Open On Her Way (Matthew)

[Nathaniel Ankah]

50th Day of Spring, 514AV
Sunset Quarter
7th Bell

Syna rose and Nate knew it was time. His sleepless eyes had watched the lightening of the sky through the window, as night turned to twilight turned to dawn. The stars faded in the sky turned pitch to velvet to dusty blue, flecked with tangy fog from the sea. For bells he had sat in his chair, the big stuffed number, arms scratched and sewn a hundred times by Jorka and he respectively.

Nate didn't move much. Just the rote suck and push of his chest as he breathed. His face was half-hidden by the fist in front of it, elbow resting on one arm of the chair, faced reading against his fist... eyes flitting between the window and the bed.

She looked like she was sleeping. But he needed to send her on her way.

Two days. Anymore and the rot and stink will begin. No... not for you, my darlin'...

He listened to Sunberth of the day wake as he went about filling a basin, finding soap and cloth. The city never truly slept, after all: no curfews or ordinances, proper business hours or licensing laws. Every place where money could be made could be open forever or once in a hundred years: no-one would question either. But the bawdy sounds of bars and brothels became less pronounced, eclipsed by braying oxen and donkeys, the rumble of wagons. Calls of vendors took the place of screams for mercy in the darkness.

Nate listened, but did not shirk from his task. He washed her cold, stiff limbs, choking back a painful lump when he came to her battered, malformed legs. He remembered their talk, barely two nights before. About how she danced and how Nate loved to watch it.

The cloth fell from his fingers and Nate hid his face, even from her corpse. When it was over, he began again.

He stripped her naked without shame or flushing in his cheeks. He had done this countless times when she'd been alive, after all. He felt a swell of perverse pride that his adopted mother hadn't let the physical fears of older age consume her. Very little drooped, bulged, sagged or wrinkled in the ways many women feared.

Strong, careful hands swept the soap and wet cloth about her. Even after two days, some mad corner of Nate hoped she would just... wake up. Open her eyes and demand to know why he'd let her sleep so late. But there was nothing. She would never wake. Not here, at least.

Once she was clean, Nate did the same to himself. If he was to send her on her way, he wouldn't have the stink of The Berth on him when he did if. He dressed in a clean short, clean breeches, then fetched the shroud.

It hadn't been cheap, but Nate wasn't adverse to the price. People always made money of death: the causing or the cleaning, it didnt matter. It was a large, grey expanse of soft cloth, not smooth like solo, rougher, but soft enough to sleep in or use as a cheap saddle.

Nate lay the shroud down and placed Kay onto it. Jorka whined and Nuzzled her master's hand. He stroked her bullet head and miles sadlt down at the "dumb" animal.

Dumb, shit. She knows.

"I know, love," he said in a low, croaky voice, hoarse from ill-use the last three days, "Not much longed now..."

Nathaniel wrapped the shroud around and round her, covering her from the bottom up until only her face was here. She looked like some strange pupae, ready to be reborn as something beautiful. Nate smiled at the thought, though his eyes threatened to spill again.

It was an oddly comforting thought.

He gently covered her face with the last corner and there was a knock at the door. He checked the peephole... and commended his visitor on his punctuality. Nathaniel walked back to the grey form on the bed and lifted her into his arms.

She was so light. A shell in a shroud.

With Jorka at his heels, he turned to the doorway and opened it, letting light gush into the darkened house of mourning.

[Matthew]

He hadn't really been sure what to do. This was really the first time that he had ever been invited to another's home in quite some time. Well, Kay had invited him the one time, but other than that... he was usually the one who decided where he was going to go and when he was going to be there. Not that he minded little social meetings like the one that he had seemingly been asked to attend, they were just a rare occurrance. He was quite aware that he wasn't exactly the most exciting sort of company to have around.

