(Child death tw; grief tw) Over the land there lies a long shadow

[lightofthestars]

In the court among the flowers, a small grave has been made. Next to it, upon a bed-sheet shroud, lies Frisk.

Tauriel and the Batman had worked to make Frisk ready for this funeral. She could not bear the thought of laying them to rest as she had found them, and so together, the two of them had cleaned Frisk's body and dressed them in new clothes. Tauriel had bathed their body in many tears as she had worked, for their wounds were grievous and had surely caused them great anguish. She had need, in the end, to find a cloth to wind around their neck, for nothing could cover the wound that had ended their life.

When the work had been carried out, Tauriel had called as many as she could find of the people of the castle to the garden. She cannot be the only one to say farewell to their dearly loved friend.

Comments

[lostinmyway]

Elsewhere in the courtyard, later, another funeral takes place. This one is much smaller.

Even if this child was the one to end Frisk's life, they still deserve someone to say goodbye to them. It's sad when someone dies, no matter who they are.

Grune doesn't expect anyone to join her, and so she's very grateful for the Batman, and for any other help she receives. It's better to be with someone when you're sad, so you can support each other.

[sansational]

Sans isn't entirely sure why he's here.

Just that, when his steps had taken him away from Frisk's grave at last, they'd brought him here instead.

He lingers in the shadow of a tree for a long while, staring out with overbright eyelights at anyone else who might attend. He shouldn't be here, he knows. To attend the funeral of the one you personally murdered has to be a little tacky, to say the least.

But as long as no one chases him away, he'll draw a little nearer to the grave when all is said and done, sit himself down, and just...stare at the freshly turned dirt for a while.

He has a lot to think about, a lot to torment himself over, and here seems as good a place as any.

[lostinmyway]

When Grune returns with more flowers to lay upon the child's grave, she sees a small figure sitting nearby.

She hadn't noticed Sans at the funeral. She had thought he had been too sad to come. But he's here now, and...he looks like he needs a friend.

Quietly, she steps up to him, sits down, and, if he lets her, sets an arm around his shoulders.

[andthebat]

He hates funerals.

He's only been to a few and anyway, it's not as if they're supposed to be pleasant. But that's the one thing that keeps nagging at the back of his mind, a desire to be anywhere but here, at the edge of the service, watching this nameless dead child being buried. But of course he can't run off. After helping with the clean up and with digging the graves, it feels as though he has a duty to see this through. As though it will help to make up, in some small, futile way, for having arrived too late in the first place.

So he stands there, watching everyone else in silence, and tries not to shiver. The fur on his arms is cold and damp; it took him a while to rinse the blood and dirt off.

[lostinmyway]

At the end, when the child is buried, Grune walks over to the Batman, looks up, and gives him a small smile.

"Thank you for helping."

[lightofthestars]

Tauriel stands tall, lips pressed together, often blinking, as she awaits the moment when Frisk is lowered into their grave. When it comes, she steps forward, takes in a shaking breath, and sings.

"Vi barad delu me gederphin
I râd na ardhemem nu vorchant
Mellynemem thurin
Dan an lû estent gil sílant
Núf vôr den mammadant

Ai, Frisk, Frisk!
Hên firen vuin!
Miluiasegen athan bân
Raidasegen fen sui Helluin
Dan gwannenog mina fuin

Ci epholatham
Ned i lû hen ir calan gwathra
Ah i dhui eglan
Rínasegen ú-belitha
A velethemem an gi ui-dharthatha."

Then she steps back, covers her mouth, and is lost to silent weeping.

[antitemporal]

Sans does not attend the funeral, at least not visibly.

But he's near enough to keep a tight grip of magic on Sans-Serif's soul, instead. One wrong move towards that shroud, and the older skeleton was ready to drag him back.

He'd had it explained to him multiple times that just because Frisk was dead, that didn't mean that he could take their soul. But the explanations had been...roundabout, and complicated, and hadn't really satisfied him on the deep, instinctual level that the conditioning did. Even now that Frisk's soul had doubtless faded, he doesn't understand.

Even now, he doesn't really understand why all of this was being done. The thing laying beneath the shroud wasn't Frisk anymore. Why was it important, for saying goodbye to? Why did it need to be put in the ground?

Then Tauriel begins to sing. Sans-Serif stands, straight-backed and small, staring up at her, and feels something taking root in his artificial soul that he's never really had cause to know before and certainly doesn't have a name for. But it rises up over his spine and into his eyesockets and mouth until tears are pouring down his face, until he's shaking with sobs that he tries in vain to muffle with his hands.

He listens, and he understands. He couldn't explain how if asked, but nevertheless understands in a way that goes down to the marrow.

Once Tauriel is done, Sans-Serif creeps over, quiet as a shadow. He draws near to her side, reaches out, and wraps his thin arms around her for the best hug he can manage when he is still weeping as well.

[lightofthestars]

Tauriel startles at the feeling of something fastening about her legs; her breath catches upon a sob. She looks down--and then she gently moves his arms as she kneels, so that she may hold him close.

Tears fall from her eyes still as she rubs a hand down his back. "I am here, pen vuin. Weep as you must."

