A Summer Funeral

Author's note: Yet another drabble. I probably should have collected them somehow. Too late now. Word is "hidden", from Rethira.

The heavy heat of late summer is near unbearable for Percival. Of all the days to wear black, it had to be one where the sun was at its brightest and the breeze had fallen dead. This is the day, the one day, he is allowed in mourning, and if it taking it means roasting alive in the darkest finery he has, it is a sacrifice he is willing to make.

There are other sacrifices, of course, he would have chosen before this. Just as he'd vowed, he'd have given his life or more to forestall the coming of a day like this. Perhaps if it had been some assassin, a rogue from the Isles or a Lycian traitor, he might have had his chance. But it was quick, Douglas had said, and nothing could have been done. The horse had reared for no reason, he said, and despite all the training and precautions and men at his side –

Percival clenched his fists and kept his attention on the procession. He's always hated funeral songs. Slow and plodding, as if meant to drag out the reminder of the loss. They never quite feel genuine, and Percival knows that this fits the occasion. He knows the nobles whose wails seem too loud, whose eyes seem too red. They sob not for their fallen prince, but for their own gain, to look tragic for all their foolish friends. Look how he grieves, they'll all say of each other in private, how faithful! how noble!

He feels sick at the thought. To turn something like this into personal profit – how typical of them. It's easy to think of how pathetic they are, easier than listening to the overblown lyrics that speak of mercy and Elimine and light. Of course, there are such things for Mildain. Even in death, he'll have everything.

It wouldn't have hurt, Douglas had told him through tears that night. He landed. . . like so, and his neck just. . . I heard it. Percival heard it too, in his mind, like the snap of a tree branch, the crack of a whip. He couldn't bring himself to cry, or do much more than frown when he heard, though Mildain would laugh and point out that a frown from Percival was hardly unusual.

As the chorus grows louder, Percival knows Mildain would laugh at this too. He'd poke fun at the women with the nets over their eyes as if they had lost their own husbands, and the men with their feigned weeping, as if to garner some favor. What a spectacle, he'd joke with that radiant grin. What a show.

Percival imagines he was laughing even as his horse reared, as if it were all a farce, as if he were immortal. He imagines there was a smile still playing on his lips as he laid still in the rain and the mud, his head twisted to the side in a way it wasn't meant to go. Perhaps Mildain is still smiling, somehow, in the casket at the front, laughing even in death at the chaos he's caused. It would be so like him, Percival thinks, so very, very like him, and somehow, thinking that makes it all feel so real.

He swallows hard as the music falls silent. It wouldn't befit a general to cry, he knows, and besides, Mildain would hate it. He keeps his tears hidden behind the back of his hand, as if shielding his eyes from the harsh sunlight, and pretends, once again, that he doesn't really care.