A/N - Happy Halloween everyone! I decided to post this on a whim, no idea why. Sorry if it's terrible, but I felt like I should! Many thanks! ^^ Sorry it's short, too. The next one is longer! Promise!
Up couldn't find Taz ANYWHERE. He had checked all of her usual haunts, the gym, the garden and the library, but she was nowhere to be found, and that confused and worried him slightly. Therefore, that was how he found himself stood at Taz's door. Furrowing his eyebrows together, he slowly knocked on the door. She had only been at the Academy a few months, and it wasn't like her to not be at the gym. It was the Halloween Ball tonight, and she had told him she wasn't going, but he wondered what she WAS doing instead.
Taz's door opened up, and he looked at her in surprise. She was smiling, something he found unusual. Taz usually looked quite surly, usually to keep everyone away from her.
"Up! Good. Jou're here." Taz said and quickly took his hand. She pulled him into the room, and Up noticed something else strange about her. Her clothing. She was wearing a dress. He guessed it was native to her home, and her hair was pinned back, a strange, red velvety flower tucked behind her hair. She squeezed his hand slightly and pulled him inside the room, and he looked around curiously.
The room had been decorated, much to his surprised, but not in the way he would have expected. What stood out mainly, was the altar Taz had set up. It was beautiful, he noted, it was adjourned by flowers of yellow, red and orange. The whole thing was surrounded by candles, and as he got closer, Up saw that the photographs of Taz's family he had managed to salvage from her home were also positioned at the altar. He glanced around and saw a few decorated skulls placed neatly around. Up raised an eyebrow, but glanced back at Taz when she let go of his hand and knelt in front of the altar.
Slowly, Up followed her lead, staring at her as her eyes roved the pictures of her family. There was no sadness in her eyes as she looked at them, but a small sad smile was on her lips.
"Taz?" Up asked slowly, and Taz turned to him. "I don't mean to be rude, but what's going on?"
"It's to celebrate the Dia de los Muertos." Taz explained, tucking a strand of hair out of her face. Seeing his confused expression, she shook her head with a smile. "The Day of the Dead. It's a Tradition. Usually, we start it on the twenty-seventh of November by cleaning our relatives' graves and making offerings." Something in her eyes made him frown. "But I don't have any graves to go to. So I couldn't do that." She paused for a moment, and then continued, moving her eyes back to the photographs. "And usually, on the Dia de los Muertos, We have picnics by our relatives' gravesides, as a sign that we are proving we still love them, and are including them in our activates."
Up silently reached out and took her hand, and she smiled at him slightly, thanking him.
"This is an ofrendas." She explained, gesturing towards the altar. "It's an altar to honour the dead…It's all I could do for them." She glanced at him, hesitating for a moment. "Today is also a day to spend with the people you care about who are living, to honour them as well as the dead. Jou don't have to stay, I'm just glad jou were here for a little while."
"I'll stay." Up said immediately, and Taz smiled slightly, thanking him with a nod of the head, and he smiled back at her. "So what do we do now?"
Taz picked up a lighter, (he briefly wondered where she had gotten that from) and lit up a candle. She then picked up the candle and began to light the others, that same small smile on her face. She placed the candle down and began to mumble softly in Spanish, words he couldn't quite pick up. He watched her for a while, noticed how the candle-light lit up her face. He glanced back at the altar as Taz finished what she had been whispering and then picked up a plate which held some bread. He glanced at her questioningly and she casually broke the bread in half.
"Pan de Muertos." She explained, handing him half of the bread. "It's the bread of the dead. It's offered to the spirits, and then the family eat it, as a mark of unity and love." She paused slightly. "Jou're all I have left Up." She admitted finally. "I just-"
"I understand." Up told her quietly, taking the bread with a smile. "You're all I have too."
They began to eat their bread in silence, but after a few moments, Taz edged closer to him, and he slipped his arm around her, pulling her close. Taz lightly rested her head against his shoulder, and without really thinking about it, Up laid his head atop of hers. They sat in silence, both of them lost in their thoughts about the people they had lost, and the one person they each had left to rely on.
Each other.