Her voice trembles from her own sorrow. She is not ashamed.

[sansational]

Only later on, when there's no one else around and Tauriel is making her way away from the grave, does Sans make his presence known. He doesn't teleport. He just emerges from the shadows in the trees where he'd been hiding and follows after her, trusting that her senses are keen enough to notice him there.

Even so, he doesn't speak up until he's at least within an easy conversation distance.

"hey. that was, uh...that was really nice." He scratches nervously at his skull, his eyes on the space between them. "thanks for doing that."

Sans has clearly made an attempt to clean himself up. His hands and knees are clean of blood, but he seems to have left his usual pink slippers behind. His hood is pulled up and over his head, but the lights in his eyes are quite bright pinpricks, rather than the usual softer glow.

[lightofthestars]

She does indeed sense him; when she does, she turns and waits. At first she thinks he will not speak, and she is drawing in breath to do so instead when he proves her wrong.

Her voice is heavy when she answers him. "I could do no less for Frisk. I only wish I had greater skill in song. They deserved far better." She presses her lips together for a moment until the need for tears has passed. "In...so many ways."

[dr_awesome]

When Tauriel steps back, there's a hand on her shoulder to greet her. Neil isn't one for funerals. He shot a joke at Eva when she called him out on being sentimental, but the truth of the matter is, he always was a bit of a crybaby. As much as he's trained himself since not to get too attached, it's hard to look at the site of the grave and not feel something for the kid he met not too long ago, and for the elf who mourns so deeply for them.

"Hey. It's okay. That was... the best send-off they could have asked for."

[lightofthestars]

She startles at the touch; the one who offers it is startling as well.

"Th-Thank you." Her voice wavers. She cannot keep it level. "I...I do not want anyone to forget."

[ambivilantgoat]

She... wasn't sure how to react. Toriel had lived through the loss of two children long in the past, her first fallen child and her own son. And then she had lived through the losses of the rest of the fallen children until Frisk came along and freed them.

All the fur around her face is soaked by tears, silent for now, as she watched Frisk being lowered into the ground. Toriel had only seen this once before, when she stole Chara's body away from the castle and gave them a proper burial in the Ruins. It felt so much worse now than it had then. Chara had been ill, Asriel had been killed but he'd turned to dust and now Frisk... Frisk had been killed, their blood pilled.

The goat-monster dropped to her knees and a sob finally escaped her.

"Frisk, no. Please no..."

[lostinmyway]

Grune sees Toriel fall to her knees and begin to cry. The sound rises over everyone else's sadness, and when she hears it, Grune takes Sophie's hand and steps toward her. Sophie's grip is painful, but Grune doesn't mind.

When she reaches Toriel's side, she kneels down beside her and puts her arm around the other woman's shoulders. She doesn't say anything. She's simply there.

[sansational]

S-4, Sans-Serif, Mettaton, and now Toriel. The last of the names checked off on his mental list of people from home. Last time, the human had killed her before Sans had even had the chance to know her name. At least it hadn't hurt anyone else.

Even if they'd all still been left broken and torn and lost in their own ways.

Sans doesn't want to get close, doesn't want to get caught up in the energy and emotion around that grave. He's having enough trouble keeping himself from falling to pieces, metaphorically and perhaps even literally. He can keep himself together around the other two skeletons, but around anyone else, he's much less certain of himself.

Yet Toriel is still his friend, even if she's a friend who met him before he met her. And so he can't watch her collapse and sob without doing something. So Sans eases himself out of his hiding place, makes his quiet way around the edge of the gathering, draws up slowly beside and just behind her.

"tori, i'm..." The nickname comes easily to his mouth, and he doesn't even think about it. Maybe it's an echo from another Sans, maybe it's jsust an easy nickname. Either way, there are more important things to think about. "...i'm sorry. i..." His breath catches. His eyesockets burn. "...i couldn't keep my promise, i'm sorry."

He couldn't even protect a human who deserved saving.

[lovetheme]

There's already plenty of flowers, both in the general area and brought over by a few others. He doesn't really need to bring more, and he knows it. But Lucas does anyway, at some point during everything. There's a large patch of sunflowers growing elsewhere in the garden, more than enough for two tall bundles. He'd managed to find cloth to tie them together with, too, left over from old curtain fastenings in the castle, and he figures he'll have to gather more ties later. For the following days. The flowers will need to be replaced every day.

After three years of practice, it wouldn't really be a new routine anyway.

And maybe he ought to be used to this kind of thing by now, but it's still different. Still a new kind of painful. Maybe that's surprising, but he doesn't know anymore. Everything has already reached a certain stage of numbness, now...

He sets sunflowers at both graves--one bundle for each. And Lucas is entirely silent as the bodies are buried, keeping out of the way to one side even as others drift together, sometimes to console each other. There's plenty of tears all around, plenty of excuse to have a good cry himself, but his eyes stay dry and Lucas wonders if maybe he's gotten a bit too good at not crying, now. It just burns in your chest, instead, and--that's almost worse. But now he couldn't force it out if he tried.

