Remembering the dead
Apr. 10th, 2007 12:56 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
lanfykins.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
zg_shadowsIt is said that we are the sum of our memories, but it is not true.
We live a thing, and then it is behind us, and unless we had cause to pause and attend to that moment while we lived in it, it is gone forever. We are the sum of what we tell ourselves we remember; all the half-images and guesses and words we wrote in diaries back when we were someone else.
And that's almost true.
---
The day is grey, the wind wet and sharp with cold. She sits silently with numb, painful hands around her knees and looks out across the low, rolling hills and low, rolling clouds, seeing nothing.
In front of her two men talk, and then one comes forward to kneel before her. She shifts to mirror him, hands spread flat on thighs too cold to feel them, every movement as slow as a dance.
"I have spoken to Michael-Stands-Ready-adren," he says. "The Sept Between Worlds will shortly be dispatching a pack to escort you back to London, where you will be expected to stay under guard until such time as an appropriate judgement can be made. Do you have any questions?"
"I wondered. They couldn't use me, so they used my name and my face, didn't they? Tell me how it happened. Tell me how I..." her voice breaks, and she swallows and repeats. "Tell me."
"From the information that Seeks-Sun's-Rays, Corvid Neocornix of the Corax, managed to get out before he was murdered, we know that both yourself and Keston Many-Splintered-Vision were present at the opening of a moonbridge at approximately two AM this morning. We know that Keston was expecting someone very familiar to him, and at the behest of yourself he sent most of the defenders away from the caern heart so that he could meet privately with you and whoever it was he was expecting.
"We know that when the moonbridge opened, it disgorged an unknown number of Black Spiral Dancers who caught the caern defenders completely by surprise. We know that you took the opportunity to stab Keston repeatedly. We know that you brought his body and the bodies of his family to the quarry nearby, and we know that you cut out their eyes."
She starts to sob, quietly, despite her best attempts not to.
"At approximately 5.20 this morning, British Summer Time, the caern of the Wheel of Ptah attempted to establish a moonbridge with the Sept of Fox's Rest, and were unable to get a reply. A pack was sent to investigate, lead by an Elder Silent Strider. They were in time to save the lives of six of the Garou that were based here. Six, out of a compliment of forty."
He leaves her staring blindly out onto the moor. The two men talk in voices too low for her to hear, and then the other one, the silent one, leaves. The one who spoke to her returns, and now there seems to be a sunlight about him on this grey day, reflected in his eyes, as he comes to sit on the ground before her.
"I'm sorry about your uncle, Katrina."
She stares at him, and then tears well up in her eyes and she hugs herself tightly as she starts to cry again, this time unable to stop herself or give proper voice to any of the things she wants to say. In a moment his arms are around her and it's pointless to draw back or try to pretend. She turns her face into his shoulder and for this one moment lets herself be no longer alone, as she has been alone since Kazimir's death, as she has been alone, in a sense, all her life. His clothes smell of musk and smoke and blood, and the fibres are scratchy against her swollen eyelids.
Nothing is forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten. And the garden will be with her all her life, every day without fading or changing, the garden where for one brief space she let herself be Katrina alone and cried into Tolly's shirt.
She is crying now, as she cried then, and the memories of the tears overlap, because this time there will be no comfort.
"For now your voice is silent, Gibbous moon, but understand that in future when you speak, your words will echo. Eventually, the Nation will hear you. Memory is in your keeping."
"You fucking hypocrite..."
He had died without ever seeing her apologise to Michael, without ever seeing her finally stand up to her family for what she knew was right, against law and tradition and all that she had always bowed to. She had disappointed him and he had never seen her try and put it right.
Uncle Kazimir had kissed her forehead before he left, and she had known he was proud of her. She will never know if she could have made Tolly proud again. So when she walks into the Heart of Albion Caern and fights Edward Ryder's champion it will not be for Keston alone. She is Speaker for the Dead, and the dead walk with her. And when she speaks the words of challenge she will be speaking to Keston, and Kazimir, and Tolly, for all they had believed in and all they had hoped she would be and all the ways she has fallen short.
She is a Nikitinevich. She will, finally, be a Nikitinevich.
"I just worry sometimes that you are so determinedly being a Nikitinevich that you are not paying enough attention to being a Katrina."
She looks up, through her tears. "And how do I manage to be Katrina when all my friends keep dying, Tolly?" she asks her memory of him where he sits beside her, half-smiling, his eyes compassionate.