The Harlot had decided to do his daily work-out while he thought it over. He wasn't so sure what there was to think about. The woman had proved to be a challenge in the card game that she had showed him and Nate was certainly a bundle of little nuances that Matthew was looking forward to hopefully learning. He wasn't sure if he would have enough time though. It was almost time to go. He had wanted to leave earlier but had decided to move a bit more slowly, to plan things out a bit better. He had sent a letter to Sahova that he wanted to arrive before he left Sunberth, the letter a somewhat risky move that he had been willing to take. Time would tell. For some reason the common little saying made just the tiniest bit of annoyance buzz in the back of his mind. Time. Tanroa. The boy. Matthew had let him run off and have his day to himself. A certain level of freedom was required for a young child, wasn't he? He genuinely couldn't remember anything from when he himself had been a child.

He jogged on the outskirts of town, his legs soon beginning to burn. He had learned to time himself and alternate between a steady jog and a fast walk. He had found a timing that would allow him to jog until he was about to collapse and be left gasping for sweet air, and then would give him just enough of a rest while he walked to be able to repeat the somewhat sadistic proccess all over again. It developed a thin layer of sweat and a somewhat euphoric feeling beyond the burning. He mixed in acrobatics training, making sure that his jog took him alongside some of the great holes in the ground that led to the many abandoned mining shafts. He took great leaps over them, choosing ones that he would have to strain to cross or end up falling to who knew where. Running and jumping, all within a single bell.

The next bell was spent with a very light breakfast of a single piece of meat and water, then the simple bodybuilding routine he had developed. There was a repetition of ten push-ups, then ten sit-ups, then a single chime of planking. The plank technique was the worst, something where he got on the palms of his hands and the tips of his toes and just held the position. It made him burn and his body quake, but he perservered.

A quick rinse at the nearby hot springs and the Harlot was off, dressed in a simple pair of black trousers and a white shirt, both articles of clothing fitting him in a way that managed to subtlely show off the definition of his body. A pleasant smell rose from him from a touch of cologne, a deck of cards tucked into his pocket. Perhaps one of them wanted to play.

When the door opened and he was met with the sight of Nate and Jorka and the package that they guarded, he instantly knew. He should have known already. He had been aware of her condition and everything that had followed the revelation. His pondering the situation had been dumb. It had been obvious. He bowed his head and spoke softly, offering polite words that he had always heard used. "Hello Nathaniel. I am sorry for your loss."

He bit his lower lip, waiting for guidance. There was likely a reason he had been brought here. He was sure it would be made known. Hopefully this would end well. He wasn't good with death. The dead were dead and mourning would not change that. Respect did not matter to a shell of meat. He never understood it. Not that he would ever ever say that aloud.

[Nathaniel Ankah]

Nathaniel wanted to ask him if he even knew what that world meant. Or if he'd even felt what it was to be sorry, to be truly regretful, remorseful, contrite, anguished over his actions or the pain of others. Was he even capable of that? The Sunberthian lad had known the harlot well enough over the last few weeks to know the Zeltiva-born hunk was... not quite there, as far as normal human emotions went.

Everything was a puzzle to be solved, or a curio to be observed. Nate assumed it was sort of peaceful, even protected... but it still unnerved him. Even the passion Matthew evoked was all an act, all just part of the service. Nate couldn't even imagine bedding a woman without feeling something.

But the harlot was... confused. Off-guard. He didn't understand what he was meant to say, or do, and Nate knew it. The weight of her (or the lack of it) pressed to his chest, reminded him that this was not a day for harsh words or ugly feelings.

Unconsciously he stroked her hair; felt the stiff but soft, straight black hair strands under it.

"I'm glad you came." He said, in a hoarse, broken voice. "She would have... have liked you to have been here."

Two other men would wait for the where they were headed; the third should have been there, but... no... he wasn't to be seen. Nate swallowed his disappointment. It didn't seem to matter, but it would have been nice to see his old bud from the old days.

Carts and wagons and a whole galaxy of Sunberth street life circled around them like a stinking, industrious river. Some of them paused and gawked, talked behind their hands, and Nathaniel ignored them all. A few of the older ones hid their mouths in grief, even tottered forward to touch the shrouded feet or hands, tears in their eyes.

