So, it's been exactly a year since the finale. Today is the anniversary. I'm actually getting around to crossposting this fic from my Tumblr on the day, mostly because Tomix (the staff memeber) tweeted about having enjoyed it so I'm kind of riding on cloud nine.
When you're done reading, I recommend looking up the flower language meanings of the ones mentioned. I have a thing for flower language, and every single flower in this was chosen carefully. My resource of choice while writing was 'The Language of Flowers' by Kate Greenaway, so a digital copy of that would be your best bet for the meanings I was working from.
Enjoy!
The journey from the Land of Dragons, from Falconreach, truly, to Tkaanie, to Mortem, is a long one. Both of them are far enough inland to make it long, even without the distance of sea between them. It is time consuming and Mortem is a long way from the many, many things that must be done. It is a journey that can't be made lightly, not when there are battles to be fought, innocents to protect, a role to fulfil.
This is how the hero has been justifying it to themself. It's all true, of course. They are real reasons not to return. Real, pressing reasons that keep them in the Land of Dragons, that stop them from visiting Tkaanie.
But as real as those reasons are, the hero knows that they are using them as excuses. They aren't the true reason, the main reason. Lore survived five years without them – their home could surely handle a few weeks, a month or thereabouts, for a visit.
The truth is, it just hurts. It hurts too much, far too much. As long as those other reasons are there they can pretend that they aren't just hiding from the pain.
And yet, here they are.
The sun is beginning to set, somewhere in the distance, sending deep, heavy shadows across the ground, alighting the sky as orange as flame. A bird crows overhead, perched in the branches of a tree. Flowers sprout amongst the roots – butterfly weed, as orange as the sky, yet absent of any of the fluttering creatures which give it its name. The bird takes flight, knocking leaves loose and sending them fluttering down. One settles on the cold, hard rock of a gravestone.
In the dusking hours, silence has fallen over Mortem.
And here they are.
It's been a year. That's the reason that they're here. It's been one, singular, long, long year that feels like several eternities. Things have happened, things have changed, but this place is exactly the same as the last time the hero saw it. The exact same as it was the day of the funeral.
They couldn't avoid it any longer. Today, of all days, they needed to come. It's been a year, and yet the pain feels as fresh as yesterday when they think of it.
They have flowers with them, an armful of stems and petals. Bringing flowers is what you're supposed to do when you visit a grave, isn't it? There had been many kinds to choose from, many they almost had but ultimately had not. They are happy with the ones they have brought, though they wonder if perhaps they should have brought the deeply red carnations as well.
The sun is further down towards the horizon than when they arrived, they observe, and then realise they have been standing for quite a while.
Their legs are absolutely not shaking as they approach the gravestone. They kneel, carefully, an easier action when clad in soulweaver robes rather than armour.
It's only right to have come clad in the clothes they earned from his training, they feel.
Carefully, they place their flowers into their lap. And then they begin to arrange them.
At the base of the gravestone, they place the flos adonis, the flowers which make up the bulk of the plants they brought with them. The petals are red, clear, bright, beautiful red. Like his hair before it was leached of its colour, like the colour that returned to it as he fell.
They follow that with a loose ring of michaelmas daisies in the centre of them, their soft purple petals contrasting sharply but pleasingly with the red.
And finally, they place a group of five everlasting, a beautiful yellow in the centre, pink surrounding them – and oh but if they lived as long as their name. They will wither within days, but for now their beauty is secure – in the centre, on top of the others, bright and clear and closest to the sun.
In their mind they can hear the echoing words of the florist, the meanings of the flowers they have laid down. It's a message, should anyone care to look. Maybe not the best message, but a truthful one, one that the flowers can say to him for them in ways that words cannot.
They move themselves backwards, but do not stand. The sun has very nearly set now; the orange of the sky is fading to black.
They do not move.
Their eyes sting and their hands trembling against the legs they rest on, fingers curling into the fabric in a desperate, grasping hold. The stinging behind their eyes grows and turns into warmth, trickling down their face.
Their lungs scream for air. They hadn't realised they were holding their breath.
A heaving breath attempts to be drawn, and all that happens is a shuddering sob. It is quickly followed by another and another.
They don't think they could speak if they wanted to. Not through the tears, not through the tightness in their throat, not through the grief.
But they do, somehow, through the grief and the tightness and the tears, manage a few words.
