Whoops I made it sad. @vldtenyearanniversaryfest
Altean funerals were supposed to be large.
A formal procession, with everyone who'd known and loved the deceased, a pyre, a scattering of ashes. Modern cremation made the pyre symbolic rather than functional, but it was built the same size as pyres of old, to keep the gravity of it all, and provide more ashes for scattering. Then a mourning period would be observed, all donned in pink and white to grieve their fallen loved one.
Coran had no body to cremate, and neither the space nor wood to craft a pyre. His pink garments were stored at home, not in the castle, and like the rest of Altea, were gone now. And with the Galran Empire continuing their wretched work, there was no time to observe a mourning period, not in its formal length.
He should've invited Allura. She was the only person left who could understand him, after all, the only person left who could understand this. But she was young, and with youth brought anger. She didn't want to grieve, she didn't want to mourn, she didn't want to sit with the overwhelming emotion and cry and process it. She wanted to fight, she wanted to strike back against the Galra who had taken everything from her, she wanted to kill Zarkon and all of his.
Coran couldn't and wouldn't fault her for it. He'd been young once, too. But he was older now, and ten thousand years older than he felt.
So he lit a candle alone, in his room, with the smoke detectors of the castleship temporarily disabled in a tinkering he would've called one of the ongoing repairs of the ancient vessel, had their been anyone who spotted him in the act. Someone should have. There should've been staff bustling to and fro, important ministers and diplomats on their way to meetings, petitioners here to take the ear of the king wandering through the magnificent halls while they were in the area anyway. But all those people who should've been here were dead and ten thousand years gone, and so Coran had disabled the smoke detector alone.
He didn't have any of his own mourning clothes, but he did find a large pink blanket in storage, and had gathered it around his shoulders like a shroud, fastened over his heart with the royal family's pin. Technically, it wasn't his to wear. But technically, King Alfor had always, always told him he was part of the family, and everyone who could take issue with him wearing it was long dead—save one.
He really should bring Allura with.
Maybe he'd do another "funeral," later. Once she'd calmed, a bit. Once that horrid rage had burned out of her, at least in part. Once she was able to sit with him, and watch the candle burn, and share in this quiet, heavy grief.
Until then, however, Coran cried alone.
blakekathryn
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