He couldn't breath.

He couldn't move.

He didn't want this. He didn't want to send her away. If he just put her back in bed, took care of her, she would wake up. The desperation choked him and he felt his legs wobble under him. He clutched her tighter, folded her into his chest.

No. People die. People leave you. It's the way the world is, and you've known it for a long time. Don't fall apart now, lad.

That's the last thing she'd want.

Resolved in that final truth, Nathaniel walked down the brightening streets. Swarms of beggars and flotsam swirled around him as heavy feet pounded across the cobbles, his burden hardly even that.

His face was the stoic mask of a man gutted by grief; his eyes focused blankly on what was ahead, never looking back or around. Just ahead, forward and forward...

Until the cobbles and gravel and brick fell away to yellow grass and dirt... and then green grass and mud. Buildings thinned to animal pens, sheds, allotments, Sunberth thinning until the stain of the overblown mining camp had been erased from sight and they were in a field.

Grass. Trees around it all, waving at them in the already-sticky air. Two men in funeral attire stood from their smoke break... next to the pyre.

Nate steeled himself, and walked over to it.

[Matthew]

She would have? He took a measured glance at the bundle of lifelessness in Nate's bulky arms, studied it for a few short ticks. The woman had mentioned that she was growing fond of him. He had always assumed that it was because she kept beating them every time they played cards. He had always hoped that he at least put up some form of a challenge. He just gave a slow nod to affirm Nate's hoarse words, moving alongside of him as they went along their path. It was interesting to see how many of them cried, some of them even making somewhat rude comments under their breaths. This was Sunberth, was sudden death not the norm? Perhaps it was the fact that they were having a funeral. Perhaps it was a funeral that wasn't the norm. Sunberth rarely had any respect for its dead.

He followed Nate and his bundle, silent but there, merely watching and keeping an eye on where they were going. There were sometimes obstacles in his path, an opening in the ground that he had to jump over here and there, probably more entrances to the abandoned mining shafts. Nate seemed to have been blessed in some way though, his straight path never leading him into any sort of obstacle. On and on they went, and then there was a field. Matthew paused, taken a bit by suprise, having been unaware that such a nice place existed outside of Sunberth. There was a bit of regret that he would be leaving this place soon. Only a bit. He had come to realize over the past couple of days that there was still much to be found in the world of Sunberth.

Unsure where to stand, he eventually just followed Nate and waited to see where he would go. Still trying desperately to figure out what he was supposed to do next, eventually he made an educated guess. Reaching into his pocket, he plucked a card from the deck that he had brought along. Reaching forward, moving slowly enough that Nate could shoot him a warning glare if he so chose, Matthew would slip the card face-down into the little bundle that had once been Kay.

Curious, he summoned his magic, drinking from the Djed that always rested in a well at the center of him. The world buzzed and crackled, auras slowly coming to life in a display of colors and tastes. He stared at Kay, interested to see that an aura still remained. It was the aura of flesh though, not the aura of a person. It no longer danced with emotion or sizzled with thoughts. It was still and lifeless, just like the corpse itself.

[Nathaniel Ankah]

He wouldn't throw her on the Slag Heap, where the vast majority of Sunberth's dead found themselves disposed of. "Cremated" was never a word Nate used: there was nothing sacred or respectful about throwing a stiff corpse onto the same fire people burned old furniture and bags of shit.

He wouldn't take her to the vast communal graveyard, either, to be crammed down in earth that was more bones fragments than dirt. No... she would have Syna. The open air and a breeze over her; as she would be before the flames, the last time.

He breathed in and smelled... pollen. Animal dung, and not just the usual dogshit and cat droppings of the city. There was no perpetual buzzing of voices or activity, always at the edge of the mind, reminding you that so many thousands were packed in close together. Nate looked around and felt a quick pang of agoraphobia at being so... exposed.

No alleys to duck into. No taverns to visit. No landmarks to follow. Gods... how to people live in this faceless place?

