

We continued by car and then eventually on foot to where the Ingria team conducted many of its searches. The place is forested now but Prof. Ilyin stated that the whole area was like a vast desert by the end of the war. The amount of bodies, bullets and other remains of the war cover vast regions around what was then Leningrad. There are homes built over some of these battlefields and not every homeowner will give permission to have searchers retrieve bodies. Not everyone will have the same opportunity for closure that I did.

We finally reached the former trench where a mortar killed my grandfather and no doubt many of those around him. The team retrieved my grandfather’s gas mask and shoes, as well as a ceramic cup from nearby that may or may not have belonged to him. We also took some dirt from the ground where he had been found, as we had done from the mass grave. Once again, the soil was full of bullets, which caused me some trouble going through Customs on my way out of Russia. I laid a flower at the site and stood in contemplation of what had happened there. The TV crew interviewed me via Alexandra and started off with a tricky question about Canadian-Russian relations. I deflected and said this was all about family, and I thanked the team for finding my grandfather.

Kirovsk and its main Russian Orthodox church were also on our route. I was invited by a team member to take pictures of the old heating system in the local corner store, much to the chagrin of the woman running it. My friend said it was a good thing at that point that I didn’t speak Russian.

Our final travel stop was a memorial near the banks of the Neva River, still on the eastern side. The memorial is the site where remains were gathered during the conflict. Prof. Ilyin said the phosphorus from the bones caused a white glow to hang over the area for a long time. We walked down to the river itself. Human remains were clearly visible, 75 years later. Where there weren’t bones, there was ammunition - the Germans were just across the river. It was a thoroughly chilling sight. Yevgeny told me the average lifespan of a Soviet soldier who fought there was one day and eight hours.

I returned to my hotel and soon after, I took five of the team members out to dinner at The Idiot (named after a Dostoyevsky novel). There was much drinking and conversation about history and politics, and I felt absolutely privileged to be in the company of such amazing people, and to have had the chance to ‘visit’ my grandfather, who died a quarter of a century before I was born.

4 notes · View notes

stevedonnellyfaith-blog · 5 years

Text

Family Gatherings (Post 118) 12-2-15

About two months ago Pam's mother Barb let me know about that Pam's Aunt Patty was planning a family reunion for the Saturday after Thanksgiving and asked us if we would be able to make it down. I told her we would attend as my social calendar is as empty as the state of Wyoming in a spring snow storm. I think my next semi-firm appointment is my brother's retirement from the Navy this spring. I don't count the plant Christmas party because really that is business.

I will probably attend that as well, as my office mate has solemnly promised me that he will not twerk this year. Several people have offered to provide me with video clips of his outstanding performance last year, but I am a "no twerking none of the time" type of guy. Anyway I guess I have a few things I will be going to this holiday season, but a trip down to Maryland sounded like a good way for Natalie to get to meet more of Pam's family than she has gotten to see since we migrated back East.

Although Abby had made plans to spend Thanksgiving with her friend Tyler in New York City, she arranged her schedule so that she could catch a bus down to Baltimore on Friday morning. As usual, she had everything about her week in New York and the transit south to meet up with the rest of the family planned down to a tee. Nicholas also performed to his consistent level of planning efficiency by forgetting to ask off from work at O'Reilly's Auto Parts but that was serendipitous for me as his oversight freed me from having to kennel the two dogs that my middle children conned me into allowing them to purchase nearly two years ago. One of the two critters is actually lying on my legs and gnawing on a raw hide product as I am typing.

So everything about the trip to Maryland went smoothly unless you count the text message that I got almost immediately after leaving my Ohio house. It was from Tyler who let me know Abby's schedule because Abby had left her phone accidentally in Tyler's dormitory room and was headed to Baltimore incommunicado - something no normal person has considered doing on purpose since 2005. Unfortunately for Abby, I had goofed off that morning and slept in late enough so that my vector was trailing her now silent arrival into the greater Baltimore area by several hours. Luckily, Barb was able to coordinate an effective meetup without the need of cellular communication. I wasn't all that disturbed as the rendezvous was in broad daylight at the White Marsh park-and-drive which, in no way, resembles the hood.

