A/N: Hello, everyone! Down below is the funeral chapter. I highly recommend listening to The Devil's Tears by Angus & Julia Stone as well as Josh McBride by The Head & The Heart for this chapter. I think it really sets the mood for the chapter and it sounds like it would be in the show. As usual, I own nothing. Enjoy!
Aryca stood in front of the mirror in her room staring hard at her reflection. At the moment, she was wondering how she might hold in all her tears. She hadn't cried since the night her mother died at the hospital. She'd decided there was no use in wearing makeup tonight. She was trying extremely hard to bottle in all of her feelings. She had to be strong for her sister.
The dress she was wearing was short and black. She decided she would forego any shoes. This night was for her mother. If being buried in the earth made her mother feel closer to the earth, then Aryca wanted to be as close to her tonight as she could. She left her hair hanging around her face in it's extremely curly state. Glancing at the clock, she noticed it was nearing 11:30 and the sky outside was pitch black. She closed her eyes, taking deep breaths as she tried to calm herself. She hoped her father wouldn't intrude tonight, that he would at least give his daughters this night to mourn their mother.
"Damon and Aryn will be along shortly." Klaus' voice carried her away from her paranoid thoughts.
Aryca's eyes traveled over to the black ornate urn that was sitting on her table nearby. She felt her chest get tight and she closed her eyes again. "Alright. We should head downstairs then."
Klaus gave her a curious look as he watched her carry the urn downstairs to the living room. She made herself busy, straightening the living room that no one had occupied for nearly a week. Klaus observed her behavior and recognized it in himself: bottling. He knew that if she didn't act on her feelings soon, they might explode in a dangerous way, even more so due to the fact that she was a witch.
Just then, there was a knock on the door. Klaus opened the door and saw Damon, Bonnie, Elena, Caroline, and Aryn on the doorstep. Elena and Stefan came in first, muttering quiet greetings to Aryca, who seemed to have occupied herself with organizing magazines. Bonnie came in next with Caroline and stood off to the side. Finally, in came Damon and Aryn hand in hand. Klaus, however, lingered by the door.
"We should probably be going as it's nearly midnight. Damon, Stefan, if you please." Klaus spoke, nodding for Aryca to lead the way out with him. Stefan and Damon would be bringing up the rear.
They headed out into the crisp night air and into the woods behind the Headey house. The night was filled with the sounds of animals and a stream nearby. They travelled deeper into the woods for fifteen minutes until they came upon a small clearing. The stream nearby sounded a lot closer now. The canopy of the woods took a break in this clearing and above them, stars littered the sky.
The group stopped. Klaus did a quick check around the surrounding area to make sure that there was no present danger before returning to the group that formed a circle in the clearing. Aryca stepped forward with the urn and placed it on the ground, next to the small hole Klaus had dug for her the previous day. Nearby were patches of flowers that Aryn was presently picking.
"I guess we should get started then." Aryn said, her voice emotionless as she began to hand flowers around the circle.
Bonnie cleared her throat and everyone turned to look at her. "I brought candles with me." No one objected to her as she began passing them out. "I didn't know your mother but people use candles at memorial services so…"
Each person was holding a candle and a flower. Bonnie closed her eyes and seconds later, the candles were alight with fire. Aryn gave her a small smile as she took her place in between Caroline and Elena.
"Anyone who wants to say anything can." Aryn murmured as she watched her sister kneel down in front of the urn.
After a few moments of silence, Aryca began to speak. "This is the closest to you I've been in 6 years." Her voice cracked slightly and she stopped to take a breath. "You told me why you left, and I think I understand it now. At least now, you don't have to run anymore. Wherever you are, you're free, and I hope you're happy about that. I'll take care of Aryn and I'll protect her to my last breath, like I always promised you I would."
She was silent again and everyone could see her body shake slightly, though whether it was from the cool night air or because she was trying not to cry. She took another deep breath and stood up straight and determined. "I love you, Mom." she said softly before joining the circle. Aryn could see a stony look she'd not often seen on her sister's face and this time, she wasn't sure she could decipher it.
Klaus stepped forward to say his piece next. "Shayna, you were a hell of a woman, and a hell of a witch. I consider myself glad to have known you for the short time I did. Though I did not live up to my promise to protect you from the hunters, I will do my best to protect your daughters from them."
Aryn felt a slight surge of gratitude for Klaus. She'd disliked him since meeting him, yet hearing him say that he would try to protect her and Aryca meant a lot to her.
"I never met you, but I can gather that you must have been a great woman. I hope that you can rest peacefully now." Elena said.
After her was Caroline. "It sucks that you had to leave before I could have known you. I hope wherever you are that you are happy."
Stefan was next up after Caroline. "I, like Klaus, promise to try my best to protect your daughters from any danger. In the short time that I've known them, I have come to consider them very good friends of mine. I hope that you can rest in peace knowing that."
Damon followed his brother. "Shayna, I can honestly say that I wanted to meet you, but not the way I did. Hopefully, you can finally have the peace you deserved."
Bonnie was next, and felt the need to be more personal. "You were my sister by magic, as all witches are. I hope that you see my Grams on the other side and I hope you can rest assured that I will teach Aryca and Aryn what I can about their magic. Tell Grams hello for me."
