A/N: Short oneshot inspired by the loading screen audio of Talion quietly singing while trying not to break :'(
While all comments are very much appreciated, I haven't finished the first game (or started the second one) so please no spoilers.
A grey cloud has begun to swell overhead when Talion returns to the Black Gate. Fuelled by wrath and grief, a blade flashes in the dark and black blood spills to stain stone walls and barren ground.
Retreading the steps to his grave, Talion seeks out the bodies of those who died alongside him.
The earth in which he buries them is hard and coarse and fiercely resists the shovel left behind a freed slave. There's no time to dig deep when more orcs will doubtless come to replace the ones he's just slaughtered, but at the very least a few inches of dirt will spare his family the indignity of slow decay in the open air, or of becoming a carrion feast to caragors and ghûls.
He has no shroud for Ioreth (white like the veil she'd worn as a bride.)
No casket for Dirhael (wooden like the cradle in which he'd slept as a babe.)
Only cold, unfeeling earth to join the crusted blood already staining all he held dear.
The wraith, not presently occupying his body but waiting a short distance away, remains respectfully silent.
He has little to offer by way of ceremony, but as the final shovelful of dirt falls to obscure his wife's beloved face forever, Talion tries. "As rivers flow and waters fall," he begins, his throat tight. "As oceans settle on port of call…" He'd never had much of a voice. That had always been Ioreth, who sang with the beauty of an Elven choir, humming softly to herself as she went about her chores, or as she once had while she rocked Dirhael to sleep. The memory strikes a lance into his heart. "Your journey onto white shores glide, and there you'll settle in with pride..."
Swallowing thickly, Talion straightens his back and feels a stab of guilt for his comrades whose bodies he's left to the elements. "And to the rangers who honoured Gondor, may your spirits find peace ashore."
The first raindrop falls, desolate and solitary upon the upturned earth. Talion blinks fiercely.
"And to wife and son and kin, may those bays bring bliss within."
A single white flower is all he leaves to mark the grave. All that remains of his gift to Ioreth; unremarkable enough that perhaps it may yet remain untouched. Small enough that it will soon wither.
His final words are quiet, but defiant in the face of the creeping darkness. "May their sacrifice be a beacon to us all."