Stephen, Natalie and I arrived at Barb's house a few hours later to find Abby and Denny, Pam's father, binge watching some type of post zombie apocalypse martial arts cable series of which I had never heard. Abby had planned to stay at the house with Denny, Barb, Pam's brother and his son. She wanted to do what she could to cheer up Denny who was recovering from shoulder surgery and has been feeling out of sorts. In retirement Denny likes to keep busy but physical activity does not mix well with a shoulder sling. My father-in-law looked quite pleased to have his granddaughter handy for watching what looked to me to be the modern equivalent of a spaghetti western.

The rest of us, on the other hand, were scheduled to stay with Pam's uncle Johnnie, a retired probation officer who lives alone in the old house that his father had built for the family fifty or sixty years previous. Johnnie gets a kick out of Natalie and Abby, but was quite satisfied to have at least one of them under his roof, which is located about twenty minutes away and within a couple of minutes' drive of the family plot where Pam is buried along with her grandparents. We met up with Johnnie at one of Pam's sisters' houses located another twenty minutes from Pam's folk's house in another direction entirely. Pam's Baltimore-centric immediate family does a Friday night post-Thanksgiving left-over pot luck that was quite enjoyable. Plates cleared, we trailed behind Uncle Johnnie, or UJ as the kids call him, back towards his Hanover, MD abode after the dinner broke up.

I stayed up a while talking with him after Natalie shuffled off to her guest bedroom. Stephen and I were sleeping in the living room. I enjoy talking to Johnnie as he and I share many interests. His politics are more conservative than mine and he prefers the Latin Mass only while I am more Catholic with respect to my Catholic masses, but we both share a love for military history. With regard to the Civil War, he likes the gentility of the Gray while I prefer the idealism of the Blue. I am forever a Yankee in all respects other than baseball, but Johnnie and I appreciate each other's opinion. We also share an unspoken camaraderie as circumstances have turned both of our lives into sometimes lonely but not morose slogs in the footprints of those who have preceded us towards and though the veil to eternal life.

We woke up relatively late, breakfasted and made a quick stop at the cemetery for a visit with Pam and her grandparents before heading to the family reunion on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Natalie was pleased that her memorial stones painted as a butterfly and hamburger were still in the same positions on the graves where she had left them in September. Some poor soul had pilfered the bronze vase from the marker assembly of Pam's grandmother, but Johnnie was already aware of the desecration and seemed resigned to the fact that we live among a generation of grave robbers.

After a short visit and no tears we began a much longer car trip than I expected to where Barb's other sibling, Patty, now resides. Her husband, a twice retired cop - formerly a barracks commander for the State Police and then a County Sherriff - has now found work in an unelected second-in-command at the Sherriff's office of a county that is very close to a place called Ocean City that I had heard of but never visited. I believe that Ocean City is a Maryland equivalent of the Jersey Shore without as much swearing and orange toner. That might be an inaccurate characterization as I am a rank amateur with respect to Maryland cultural studies.

The journey did include a fly-by of Annapolis, my stomping ground several decades previous, but mostly the drive broke new ground for me. I am sure that I probably have been across the Bay Bridge - Chesapeake version, but I didn't really remember the road or the scenery. I did notice a definite improvement in how property was maintained in the towns of the Eastern Shore in comparison with some of the Baltimore neighborhoods we had driven through the previous day. Things appeared conservatively well-kept if not crazy wealthy and the drive was a pleasant one. I was just glad that the reunion was not planned for the summer as there seemed to be only one main drag, Route 50, which probably would be grossly inadequate for the onslaught of weekend beachcombers if we were visiting in the last days of July instead of the final November weekend.

Once we arrived, we enjoyed the party although we found the festivities slightly divided along family lines as many reunions tend to be. Patty's relatives tended to congregate in the living room and sun room of the house, while her husband's relations mostly conversed in the kitchen and family room. It was a natural division and an amicable one. I had joined the family over a quarter century pervious and had encountered a couple of Scott's extended family members less than a handful of times.

I caught up with the lives of those few that I knew, but mostly played wingman for Johnnie when I wasn't conversing with Abby. Natalie played with the pack of collective kiddies, while Stephen wandered around the yard which had little bit of a beachhead on a creek-side location that let into a river then into the Chesapeake and eventually into the Atlantic. I was disappointed not to catch of whiff of salt marsh, an odor that evokes my seafaring days. Unfortunately, this property was more inland and manicured like a golf-course in a tasteful and charming sort of way. Perhaps Copperopolis, Round Valley and Muir Wood has spoiled me so that I can now only appreciate the breathtaking. Ohio fall forest colors does fit the bill, though.