There was some polite shuffling from behind him and he remembered he wasn't alone out there. One of the undertakers held an unlit torch; the other a flint. Of course, Kay had always squirreled money away for a funeral. Nate didn't want to think about when that started, before or after her weakness became... terminal.

Still her death was like brass knuckles to his chest. Even as he held her, light and stiff and cold against his sweating skin, even under the soft shroud... he couldn't quite believe it. Night after night he'd been haunted and pursued by the simple inevitability that she was going to die and he would have to see to her remains.

And now the day is here.

The big man stepped forward and laid his mother - for that was what she was, in deed and in affections - upon the neat assemblage of sticks, logs and tinder. He revealed her face to the sky and stroked her cheek... then stepped back...

He would never touch her again. Never stroke her cheek to say goodnight; nor hold her hand when she was sick; never hug her in joy or in sadness... so much he would never do again.

"Gods... hear me now..."

He spoke loud enough for his voice to carry without being shouted. He spoke like a man who expected his words to be heeded, regardless of whom they were directed at. For her sake, for only hers, Nate cast away his fears.

"Before you now is Kayleah Ankah, of Sunberth. She was a kind soul in a place where kindness is rooted out like runts from litters. But she never lost her love. She trusted... and sometimes it cost her dearly... but she trusted me, and she saved me. She loved me as a son, and I... I..."

The others could only see Nate from the back; now they saw his head bow, his shoulders tremble. His whole body seemed to contract inwards as if imploding, but only for a moment. With a deep whoosh of drawn breath, his head snapped back up to the blinding, watching sky.

"I was oft unworthy of it. But she gave it... and now she is taken from us. From me. I make no vows to those I call upon this day. I have little to offer and no call to. She was a great soul, trapped in a weak body... and she held compassion and goodness in her heart until her last breath."

An edge crept into his voice; a priest would have quailed in righteous fury, but Nate wouldn't let one of those bastards within a hundred feet of this newly-hallowed place.

"And if you will not hear me this day, and grant what I wish... for this woman who was a light in an endless darkness, who saved children like me with such simple, wondrous acts of trust... then it is not she who is unworthy..."

He could almost feel the invisible ripples of shocked uncertainty behind him. Calling on the gods was... hardly unusual, but to speak to them as equals? That prompted trouble. The two undertakers shared a look and shuffled carefully a little further away from Nate, just in case.

"Cheva, Goddess of Love... I call you to recognize one who acted in a way you would have approved of, every day, even if I rarely heard her call upon you. Kay's door was ever-open to the lost, the needy, the poor and the wretched. Many a night I found a guest at our table-" Matthew's blue eyes flitted before his mind "-in need of shelter, and she gave it without a word of protestation. She took a boy more animal than human... myself... and made him into... something approaching a man. And never... never asked anything for it. Show your passion and your kindness now, Cheva... bless she who loved and preached passion... devotion, all her life."

One of his hands reached around and gripped the kukri sheathed at the small of his back. He was a Sunberth boy, after all: he didn't go anywhere unarmed.

"Priskil, Goddess of Hope and Light... heh... that sums up Kay nicely, I think. I didn't know despair, when I met her. I was too young to know what the word was and... and I don't think... I don't think it was even in my mind..."

Nate frowned and peered inward, backward, far into a shady past of grunts and growls when he lived in filth and stole, brutalized, beat his hands bloody for the right to chew marrow from bones. Darkness. Darkness and never a good night's sleep.

"... there was nothing. Just darkness. Hopelessness. One day, scrambling after the next... and then she came. The first time we met, heh... she knocked me out and then when I woke, she did it again. But she gave me food. She treated me like a little boy, not a Berth Rat. I came back to her and that light did not dim. For twenty years and more, she was the hope in my soul, and I was not alone in that."

Memories laid siege to him whenever he blinked for longer than he had to. Countless conversations, when he'd been too low or angry to even leave the house. Her patting his hand, childlike compared to his own, and bucking him up. Sparking some flame of optimism even in the ashes of his grating, immortal distrust of the world, and the future.

