Quel’danas - Rememberance
It perched on a small finger of land above the water at the northeastern tip of the island, facing the rising sun. Behind him, the sun was vanishing over the western horizon, night coming on. The tiny shrine commemorating the lost of House Kyvare was simple, not ostentatious at all, but wax coated its stone shelves, the floor. Hurricanes of red and blue and silver and gold sparkled in the dying light as he finished the climb up the hill. Below, waves crashed against the base of the cliff, the first faint harbingers of a storm still hours away.
Tyr knelt within the shrine, his eyes sliding shut. To his left, on the north side of the tiny memorial shrine, stood a dozen flickering candles. Ahead of him, facing east, stood even more. A sigh escaped his lips as he stared at the flickering flames, settling down against his heels, ignoring twinges of pain, of old aches and fresh discomfort. It was those things that reminded him that he was still alive—something that the men and women represented by the candles around him no longer were. They were just memories, some faint and fading, others raw and close. Some he maintained out of respect for his parents, his grandparents, remembering people he never knew himself but still understood were important.
These past few years, he’d found himself adding too many of his own, representing people he’d known, loved, lost.
He set another candle, lit it, then settled back again. He stared at the flickering flames, lights in the gathering darkness, lights to push it back—lights to remember and lights to forget. Lights to remember the good times and to forget the pain.
His gaze flicked between them—the brightly burning one with lavender embedded in the wax, the braided blue and green and black that burned low, now—he’d need to replace it when he came next—the fat green and gold one that was newer than most, not much older than the one with the lavender.
Another sigh. A tear tracked down his cheek.
Tyr closed his eyes, humming the first few notes of a hymn. His voice rose in song, soft at first, growing stronger as the night deepened.
Waves crashed below. Someday, they would wear away the base of this bit of land and it would fall away into the sea.
That would be a long while in coming.
