alistair's eyebrows

The drumming of hooves and the scraping of wooden wheels kept the dark thoughts at bay. It was also raining heavily, I might add. Thunder cracked loudly in the distance, then over our heads, making my chest vibrate. It fit the mood to the tee. There was a funeral taking place. Not just any funeral--my mother, my brother, and my baby sister. Technically three funerals but the Priests thought it were better for the public to see just one sad day. I beg to differ. The country should see three sad days that were my family’s dead bodies marched through the Town Square. They should see the bodies too, see how they were bruised and beaten. I can still remember two days ago sitting and identifying my family in the morgue underneath the Church. 

I stood there in the mud and the dead grass at the gravesites already, accompanied by only immediate family. I stood a distance aways, near the brown and grey of the stones zig zagging along the street at the base of the cemetery. I didn’t want to be bothered by hearing how sorry people were for me, how it would get better with time. No. I didn’t want to hear that. I wanted this town to catch on fire. I wanted the earth to swallow me and everyone in this continent into the abyss. I wanted the sweetest feeling of them all when it comes to this sort of thing. Vengeance. Or retribution. I had always tried to keep a kernel of hope in my head at all times. For my brother, for my sister. 

My thoughts cleared as I saw the three carriages cresting the hill to the cemetery. I took a deep breath and forced it out in a huff. I wore a piece of black lace fabric that covered my whole face. It was attached to an atrocious and hideous hat that my brother found in the dump behind a posh tavern a couple blocks from our cottage. Happy birthday sis. I heard his voice clear as a sunny day, bright and full of happiness on the evening of my twenty-fifth summer this year. My throat closed for the hundredth time today.  

 The aunt on my mother’s side had gotten my long wavy black hair braided to one side before we left home. The pants I wore were a tight pair of black leather breeches; the overcoat I wore was buttoned just so there was a flap settling between and against my thighs.  I brushed my hands down my black corset, the slightly ruffled undershirt a beige color I absolutely hated scratched at my collarbone. All hand-me-downs, like I gave a shit. But to wear a little bit of white at a funeral meant purity to be brought over into the next life for the deceased. All bullshit, I thought vehemently.  

The sounds of neighing brought me out of the jog in my head, having jumped a little as the first of the carriages stopped in front of me on the cobblestone road leading from the Town Square. The first one was especially small. Too small. My eyes burned and a pit formed in my stomach. The next two caskets in the next carriages were normal sized.  

“Focus, you can do this.” I whispered to myself, an obvious quiver in my words. The hell I could. I broke apart when I first saw their bodies. I began walking to the three open holes in the ground. One of them, again...too small. 

My baby sister, Rhodie. Dear Gods... She had five winters behind her. Five. I couldn’t describe the words and the rage that engulfed me that day, at the state of absolute gore and horror her tiny body was. The udder violence I had wanted to invoke upon the people who’d done this, plus the whole world, was catching my breath to this very moment. I might not breathe again. 

My older brother, Tyrus. His head was caved in on his left side, the one side where his only “good” eye remained, fused with his skull. I believe he would say this weather would be perfect for our funerals. They had given me his right prosthetic eye at the morgue. It was beautiful, I had always thought so. Where the whites of the eye normally were, a stunning shade of blue marble shone brightly, as the pupil were a vivid yellow. Odd combination, I told him many times. But I always got the same answer; a lopsided chuckle and, “but I love marble, plus blue and yellow are my favorite colors.” Although we were not royal—we weren’t hurting that bad, though there were moments we all felt ashamed of. But Tyrus had high hopes for our family. Father had always pushed those ideas away, either by flinging a wooden bowl or something made of clay at my brother’s head—I glance down at his prosthetic eye being held on for dear life in the palm of my hand--or shouting at him to not give your sister petty thoughts for later in life. My father was to blame for a lot of things. Mainly everything that happened to us. He was after all the next in line to the throne, we were just his bastard family that he was required to check up on every week. 

My mother, Ingwyn. We didn’t have the best relationship, but it was there, nonetheless. She had cared for me, loved me to her best abilities. I think. But I was well aware I was not the favorite, also well aware of her mental instabilities. My brother almost always got whatever he wanted; my baby sister hadn’t understood, didn’t get the time to understand anything really. But her cries at night with colic were evidence enough that my mother told me she will just sweat it out or cry it out and she'll be fine. I was always there for her. Not my mother. Never my mother with Rhodie. 

The sounds of chanting and praying followed shortly after the horses stopped and huffed restlessly, blowing a thick fog out into the rainy air. Priests, clerics, and all kinds of clergy men were singing in a low baritone melody, if it could be called that. It sounded more like they were about to summon a demon. The clergy women stood behind me, around ten at least had followed the Priests and the rest here. Their robes were white and yellow. Pure and light. The clergy women wore black and white. Death and life. The main Priest had what looked to be twenty scarves wrapped around his head, the same colors as they wore, same as the main clergy woman who stood at my other side a few feet away. Their presence was supposed to be reassuring to most people in this country, but it was far from the feeling or thought where I was concerned. Then I heard the thumping, loud. A line of military men filed about to take six to a carriage. Well, two for one carriage. I gritted my teeth. Hard. How dare they. How dare the royal family send out these people who were more or less responsible for my family’s deaths. I almost combusted right then and there; I might have if it hadn’t been raining. The military uniform consisted of the same colors; black tunics with yellow or orange embroidering their lining or pockets, along with black pairs of matching pants and black rain combat boots. They wore their fucking armor, the cowards. The shin guards were nothing fancy, just metal plates overlapping one another and indents here and there, having belts around the whole calf to buckle to their boots to ensure they don’t slip. The thigh guards were practically the same things, but intricate lines of details wove up and around and disappears near the groin area. The chest plates were impressive though; it looked like they were part dragon. The shoulder pieces came out and spiked up instead of lowering to protect their shoulders. The helmets had horns adjacent to a dragon’s as well. I never understood their armor, there were weak spots everywhere. 