While we were frittering through the afternoon in small talk over light snacks, I did catch a bad vibe from Johnnie. The nexus of his discomfort seemed to be the respective spouses of the brother and sister who had been the flower girl and ring bearer at my wedding what seems like eons ago. To my eye both had married well. The ring bearer had picked up the tools of the family trade, a badge and pistol of some sort. His spouse was a pretty blonde whose slim waist seemed in congruent with her three rug rats that I could see pictured in the family portrait on the coffee table next to where we sat. His sister had married a nice looking young man that was thoroughly balding but pretty athletic for a posture that was probably pushing thirty-five. I watched him pitch whiffle balls to his two pre-school aged sons alternately. The younger one was a tiger.

I didn't see the problem, so Johnnie explained the issue. Both the spouses were atheists and none of the kids had been baptized. Under closer observation, I noticed that neither of the spouses really smiled or enjoyed other people. Maybe they were put off by being tertiary participants in a family gathering that didn't interest them, but they seemed to be alone within a large group of joyous people. It is possible that other people were thinking the same thoughts about me, but their separation seemed to be palpably different, and I considered adding the two of them to my prayer list, but I didn't know their names. Johnnie couldn't provide them, he said that he had never been introduced in the half decade since the two joined the family. Evidently, both the flower girl and ring bearer live quite close to Johnnie, but there is no contact between them. I expect that UJ is the Godfather of both of them as he is to one of my children.

The separation seemed strange and disheartening to the both of us. Both of the little families had raised high bulwarks to prevent any possible intrusion of Jesus Christ. I expect that someday and unforeseen tragedy will visit them in their purposefully insular worlds and they will discover that their walls bricked to keep out Our Savior will unfortunately form a bathtub of pain for them to marinate in. Neither Johnnie, Jesus nor I are satisfied with that situation, but we respect and disagree with their choices as responsible adults.

I am not a particularly good prayer warrior, but I do plan to spend some time praying for something to innocuously breach the walls of their atheistic aquaria. Advent seems like an excellent time to affix our eyes on a better outcome for whatever relatives and friends we have that have chosen problematic paths that are currently orientated away from True North.

#Jesus #God #The Holy Spirit #The Virgin Mary #grace #hope #faith #love #family #holidays #gathering #bereavement #Latin Mass #Catholic #eternal life #baptism

0 notes

ds4design · 7 years

Text

'Biggest Case on the Planet' Pits Kids vs. Climate Change

Join us in The People v. Climate Change and share an environmental portrait of someone taking positive steps to protect the Earth on YourShot or social media. Use #MyClimateAction to share a first-person perspective on how we as humans face climate change.

Levi Draheim is a nine-year-old science geek. He founded an environmental club as a fourth grader and gives talks about climate change to audiences of grown-ups. His home is on a slender barrier island on Florida’s Atlantic coast, 21 miles south of Cape Canaveral and a five-minute walk from the beach. By mid-century, his sandy childhood playground could be submerged by rising seas. He will be just 42.

Nathan Baring is 15 and a high school sophomore in Fairbanks, Alaska—120 miles south of the Arctic Circle. He loves cold weather sports and skis, ice skates, and plays hockey. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Now the first winter snows that Baring once celebrated as early as August in Fairbanks arrive as late as November.

By 2050, Arctic sea ice will have virtually disappeared, and temperatures in the interior, surrounding Fairbanks, will have risen by an additional 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit, altering the boreal forest ecosystem. Nathan will be 48.

“I can deal with a few days of rain in February when it’s supposed to be 40 below,” he says. “But I can’t deal with the idea that what my parents experienced and what I have experienced will not exist for my children. I am a winter person. I won’t sit idly by and watch winter vanish.”

Baring and Draheim so lack confidence that they will inherit a healthy planet that they are suing the United States government for failing to adequately protect the Earth from the effects of climate change. They are among a group of 21 youths who claim the federal government’s promotion of fossil fuel production and its indifference to the risks posed by greenhouse gas emissions have resulted in “a dangerous destabilizing climate system” that threatens the survival of future generations. That lapse violates, the court papers argue, their fundamental constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property. The lawsuit also argues that the government violated the public trust doctrine, a legal concept grounded in ancient law that holds the government is responsible for protecting public resources, such as land and water—or in this case, the climate system—for public use.