But even after the burial's finished, and others slowly trickle away, he can't help bit drift back to Frisk's grave anyway, and linger, one smaller leftover sunflower still in his hand. Then standing gets tiring, after awhile, and he folds into a crouch, hugging the sunflower to himself, staring blankly at the patch of newly-turned dirt surrounded by flowers. Maybe he's waiting for something. But the burning persists, and the tears still don't come out, and leaving doesn't feel right without that.

[sansational]

Sans feels his soul stutter with dread and alarm at the sight of those yellow flowers, when he first sees Lucas carrying them. He has to make a deliberate effort to hold himself back and take a second look. That second look is at least enough to reassure him that these aren't the same golden flowers, that Lucas really shouldn't know any better, but Sans remains disquieted. One thing on top of another and another.

He'd been meaning to return to the grave as well, after everyone else had drifted away. When Sans does return to find Lucas crouching there, motionless as any skeleton, he hesitates.

Even when he does eventually creep forward, into the clear patch of ground around the freshly turned dirt that he still can't quite believe holds one of his friends, Sans doesn't come too far.

"hey." Words fail him, for a moment, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there are too many things to say and he has no idea where to start. In the end, Sans settles for the eminently neutral, eminently useless: "what are those?"

He jabs a thumb at the flowers.

[lostinmyway]

Grune leaves with Sophie not long after the funeral finishes, taking her to their room and staying with her until Sophie has worn herself out and has fallen asleep. She goes back afterward, to make sure everyone else is all right, and she stays to speak with them all as, one by one, they leave.

But someone doesn't leave, not right away, and not for a long time. Lucas looks very, very sad and alone in front of Frisk's grave. That isn't right. No one should be alone here.

And so she walks over to the grave, kneels down, and sets a hand on his shoulder.

"Hello, Lucas."

[systematicsupport]

S-4 has never been to a funeral. Not even a monster one. He had no idea how he was meant to feel, how he was meant to react. He only listened as others spoke and mourned, even while his eyesockets stung.

No. He won't cry. He's cried enough over the last few days. Sans-Serif said Frisk would have been happy to hear what S-4 had tried to do, right? Maybe he should be happy, too. Happy they still had that time to be friends.

In his hands, oddly enough, is a picture book. This one he's taken from the library. He doesn't know how to read very well, so it's odd that he's carrying it around. But... he can sound out some words, and maybe he can make up a story from the pictures. Maybe that will be enough to count as one last bedtime story.

[antitemporal]

After his earlier outburst, Sans-Serif also goes calm and quiet, even if it's the sort of calm born of bone-deep exhaustion. He sticks close to S-4's side, but doesn't hold his hand unless S-4 holds his, the better to let his brother keep the picture book safe.

He stares straight ahead, and where the world had earlier seemed blurry with his own tears, now it seems sharp enough to cut - details, colors, sounds. And yet it all seems so far away, like he's looking out through the wall of his pod.

"i'll help you read. if...if you want."

He wants to do something, but doesn't know what else to do.

[lostinmyway]

At some point during the funeral, Grune will come to stand beside S-4. She holds out her hand with her fingers spread for him to take if he likes.

"Are you going to read Frisk a story?" she asks him softly.

[lightofthestars]

"Are you.... How fare you, S-4?"

The question is asked softly, with a voice still rough with tears, as she comes to stand at his side. Though her grief is sharp, she cannot leave one so new to the world alone at this funeral. To do so would be the greatest cruelty.

[lostlegacy]

Sophie spends most of the funeral holding tight to Gee Girl's leg. She doesn't say a word. She just stares at the open grave as everyone talks and cries. She doesn't look away, even when Tauriel sings a song with words she doesn't understand--except for Frisk's name.

Frisk is gone, forever. She's not going to come back, the way people did in Luceti when they died. They've left her, they've left everyone, and they're never coming back.

Everyone always leaves her.

[mediadarling]

Of all the countless times he had acted out heartbreak, it's only now that he truly understands what the word means.

He stands in front of the grave--Frisk's grave, he has to keep telling himself or he'll never believe it. His arms are wrapped tight around his core; he hugs himself almost painfully hard. Pink, faintly glowing tears leak constantly from his eyes. He hasn't really stopped crying since finding Frisk.

They were so young. They had only just started living their life, getting to be a child for the first time, and now it's over. It's all over. He'll never see their beautiful smile again--they'll never smile again.

He presses the heel of a hand to his eye. For once, he has nothing to say.

[sansational]

Of course, once upon a time he'd seen Mettaton act out any number of emotional responses to any number of melodramatic situations in his shows.

Even from a distance, Sans can see the difference now.

It's funny, in that way of things that aren't funny at all but you have to laugh or else you'll cry. He's saved everyone he once failed to save from the creature that killed them the first time around. Except the one he never had the chance to know back then.

Sans creeps forward quietly, to stand beside and just behind Mettaton. His gaze is on the grave, but his eyesockets are dry. He'd spent a lot of tears on the kid. Some of them had even been happy ones.

He just feels empty again now.

"...i killed the one who did it."

Maybe that will help. Maybe all Mettaton will notice is that he did it too late to save Frisk.

Maybe that's all that matters.