Cloth
He remembered the look Raetsel gave him when he first mentioned he was enrolling into the ballet division with Mytho at Goldkrone Academy. He remembered the look she gave him when he said he was going to be a knight. He remembered the look she gave him when he began carrying a duck by his side everywhere he went. And he remembered the look she gave him when he first asked her to teach him to knit.
Ahiru's eyes shined brightly when he first presented the small blanket, made with the finest thread and slaved over for hours as he fixed the mistakes made by his quivering right hand. It was made for her basket, but she constantly took it everywhere with her, the corner clasped in her beak as she waddled through the hallways.
When she was an adult and grew her white feathers in, Fakir tied the blanket about her head like a bonnet and teasingly called her Mother Goose. After spending the day out by the lake he would scoop the wet duck up in the blanket and wipe her down, ruffling her feathers as he held her close. In the nights when she would find him awake and crying, she offered her treasured cloth to wipe his tears, even though he would never tell her the reason for their appearance.
He held the blanket in his arms by the tree at the lake. The corners were worn, the blue color eroded away into grey, there were stains all over. But that was all evidence of how much it was loved and cherished through the years.
He kissed the top, where he knew her little head rest underneath the cover.
And he put her into the earth.