Panic. Complete and total panic.
There were so many things the two of them were supposed to do together. Even just hours before she apparently died, Irene’s grandmother was looking forward to the stories she was going to tell her.
Irene’s words were caught in her throat as her mother stood there, shrinking at the sight of her daughter, emotionlessly staring at her because of the shock she was experiencing.
Rochelle rushed forward and grasped her daughter’s shoulders. She silently pleaded for more emotion than that. As usual, she felt like the villain in Irene’s life, only there to deliver her bad news.
"That’s impossible," Irene managed to say, her voice hollow. "She told she was looking forward to everything I had learned while traveling. Grandmother was so energetic last night. There’s no way this is possible."
Irene shrank away from her mother’s touch and pulled her blankets off. She rushed towards clothing as she clumsily slipped on whatever she could find. Having gotten used to the cold weather for so long, she was in a tunic that was a bit too warm for Chemois, but not considering the day she was about to face.
"I’m sorry..." Rochelle didn’t know what else to say. An apology would have to suffice because it was clear Irene was going to go to her grandmother regardless. "Please take care."
Irene washed her face and brushed through her wavy, red hair before quickly rushing down the large wooden staircase and escaping the house. Everything felt impossibly ti sensitive yet she hadn’t had a chance to process her emotions after being woken up in such a harsh way.
It was only when she was on the back of Sammy and riding the sowhat long trip to her grandmother’s house that reality was starting to set in. Her mother gave her news likely presented to her by her father or Arne. Those two wouldn’t lie or mislead.
There had to be truth to what her mother said.
At this, tears of acceptance fell out of Irene’s eyes and they were swept backwards towards her hair because of how quickly she was riding. A few certainly fell to her lips but most were whipped away by her hair and the wind.
She felt like she was going to throw up pure emotions. There was an overwhelming urge to sob but it was hard to crumble when you were relying on your core to respond to the horse below you and brace yourself for each gallop so that you wouldn’t throw the loyal animal off and travel would go smoothly.
"I’m sorry," she uttered to no one. "Why didn’t you tell us how you were really feeling?"
Kara had told them she was cleaning the house in unknown anticipation for their arrival, but was the truth bleaker than that? Had she really been preparing because she knew she was going to die?
The ride there was miserable.
Because the weather had ward up, the streets had a few people puttering around, going on about their day. It felt like a cruel response to her world which had co to a shocking halt. How could they be going on as usual while everything was falling apart around her?
Her chin quivered as more tears fell. She recognized a few people around the village with hair as shockingly red as her, but instead of greeting them as they seed to want, she continued on.
It was ssage enough for a few to be on guard. A few more even began to follow Irene at her clear emotional state.
Soon enough, Irene rounded the outcrop of evergreen trees and made it to her grandmother’s house. The last bit of the journey was done at full speed.
Sammy was forced to lurch to a stop as Irene suddenly let go of her knees and pulled back on the reins. He went back on two feet and shook his head in disagreent.
However, Irene was totally numb to anything else including those who were slowly approaching at the distance. There was village-wide concern over the girl who ignored everyone and seed to have tears streaking her face.
The front door to Kara’s ho was half-open as Irene approached and she pushed her way through without so much as an announcent or knock.
There her father and brother sat at the side of her grandmother’s bed. They had already covered the woman’s body with her blankets as they waited for what was next.
Two sets of light brown eyes turned to Irene and she realized they were as bloodshot as hers.
"It can’t be true," she sobbed.
They wouldn’t cry for no reason.
She practically crumbled as she approached, and by the ti she made it to the edge of her grandmother’s bed, she was on her knees with her father and brother both hugging her.
They were a pile of tears and silent sobs. Irene was shaking the most since it was her first true cry since learning what happened.
When her father saw his father’s grave before, she thought he had learned how to accept death and that he had always been that way, but as he embraced her and cried, she realized that wasn’t the case. Perhaps it was human nature to feel a sense of total loss when you weren’t allowed to interact with soone else any longer. They were completely and totally stolen from you.
All the promises made while the other person was alive were viciously ripped from your hands. There was nothing that could be done to rectify that situation at all.
Despite how heavy everything felt, they knew they eventually had to start working towards the burial that Kara would have wanted. She had detailed many tis over the ways in which she wanted to go as a proper Sunstoian.
The three gathering themselves happened just in ti for the others in the village to arrive.
Of course, Arthur’s older brother, Baldur, was one of the first to arrive. Even though he ran a pub in the center of the village, of course he was next to arrive because he received word just as soon as Irene did.
Strangely enough, he had distanced himself from all it ant to be Sunstoian. He didn’t want to lead the life of a warrior and he was always a bit disagreeable when the things discussed with him had nothing to do with the monotheism and anti-mage sentint that governed the south. This led to tension with his mother which was why Arthur was the one left to take care of her.
As her uncle arrived, Irene couldn’t help feeling a bit miserable that her grandmother couldn’t see that this was what it took for her sons to reunite once more. Even though it wasn’t as easygoing as it once was, it was still far better than the slight tenseness that Arthur experienced each ti he went to the pub for a drink.
Just as what Sunstoian customs required, Kara was set to be buried within a week of her passing.
It felt like sowhat of a slap to the face that the day she was set to rest was a warm and sunny day in the middle of a lot of days of rain. Weren’t the gods mourning her as much as she should have been mourned? It felt cosmic that the sun would shine down on them while they were forced to bury the corpse of her grandmother with nothing covering her except for clothing and fur so she could return to the earth.
Kara’s body was brought slowly through town in a wagon and the funeral procession slowly followed her to where a deep hole had been dug next to her ho.
She was then lowered to the bottom using long strips of cloth and laid as comfortable as she possibly could be.
However, there was one aspect of the Sunstoian burial that seed to be missing. That was at least until Irene stepped forward with the very bow and arrow sheath she carried with her through so many battles and trials.
Considering it was her grandmother who taught her how to be an archer, it felt like it was aningful to gift her with sothing like that for the afterlife. Sothing that carried Irene through so much would aid her grandmother well.
As she dropped the weapons into the hole in the ground, Irene couldn’t help as she fell to her knees and bore her heart for the world that day.
Sobs fell from her lips as she nonverbally admitted that she wasn’t ready to let the old woman go. They had so much unfinished business. The promise of all they had yet to do was hanging over her and would for a long ti.
"I will never wield a bow again," she told her grandmother as she watched each person present that day drop herbs and flowers into the hole and covering Kara’s body.
The mourning of her grandmother was so bitter—so heavy. Yet only a week after the funeral, Irene told her family that it was ti to return to the Duke’s Tower.
She was tired of going around feeling so sorry for herself all the ti
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