Disclaimer: I don't own Oblivion; it belongs to Bethesda Softworks. The Dune reference belongs to Frank Herbert.
Rating: Probably could get away with K, but to be on the safe side: T for language.
Nota Bene: Not sure where I'm going with this yet. I may extend it; I may add a chapter; I may leave it as is. It's a bit disjointed, so apologies for that.
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The sun blazed unabashedly down from a cloudless, cerulean blue sky in open mockery of the somber spectacle below, or so it seemed to Gaius Manlius, corporal in the Kvatch Guard. He and Guardsman Longinus had laid the last of the bodies in the long trench and taken their places among the handful of men which formed the remnant of the Kvatch Guard. Drawing himself to attention, the corporal deliberately let his gaze drift out of focus and tried not to listen to the shovel-fulls of earth falling on the battered cuirasses and senseless flesh which lined the bottom of the trench.
Captain Savlian Matius surveyed the proceedings, his face an impassive mask of formality. His eyes moved from one to another of his men, the few remaining to him. Most of them were walking wounded. One man hung between two of his companions, their arms locked tightly around his waist in an effort to keep him upright. Stevan Rilian. He had been wounded early in the fighting; his younger brother, Jesan had been killed in the attempt to retake the city.
Gaius Manlius felt a sharp nudge and, turning to Longinus, followed his pointed gaze toward the scene along the trench. For a moment he thought that Longinus was simply trying to make him pay attention to the ceremony, but then he saw what was wrong: Guardsman Aurelianus, his shovel full of dirt suspended over the trench, his shoulders shaking convulsively.
The corporal sighed. It was all a horrible joke, really. The world had shattered and in the midst of the madness, he was somehow supposed to maintain a semblance of sanity and order. It was like holding water in a sieve. And Aurelianus? The boy had lost his parents when he was ten and now he had lost his adoptive parents as well as most of his friends. Manlius cursed whatever thoughtless fetcher had assigned Aurelianus to grave detail only to feel a surge of bitter shame when he realized it had been himself.
Another nudge from Longinus. Cursing under his breath, Manlius stepped out of line. He was tired, so damn tired of pretending he knew what he was doing; tired of looking into others' faces and seeing the reflected despair he had to pretend he didn't feel. He was sick to death of the men looking to him for leadership because he was the only noncom left, and the only officer, with the exception of the captain, left alive was laid up in the infirmary. Most of all, he was tired of looking around expectantly for a familiar face, only to remember that it was lying at the bottom of a ditch.
"Marcus?" Manlius placed a tentative hand on the young guard's shoulder, "Marcus, look at me." Aurelianus shook his head, his gaze fixed on the faces staring up at him from the ditch. Bending down, Manlius gently pried the shovel from his hands. When Aurelianus still did not move, the corporal gripped his shoulder, turning him and pushing him firmly toward the others. To Manlius' relief, Marcus' legs carried him the rest of the way.
Slicing out a shovel full of dirt, Manlius hesitated, suddenly reluctant to let it fall. There was such finality in the gesture. Steeling himself, he let the earth slide off his shovel and felt a pang of guilt as it showered the bodies of his former comrades.
From somewhere in the crowd a moan arose and crescendoed into a hysterical shriek. A figure staggered forward, falling to its knees before the trench with an inarticulate wail. Sibylla Inian crawled toward the edge of the trench. Her husband and her only son lay at the bottom and soon so would she. It was only with a great effort that her daughter-in-law managed to pull her away as all the while the crowd looked on, frozen with horrified fascination or numb with pain it was difficult to say.
At the back of the crowd, Richildis Goneld watched all of this, her face twisting in bitterness and disgust. What did Sibylla have to shriek for? She had the bodies of her husband and son to mourn over. She could bury them. She could cover them with good Kvatch earth. Not so for Richildis. Her husband had gone through the portal and never come out. What she wouldn't have given to see his face, even in death, one last time, to see him honored with a proper burial, but that was denied her. Sibylla had all this and yet she insisted on making a spectacle of herself like the hired mourners one saw depicted on ancient redware pots. Her one consolation was that when this was over, no one would be able to say of Richildis Goneld that she had dishonored her husband's memory with womanish displays of emotion. She knew that to some she would seem proud, but what had she left but her pride? She wore it like armor.
Someone stepped slowly from the crowd and placed his arms around Sibylla and her daughter-in-law. Manlius recognized him as Oliver, Guardswoman Tierra's husband. Everyone in the guard knew Oliver and his reputation as a gentleman. Tierra had always thought it uproariously funny that her husband had better manners than she did. They were such a mismatched couple, but they had been happy. Perhaps, now that she was gone, Oliver found some sort of comfort in the patterns of etiquette and chivalry, or perhaps it was simply that he saw his own grief mirrored in Sibylla and her daughter-in-law.