"Show her that her courage, her bravery to believe in the best, even among the very worst, was not in vain. A far worse, and probably dead, man would be before you if not for Kayleah."

The last was... easier, perversely enough. Feared though she was, and gods Nate had feared having her touch come to the one he loved most, she was the one goddess he came closest to appreciating.

He had walked beside her all his life. She was in the blades of the slavers that took him; the face of the man he'd kicked to get away; the feral children and drunks and deviants he'd battered and escaped to survive; the gangers that had come after him and been in turn pursued when he was in hi street daemon days.

Always on the other side of his shadow. Never quite catching up...

"Dira... Goddess of Death... see that this woman's soul finds her place in the next place. Let her... let her find her son... her body, Bryant, who was lost in distant lands years before. She mourned him, and never ceased... hoping... but in her heart she knew. Let that pain, that uncertainty end. Let them be together with the man who sired Bryant, a man she always spoke well of, claimed by bad luck and a weak spirit, but... not a bad man."

The kukri moved swiftly across his palm, and Nate barely felt the pain. He held up his closed fist and the blood dripped between his fingers, a fast but faint stream that pooled at his feet, soaking a patch of ground between him and the pyre.

"Hear me now. By my blood... by the memories you can see... I swear all I speak was true. Show your justice, your grace and your divinity. Give this woman her peace..."

Silence followed; a great vacuum of whispering wind after the longest speech he'd ever given, by his reckoning. Nate would allow a few moments for others to speak... though the plural was inaccurate,so it probably wouldn't take that long. But he would still wait, and listen, eyes fixed on her low-set cheekbones, now sharper in death, her eyes closed as if in repose.

Blood dripped from his fist and pulsed in his veins. The wind blew and Syna shone, and if the gods listened, Nate was given no sign.

[Noven]

From the corner of a nondescript, dilapidated building, caustic eyes watched as harlot and old friend made their way towards the pyre.

Nov turned away as soon as Nate took his first step and cursed. Cursed the gods, cursed the world, cursed himself. He pressed a palm to his eyes, which had grown unbearably hot and itchy at the sight of Kay's limp, frail body floating toward its final destination.

At least...it's a better burial than what...what she and Henry got, the man reminded himself. He'd laid to rest three kind souls too many in his lifetime. The first being Nona, her flesh pale and bloodless, throat agape in a gruesome, silent cry. The third, Henry, his gap-toothed friend's guts spilling out onto the cold alley stones and eyes wide with incredulous fear. And the third but not least, Calyn, her corpse nothing but charred, crumbling remains.

Now it was Kay's turn.

He leaned against the hard, cold wall and warred furiously with himself. I should be there, Nov insisted over and over. I should be there, he was my friend, and she always kind. It's the least I can do...

But when he tried to peel himself away from the safety of the shadowed building, he felt his knees go weak and the strength within them wane. Noven knew well enough what he was afraid of. It was just the battling of it that he had no idea how to deal with. How did one fight one's own emotions? How do you defend against your own pain, other than by simply choosing not to face it?

All these years he had hardened himself against that grief. He'd barely gotten a grip on them when Calyn had burned in the fire and it had all come rushing back in a heartbeat. Nov didn't even know it was possible to survive that kind pain. Twice. But he did, somehow, and he couldn't say he was wiser or stronger for it. Just thicker skinned and better at shoving it all into the background. The guilt, the sorrow, the overwhelming, sucking hole in his heart where all the goodness and joy that was Nona had once been.

Everything he chose to try and forget. Everything but the anger, and the hate. Never those. Those, he kept at the forefront at all times. They became his strength when he felt he had none. His crutches when he no longer possessed the will to get up again.

More often than not, they were the only things fueling his existence.

But this is not about me, the cook reminded himself for the hundredth time. This is about Nate, and Kay. And...and what Nona would have expected of me.

He swallowed as he lifted his chin, blinking back that old, familiar wetness he thought he'd long since forgotten. It's what she would have done, if she were here. What we would have done together, for those we loved.

