Siana Banes (honestumgladius) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-11-01 11:09:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, !narrative, !plot: fete of holy saints, kiernan manley, merrion priddy, siana banes, sky min |
Who: Siana Banes, Merrion Priddy, Kiernan Manley, Sky Min
What: Fete of the Holy Saints; remembering loved ones… or not
Where: Various places
When: Morning to early afternoon
Rating: PG
Status: Complete (narratives)
It was the only time of year Siana made absolutely certain to attend Mass. She had attended yesterday, alone, and had visited her grandmother’s grave at the Necrohol in the afternoon, also alone, but today she attended with her family to honor not only her grandmother, but the Banes’ other ancestors, many of whom Siana had never met. They had either passed when she was too little to remember or before her parents had even met. Though still tired from patrol the night previous, she met her parents at their estate first thing in the morning to enjoy a carefully prepared breakfast made in the tradition of their family’s class and distant ancestors: broiled salted salmon, pickled plums, fermented soy beans, miso soup, and steamed rice. The breakfast was quiet (thanks to the absence of one Ilar Mostyn, who likely was with his own family on this day) but not lethargic, and once the meal was complete they rose to their feet and made their way to the Cathedral for the service. The service was lovely and somber and had an emphasis, understandably, on those who had been lost this year from the various attacks – both outright and clandestine – the city had suffered. During this time, Siana let her mind go back to the confrontation in the sewers not a week prior, the many battles fought in the previous months, the harrowing crime scenes she had come across, both related to the cultists and those that were not. Her prayers today were for those victims, their families, and even for the culprits who had died in the wake of justice and those who were awaiting trial, though for them, today, Siana prayed for Faram to have mercy on their souls. Merri’s memories of his father were vague and felt more like dreams than anything else. He had been five when his father passed away, after all. But he remembered golden rays of sunshine and laughter whenever he thought of his father, and he even remembered that the sun had been shining and not a cloud had been in the sky the day of the funeral, but beyond that, memory and dream swirled together and he couldn’t discern fact from fiction. He couldn’t even remember what time of year it had been when his father died, for his mother allowed Merri to leave the house only to attend Mass twice a year – for the Fete of the Holy Saints, and for Faram’s Mass. It was at the Fete that they honored his father, and it was a tradition that Merri upheld even after he came to Emillion to study. He had not been able to fall asleep until the sun had just begun to peek over the horizon, still remembering the terror of the possessed doll and worried that it would somehow come back to kill him, and so he missed the morning services. It was the lunch hour when he finally awoke, and after a nice hot bath and a meager breakfast, he arrived at the Cathedral just in time for the beginnings of the afternoon Mass. When it was over, he joined many of the other worshipers in the candle room to light one in memory of his father. Merri thought of his mother back in Risca, and how she had already probably lit one this morning. “He must have been an amazing man to get two candles,” someone had told him a few years ago, in jest. “Yes, he was,” Merri had replied, and even as he lit the candle today – very carefully, so that he didn’t burn himself – he wished that he could remember enough to be sure of it himself. Merri did not doubt it, of course, but it was one thing to have faith and another thing to know. After the candle was lit and he said his prayer, Merri left the Cathedral and stepped out into the sun, his mind already going to what awaited him for the remainder of the day. There was work to be done, and a birthday to celebrate, after all! Kiernan hated the day after the Eve of the Holy Saints. He always had. As a child, his mother would drag him and Torin by the ears to the small chapel a mile down the road from their ranch house, and Elwen would trail behind obediently. All Kiernan had ever wanted to do was sleep instead, and after coming to Emillion, that was exactly what he did on the Fete of the Holy Saints, every single year. Those few years were the years Kiernan came to love the holiday: a day off to recover from all the revelry of the night before. Even after Torin died, Kiernan avoided the Cathedral, and he didn’t bother returning home to attend the services with his family. The holiday just wasn’t that important to him, and he still preferred his sleep; and besides, it was on the day of his brother’s death that Kiernan chose to remember him, not when the Pharists dictated that he was supposed to. Then when Elwen vanished, Kiernan punched anyone who made the suggestion to light a candle in his little brother’s honor square in the face. “He’s not dead,” he’d snarl before storming off to the training halls. Not many were there to begin with, but those who were did not seem eager to take Kiernan up for the challenge, which only pissed him off further. Eventually, he’d take his anger and frustration out on the straw dummies, and he’d be too tired for anything else. That was when Kiernan started to hate the holiday again. It was the year after his mother’s death that Kiernan wound up going to a service with his father, and it’d been more for his father’s sake than anything else. Fergus had lit three candles instead of two, and the argument had gotten so nasty both of them had been thrown out of the chapel. (It was also the last time Kiernan ever stepped foot inside a church, but that had very little to do with the incident.) But every year, being in a city full of Pharists, it was hard not to be forced to at least think about his mother and brother, and this year, with his father on his deathbed, it was even worse. Kiernan woke with the intention of going back home to see his father, but then he thought about his neighbors and their sympathetic looks and words and decided that he didn’t want to deal with it. So he stayed in Emillion and put his mind to happier things instead: Vivi’s party, and the agony that was the bet he had lost last night. Sky woke with a stomachache from all the candy and sweets he and Pyr had consumed the night before, but thinking about the games and pranks they played and the delicious taste of those sweets he’d eaten, Sky couldn’t help but to smile. “Worth it.” And he fell right back to sleep. |