"I'm trying," they choke out, the words half strangled but they need to say them. The flowers can't say this for them. I'm trying, I'm trying I truly am. They remember his eyes and the soft smile he had given, the fondness behind his words. "Ah... I don't know what to say.". They remember what he had asked. "Keep on helping people, just like you have helped me thousands of times," It wasn't thousands of times. I wish it was. I wish I'd been there enough for it to have been thousands. I'm trying to do what you asked. I'm trying I'm trying.
"I'm sorry," comes out next, softer and quieter and barely a whisper. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough smart enough fast enough to save you. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.
"I miss you," is the last thing they manage to get out, body shuddering through the sobbing, remembering the last words ever spoken. I'll miss you he had said. I miss you. Can you even miss me, wherever you are? I miss you. So much. So, so much.
The sky is fully dark and the moon is rising. Clouds begin to cover and block out the remaining light.
It's been a year, and here they are.
They are wrapped up in their own grief too much to hear the footsteps approach, squelching softly against dewy grass, to hear the shuffing of fabric shifting as the newcomer kneels next to them, to notice almost anything, truly.
They are not, however, in so far as to not notice when a small hand reaching out and gently pries their fingers from the cloth of their trouser legs, flitting its own fingers into the gaps between theirs, holding tightly.
Their head snaps up from where it had been tucked down, chin against collarbone, and looks to the side to see who it is.
And sees no-one.
After a moment's confusion, they look down.
The owner of the hand is a young boy, though they can't tell him exact age. His kneeling position mimics theirs almost exactly, his head bowed slightly and eyes shut.
His hair is red, a deep red that they have seen on only a few occasions before – reaching over a crumbling edge, vainly trying to stretch as though they could still grab him, watching as it happened. A crying sister at a funeral with no body – and their breath hitches again, eyes flitting to the hand he is clasping.
A relative? A younger brother, maybe. They didn't see him at the funeral. A cousin?
A visit on this day is not surprising but a child as young as he looks this late at night is.
It's his right hand he is using to hold theirs, sitting on their left side. His own left hand is curled around the stem of a singular flower, resting in his lap. It looks almost like a bluebell, they shape of the petals running along the stem, but they are white, not blue.
There is something familiar about his soulthreads. Something niggling at the back of their mind that they dismiss because it is surely family similarity.
"You haven't been here since the funeral," he says into the silence of the night, eyes still shut and facing the grave. It doesn't sound accusing, simply a statement of fact.
They nod, weakly, even though he can't see it.
"It hurt too much," they say, before they can think of doing or not doing so. They don't know why the words come, but they do.
The clasp around their hand tightens quite a bit, though not enough to hurt. It would take a lot more than the grip of a child to hurt as experienced a warrior as they are. The boy nods.
He opens his eyes, but at this angle, they cannot see the colour.
"I was waiting for you," he says, voice wavering slightly.
They don't say anything in reply, though they want to. They want to ask why, why was he waiting? They have never met before.
He looks away from the gravestone, but not towards them. Instead he looks down to his lap, hair falling to hide his face from view. Slowly, he moves the hand holding the flower, and gently places it in their lap instead.
"Lily of the valley," he states, softly. The name sounds almost more like an unspoken hope, a wish, than the name of a flower.
And then he looks up.
It's like a hand has gripped their heart and squeezed, dropping a multi-ton weight into their gut at the same time.
His eyes are golden. Bright, yellow-gold, in a way that they have seen only once before.
"His face turned pale, and his hair changed from a deep crimson to the silver you see now. And his eyes... they WERE blue. Now, they are not."
It's not a family colouration. It can't be.
"Tomix?" they ask, his name catching in their throat. They haven't said it aloud since the last time they were at this grave, haven't been able to.
"I've been waiting for you, hero," he repeats, and a small, familiar smile is beginning to tug at the corners of his mouth.
They don't think about their next action – they can't really. Their mind is completely overtaken with the fact that he's here he's alive he's alive and he's here.
They lunge towards him, arms wrapping around him and pulling him tightly into a hug. The movement is awkward at the angles they were sitting at, and the flower he had placed in their lap gets crushed and crumpled but neither of them care.
He's alive. He's alive he's alive he's alive.
They don't know and don't care how.
They are laughing and crying at the same time and then they realise that he is too.
"I've missed you," they say, their hold on him tight because if they let go he might cease to be. If they let go of this moment they might wake up and find it to be nothing but a dream.
"I've missed you, too," he says, small, child's body arms holding on as tightly as they can in return.
Somewhere up above, cloud cover breaks and moonlight illuminates the scene.
It's been a year, and here they are.