Hey guys! I'm back with another one-shot. (: Once again, all of the characters belong to Richelle Mead.
When a moroi dies, it's oddly similar to when a human dies. I'd only been to a funeral once before, it was my grandfather's and I was eight, but it was run in a very similar fashion.
The sofa at the funeral parlor was an ugly shade of green decorated with pink flowers. I fingered at some loose threads on it, thinking about how terribly it went with the orange walls. I was deliberately trying to avoid looking at that pure white metal box that held the body of my friend. I glanced across the room to where the casket was laid out. A couple of people stood solemnly around the body. I went back to looking at the wall.
I felt so incredibly numb, all I felt was this dull ache from deep inside of me, I had hardly shed a tear since it happened. I suppose I was still in a state of shock and disbelief. I kept waiting to breakdown, just hoping it didn't occur when people were around.
I was pulled out of my thoughts when someone sat down next to me. I could feel their weight as they sank down into the aged couch. I turned to look at him, he was smiling slightly, but it didn't reach his eyes. He had a mug in his hand and I could smell the coffee.
"Thanks," I said, as he handed me the mug.
"How are you?" He enquired.
"y'know" I said, shugging, "You?"
He shugged and sighed "y'know."
I leaned against him and continued to sip my coffee. Neither of us cared what people would think of this interaction between us, and really, who would actually care about something as minor as this when there was a fifteen year old girl, dead, across the room from us?
After I finished my coffee I said "I need some air. Let's go outside for a bit."
We headed out the back door at stood on the porch. It was only seven but it was already night, and the cold January air stung my cheeks. Adrian wrapped his arms around my waste, hugging me tight, and I slung my arms around his shoulders, resting my head against the warmth of his jacket. I looked up at him, and he kissed me, lightly at first and then harder, as we searched for comfort in each other.
Some part of my mind thought of how Jill would no longer have to witness these intimate moments between Adrian and I, and suddenly I was struck with the realization that she was gone. Oh, it hurt. It felt like I had been punched in the gut, my heart dropped into my stomach and a sob released from my throat.
Adrian hugged my tighter and whispered words of comfort into my ear but I heard none of it, because Jill was gone. It was unbearable. It was unbelievable. How could Jill, so full of life, be dead?
I gasped for breath and my sobbing became louder and harder. Adrian scooped me up in his arms and carried me over to his car. He strapped me in and drove me to the hotel room where I was staying until the funeral was over tomorrow afternoon.
We walked to my room and threw our jackets and boots off and crawled into bed and underneath the blankets which were worn and scratchy, but neither of us cared. We laid there for a while, crying and talking, with my head resting on his chest.
"I should have let her model. Adrian, she wanted to model but I wouldn't let her." I whimpered, feeling disgusted with myself.
"No, Sydney, no, don't feel bad about that," Adrian said, looking into my eyes and placing one of his large hands on my cheek, tracing the lily with one of his fingers. "You were protecting her. Don't feel bad about that. You were just keeping her safe."
We stayed like that for a while, talking in whispers, but at some point in the night, the grief subsided somewhat, and we flipped through the channels on the old television until we found It's a Wonderful Life. We fell asleep watching it, both of us overwhelmed with exhaustion.
We woke up the next morning to a knock on my door. I crawled out of bed and wrapped the white robe resting on a chair around me. At one point during the night I had kicked off my jeans and was down to my shirt and underwear. I made my way over to the door and opened it. It was Eddie. His eyes were red from crying.
"Have you seen Adrian?" He then glanced past me, to the other figure sleeping in my bed. He gave me a surprised look and said "Oh. Well, the, uh, funeral starts at one. I didn't want Adrian to forget."
"Uh, thanks, Eddie. We'll be there." I said.
After Eddie left, I woke Adrian up and we lounged around the room for a bit before he left. I showered and dressed and spent a long time perfecting my hair, not bothering with makeup, crying in bouts the whole time. I picked out a black blouse and a white skirt to wear. I wasn't really sure what the proper attire was for a moroi funeral, but hopefully that would do.
The funeral was beautiful, with white flowers elegantly places around the interior of the church, and heartbreaking, seeing so many mourners. The church was full of grieving people. I spent a lot of the funeral crying, no longer numb from the shock, but raw with pain.
After the service was over, we went to the graveyard. The winter wind was cold and bit at my cheeks and nose and made it hard to hear what the minister was saying. I wasn't really listening, anyway. All I could think about, as I stared down at the casket, was how Jill was in there, and how I would never see her again. I thought of the stages of decomposition, and how Jill would stop being Jill and start being a decayed corpse, and violently I pushed the morbid thought out of my head, I pushed out any thought of Jill being anything other than alive.
I leaned into Adrian's strong body, needing him to support me, because I couldn't bear the weight of my pain on my own.
Adrian leaned down to me and whispered "We'll get through this. Together." As hard as it was to believe, I believed him.