Finally, it was Aryn's turn. She held her breath as she approached the urn. Unlike, Aryca, she did not kneel. Her chest felt heavy and she nervously bit the inside of her cheeks. She was having trouble reconciling that her mother was now a pile of ashes in a jar when she'd only just seen her alive days ago. After five minutes, she spoke up.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to feel. I don't know what I'm supposed to say," her voice cracked and hot tears rushed down her cheeks. "What I do know is that you weren't supposed to leave us. You weren't supposed to leave me! I keep hearing all this shit about how you just wanted to protect us and I just… I don't believe that. You were selfish. At the end of the day, you were selfish. You left us, your own children, to fend for ourselves with no one to help us."
Aryn was full on sobbing now. Her breath was coming in short gasps as she gazed down at the urn with disdain and anger. Aryca tried to step forward to her sister, but Klaus held her back gently. "She needs this," he whispered quietly.
"How could you have left us to deal with this bullshit? Why didn't you just kill Dad when you had the chance? I know you could have. God, even to your grave, you were a selfish bitch. I thought when I saw you in that hospital bed that I might be able to just get over the fact that you have missed the last six years of mine and Aryca's life, but I just can't. I'm 18 years old with a psychotic father that was gone my whole life and a mother that didn't care enough about her own children to take them with her. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!"
Aryn screamed and kicked the urn over. The ashes tumbled out, falling into the hole that had been designated for them. She then levitated the urn so that it was right over the pile of ashes in the whole. It broke into several pieces and landed on top of the ashes.
Caroline had tears falling from her face and her hand covered her mouth as she observed the scene before her. Elena stared as tears brimmed in her eyes, her mouth slightly agape. Stefan was looking very pointedly at the ground. Bonnie, Damon, and Aryca looked on at the scene sadly. Klaus seemed understanding.
"But you know what the really fucked up part about all this is, Mom? I can't be mad at you for this! I want to hate you so badly for what you did, but every time I try, I keep picturing that knife in your stomach when I found you. I keep hearing your apology in my head over and over and over again. There was so much I wanted to say to you if I ever saw you again, but when I saw you again, I couldn't bring myself to. Now, I can. I've said it. But, despite all that, Mom, I love you. I love you to the ends of the world. I just hope you know that, wherever you are, that I am pissed at you, but that I love you." Aryn dropped to her knees and pushed the remaining ashes into the hole in the ground as she cried.
Everyone stepped forward and dropped their flowers into the ground on top of Shayna's ashes before returning to their respective positions. Bonnie remained in the center and closed her eyes before speaking.
"From Earth you came, and so to Earth shall you return. May you embrace the other side with peace and happiness, and live on in eternity as so." The hole was soon covered, and it looked as if the area had never been disturbed. The candles Bonnie had given everyone ignited brightly before dimming slowly.
For nearly ten minutes, no one spoke. Everyone simply reveled in the moment of silence. Aryn's hand gripped Damon's tightly and she vaguely wondered, through her haze of sadness and sorrow, if she was breaking it.
Twenty minutes later, they returned to the Headey home. Bonnie and Caroline left together immediately after Bonnie did the protection spell, as did Stefan and Elena, who wanted to give the sister's some space after the funeral. Klaus and Damon went to check around the immediate vicinity for the night.
Aryca went into her sister's room and sat down on the bed next to her. Aryn silently leaned over to hug her. They stayed that way for a few moments before Aryca spoke. "I understand why you said what you did. Hell, I was thinking half of that stuff."
Aryn sighed. "I figured honesty was the best policy. It helped. It feels like there is a weight that's gone from my shoulder, at least when it comes to her."
Aryca nodded before kissing her sister on the forehead. "I meant what I said. I'm going to do everything I can to protect us. You're my other half. I won't let anything ever happen to you."
Her little sister laughed slightly at this. "It's so hard to keep a promise like that, Aryca. But, I know you mean it to me, just like it mean it to you. We are going to protect each other to the end."
"We have to start preparing ourselves. I know it's not something you want to hear, but Dad is out there. It's only a matter of time before he shows himself and tries to kill us. We cannot afford to be defenseless." Aryca said in a suddenly business-like tone.
"Well, you, me, and Bonnie are witches, Klaus is a hybrid, and Stefan, Damon, Elena, and Caroline are vampires. I have a feeling that we're going to be okay. But I understand what you're saying. It's not their fight. It's ours." Aryn replied.
Aryca nodded in response, proud that her little sister was behaving and thinking maturely about the matter at hand, not that she would have expected anything less. She hugged her sister tightly and left to go take a shower. When she got to her room, she discarded the black dress to the trash and ran a shower. Later, when Klaus returned, she was sitting in her bed in nothing but a huge t-shirt staring up at the ceiling.
"What is it?" Klaus asked when he, too, got in the bed after showering.
Aryca sighed. "I'm worried about my father...and curious, too. I know he's a hunter from what my mother said, but why would he try to kill his own children? I would think that he'd try to do anything in his power to try to keep his own children safe."
Klaus chuckled to himself, though it held no humor, as he pulled Aryca in close to him. "I, myself, have a bit of experience in the 'fathers wanting to kill you' department. What I can tell you is that you can try to understand all you want, but you never will. You can try reasoning with him, but it will never work. If his mind is set on hunting and killing you and Aryn, there is absolutely nothing you can do to make him change his mind. Hunters take their orders seriously."
Aryca was silent as she mulled over this. She eventually turned so that her back was against Klaus, hoping that she might get some sleep, yet sleep never came.
A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Thought I'd make it a bit long considering the last chapter wasn't too long. Let me know what you think!