One of the military officers, maybe the captain of the outfit, planted the country flag at each grave that had our nation’s crest sewn into them; a dragon spiraling along a sword, but the sword came out of the dragon’s mouth from the underside of its chin and split through its head. I shuddered, never understood that either. Dragons had gone extinct eons ago. Wyverns however... 

“Don’t worry, Wenlyth, this shouldn’t take very long,” I jolted out of whatever was going on in my head as a somber feminine voice came from beside me, my reflects already taunt with tension and being on my guard, but I remained still. But I sighed through my nose as I slowly turned my head to my best friend, Neril, who stood there. She looked as beautiful as ever with her burgundy hair tightly wound in a bun high upon her head, her black dress cinched in around her curves. I would be lying to say that I haven’t been jealous of Nel from time to time. She was shorter than I was, but not by much. I was always a tall girl, standing at five feet and nine inches, but she was always there to kick at the bullies in school who made fun of me for it, still down to this day from time to time—I still welcomed it gladly. The white she wore was a pearl bracelet my brother had given her as a gift on their fifth-year wedding anniversary. My eyes started to mist over; my vision instantly blurry. Nel noticed and she laced her arm through mine, giving it a squeeze. I gave her a half-assed smile that would never have fooled her and turned to watch the men take the caskets out of the carriages. 

The military was now beginning to lower my mother’s coffin first, almost dropping her as a rope slipped from one of the soldiers’ hands that was slick with the rain, the head of the coffin slamming into the dirt. A laugh almost bubbled up in me, feeling a bit on the manic side now. I focused on the low chanting of the clergy men and women, promising paradise and glory to those dead before them, but I wasn’t listening for that. Oh no. I was going to fall apart any second now. 

They lowered my brother’s coffin, trying to be more careful this time around. All went smoothly as the dirt made a squelching noise as the weight sank into the wet earth. Lightning cracked overhead, nearly making me jump out of my skin. I can’t do this...  

Rhodie was next. The two officers lowered her tiny coffin into the hole, the weight didn’t even sink. I finally let out the sob I felt like I'd been holding back since the day I was at the morgue. As I did, lightning cracked again, but it didn’t bother me. Hell, I barely heard it over the wail that came out of me. My knees finally gave out and I fell sideways into Nel, who caught me with ease. She wrapped her arms around me tightly, clutching me to her as hard as she could. It wasn’t enough. It just wasn’t enough.  

After a few minutes of weeping, I had finally heard the Priest clear his throat and asked in that raspy old, aged voice of his, “Wenlyth, would you care to say something or pass something along with your family?” His voice was gentle, so I finally stood up and walked over to the open graves.  

I couldn’t say anything. There was nothing to say, but maybe later when I wrote in my journal. I’d write them letters; we didn’t have the time or the luxury of nice weather to stand here and listen to me ramble. So, I pulled out the three white roses I had stored in my hat, and I went by each coffin. First my mother, I threw the rose onto her coffin. She didn’t get to have what I had to give to my siblings. Next was Tyrus, I kneeled in front of the hole and placed the rose on the lettering of his name carved into the wood. I pulled my hand back and pressed a kiss to my lips, then placed it on top of his name. In the afterlife, my brother, I will see you again. I will be with you and Rhodie sooner than you think. 

Finally, Rhodie. I gasped a sob back down my throat as I kneeled on both knees in front of her grave. It was barely as long as my leg. The tears fell as I placed the rose softly on her name and gave her the same kiss, but it lasted a little bit longer, as I had closed my eyes and remembered her shining smile and beautiful blue eyes giggling up at me. The memory faded as I opened my eyes and whispered, “In the afterlife, my baby girl. I shall meet you there.”  

Rising from where I knelt, I started walking back to Nel. But I paused my stride, and something made me turn to look back at the graves. I bunched up my eyebrows as I surveyed the landscape, but I heard a hissing sound. Then I heard a loud boom in the distance, the ground quaking beneath me, as I jerked my head toward the sound. A mushroom cloud had already formed above the general vicinity as the royal palace. I thought it looked strange, yet pretty, as green was swirling through the smoke like a twister forming. Old Magic. 

“Bombs!” a military officer screamed; the uniformed cowards scattered. Turning back to where I heard the hissing noise, I started panicking. I shut down all of my other senses to focus on it. Then something happened that I would not wish on my worst enemy: all three coffins exploded as it rained broken, chipped, and splintered wood all around us. One huge piece came whistling passed my head. But it wasn’t all at the same time, it was one by one, leaving my sister last. The shock wave had me flying back several feet, my whole body colliding painfully with a carriage that held one of my family members, having rocked it off wheels from the cobblestone some odd inches. Whiplash caused my head to fly back and hit my head on the doorknob. There were definitely cracking sounds as searing pain laced through my whole being, especially in my spine. I heard ringing in my ears, darkness surrounded my vision. I looked up, and the last thing I saw was my brother’s head rolling towards me to stop in front of my feet, a plume of black and green smoke blurred in the distance where their graves now lay cratered.