The kids’ lawsuit was joined by acclaimed NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who began studying climate change in the 1970s and whose granddaughter, Sophie, is among the 21 young plaintiffs.

“In my opinion, this lawsuit is made necessary by the at-best schizophrenic, if not suicidal nature of U.S. climate and energy policy,” he told the court.

Last fall, U.S. District Court Judge Anne Aiken agreed with the youths’ claim. Her sweeping 54-page opinion laid the foundation for what looks to be a groundbreaking trial later this year. In her ruling, Aiken established, in effect, a new right for these children and teens: a right to expect they could live in a stable climate.

“I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society,” Aiken wrote. “Just as marriage is the foundation of the family, a stable climate system is quite literally the foundation of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress.”

She made clear that “this lawsuit is not about proving that climate change is happening or that human activity is driving it. For purposes of this motion, those facts are undisputed.”

And Aikens added: “Federal courts too often have been cautious and overly deferential in the arena of environmental law and the world has suffered for it.”

Mary Wood, a University of Oregon environmental law professor who pioneered the concept that the atmosphere should be treated as part of the public trust, calls the lawsuit “the biggest case on the planet.”

“This claim challenges the government’s entire fossil-fuel philosophy. The whole thing,” Wood says. “The scientists, on the other hand, are saying if we continue on our path without drastic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, we are going to leave a barren planet that will not support broad human survival. You could not get claims more grave than that.”

Two Administrations (and Industry) Respond

The lawsuit originally was filed against the Obama administration, which sought to have the case dismissed because the courts are “ill-suited” to oversee “a phenomenon that spans the globe,” according to court papers.

“Climate change is a very serious problem,” Sean Duffy, a Justice Department lawyer told the court last September. “We do not question the science. Climate change threatens our environment and our ecosystems. It alters our climate systems and it will only worsen over time. It is the result of man-made emissions. Now where (the parties) disagree is as to who determines how to address climate change in the first instance. Our position is that Congress and the Executive Branch should address climate change in the first instance and should do so by coordinating with other nations.”

Several groups representing the fossil-fuel industry, including the American Petroleum Institute, joined the lawsuit as intervenors, but disagreed “to the extent of climate change, to the emissions that cause it, and to other scientific principles,” Quin Sorenson, a lawyer representing the industry, argued in court.

The case could prove even more consequential with the change of administration because of President Trump’s efforts to roll back climate regulations put in place by his predecessor. Last week, the Trump administration shifted course on the case and asked that a federal appeals court review Judge Aiken’s decision to proceed to trial.

“Whatever happens next, this is a case to watch,” says Michael Burger, a Columbia University law professor and specialist in climate law. “It’s out there, ahead of the curve. And given the change in administration and President Trump’s views on climate change, this may be a potential hook to keep things moving along the climate change front. It may be the opening salvo in what will be an increasing number of lawsuits that take a rights-based approach to climate change in the United States.”

Building on History

In challenging the government’s role in climate change on constitutional grounds Julia Olson, the plaintiffs’ lead lawyer, harkens to the realm of historic Supreme Court cases that established new constitutional protections in situations when Congress failed to act. Those cases include the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that banned segregation in public schools and the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriage.

The climate change lawsuit makes essentially a straightforward request. It asks a federal judge to order the government to write a recovery plan to reduce carbon emissions to 350 parts per million by 2100 (down from 400 parts per million) and stabilize the climate system.

The courts are needed to step in, Olson argued, because the government has not—despite knowing for more than 50 years that the burning of fossil fuels causes global warming.

Olson first tuned in to the climate change threat when, eight months pregnant with her youngest child, she watched An Inconvenient Truth, former Vice President Al Gore’s 2006 Oscar-winning climate change documentary at her local moviehouse.

“There is something about carrying life inside your body that is transformative and gives you a different kind of perspective on the world,” she says.

She founded Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit with a mission to protect children from climate change, and now serves as executive director. The trust is assisting in the case. Olson has also filed climate change lawsuits in each of the 50 states, which are proceeding separately. She has won cases in Washington, Massachusetts, and New Mexico.

Similar lawsuits, brought by other lawyers, are playing out in other nations, including Belgium and New Zealand, and have been won in Pakistan, Austria and South Africa. Last year, a Dutch court ordered the government to reduce carbon emissions by a quarter within the next five years.

Olson’s clients in the federal suit range in age from nine to 20. They are media savvy environmental activists who understand the power of connecting the future effects of climate change to the people who will have to live with them.