With that last thought, Nov found the courage to walk again. He pushed himself from the grimy wall and took one step at a time. Bear it, see it, take it for everything that it is. The pain, the grief, the unfairness of it all. He would witness it in the name of all of their memories.

As the young merc made his way to the pyre, Nate's clarion voice filled the air. He made his speech without fear and his words struck straight through Noven's heart. It was as if Nate spoke for the both of them, and the more Nov listened the more he felt his calloused defenses crumble. How unworthy they had been. How selfless and infinite in patience, their surrogate mothers. Without them, neither of the men would be standing here today, grief dripping from their very pores. And better grief than nothing at all. Better grief than cold stillness as a pile of dust and bones, abandoned or buried under who knows what.

Nate called upon all the gods and goddesses he could, one after another, and Nov felt a sad smile tug at the corners of his mouth. The older Sunberthian had always been more open to religion than the younger. Perhaps that was why he laughed so much more often. Perhaps that was why Kay had survived so much longer.

A moment of alarm flashed through Noven's mind when he saw the grieving man cut his own flesh. Then it passed as Nate demanded that he be heard, and that his blood be used as proof of his honesty. For a long while they stood there, watching, waiting, listening to the wind howl and feeling sadness thicken the air to a pulping texture of utmost sobriety. Nov said nothing, only watched. He couldn't anyway, even if he was clever enough to know the right words to say in the first place.

When he'd finally taken a proper place amongst the mourners, he looked up across at Nate, face slick with something he hadn't allowed himself to shed for half a decade.

[Matthew]

The Harlot stood politely by Nate, head bowed and eyes only flickering up to glance the shimmering blue hues around the scene every now and then. He couldn't remember the last time he had been to a funeral like this so he planned on soaking up every little bit of information that he could while he had the chance. He appeared to be doing the right thing. Everyone else had the same passive look on their face, though with a bit of genuine sadness mixed with complete respect. He did what he could to mimic it, though didn't try too horribly hard. He didn't want to ruin the moment by looking completely and utterly fake if Nate bothered to check him over.

A speech was expected but the content was surprising. He hadn't taken Nate as one to be religious. He listened closely as the names of Gods and Goddesses crossed the lips of his associate, nodding slowly as he see how it all fit together and seemed quite appropriate to the situation. He continued to glance up at the corpse every so often, studying the lifeless aura. There was still color, but it was un-moving color. It was dull and tasteless, not at all like any of the other auras that surrounded the pyre on this day. The sudden flicker of motion from Nate caused his head to tilt slightly, eyes shooting back to the towering man, blinking a few times as he cut himself and offered blood. His medical mind already started to work, reaching to his own back and pulling one of the two daggers that he held back there free of its sheath. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out an old worn piece of cloth, something that he had stripped sections from many times before. He slowly cut a length from it now, balling it up and holding it tight, re-sheathing the dagger back in its proper home. Nate would likely need a bandage at some point.

Should he say something? Something inside of him hummed, light catching his eyes and causing a thin line of dark blue to briefly shimmer around the light blue. His lips parted and he almost spoke, words welling up inside of him that he wasn't sure was his own. There is a beginning and an end to all things, and this one held beauty everywhere in-between. He caught himself though, biting down on his lower lip, suddenly wary. He wondered if Tanroa was watching. He wondered if he was watching for her.

He had no speech to give, and waited as others gave theirs. Eventually all that could be said would be said, and one of the undertakers lit the torch and slowly stepped to Nate's side, available for the man to take when he became ready.

Noven was a slight surprise, Matthew blinking and staring directly at the cook as he noticed him. His aura was stretching out, dancing in the air to stroke at both the corpse of Kay and Nate. They knew each other? Noven was crying. Should Matthew cry? He lowered his head again, biting his lip once more. That was definitely too much.

[Nathaniel Ankah]

Set her free, boy. Let her go on.

