I probably should have been disconcerted by that. I’m really not the type to zone out. But I wasn’t exactly in my right mind, either. I woke from the worst of my grief to find myself in the middle of a cluster of Azu-nah. The clan was very active, and I slowly began looking around to figure out what was going on. It felt like my grief had wrapped around my thoughts, making them sluggish and distant. I wasn’t terribly interested in what was going on around me. It was almost like I was along for the ride and my training and instincts were all that was left to pilot my body.
One of us, Nandi or I, must have carried Oshtik back. She was lying on the grass nearby, looking so tiny and delicate. It was hard to reconcile this with the vibrant, intelligent person I’d known. I tore my eyes away and swallowed hard against the lump rising back into my throat.
Next to her were other still forms. It took me several minutes to get up the courage to look. I didn’t know if I could bear further loss. I sucked in a breath through my teeth, scrubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms, and forced myself to face the other casualties.
The first was a small grey female I’d known only by name; A’shen, one of the young hunters. My first thought was relief that I hadn’t known her well enough to feel further wrenching grief from her death. I felt a sharp stab of guilt and turned away. I was not going to think about the loss of a chance at getting to know her. Next to A’shen was an elder, a deep green male, his skin coarse and pebbly with age. I recognized him as one of Kohric’s friends. I didn’t even know his name. Thank the listening deities it wasn’t Kohric himself. The guilt stabbed at me again.
The fourth and last body was To’odir, the Kan’s apprentice. My heart sank. She was the one, even more than the Kan, who had helped Nanahan recover from her injury. She was one of the few clam members who wasn’t born and raised in D’Keda. She would often tell stories to the children about her clan in the deep forests where she grew up. The clan had been certain she would make an excellent Kan. Her death seemed horribly unfair.
I stood there for a long time, trying to wrap my brain around everything that had happened. Everything had turned upside down so fast. Had it really only been this morning that I’d been teaching Eyani and Oshtik English? It felt like a lifetime away.
The clan eventually gathered around the dead and began to carry them away. I assumed that they would take them to a pyre or bury them. But instead we struck out onto the plains. The sun was very low now, staining everything a burning orange. The lingering smoke and ash in the air reflected the light too. It would have been pretty if I hadn’t felt so awful. It slowly seeped into my head that the clan was singing a low, mournful chant. I couldn’t focus enough to make out more than a few words, and simply stumbled along with them.
We walked close to a kilometer away from the caves, to an open area with short cropped grass. The four bodies were laid out several meters apart, reverently posed in a sort of loose fetal position, with their tails curled around their bodies. The Kan pulled up a handful of grass and twisted it into a kind of brushy wand. He paced around the nearest body, To’odir, circling her, his lips moving in silent prayers. The clan was still chanting softly, watching solemnly.
Then the Kan reached down to To’odir and flicked one clawed finger down to the little notch where her neck met her chest. To my horror, he neatly severed her flesh with his claw and green blood began to ooze from the wound. He dipped the grass brush in her blood and began to draw a circle on the ground around his apprentice’s body, using the same careful reverence I’d seen when he had prepared the funeral fire back at the old clan site. This was apparently how they prepared the dead. When he had completed his circle he brushed a line of green down To’odir’s muzzle and tucked the brush into her hands. One after another, the Kan twisted a brush, spilled blood, and painted the funerary circle around the dead, finishing with the brush tucked into the hands.
The sun had fully set by the time the Kan was finished. The few stars visible in the fading sun were joined by the full blazing night spectacle, with both slowly moons rising on the horizon.
The clan gathered around the dead and sang to them long into the night.
This week's cameo was submitted by Ashenraptor with her character A'shen. She was a good sport and let me make her character into a red shirt. :P
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