[ Her head bows with the request. More to the latter than the former, admittedly. His affection is - well, they wouldn't be here if they weren't. But it's clearly more than just men in his command. They were his friends. Men he knew to complain about them as to stand on ceremony for them.
She turns back towards the fire, the first breath in deep, letting it fill her with it's quiet. They are with you, my Manu, always, remember them in each action, and you will live a life of contentment. She held her mother's skirts as they stood in front of the small painting of Ganesha. Her mother answering each and every time her daughter asked tell me again how he got a elephants head, mesmerized and memorizing the words at her mother's side. The chants and prayers, her long delicate fingers holding handfuls of petals as she showered them. Here, you can always be at peace, daughter.
Standing at her father's side, unable to accept as they wrapped her mother in a white sheet. Taking her body away. Her father urging in just those same chants. Do not weep, she is not gone, the soul can never go. She and your baby sister are going onto their next life, we will meet them there. Do not weep, or she will stay to console you and never find peace.
The smoke from the fire had stung her eyes, when they burned her husband. Wet and sharp, all at the same time. She couldn't be sure if she wept for it's smoke, her loss, or what that meant for her and her people. But she remembered the lessons then. Do not weep, Lakshmi. You will see him again, one day. Your people will need you now.
She opens her mouth, and it is late, she has no want nor inclination to rouse the camp with prayers that are just for them. For his - Church and Cunningham and Rogers. For her son, her husband, her people, her country, and everyone else she couldn't know the fate of. But even so, the prayers come forth. The long chant, that rises and falls on her low voice, emotionless, except where it's only such from the grief she's long learned to stop allowing in herself. Something between the rhythm of singing, and the flat tone of a chant that knows each word even as her eyes close and her hand moves across the flame, each gesture exact to keep the smoke from her eyes still. She will not start weeping now.
She asks of Agni, to give supplication, to strip away the flesh from the soul, so it may go free as her mouths through the word. May their soul find peace. No drums and a better voice than hers might do it justice, might sound sweeter, might promise something better. But hers is as it always has been: steady, gripping to her father's side, to her husband's blade and hushes away the ghosts and begs them not to cling to her ( they will, they always do so, she does not have the heart to send them away - why does she still paint the mark of a married woman on her brow, why does she still wear the jewelry given to her as a wedding gift? ) as she watched something precious burn away to where she could no longer reach it.
As she comes to the end of it, she gestures to him. ] Now.
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She turns back towards the fire, the first breath in deep, letting it fill her with it's quiet. They are with you, my Manu, always, remember them in each action, and you will live a life of contentment. She held her mother's skirts as they stood in front of the small painting of Ganesha. Her mother answering each and every time her daughter asked tell me again how he got a elephants head, mesmerized and memorizing the words at her mother's side. The chants and prayers, her long delicate fingers holding handfuls of petals as she showered them. Here, you can always be at peace, daughter.
Standing at her father's side, unable to accept as they wrapped her mother in a white sheet. Taking her body away. Her father urging in just those same chants. Do not weep, she is not gone, the soul can never go. She and your baby sister are going onto their next life, we will meet them there. Do not weep, or she will stay to console you and never find peace.
The smoke from the fire had stung her eyes, when they burned her husband. Wet and sharp, all at the same time. She couldn't be sure if she wept for it's smoke, her loss, or what that meant for her and her people. But she remembered the lessons then. Do not weep, Lakshmi. You will see him again, one day. Your people will need you now.
She opens her mouth, and it is late, she has no want nor inclination to rouse the camp with prayers that are just for them. For his - Church and Cunningham and Rogers. For her son, her husband, her people, her country, and everyone else she couldn't know the fate of. But even so, the prayers come forth. The long chant, that rises and falls on her low voice, emotionless, except where it's only such from the grief she's long learned to stop allowing in herself. Something between the rhythm of singing, and the flat tone of a chant that knows each word even as her eyes close and her hand moves across the flame, each gesture exact to keep the smoke from her eyes still. She will not start weeping now.
She asks of Agni, to give supplication, to strip away the flesh from the soul, so it may go free as her mouths through the word. May their soul find peace. No drums and a better voice than hers might do it justice, might sound sweeter, might promise something better. But hers is as it always has been: steady, gripping to her father's side, to her husband's blade and hushes away the ghosts and begs them not to cling to her ( they will, they always do so, she does not have the heart to send them away - why does she still paint the mark of a married woman on her brow, why does she still wear the jewelry given to her as a wedding gift? ) as she watched something precious burn away to where she could no longer reach it.
As she comes to the end of it, she gestures to him. ] Now.