Kiran Oommen, 19, a student at Seattle University, says he joined the lawsuit because it gives voice to his generation.

“We have little or no representation in the government, yet the effects of climate change will affect us more than anyone else,” he says. “This is a way we can speak for ourselves and stand up for our future.”

Aji Piper, 16, is a high school student in Seattle who plants trees around the city and is an avid letter-writer to the state’s polluting industries. He adds: “Once you start involving children, people start listening more. My role in the case is to sit there in court.”

The climate kids, as the group is known, also are living the full menu of drought, deluge, heat, and extreme weather events that are rapidly becoming the unnerving norm. Not only has sea-level rise killed any long-term future Levi Draheim might have envisioned on Florida’s Space Coast, but he has to cope with toxic algae blooms like the outbreak that befouled beaches last July and monster storms, such as Hurricane Matthew, which barreled up the Florida coast last October and eroded away much of the sand on his beach.

Journey Zephier, 16, lives in Kauai, Hawaii, where ocean acidification is killing coral reefs and coastal fisheries. Miko Vergun, 16, who lives in the Portland, Oregon, suburb of Beaverton, fears she may never be able to visit her native Marshall Islands in the remote Pacific Ocean before they disappear beneath the swells. Tidal flooding, she says in court papers, is so frequent now that a fifth of the population has already moved away.

Last August, Jayden Foytlin, 14, awoke one morning to flood waters seeping into her bedroom in Rayne, Louisiana, as a rainstorm that lasted two weeks flooded more than 60,000 homes and killed 13 people. Foytlin’s home was soon awash in sewage. The Foytlins do not live in the flood plain, yet the raging waters destroyed their home and all of their belongings.

“This flood has been called a thousand-year event,” Foytlin told the court. “Yet within the last two years, I have read about eight ‘500-year’ events. In less than two years, there have been nine flood events that are not even supposed to happen in my lifetime. My family and I feel very vulnerable.”

Winning the War?

Despite winning a trial, prevailing ultimately remains an uphill climb. Columbia’s Burger says Judge Aiken’s unprecedented order that the case go to trial “is a great opinion for environmental law.”

But, he warns: “As it moves up on appeal and ultimately to the Supreme Court, the chances get less and less that that opinion survives in its current form.”

To date, courts have never recognized a constitutional right to even a natural environment free of pollutants, let alone to a stable climate.

After Judge Aiken ruled, proponents urged Obama to settle the case before Trump took office. Obama declined. The government also declined to ask for an appellate review of her order; government lawyers instead proceeded toward trial. Seven days before Trump was sworn in as president, government lawyers added a routine brief to the court file that may complicate the Trump administration’s effort to argue the science and halt the trial.

In the brief, government lawyers conceded nearly every point on which the plaintiffs’ case against the government was constructed. These admissions include the government’s role in promoting the development of fossil fuels and its belief that greenhouse gases are at “unprecedentedly high levels compared to the past 800,000 years ... and pose risks to human health and welfare.”

The government went so far as to point out where the plaintiffs had understated the evidence against the government in court papers. They then corrected the figures, raising them upwards.

“They recognized the importance of this case and tried to make sure when the Obama administration left, that the government’s position was clear and the court shouldn’t spend time in trial worrying about facts that should not be contested,” says Phil Gregory, the plaintiffs’ co-counsel.

The Trump Team Changes Tack

Now, the Trump administration appears to have reversed course. Last week, government lawyers asked Judge Aiken to grant their request that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals review her order. Halting the trial, the lawyers wrote, could avoid litigation that “is unprecedented in its scope, in its potential to be protracted, expensive and disruptive to the continuing operation of the United States Government.”

The appellate review is unlikely to be granted, because the decision is up to Judge Aiken, the judge who ordered the trial to proceed. In common practice, appeals courts decline to consider appeals until a trial concludes.

In a separate motion, government lawyers are also fighting a request by the youth’s lawyers that the Justice Department preserve all documents relevant to the lawsuit, including information on climate change, energy, and emissions.

Even if a review is granted, it may be difficult for the Trump administration to reverse the government’s statements and acknowledgements about climate change that are already part of the record. Still, the new administration’s position on the subject is becoming increasingly clear. Two days after the government’s motions were filed, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt swept aside established science on the connection between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming and declared that “carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”

0 notes