[Wild Roses] Prompt 073 "Light"

[taennyn]

Title: Candles
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses, Krovir Aodh, the Kid, Kickback
Prompt: 073 "Light"
Word Count: 383 + 93 postscript
Rating: PG


There are a lot of candles. It takes a while to notice it, really feel it, because there are only one or two at each location, but as the afternoon passes, the number slowly grows and becomes a little staggering.

The first candle was lit in a frozen birdbath, in an icicle-hung orchard in the middle of winter. Aodh had used literal matches--hand-made sulfur and wood slivers--to light it, and mentioned when the kid had asked only that the cousin in question didn't have a proper grave, but that he'd loved painting this orchard, especially in winter.

The second and third candles were lit at the edge of a cliff, pressed close together into a crook in the rock that already had coloured wax melted into the bottom--the colour for missed children, Aodh said, when Kickback mentioned that his own candles were white, and very plain, while his were for remembrance only.

Seven candles, these a bright, fiery red, were lit at the base of trees at the edge of a forest, in memory of seven of Conall's half-siblings who'd held a line, far beyond the token ability the group had possessed.

Six more were lit at the edge of a great river, in memory of captains.

One, plain white, joins two others in a brassy sort of gold at the base of a young tree. The gold was for a missed father, Aodh mentioned, unasked, and the green--he pointed a little away--for a missed mother.

Two twisted together are left by the gate of the city as they pass through, half unseen, in memory of a pair of Hands who never bore the title.

A huge number, easily lost among a plethora of other lit white candles, are pressed into softened wax above stone, before they leave the city in a briefly nauseating twist of patterns. One was blown out, deliberately, nearly as soon as it was lit. Memory, yes, but no love.

The last two are lit seperately, one pressed into a shielded area in the face of a gravestone, the other at the base of the tree barely touching the stone.

The first one, Aodh says, is lit for the sake of the second, who cannot light their own.

And the last candle, a burnished burgundy, is for a missed sister.



Addendum, some time later

The kid, who'd ended up half-hauled into Aodh's lap, looked up at the last candles, then at what he could see of Aodh's face. " . . Will you light candles for me?"

Aodh pulled back a little to blink at him, then huffed a dry chuckle under his breath and leaned back again, tucking the kid's head between his chest and chin. "Oui, I'll light candles for you, if I should happen to outlive you."

" . . and for Kickback?"

"For him, if I outlive him, I'd probably light a bonfire."

Comments

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

The [mother/firemage] is purring.

Lovely.

[darthneko.livejournal.com]

mrrrr. It does hit slow, a gradual deluge. Only in retrospect, looking over the individual paragraphs, does the number become apparent. Ow. In a good, well written way.

[larathia.livejournal.com]

Ah...so that's why. Good thing he brought strong stuff, I think. (Not that he ever seems to drink anything only lightly alcoholic...)

For some reason I found myself wondering what color the second and third candles were.

Is gently melancholic-ow so is good. And a bonfire is...kind of appropriate on too many levels for kickback to open his mouth about, so he's not.

[klgaffney.livejournal.com]

all that one can think is...there's so many.

and the last line, that last is good, and so true, and resonates.