The words rattled and whispered around his mind like wind around an empty house. Noven did not speak. Nor did Matthew, still at his side like a paralyzed statue, unsure and speechless in his confusion. The undertakers would not speak, nor move, just stand there until the job was done and they were of use again. It was all left to him... him and the burning insistence at his side.

Derek was trying to subtly get his attention. Nate felt the brief urge to smash the flaming pole around his skull and make a fresh galaxy explode into life across that field. The sparks... he could see them now as fireworks, the kinds he gawked at in her lap.

His whole world. The safest place he'd ever known or could remember. Now so much stiff and turning meat on a pile of logs.

Then let it end.

He tossed the torch onto the edge of the pyre. All eyes were on the greedy flames as they licked and tasted the wood, only to find it delicious. Ravenous they became; gorged and multiplied until smoke spewed from the base of the thatch and tinder.

Crackling and hissing, wet limbs found and dried and consumed with the rest. Greasy tendrils that reached up and stroked lover-like under her body and Nate had to fight to keep his body rooted in the ground and not hurled upon her-

-his hand reached out and found Noven. As if surprised at his body's reaction, he turned... and found his old friend's face shining. Tracts were gouged down his cheeks and in the days he'd come to know the New And Improved Noven, years after their bitter words and parted ways, Nate had never seen him so vulnerable... nor so like he remembered.

You were not the only skinny scrap of a lad she fed at her table. Don't dare think that only your heart weeps this day.

He embraced his friend, as if there was no gulf of harsh words or yawning years between them. He put one muscled arm over Noven's shoulders and leaned him gently against Nate's side, the smaller man only tall enough to have his head under his chin. Any tick he expected a furious curse and Noven's callused hands forcing him off, storming away...

"Glad you came, little brother," he murmured, voice choked with tears, "She asked about you, towards the end. I told her you... you were a cook. Making food for the orphans. She smiled..."

Nathaniel felt his shoulders bob and quake again, but remembered there was one more who needed... well, what exactly? He'd given up trying to figure out how Matthew worked. But seeing him now, hands clasped in front of himself, chewing his lip, eyes cast down and looking so unlike what Nate knew he should look like...

His other hand reached out and grasped his shoulder. When Matthew raised his eyes, he would find the green boulders of Nate's gaze waiting for him. Anchoring him in the moment, perhaps; tears creeping down his cheeks, but framing a smile, too.

"Sometimes, Matt... all you can do is be there... and that's enough..."

The harlot, the cook and the brawler stood like that - embracing, weeping, smiling, grasping - with their eyes on the inferno given eventual birth before them, watching in silence save for muted sobs as Kay was consumed and reborn into ash and whirling smoke and blackened bones.

[Noven]

He wasn't sure what stunned him more. The full force of Nate's naked grief as their gazes finally met, or the burly arm that was now drawing him within the first act of true comfort he'd felt in years. If it hadn't been for the reason behind their long overdue reconciliation, Noven might have found the whole thing comical. The way his head met Nate's chin and the two of them were weeping like angry little babes would have never flown under any other circumstances. But somehow, in the face of Kay's final rites, none of that mattered for shyke.

Funny, how life worked that way.

When the older man spoke again, his voice had softened beneath the grief and unexpected moment of vulnerability. Nov couldn't help but crack a chuckle at the admission. The sound was strange to his ears, all raw emotion mixed with a faint note of disbelief. He shook his head and gripped Nate's arm in a firm gesture of gratitude.

"You did right, Nate," the cook responded, voice still sandy from the sudden tidal wave of sentiment. "You did right by us all. Putting her heart at ease, and setting me straight in her eyes again."

It was, after all, more than Nov had ever been able to do for Nona.

In a rush of old memories and new feelings of camaraderie awakened, he had almost forgotten the harlot's presence. Noven looked up, half surprised and half alarmed, as his towering friend addressed Matthew. For a tick, he felt a twinge of familiar fear that this man had seen him in a moment of weakness. That another had just witnessed him become something other than the instrument of vengeance he had honed himself to become. But with the way Nate addressed him, it seemed a ridiculous thing to be concerned about.