Sibylla's cries had grown softer and less grating, and it was only then that Manlius noticed the sound of chanting coming from the man beside him. Only it wasn't the kind of chant one would find in a chapel. Without pausing in his work, Manlius glanced with sharp concern at Grettir Asmundson. He was muttering a string of profanity in his native tongue, repeating the same four or five words over and over again. There was a ferocity in his movements which worried Manlius. Asmundson seemd to sense his gaze and favored the corporal with a glare before renewing his attack on the piles of dirt, his shovel raining down earth on the dead below. He aimed for their faces and Manlius couldn't blame him.
There was a stir among the civilians on the other side of the trench and a priest, draped in the robes of a follower of Akatosh emerged. Behind his mask, Savlian Matius sneered. He had heard it all before: divine plans and the comforts of an invisible and unprovable afterlife, the same religious tropes that had been rolled out at every funeral he had ever attended. How was that parroted rhetoric supposed to assuage the fact that he, Captain Savlian Matius of the Kvatch Guard was a failure? He had failed his men, his city; he had even failed his count, who, barricaded within his castle should have been the safest of all. Could the bleatings of some priest take away that?
Matius watched with chagrin as the activity along the trench stilled. Only one man, a Nord the captain recognized as Guardsman Asmundson, continued his steady, deliberate work. There was a tense silence, but at length he heard Corporal Manlius' voice and Asmundson, flinging a last, defiant shower of dirt into the trench, threw his shovel to the ground.
Brother Fulcher stepped forward from the crowd and tripped on the hem of his robes. Clutching a piece of parchment in his hands, as a drowning man would clutch a lifeline, he straightened, regaining his balance, but not his composure. His normally pale face blazed a brilliant beet red and his eyes stared fixedly at the parchment before him, unable to meet the gazes of those around him. With all his might he wished that Brother Radulphus was there. He had served in the legion before he became a priest; he would have known what to say. But he was dead, killed in the siege like so many others. There was only Fulcher, gangly, clumsy, awkward Fulcher who knew nothing of war or death.
He had spent the night in the ruins of the chapel, praying for answers, for something he could give the survivors of Kvatch, but his mind found only question after question. He could not give them questions. Priests, like officers, he had been taught, must not show doubt. Fear may have been the mind killer, but doubt could lay waste to the spirit. It was contagious.
Fulcher had tried to find the right words; he had wracked his brain all night, but there were none. In desperation he had fallen back on the verses and homilies he knew by heart, the words he had heard his brother priests speak over the dead. "B-b-brothers and s-sisters," he stuttered, his reedy voice an octave higher than normal, "We are gathered here to honor those fallen in defense of our city." Drawing a shaking breath, he continued, "I, uh, I know you must all be asking the same question: 'Why?'."
Captain Savlian Matius ground his teeth. He was only too familiar with what came next. "'Why has this happened?'," the young priest continued, "Why has it been allowed to happen?'--" But, brothers and sisters, that is not for us to ask. Only to Akatosh, who sees all things outspread in time, is that knowledge granted and He assures us that nothing happens without a purpose... That is what he had intended to say. That is what was written on the parchment. That is what he had heard said time and time again. But the words lodged in his throat. He couldn't say it; he couldn't stand there and pretend that, in the face of hell itself, his faith was unshaken, that somehow he was stronger than everyone else, he, Fulcher, who had cowered in the chapel crypts while others risked their lives. "I don't know," he croaked. Then into the waiting silence, he repeated, clearly and loudly, "I don't know. I don't know why. I have no answers. In that...as in other things, I have failed you," Fulcher turned to the civilians behind him, to the soldiers across the trench, waiting for condemnation. There was only silence.
Slowly Fulcher turned back to the trench, trying to put his feelings into words, "When the gates opened...we prayed to Akatosh for time: time to prepare our defenses, time to call for reinforcements, time to save the ones we loved. Akatosh--" Fulcher hesitated, wondering if what he was about to say would be considered blasphemy. He didn't mean it to be. "Akatosh did not give us time. But these men and women, by their courage and sacrifice, they gave us time. Time to rebuild. Time to live. And so...let us pray...let us ask Akatosh to give them time. Not a month or a year, but all time, that they may never be forgotten. Let eternity remember--" Carefully he opened the parchment which he had, during the course of speaking, unconsciously folded into a square the size of his thumb, "Berich Inian. Ilend Vonius. Jesan Rilian. Tierra. Alexius Sulla. Merandil. Menien Goneld. Flavia Comnena..." He read each name, his voice struggling to escape the tight constriction in his throat, name after name until there were none left.
It was over. Tears running down his face, Fulcher lifted his had in the traditional benediction, "Blessings of Akatosh be upon you."
"And upon you," came the murmured response.