The sky is dark. The sun is gone, and there is no answer.
We live a thing, and then it is behind us, and unless we had cause to pause and attend to that moment while we lived in it, it is gone forever. We are the sum of what we tell ourselves we remember; all the half-images and guesses and words we wrote in diaries back when we were someone else.
And that's almost true.
---
The day is grey, the wind wet and sharp with cold. She sits silently with numb, painful hands around her knees and looks out across the low, rolling hills and low, rolling clouds, seeing nothing.
In front of her two men talk, and then one comes forward to kneel before her. She shifts to mirror him, hands spread flat on thighs too cold to feel them, every movement as slow as a dance.
"I have spoken to Michael-Stands-Ready-adren," he says. "The Sept Between Worlds will shortly be dispatching a pack to escort you back to London, where you will be expected to stay under guard until such time as an appropriate judgement can be made. Do you have any questions?"
"I wondered. They couldn't use me, so they used my name and my face, didn't they? Tell me how it happened. Tell me how I..." her voice breaks, and she swallows and repeats. "Tell me."
"From the information that Seeks-Sun's-Rays, Corvid Neocornix of the Corax, managed to get out before he was murdered, we know that both yourself and Keston Many-Splintered-Vision were present at the opening of a moonbridge at approximately two AM this morning. We know that Keston was expecting someone very familiar to him, and at the behest of yourself he sent most of the defenders away from the caern heart so that he could meet privately with you and whoever it was he was expecting.
"We know that when the moonbridge opened, it disgorged an unknown number of Black Spiral Dancers who caught the caern defenders completely by surprise. We know that you took the opportunity to stab Keston repeatedly. We know that you brought his body and the bodies of his family to the quarry nearby, and we know that you cut out their eyes."
She starts to sob, quietly, despite her best attempts not to.
"At approximately 5.20 this morning, British Summer Time, the caern of the Wheel of Ptah attempted to establish a moonbridge with the Sept of Fox's Rest, and were unable to get a reply. A pack was sent to investigate, lead by an Elder Silent Strider. They were in time to save the lives of six of the Garou that were based here. Six, out of a compliment of forty."
He leaves her staring blindly out onto the moor. The two men talk in voices too low for her to hear, and then the other one, the silent one, leaves. The one who spoke to her returns, and now there seems to be a sunlight about him on this grey day, reflected in his eyes, as he comes to sit on the ground before her.
"I'm sorry about your uncle, Katrina."
She stares at him, and then tears well up in her eyes and she hugs herself tightly as she starts to cry again, this time unable to stop herself or give proper voice to any of the things she wants to say. In a moment his arms are around her and it's pointless to draw back or try to pretend. She turns her face into his shoulder and for this one moment lets herself be no longer alone, as she has been alone since Kazimir's death, as she has been alone, in a sense, all her life. His clothes smell of musk and smoke and blood, and the fibres are scratchy against her swollen eyelids.
Nothing is forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten. And the garden will be with her all her life, every day without fading or changing, the garden where for one brief space she let herself be Katrina alone and cried into Tolly's shirt.
She is crying now, as she cried then, and the memories of the tears overlap, because this time there will be no comfort.
"For now your voice is silent, Gibbous moon, but understand that in future when you speak, your words will echo. Eventually, the Nation will hear you. Memory is in your keeping."
"You fucking hypocrite..."
He had died without ever seeing her apologise to Michael, without ever seeing her finally stand up to her family for what she knew was right, against law and tradition and all that she had always bowed to. She had disappointed him and he had never seen her try and put it right.
Uncle Kazimir had kissed her forehead before he left, and she had known he was proud of her. She will never know if she could have made Tolly proud again. So when she walks into the Heart of Albion Caern and fights Edward Ryder's champion it will not be for Keston alone. She is Speaker for the Dead, and the dead walk with her. And when she speaks the words of challenge she will be speaking to Keston, and Kazimir, and Tolly, for all they had believed in and all they had hoped she would be and all the ways she has fallen short.
She is a Nikitinevich. She will, finally, be a Nikitinevich.
"I just worry sometimes that you are so determinedly being a Nikitinevich that you are not paying enough attention to being a Katrina."
She looks up, through her tears. "And how do I manage to be Katrina when all my friends keep dying, Tolly?" she asks her memory of him where he sits beside her, half-smiling, his eyes compassionate.
The sky is dark. The sun is gone, and there is no answer.
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