In fact, now that he looked at it from a standpoint of what might be considered mild enlightenment, it seemed a ridiculous thing even without someone else's approval. But he had just spent so long grieving and loathing and fighting. When you spend that many years feeling just three main emotions, you don't really get to thinking about any others. And when there is even an inkling of a challenge to the state of being you've found most familiar and deserving...well, the immediate reaction would be to resist.

Nov wasn't so sure about resisting anymore. Oh, he was still hell bent as ever on getting his rightful taste of vengeance. But with his involvement in the Scars, his reunion with Nate, and the strange, niggling feeling he got whenever he was around that Myrian Kaie, the cook was beginning to admit some adapting needed to be done.

He was going to need help, that was the first thing to accept. The second, that there were already enough burdens upon his mind and shoulders; making amends with Nate was a welcome and much needed relief. And third, that if there was any chance at all he had a lead on his past, he was going to take it. No shame in playing things smart. Plus, Nov had the strange feeling that if he knew the truth of his history, it would give him even more tools at his disposal to use against the Daggerhands. He didn't know why or how and he didn't really care. It was there, so he was going go to pursue it.

Pop! The cook completely lost his train of thought at the sudden crackle of flame. Once more, his attention focused upon roaring fire and the now darkening, hazy shape within it. Spikes of sorrow and desolation took turns spearing through his chest. It was always difficult, having to accept that someone was gone. Forever. Never to return. Sometimes you woke up thinking they were still there, only to be forced to remember the truth. Those were the hardest and Noven still felt them now and again.

He had no idea how long they stood there. Watching, grieving, coping. Time lost all meaning for the duration of Kay's wake. There was no concept of then or soon, only now. Perhaps it was because the flickering flames possessed a certain magic to them, a special dance that mesmerized and captivated their viewers.

Or, perhaps it was just too hard to say goodbye.

[Matthew]

A burst of heat hit his face as the pyre caught fire and roared to flaming life. He lifted his head and stared at the flickering spectacle, briefly curious as to the origins of this ritual. Some burned the dead, some buried them. Some stored them away for a different use, such as the Nuit. All different ways of handling the dead, each of them probably originating from some unique sort of story. What was the story behind both funeral and funeral pyre?

Little brother? Soft words caught his attention, Matthew turning his head to inspect Noven and Nate. They looked absolutely nothing alike. Was it just a saying, then? He nipped his lip and tilted his head, glancing back and forth between the two before he came to an appropriate conclusion. It was likely just a saying for an intimate bond the two shared because of Kayleah. He nodded to himself, eyes growing faint. He didn't really notice Noven's tears, nor would he even care. Just like he didn't quite understand most emotion, Matthew also couldn't quite understand why some people ridiculed others for displaying emotion.

Then Nate was grabbing him and pulling him in, an unexpected movement and touch that made the Harlot's shoulders very briefly stiffen. He forced himself to relax, nodding at the words, committing them to memory. No doubt he would attend more funerals in the future. Perhaps he would be better equipped to deal with them after experiencing this one. Sometimes all he could do was simply be there and according to Nate, sometimes that was enough.

So Matthew stood there for awhile, doing what Nate had said was enough. He allowed himself to be a part of the little group that had clustered together to mourn the passing of a single woman. He wondered how she had impacted each of their lives. Did each of them know Kay in some specific way? Was that why they were here, to say a final goodbye because of a very significant hello that Kay had graced them with at some point in their lives? He couldn't stand there in silence without letting his mind run wild, so Matthew readily let his thoughts dance all over the place. It was only after an undetermined amount of time that Matthew felt it okay to start the moving on process. Hopefully his timing wouldn't be inappropriate.

"What now?" It was a simple question aimed at both Nate and Noven, though perhaps deeper in its meaning than most would think. It wasn't as much asking what they were going to do now that the funeral was done. It was more a question of what they were going to do now that Kay was truly dead and dissolved.